My sights were set instead on North End Park, just 13 minutes up the road from the bitter rivals stadiums, as I watched Wigtown take on Dundee North End in the 3rd preliminary round of the Scottish Cup. This was my 3rd time watching Wigtown, whom me and my girlfriend began following after a trip to the town a few months ago. Wigtown is Scotland’s national book town and boasts an impressive 14 book shops with one of them, aptly named ‘the book shop’, being the largest second hand book shop in the country.

While there I dragged her to a football game, and while Wigtown would lose 5-1 to eventual league champions Newton Stewart (this would become a bit of a theme) my partner found something that she, as an American, had never found at any of the football games I’d taken her to before, genuine interest. I’m not sure if it was the town itself, the kebab pie or the fact that Wigtown don’t seem to win very often, making them the perfect lovable underdog, but just a few months later a woman who once mistook a local park for Tannadice was not only regularly checking the scores in the South of Scotland league but also sponsoring a player, much to the bewilderment of the Wigtown staff I’m sure.

Between then and our 3rd trip we saw them lose 7-0 in the league to Abbey Vale FC, though this season they’ve already picked up 6 points, 4 away from last season’s total of 10, so we had a little belief that they could pull off a shock.

We arrived in Dundee at around 11 and to kill the time took a trip to the pub to watch Manchester United lose on the opening day to Hull City. After an initial trip to Whites Bar, we left to check out the North End Social Club attached to the ground. It’s a brilliant wee pub adorned with old kits, both of North End and Scotland, as well as multiple pool tables and a darts board. I settled in with a few pints of Vitamin T and watched a quarter of my last man standing league exit in week 1. We also made our score predictions for the afternoon’s game before heading out to the ground, I predicted 4-2 and my girlfriend predicted 10-1, both in favour of North End.

While the ground may look to be a standard non league ground, with a grassy area to stand around the pitch and a singular covered terrace, it’s so much more than that. The terrace itself was once used to hold fans watching UEFA cup games at Tannadice against the likes of Dinamo Bucharest and Royal Antwerp. The stand was built opposite the main stand in 1988 after Dundee United’s UEFA Cup Final 2nd leg aggregate defeat against IFK Göteborg. The club were given the finances to build the terrace by UEFA as part of the fair play award to reward the Dundee United fan’s sporting behaviour. The only stipulation of this prize was that the money be used to improves the stadium, perhaps the Göteborg fans had some complaints about the Tannadice seating arrangements?

The stand that you can see in the old fair play enclosure’s place at Tannadice today is certainly grander, but I’m glad that this little piece of history still lives on just up the street.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the little hill next to the enclosure as well, where me and my girlfriend sat and soaked up the rare Scottish sunshine. The hill also had the desirable feature of being far enough away to quell her anxiety around being hit by the ball, as she’s sure the players are aiming specifically for her.

We enjoyed our ritual half time pie, and though after years of living here my girlfriend has gotten better at understanding the Scottish accent, it appears the Dundonian twang of the pie vendor left her at a loss. After narrowly avoiding pulling out her phone to use Google translate, she got her cup of tea to go along with our pies. As is to be expected from pies on the east coast, they were excellent.

On to the game. The whistle sounded and Wigtown were immediately under pressure, rarely managing more than a couple of passes before North End had the ball back under control. After what felt like a long 15 minutes, North End took the lead thanks to a fantastic strike from range by Frankie Devine. Wigtown held strong, despite a barrage of chances, as I naively suggested that they might be able to sneak back into it. 15 minutes after the first goal, Lewis Craik doubled the hosts lead after a deflected shot fell right to him in the box and minutes after that Myles Thompson made it 3. Wigtown went into half time 4-0 down after Craik poked home in the 40th minute.

A quick trip back up to the social and a pint later we were back out to watch the second half. Doubtful of a Wigtown comeback, we simply wanted to see a goal from the team in Orange, but it wasn’t to be. After Ryan Horne headed home for the 5th, and Devine grabbed his 3rd, a shot ricocheted off the crossbar and fell directly to the feet of Myles Thompson to make him the 3rd North End player to grab his brace. Soon after we struck up a conversation with some volunteers, 1 of whom said that the game was getting hard to watch. After I told him about the last game we saw (also 7-0) he felt a bit apologetic realising we were some of the few (only?) opposition fans in attendance. Fortunately, we aren’t die hard Wigtown Ultras so no offence was taken. Liam Gibb grabbed a brace towards the end of the match to make it 9-0 and that’s how the game ended.

My biggest gripe with the fixture was the fact that I didn’t get to see former Arbroath star man Bobby Linn come off the bench. As someone with family in Arbroath, I was excited to see Linn and wished to relive the glory days of the Lichties’ sensational rise through the leagues from when I was a teenager. Alas, bringing a 40 year old Bobby Linn on in a fixture you’re dominating to that extent is understandably not at the top of North End’s priorities.

We left the ground not feeling too disheartened as we never really expected Wigtown to get a result against a team of North End’s caliber (3 Midlands League titles on the bounce and ambitions to break into the top 4 leagues). With our record at 0-3, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before we see them win. As we left, my girlfriend reminded me that she was closer with her score predictions, couple this with her staying in my last man standing league after picking Ipswich to win, while I exited after predicting Forrest, my ego took a fair old bruising. Though that was the only downside of an otherwise very enjoyable trip to tick off my 101st ground in Scotland.

If you want to check out more of Harry’s social media then you can find him on Youtube & Tik Tok

Thanks to all of our Club Groundhopper Sponsors for supporting our work

I was fairly confident it would be a yes as I wasn’t asking for any money, just access. I was to be disappointed…it was a no.

Looking back, I totally understand that decision; I was fairly unknown to the club in general, I had done some work with them through my 9-5 role, but nothing major up til this point. Not deterred, I continued working on different edits and building up my confidence and, most importantly, relationship with the club.

I decided in 2025 I would approach the club again and ask the question once more…this time I got a yes. Green light to whatever I wanted access to and whoever I wanted access to; the dream was to become a reality.

