By Hook or By Crook After last weekend’s chaos on the trains, we needed at least a week away from them before trying again. However, I still needed my football fix by hook or by Crook… and we chose Crook. Crook Town, to be precise. The opponents would be the familiar faces of West Auckland,…
Category: Hopper Tales
Motherwell, Fir Park – Hopper Tales #42
Hoppers Guide Travel Nightmares Gordon Ramsay may have his kitchen problems but they are nothing compared to our train tribulations! Every week we seem to have problems of one kind or another, with delayed, cancelled or plain not-running trains. Now, with further strikes announced for the 3rd, 5th and 7th of November, this doesn’t look…
Arbroath, Gayfield Park – Hopper Tales #41
Back to the Future This week was a little different because we had two matches lined up. Usually, we are content to cover one fixture per week due to time constraints, money and work but this was a fixture initially scheduled for September 10th. This was subsequently postponed due to it falling on the weekend…
Harrogate Town, Wetherby Road – Hopper Tales #40
Back to the 92 Despite being based in the northeast of England, my main obsession, for now, is to complete the forty-two league grounds in Scotland, but I also want to attempt the ninety-two in England. This means dropping back south of the border from time to time and today was one of those occasions….
Kilmarnock, Rugby Park – Hopper Tales #39
A Wet Weekend in Ayrshire (Part Two) After yesterday’s drenching at Ayr United, it was refreshing to pull back the curtains and see brilliant blue skies and a hot sun beating through the window. Just kidding… it rained all day, Sunday! With the match not starting until 3 pm and no travelling needed to get…
Ayr United, Somerset Park – Hopper Tales #38
A Wet Weekend in Ayrshire (Part One) Yet another weekend that was severely affected by things out of our control. First, I bought our match and train tickets for the Kilmarnock game against Hearts on Saturday the 8th of October. This was later changed to the 9th because of Hearts’ game against Fiorentina in Europe….
Hebburn Town, Green Energy Sports Ground – Hopper Tales #37
Train Strikes, Again! To say our plans have been affected this weekend is an understatement! The original plan was to take in the game between Hull City and Luton Town. This fixture fell victim to TV fixture roulette and was moved to a 19:45 kick-off on Friday evening. This left us with two return train…
York City, LNER Community Stadium – Hopper Tales #36
Too Long This opening section is called ‘Too Long’ for a very good reason. First off, York is one of my favourite cities in the UK (second only to Edinburgh) and secondly, it’s been far too long since I saw my sister who lives there. The last time I visited York was seven years ago…
Scotland, Hampden Park – Hopper Tales #35
No Time to Rest With Saturday’s game at Whitley Bay still in the rearview mirror, we took off yet again for another Hop. This time, the destination was Hampden Park in Glasgow for a clash between Scotland and Ukraine. With this game being an evening kick-off, we made plans to stay overnight at a hotel…
Whitley Bay, Hillheads Park – Hopper Tales #34
Back to Football With last weekend’s sojourn into rugby union behind us, it was with relief that we looked to be returning to a football match this weekend. While I have nothing against rugby and even enjoyed the game we went to at Newcastle Falcons’ home game with Harlequins, football is our passion and a…