What followed was 12 months of planning, writing, shooting, editing, watching back, re-editing, travelling and more editing.

Tiring - yes
Worth it? ABSOLUTELY.

I thoroughly enjoyed meeting everyone along the way, forming friendships with the management team, fans and some of the players. Everyone was so generous with their time, and for a first attempt with zero budget and just little old me, I am very proud of how it has turned out. Fans chipped in with some of their own videos and their club photographer gave me access to everything I wanted, incredible Non-League eh!

My fiancée was my only real soundboard and I am blessed that she is a big football fan herself so she gets it (although she does support Millwall so I'll leave it up to you guys if that qualifies), but she helped me rework the entire first half, a process that was painful but so worth it.

Anyway…the other night I held an intimate Premiere Night up at the club in their private lounge area, and it was incredible to see the room filled with fans, players, staff, my family and even people who support my website and magazine who travelled down to Chatham from London and Reading!

Incredibly humbling.

As I said, I did all of this voluntarily, but I wanted to take the opportunity to try and raise some money for a charity close to my heart, “Demelza House Hospice”, who did incredible work for my little brother Colby and me, my mum and dad. We sadly lost Colby in 2006 aged just 4, but I will never forget how incredible Demelza House were.

So we popped out the collection bucket and put my little legend Colby on the table and collected some coins. (total to be found out in due course)

Now - if you love football and you love documentaries and want to fill your evening with both, then why not go give it a watch. It is 2.5 hours of pure Non-League, and I hope it gives you an idea of the amazing work the club are doing and is continuing to do, as well as enjoying some raw moments of celebration, of loss and everything in between.

Up the Non-League!

Thanks to Christian for this article. Please do check out his wonderful documentary; it’s well worth a watch for any lover of Non-League.

We’ll be back with our regular weekly schedule (we’ll try our best) the first week of September. We hope you’ve had a lovely summer and look forward to sharing our articles with you again soon.

Thanks to all of our Club Groundhopper Sponsors for supporting our work

I just wanted to write a quick note to firstly say thanks so much for subscribing to Groundhopper Weekly for our first season. The support and lovely comments have really helped keep us going.

We are going to shut things down for the Summer to give all of our writers a much deserved break. We aim to be back in action sometime in August, around the same time as the start of the 2026/27 football season.

We hope you all have a lovely summer and enjoy the World Cup.

See you soon,

Groundhopper Weekly Team

The club we followed most this season were Carlton Town who had an historic season in step 4. We saw The Millers 7 times including away days to St Neots and Anstey Nomads. For the majority of the year it looked as though Carlton would be looking at promotion to step 3 for the first time in their history and at one point held a huge 17 point lead at the top of the table. Unfortunately though, a ropey end to the season alongside Anstey Nomads ending the season with an unstoppable 11 game winning streak saw the title and promotion slip away.

As I write this, the day after the FA Cup Final, lets look back at the early rounds which is probably my favourite part of the season. A tradition we have every year is to attempt to get to a game in as many rounds as possible starting at the very beginning in the Extra Prelim Qualifying round. Although, as usual, we failed miserably this time round we enjoyed 3 matches in this years competition. Starting with the aforementioned extra prelim round as our local side Newark Town travelled 20 minutes down to A1 to face Grantham Town. The Blues would take local bragging rights at the time booking their place into the next round with a 2-1 win.

Our ‘game in every round’ attempt failed at the second hurdle this season, but we returned to the competition in the 1st Qualifying Round as the previously mentioned Carlton Town took on Step 3 Cleethorpes. A brilliant performance from The Millers saw them dump the higher ranked side out with a clinical 3-0 win.

Our 3rd and final game in this years competition was in the First Round Proper as we travelled to one of my favourite non league grounds, The Northolme, as Gainsborough Trinity were in the main draw for the second season in a row. A full house saw The Holy Blues take on League 2 Accrington Stanley infront of the TNT cameras. A fantastic performance from the step 3 underdogs saw the game go to extra time but a late Accrington winner saved them from being on the end of a giantkilling.

It was a disappointing season in the end for my team Crewe, although one of my highlights of the season was watching The Alex away at Tranmere in December. A near perfect away performance from The Railwaymen as they came away with a 4-1 win. We would only see Crewe one more time this season with the away game at Notts County. Unfortunately this performance couldn’t have been more different to our day on The Wirrel as we failed to have a shot on target in a dull 1-0 defeat.

A slightly more positive season for Emma’s Scunthorpe United who we also saw twice during the season. The first of these being a really entertaining 3-3 draw at home to Solihull. The Iron went 2 goals behind before a thrilling 2nd half saw them come from behind to take the lead. The jubilation was short lived though as a late equaliser saw the points shared. The highlight of this game though was the amazing food we had at Glanford Park which is the best we have come across so far on our travels! Salt and chilli chicken and rice and a donner kebab and chips a much appreciated change from the usual pukka pies on offer!

We were back at Glanford Park for their Play Off Quarter final victory against Southend. The atmosphere in the Britcon Stand during this game was the best of the season as the Scunthorpe fans roared their team on. Unfortunately just 4 days later the promotion hopes would be ended by eventual play off winners Rochdale.

Talking of play offs, its back to our local team Newark Town who made the UCL Premier North play offs for the 2nd year in a row. We travelled to Mansfield to see them take on pre season title favourites Sherwood Colliery in the semi final. A typically tense play off game saw Newark surprise their hosts with a 1-0 win and set up a rematch with local rivals Grantham in the final. Unlike the earlier FA Cup game though, it would be the Lincolnshire side who would have the last laugh winning the final and earning promotion back to step 4 at the first attempt.

Away from our supported sides and there were 2 stand out ‘groundhopping’ days this season. One was a trip to Winterton Rangers with Emma’s Mum and Dad and even Millie the dog coming along to this one! A cracking end to end game ended 3-3 and games like this are what really make groundhopping the best hobby in the world. A random game between 2 teams most people don’t even realise exist, and you see one of the best games you’ll see anywhere!

The other was a special occasion as I brought up 100 grounds visited. We thought long and hard about where to mark this occasion. Old Trafford? The San siro? Anfield? No thanks! It had to be non league and we went for the much recommended home of Belper Town. We decided to go all out and booked the clubs hospitality package getting a 2 course pre match meal and drinks to celebrate the milestone!

Overall I saw 32 games this season with Emma joining me for 20. This is the lowest number we have done since we started the blog but as you have read we still managed to create plenty of memories visiting lots of places across the country and that’s why we love groundhopping so much.

If you enjoyed this article and want to check out more of Max’s work, head over to his blog to read more in depth articles about his and Emma’s groundhopping adventures.

Thanks to all of our Club Groundhopper Sponsors for supporting our work

Can you start off by telling us what the Free Kicks Foundation is and how it all began?

We raise funds to give disadvantaged children days out at football, although we’re going to spread to wider sport in the near future hopefully as well. The children/young adults are nominated to us by other charities or via a form on our website.

The idea for the foundation began in 2006, becoming a registered charity and delivering our first ever ‘Kick’ in 2007. A ‘kick’ is the name we give to the special day out that a person receives.

What inspired the creation of what you do, and what was the first ever ‘Kick’ you provided?

It was an idea by one of our trustees, one of our friends. In the end, he came up with the idea and we just took it from there as we thought it might be something nice to do.

We’ve always been around football. Well, I’ve always been around football and supporting Peterborough United. We have now delivered over 9000 ‘Kicks’. That figure includes match tickets + mascot experiences - everything.

Our first ever ‘kick’ was actually at a pre- season friendly for Peterborough vs Manchester United in 2007.

This one was for two children, who were nominated by people at the children’s ward at Peterborough Hospital, to be mascots for the game. They were Man United mascots and that is still, to date, the only time we’ve ever had Man United mascots as part of a foundation ‘kick’.

Are there any clubs you have got a really good relationship with?

Peterborough is the obvious one to say as they were really supportive and have always helped us with things. One year, they made us the logo on the front of the shirts for a game for a special FreeKicks Foundation Day, along with announcements and features in the matchday programme. After the game, we were then able to auction off the shirts which was incredible.

What kind of reactions do you get from the children and families who participate in the experiences? Are there any memorable moments that stand out to you?

It was 2017 and I still can’t talk about it without crying. It was at Gillingham FC and there was a little boy who’s name was Coco. He was non-verbal and he couldn’t walk very well. We did the tour of the stadium, including dressing rooms etc, and then we went out on to the pitch. As we were sat on the pitch, the Gills’ mascot, who is a horse (Tommy Trueblue), came out and sat down with Coco. Coco was fascinated by him, stroking him, just totally transfixed.

That moment has stuck with us forever. It’s not just the difference it makes for the children, but also for the wider family.

What challenges have you faced in continuing to grow and sustain the work that you do?

The biggest challenge is when you get the nominations for the big clubs and it’s hard to let people down. With the big clubs, we can’t get mascot packages because they don’t sell them, although the good thing about that is they allocate them to their junior supporters in a random draw - and they don’t charge for it.

But it doesn’t help us. In fact it makes it harder for us.

When we get an e-mail through saying Arsenal, Chelsea, Man United or Man City, we’ve ended up having to buy tickets from Viagogo just to fulfil the wish.

How can people get involved, whether that’s supporting financially, volunteering, or helping to spread the word?

We have the contact form on the website where people can volunteer for us or raise funds their own way, whether it’s runs or taking part in bike rides.

We’ve very recently launched a lottery that we’re working on with the Cambridge Community Foundation.

In terms of social media, we are on X, Facebook and Instagram - ‘Free Kicks Foundation’ so if people want to get in touch to help us, raise money, or nominate children, they can do that there.

We’re a very small team, so we are always looking for those who can potentially help us!

What’s next for you guys and are there any exciting plans or goals for the future?

We are going full time so we will have more time to raise funds and explore different options with clubs, and hopefully get involved with more foundations.

Hopefully we’ll have the time to go and visit the big ones and come to an agreement with them.

The other thing that is potentially on the horizon is that one of our trustees works as a fundraiser for Young Lives versus Cancer (formerly Clique Sergeant). We are in talks with them about becoming a charity partner, which will be huge for us.

If you’d like to find out more about FreeKicks Foundation, you can visit their Website or follow them on X, Facebook & Instagram

Enjoy this interview?

You can find this and much much more in every single edition of Parks to Pitches magazine - right here

Thanks to all of our Club Groundhopper Sponsors for supporting our work

Play-off football….

Coming into the game Billericay were the in form team out of the whole division going 19 games with 17 wins, one draw and just the one loss.

Chatham on the other hand after a long season where they saw success in progressing in numerous cup competitions saw their league form stutter and stall a little with 6 losses, 3 draws and 10 wins from their last 19 games.

1st Half

It was a fairly even opening 10 minutes, whereby Chatham kept much of the ball without threatening all too much.

A soft free kick against Tope was given away just inside Chatham's half which was then passed over to former Chatham Town Captain Jack Evans to deliver into the box. Chatham Town half cleared the ball twice before it finally fell to number 20 Charlie Ruff who held the ball up well before laying off to 21 Jon Benton who finished smartly in the far corner.

A sucker punch early on in the game, the last thing you want away from home in a big game and worse was to come as just 5 minutes later Billericay won a free kick in a good position out on the right of the pitch around 25 yards out, that man Evans stood over the ball once again. This time he delivered a pin point cross onto the head of the onrushing Frankie Merrifield who had slipped in-between two of Chathams defenders to finish past Harvey in goal. 2-0 inside 20 minutes.

Chatham rallied and kept the ball well again without really being able to test the Billericay keeper all that much, a few tackles (one of Kasim Aidoo and another on Sam Sene-Richardson) on the edge of Billericays box were waved away with both looking very likely deserving of a free kick.

Another decision made by the official on 41st minute ultimately contributed to the 3rd goal of the game, a clearance by Aidoo fell to Moynes who look to break away, he was first tackled by Evans fairly, break through to only have his legs swept out from under him by goal scorer Merrifield which went unpunished. The ball then found itself once again to Evans who whipped a delightful cross to the back post area to be finished off on the volley by number 24 Keon Lewis-Burgess with a smart finish 6 yards out. The inciting dance in front of the fans was unnecessary and somehow (although not surprisingly) did not lead to a booking, with a nod to Evans who apologised and pulled him away.

Just before the half time whistle there was just enough time for Chatham to answer back and they did with a lovely crafted move that ended with a beautiful set from Tope to Sam-Sene Richardson who curled a beautiful effort into the far corner of the goal, 3-1 and game back on!

2nd Half

The second half saw no changes to either team.

The start was frantic however with Chatham very much adopting a much more front foot attacking style, looking to load the wide areas and get more crosses into the box, many of which would come from the left off of the feet of Olly Evans who would replace Aidoo a few minutes into the half.

A foul on Sam Sene-Richardson inside the box went by unpunished, the ball then fell to Moynes who flashed a chance across the goal just evading the toes of Tope and Leathers at the back post.

5 minutes later, Olly Evans drove past his man to the byline, dinking a nice cross into the mix which was knocked down by Tope into the path of Sam Sene-Richardson who struck the ball excellently, only to see it cannon back off the foot of the post and out to safety.

On the 70th minute it was again the substitute Olly Evans who drove forward with the ball cutting inside on his favoured right foot, knocking a pass into Tope who held the ball up well again laying off the ball expertly, this time into the path of Moynes who struck the ball perfectly into the back of the net, giving Holden in the goal no chance whatsoever. 3-2 and Chatham very much in the ascendancy.

A few minutes later saw Olly Evans deliver a tantalising ball into the mix from out wide than managed to evade everyone before running out somehow for a goal kick.

On the 82nd minute, substitute Nile Ranger rose above everyone else to hammer a head down into the right hand corner of the goal only to see Macauley Bonne somehow clear the ball off the line out for a corner, saving what looked destined to be an equaliser.

In a half that was overall all Chatham, Billericay did have the odd fleeting chance but it was one way traffic from the start.

And then on 90th minute after some neat work between Chatham sub Ben Allen and Sam Sene-Richardson, Allen saw himself race through on goal only to be brought down by Billericay captain Ryan Scott. The ref however saw the situation differently and instead booked Allen for alleged simulation, a very hard pill to swallow as Allen was through on goal with just the keeper to beat so thoughts of him diving were VERY hard to believe.

A final chance came from a corner which Reece Butler nearly got on the end of, with a goal kick given (even though he didn’t get the final touch) ultimately put paid to the comeback effort for Chatham.

It finished 3-2 and setup an all Essex final - Billericay vs Brentwood on Bank holiday Monday.

Man of the Match

Adam Leathers - an absolutely magical second half where everything was coming from Leathers picking up and driving forward with the ball. Ball retention was immaculate and he really steered Chatham back into a position to go and get back into the game.

Summary

Ultimately the slow start from Chatham cost them the game, 2-0 down inside 20 minutes is tough for any club to come back from but especially so away from home to the most in form team in the league.

For all of the chances they had, Billericay managed to stand strong in front of every single wave of attack that was thrown at them.

Yes, the referee certainly made some very questionable decisions and those decisions always seemed to always fall for the team in blue, but even with that in mind the ball just didnt seem to want to fall for that 3rd goal.

A LONG season for Chatham after cup successes sees them ultimately without the main prize of promotion, meaning they will play their 4th consecutive season in the Isthmian Premier League next year. As for Billericay, their fate will be decided next Monday, a game in which they will surely be firm favourites.

Until next season everyone!

Thanks to all of our Club Groundhopper Sponsors for supporting our work

Joe is a Newcastle United fan, Kieran supports Liverpool FC, so there was always something to argue about. But beyond that, both of us have been involved in grassroots football. Joe played during his teenage years at Ossett Town, now Ossett United, while Kieran has been playing more recently for Featherstone Colliery FC.

So most of our conversations weren’t just about the top level of the game, they were about what it’s actually like playing further down the pyramid and one thing that kept coming up was how difficult it can be when you’re between clubs.

Whether you’ve left a team, moved to a new area, or just want to get back into football, there isn’t really a clear path. Most of the time, it comes down to posting in Facebook groups, messaging people you know, or hoping someone points you in the right direction.

And even then, it’s hit and miss. Posts get buried quickly, opportunities are easy to miss, and everything relies heavily on timing or who you happen to know.

We noticed at the same time that there are plenty of clubs dealing with the opposite problem, trying to find players, often at short notice, with limited tools to do it. So you end up with a situation where players are looking for clubs, and clubs are looking for players, but there’s no real system bringing the two together.

That’s where the idea for Skouto came from.

Not from trying to build something complicated, but from asking a simple question, could this be made easier? With both of us coming from a software background, it felt like something we could genuinely try to improve.

The focus was on keeping it simple, and importantly, it’s completely free to use. At the grassroots level, football should be accessible, both for players trying to find a club and for teams trying to build one.

For players, it’s about being able to create a profile quickly, something that actually stays visible, rather than disappearing in a feed. Basic details like position, experience, level played at, and location, all in one place.

For clubs and scouts, it’s about being able to find players who are actively looking, instead of relying on scattered posts or word of mouth.

Another important part has been trust. When clubs reach out to players through the platform, those messages are checked before being passed on, helping make sure everything feels legitimate.

There’s no illusion that something like this completely changes the nature of grassroots, but if we can help make things a bit clearer, a bit more accessible, and a bit less reliant on chance, then it’s moving in the right direction.

Because at its core, this level of football is simple, people just want to play, and clubs just want players.

Skouto is just our attempt to make it a little easier for the two to find each other.

If you want to find out more about Skouto, head to their website. You can also follow their social media accounts on X, Instagram, Facebook, & Tik Tok

Thanks to all of our Club Groundhopper Sponsors for supporting our work

I’ve wanted to visit the Mestalla for years, before it’s gone forever. She is soon to be replaced by another modern bowl in a different part of the city. The stadium has been Valencia CF’s home for longer than intended. Work on a new stadium began about 20 years ago when Valencia were one of the dominant forces in Spanish and European football, winning 2 La Liga titles a Copa Del Rey and a UEFA Cup, and reaching back to back Champions League finals, unfortunately losing both. The 2008 financial crash hit the Spanish economy very hard and funding for continued work on the stadium dried up, forcing construction to be mothballed and the club has limped along ever since, picking up just one trophy since in recent years, a Copa Del Rey in 2019, far from good enough for one of Spain’s big five.

Not far away is the Estadio Ciutat de Valencia, home to Levante UD, the cities second club, even though it’s 10 years older as an institution. The clubs roots lay in the working class people of the city, with strong ties to the dock workers, this is reflected in their humble surroundings and the clubs focus being on maintaining their top flight status and developing players, rather than trying to dine at the top table like their local rivals, having won just 1 major honour in the club’s history, the 1937 Copa Del Rey. The highlight of recent years is the run to the Europa League round of 16 in 2012/13. While the club may be small and humble, it does boast a certain Johan Cruyff as a former player, as well as Predrag Mijatovic, Keylor Navas and Ian Harte.

Arriving in the city just after lunch time on the Friday, ready for our first game that night. We hit the jackpot with the hotel, the Hotel Olympia Universidades is nothing special, but is modern, modestly priced, clean, tidy and the breakfast was worth the extra fee. What made this hotel so good for us was the location. We only had to step out of the hotel front door to be on the tram platform (lines 4 & 6) to go to the beach and harbour, and under our feet was the subway station (lines 3 & 9) heading to the very centre of the city. Line 3 begins at the airport. The hotel was also just a 15-20 minute walk from both stadiums. This Tram/metro station is called Benimaclet.

We bought a 72hr travel card at the airport for 30 Euros, it is worth it, but as I would say that if you are reasonably fit, Valencia is a very walkable city. For the Valencia metro, the “Line” system is even numbers for Trams, odd numbers for Metro Trains.

We had time to kill as kick off wasn’t until 9pm local time. We decided to walk into the older central part of the city through the Jardi Del Turia, wondering up the old riverbed with its gardens and multiple all weather sports pitches. We stopped at the Torres de Serranos, one of just two remaining gates that once formed part of the old city walls before wondering into the centre with no particular destination in mind before heading back to our hotel.

Before we knew it, it was time to head to the Estadio Ciutat de Valencia for Levante Vs Deportivo Alaves. We walked from our hotel, but tram Line 6 stops next to the stadium, the stop bearing the stadium name, the stop for bus route 50 is also not far from the ground.

The stadium is located next door to a shopping centre, this is where many fans seemed to congregate before the game to grab some food and drink. It seems that grounds in Spain don’t have much to offer inside in the way of food and drink for supporters, with very limited fare available, crisps and some bottled drinks. So, if you are hungry, eat before you enter the ground.

The stadium itself, while it has had a facelift in recent years is probably one of the most basic I have visited. But it has a loveable rustic charm to it.

We often hear talk in the media about the abuse that match officials get in Britain. The chorus of whistles and abuse that rained down was on another level to what I have seen at games at home, and then the match started, the abuse was while they lapped the pitch in the warmup. Abusive chants echoed around the stadium coupled with deafening whistles when the ref gave a decision that the home fans didn’t like.

Watching games abroad, you realise how lucky we are with the standard of the game in England. In my opinion, all four of the La Liga teams we watched over the weekend would be of League One standard. They would definitely struggle in the Championship. It’s no wonder why Barcelona and the Madrid teams can dominate the rest of the league.

The game was entertaining enough, with the first half being fairly even, Levante creating the best chance. The second half was where all the best action of the game happened. Levante came out of the blocks on the front foot and made a change to give themselves more of a physical presence up top, and hitting the post soon after the restart. The home side were then helped when Alaves were reduced to 10 men, after the left back picked up a second yellow on the hour mark.

Alaves made changes and tried to protect the point they had. Levante continued to build up pressure, with plenty of corners and freekicks around the Alaves box, but as the final moments came into sight, we started to get the feeling that they just wouldn’t be able to create that gilt edged chance they needed.

One of the best things about watching football abroad is the subtle differences, the soggy Rollover Hotdog is exchanged for a decent baguette, a bag of Haribo from a corner shop becomes a mixed bag of sweets from a venders stall outside the ground or when the ball hits the back of the net, the “Yeah” of a British crowd becomes “Tor” in Germany, or more of an “Awe” sound in Spain.

And the “Awe” was just what we got in the 88^th minute when the Levante forward Carlos Espi hit a shot that deflected and looped into the top corner. The place went wild. The players and subs bench piled on top of the goal scorer in front of the home Ultras section.

With seven minutes of added time, Alaves could only try and throw everything forwards, and Levante just needed to try and cling on. Alaves went for it, winning a few corners and freekicks in the Levante half. But the game was settled deep into added time when Levante broke and Carlos Espi put the ball through the keeper’s legs from the edge of the box as he raced onto a pass from the right-hand side.

The stadium was pumping at the final whistle, Levante picking up a much needed three points as they bid to avoid relegation.

No game on Saturday and with nothing in particular to do we didn’t bother with an early start as the city itself doesn’t wake up until midmorning.

We headed into the historic centre of the city to take a look at some of the sights. First was the central market, with its fresh fish, meats and produce and some tourist tat. The building itself is almost 100 years old and is one of the largest covered markets in Spain. This is a great spot to wonder about and grab a cheap bite to eat for lunch. My uncle who was with me on this jaunt went for the fresh Oysters, prepared in front of him by the fishmonger.

Then after a little wonder through the back streets, we had a look at Valencia Cathedral (15 Euro, entrance includes audio tour), I’m not religious myself, but it always blows my mind to go somewhere like that, which has been in constant use since the 13^th century. The artworks and craftmanship of the builders to create something like that so long ago that’s still standing is incredible. We also took the opportunity to climb the 207 steps up to the top of the cathedral belltower (3 euros) which has panoramic views across the city. We then wondered the back streets a bit more and stopped for a couple of beers to pass a bit of time.

That evening we took the tram to the beach front, where there is a row of bars and restaurants by the Marina. I would imagine that a spring/summer visit to the city would have to include a bit of time on the sand, but as this was March, there was no need bring our towels.

A great thing about Spain is that the people love a reason to be out and about, carnivals or fiestas seem to be on somewhere all the time. The weekend of our visit was the start of “Las Fallas”, a UNESCO recognised festival to celebrate the beginning of spring and St Joseph’s Day. This meant parades and firework displays across the city. There seemed to be a loud bang every half hour or so all weekend, with fireworks and bangers going off everywhere. We took the opportunity to watch both the Saturday and Sunday night displays in the Placa De I’Ajuntament in front of the city hall, which were completely free and drew thousands of locals.

Again, no point in rising early on Sunday. We had time to kill before we needed to head to the Mestalla for the match that afternoon. So, we walked south through the Jadi Del Turia towards the famous City of Arts and Sciences housed in the rather futuristic shell like buildings that served as inspiration for some of the cityscapes in the Guardians of The Galaxy movies. After grabbing a drink and sitting in the park for a break it was time for the main event of the weekend.

As we walked in the direction of the ground, we became part of a growing crowd all heading in the same direction, something that happens the world over as you approach a stadium.

The crowds were pushed back from the team coaches, allowing the players to disembark, while we had a beer in the street opposite the ground and watched some of the young lads from a marching band play tunes while the crowd around us partied.

We headed into the ground and found our spot, sat basking in the sunshine as we watched the players finish warming up. You can see the age of the stadium and why they must move away from here. Inside the concourse is very spartan, but you do have much more space than you would find in an equally sized ground back home. We had chosen mid-priced tickets which placed us in the corner on the middle tier. Cheaper tickets are for the top tier, which is very steep and not for those of a nervous disposition. On the other side of the ground to us, the club famously installed a statue of a blind supporter who had attended games here for 40 years after he passed away. His son sat next to him telling him what was happening on the pitch. The son still sits in that seat.

The game started and the teams played out the first half with neither side making any headway, indeed when I looked for a highlights video online after the game, it jumped straight to the second half. Again, the teams were of a poor standard compared to the Premier League. After the break, Valencia being the home side were on the offensive more than the visitors and hit the post from a tight angle. The deadlock was broken when Valencia won a stonewall penalty, Valencia centre forward Umar Sadiq wearing the No. 6 shirt, was taken down by the Osasuna keeper. The spot kick was put away after a retake for encroachment, the offending player was level with the penalty spot when the ball was struck. The game petered out with Osasuna unable to create anything of note.

The best player on the pitch was the Valencia No. 8 Javi Guerra, who according to rumours, has interested AC Milan and Manchester United. So, he may be in England soon.

Sunday came to a close back in the city centre with the fireworks and a meal, before I had to head back to reality on Monday.

I would encourage anyone to visit the Mestalla before it’s gone, the new stadium being set to open at the start of the 2027/28 season. Tickets for both games were purchased through the club’s website. Valencia is a great city, and even if the standard on the pitch isn’t as high as Barca or the Madrid’s, it has two clubs, and with Villareal just 50 minutes away, so if you time it right, you could do a triple header of games over a weekend.

Thanks to all of our Club Groundhopper Sponsors for supporting our work

I wake up and welcome myself to another glorious Saturday in Non-League football.

During the week, I’m usually up at an hour that feels morally wrong, so if I can sneak a lie-in on match day, I absolutely will. Away days don’t always allow this luxury, so when it happens, I treat it like a small personal victory.

10am-11am

Breakfast TV goes on, Classic FM hums gently in the background, and I ease myself into the day like a stiff hamstring. Scrambled eggs, toast, and the slow mental shift from “civilian” to “matchday physio”.

Then comes the checklist.

Bag packed? Tape stocked? Scissors present? Haribos? Extra Haribos?

A quick traffic check follows so I can precisely calculate the moment mild panic should begin.

11am

A quick run to my local Sainsbury’s (other supermarkets are available) for pre-match and half-time nutrition. Fresh fruit is king, so I grab it en route. Grapes and bananas are elite pre-match fuel: scientifically effective and socially acceptable to eat by the handful.

12pm

I always aim to get to the ground a good hour before the lads. This gives me time to lay out the pre-match spread: fruit, sweets, electrolytes… and quietly pretend I am far more organised than I feel.

This is also when the important checks happen.

Defib located? Checked.

Emergency bag stocked? Checked.

Oxygen? Airways? Gloves? All present and accounted for.

I review the emergency action plan, identify exits, confirm access routes, and check local hospitals and specialities. It’s not glamorous, but it’s arguably the most important part of my day and the bit everyone hopes never gets used.

Depending on my own hydration levels, I may also sneak an electrolyte. Pitchside physios don’t always get time to drink during games… and sometimes the football is so exciting you forget basic human needs like water and warmth.

The other members of the management team normally get in early, so I also take a little time to speak with Tosh, Stimmo, Alfie and Roy to help them finalise the squad or manage any knocks.

12:45pm-2pm

The Cray lads start arriving, and the real work begins. Pre-match massages flow into taping and strapping, and before I know it, I’ve seen anywhere from five to ten players. Busy is good - it keeps me out of trouble and stops me overthinking.

This is also prime chat time. A “How are you feeling?” can turn into a proper conversation very quickly. In a world where isolation, anxiety and loneliness can sneak up on people, these moments matter. Plus, it’s an excellent opportunity for the lads to update me on football, life, and any gossip they think I need to know.

2pm-2.30pm

If I get the chance, I’ll watch the first part of the warm-up. I’m checking movement, scanning for any red flags, and taking in the pitch conditions. Is it heavy? Slippy? One dodgy divot away from a busy match for me?

Once the small-sided games start, I head back inside for final bag checks. I also take a quiet moment to mentally run through emergency scenarios. It helps manage my own nerves and prepares me for worst-case situations - up to and including running out of Haribos.

If I seem quiet or overly serious at this point, I’m not being unfriendly. I’m mentally rehearsing or taking a moment to prepare myself. In the process game it’s often the case that clubs have a medical team but, in Non-League, it often falls to one person. At Cray, that person is me and the weight of that responsibly is one I do not take lightly and that little moment before the game is my time to ready myself as much as I am able. Mentally rehearsing is something I’ve learned through my NHS work and it helps me feel ready.

2.30pm-2.45pm

Last-minute wrist taping, ankle tweaks, and those tiny jobs that suddenly feel massive. Pitchside comms are set up so I can speak to the management team when I run on.

I also check the pitchside area is safe, accessible, and ready - while desperately trying to remember the blood shirt, which I will forget at least once this season. Tradition is important.

3pm-5pm

During the game, I watch everything. Our players, the opposition, the officials. I’m monitoring running patterns, gait changes, fatigue, emotional temperature, and whether the game is quietly simmering towards a big tackle.

Is the tempo rising?

Is someone carrying something?

How’s the lad returning from injury coping?

Is that a thundercloud or just British optimism fading?

Why are my toes so cold already?

The game can change in an instant for a physio, so you stay alert - like a meerkat fuelled by Berocca, adrenaline, and a deep sense of responsibility. You also keep an eye on the referee, because we follow their lead when it comes to entering the pitch.

Half-Time

Out comes the quick-release sugar, more fruit, and hydration. Watermelon earns its place here - hydration, electrolytes, and a solid morale boost. Cramp is battled with every legal weapon available.

5pm

Once team talks are done, I check on the players and assess any injuries. Then comes a small personal ritual: checking scores. I’ve got old clubs and friends’ teams saved and I always like to see how everyone’s got on.

Recovery drinks are handed out - chocolate milk remains undefeated in the recovery world - and the atmosphere usually softens. Ideally, this is a wind-down with no injuries, a few questions, and plenty of banter.

5.30pm

A quick catch-up with Tosh to run through injuries, fatigue levels, and planning considerations for the week ahead. Clear communication here saves a lot of problems later.

5.45pm

I finally start to relax. Matchdays keep you slightly on edge all day, so this is where I exhale. This usually involves my weekly post-match can of Coke and a good catch-up in the bar.

6.30pm

I make my way home with a podcast or favourite album — a clear signal that physio mode is off.

If we’ve won, I treat myself to a cheeky takeaway. If we’ve lost, I cook. This probably explains why I’m noticeably grumpier (and thinner) when Cray aren’t winning. After dinner, a gentle walk to shake off the adrenaline, a bit of anime, and that’s me - match day complete and working week officially over.

If you enjoyed this day in the life then you may well enjoy other editions of ‘Parks to Pitches Magazine’ - you can check them out here:

Thanks to all of our Club Groundhopper Sponsors for supporting our work

As the players walk out onto the pitch, I am there holding my little microphone, my phone camera set up recording me and I am holding my notebook in which I’ve scribbled a very brief set of notes about the teams. I am about to embark on my non-League commentary journey and I begin thinking this may have been an awful idea.

I spent a significant amount of my childhood playing football games on the Playstation 2 (FIFA 2004 and Pro Evolution Soccer 6 in particular). During these many hours, I would actually provide my own commentary of the matches. Even though I had total control of the players, I would be informing my pretend set of viewers how Michael Owen scored with Emile Heskey providing a lovely assist!

I loved it. For me, commentating was as much fun as playing the game itself. I thought it was pretty darn cool.

I was fortunate to have had the odd moment of doing football commentary at school and university. The Head of Sport of our student radio station (now one of my closest friends) gave me the call-up to do the commentary of the varsity football match which was at the home of Notts County, Meadow Lane! Doing all the preparation and being live from the gantry was such a thrill; it probably should not have been a surprise that I became ill and did not make it to lectures the next day!

That was it, at least for the time being.

As life progressed, I had become well settled as an official adult. Outside of work, I routinely watched football matches with friends. As I found out, a lot of these matches were classified as something called “non-League”. I found ways to remain immersed in the sport. But especially over the last year, I could hear the commentary voice in my head getting louder.

“What if I did give it a go again?”

I kept dismissing it, thinking the football commentary ship had sailed. I was no longer at university and being an official adult meant needing to pay official bills.

But the more I thought of it, and the more non-League football I watched, the more I realised that, actually, those commentary ambitions were not so distant after all. If anything, all it needed was a microphone.

I decided I would go to different non-League games with my microphone and camera, record myself from the stands commentating on the game, and post the highlights on a dedicated Instagram and Tiktok account. I bought a power bank, tripod, and notebook. The wonderfully iconic microphones belonged to a friend who was happy to let me buy them from him. I had all the gear, before I realised I did not have an idea of what to do next.

It was when a friend messaged to say they were going to watch Hanwell Town that I saw an opportunity to go and bring my commentary equipment. But I was very hesitant. I kept thinking surely this is an awful idea. It was only after my partner said that I should go. The signs were there; it was an unusually warm and sunny day in January. Perfect for the occasion. Funnily enough, it was the exact nudge I needed to force myself to go for it. I packed my kit and headed to Hanwell Town.

My friend was great when we both got to the ground. He introduced me to the Hanwell Town Media Manager who was very supportive, though potentially confused, of what I was doing. I set up my microphone and camera, and at kick-off of Hanwell Town vs Gosport Borough I began talking. Throughout the first half, I was a bit trepid but found myself growing into the game; as all good players do apparently. But it was when Mohamed Bettamer scored what proved to be the winner for Hanwell Town in the 74th minute and I yelled with delight into the commentary mic, I realised this was it. It was FIFA 2004 all over again.

I said I would give myself until March to see how I felt about it all at the very least. Well it is now March, and it continues to be great fun. The amount of time I have spent researching and reading about non-League football is vast, if not worrying. It has been a wonderful combination of visiting different football clubs (making me an official groundhopper), whilst being able to commentate on the football in front of me.

The thing that has surprised me the most, in a great way, is how supportive everyone has been. From friends who have been most encouraging and keen to watch games with me, to people who have reached out to me saying how much they love what I am doing, to the very people at the clubs who make non-League possible welcoming me to their clubs (and into their press areas!) and making sure I am well. I have had a couple of people turn their heads whilst I’ve been sitting behind them and, rather than telling me to stop, they have been intrigued to know more.

If anything, it is perfect. This is a place where everyone, despite their busy lives, chooses to spend the limited free-time they have. Here in non-League.

Now with my official Groundhopper Notebook, I’ve already got a few sets of ideas of what I wish to do next season. But the main thing is to continue to have fun and to keep spreading that non-League magic. Though I reckon if you had said to my 11-year old self that he would one day be spending his weekends commentating on football matches, I think he would say that’s pretty darn cool.

If you want to check out Chris’s work, then head to his Instagram & Tik Tok pages.

Thanks to all of our Club Groundhopper Sponsors for supporting our work

BMO Field

Let’s begin with BMO Field, as one of my home grounds. BMO Field was the first football-specific ground in Canada, built for the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup. It is located in Toronto (if you want to sound like a Torontonian, don’t pronounce the second ‘t’) - the largest city in the country, at a cool 2.7 million people. BMO stands for Bank of Montreal, a Canadian bank and financial services company, that holds the naming rights for the ground. BMO was erected in 2007 within Exhibition Place - a district used for exhibitions and tradeshows - on the same site as four previous stadiums. At the time of opening, it had a capacity of 25,000.

BMO Field is an outdoor stadium with four main stands, two of which (east and west) have upper decks. All of the seats are red, with the exception of designs in white: a maple leaf on the east stand, ‘Toronto’ and a portion of the Toronto FC logo on the west, and BMO on the south. A giant metal sculpture of a hawk sits above the south stand, Toronto FC’s club mascot and ‘symbolic overseer of BMO Field’.

BMO has undergone many phases of construction since its opening. Between 2014 and 2016, a roof was added over the seating (which has done nothing to protect from the snow or wind, let me tell you) and the upper deck was added to the east stand, boosting the capacity to 30,000. The field was also lengthened to accommodate hosting Canadian football - a version of American football with slightly different rules. This winter, temporary seating at the north end has been added on the way to boosting capacity to 45,736 to meet FIFA seating requirements. Social media collectively agrees that no one wants to sit in these steep, potentially unsafe and view-obstructed seats.

As one would hope for a football-specific stadium, BMO has hosted many notable football teams and events. The ground has been home to Toronto FC since its founding in 2007, a men’s Major League Soccer (MLS) team, and will be one of two homes for AFC Toronto in the 2026 season, a women’s side in the Northern Super League (NSL). BMO has hosted finals for both leagues, including the MLS Cup in 2010, the MLS finals in 2016 and 2017 (featuring Toronto FC), and the inaugural NSL final in 2025 (featuring AFC Toronto and a side of heart break). Outside of North American matches, BMO has also hosted the 2008 MLS All-Star Game played against West Ham United, the 2014 International Champions Cup between Olympiacos and A.C. Milan, and 2014 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup matches.

Outside of (association) football, BMO is also home to the Toronto Argonauts, a men’s team in the Canadian Football League (CFL). The CFL’s championship game, the Grey Cup, was played there in 2016. Rugby matches have been hosted at BMO, including for Canada’s national team and during the 2015 Pan-American Games. A couple of National Hockey League games have also been held at the ground. Outside of sports, only one concert has taken place at the ground - Genesis, in 2007.

During the World Cup, BMO will be renamed ‘Toronto Stadium’ to accommodate FIFA’s policies on corporate-sponsored names. It will host six matches - including Canada’s opening match on June 12th which will be the first men’s World Cup game hosted on Canadian soil - and a game during the knockout round.

BC Place

BC Place is located in Vancouver, British Columbia (Toronto’s cooler, more relaxed cousin). The ground opened in 1983 as part of the Expo 86 world fair. At the time, it was the world’s largest indoor structure with an inflatable roof - essentially a big balloon supported by pressurised air.

BC Place includes an upper and a lower bowl, with red and grey seats. The upper portion of the ground’s perimeter is lit up at night with words or patterns by a 35-foot LED display, which can be viewed from both inside and outside. From afar, the ground looks a bit like a crown by day and a spaceship by night, from the 36 steel masts that now hold up the roof.

Renovations between 2011 and 2015 replaced the (damaged) inflatable roof with a retractable one supported by cables - the largest of its kind. A centre-hung scoreboard was also added - the second largest in North America (BC Place really going for the records) - which doubles as storage for retracted roof fabric. The new roof allows the sun (and air when open) to enter the ground, providing a bright and airy feel.

BC Place is a multi-use stadium, hosting a variety of teams and events. In terms of football, it is home to the Vancouver Whitecaps of the MLS. The official launch of the NSL - Canada’s first professional women’s league - was held there in April 2025, between Vancouver Rise FC and Calgary Wild FC. (I was lucky enough to be there and it was magical.)

The ground has hosted several international football matches. In 2012, the CONCACAF Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament final between the US and Canada was held there, with the highest attendance for a women’s qualifying match at 25,427. The ground also hosted nine matches throughout the tournament stages of the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup, including the championship match between Japan and the United States. Most recently, the Canadian Women’s national team played Australia at the ground in 2023 as part of a farewell tour for Christine Sinclair, with the stadium temporarily named in her honour. This is where I bring out my favourite football stat, that Sinclair is the world’s all-time leader in international goals scored (for both men and women) at 190 goals.

BC Place is also home to the BC Sports Hall of Fame, the BC Lions of the CFL, and the Canada Sevens - part of the World Rugby Sevens Series. The ground was the main stadium for the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, has hosted the Grey Cup 10 times between 1983 and 2024, and held an exhibition game of the National (American) Football League and an ‘outdoor’ National Hockey League game.

Unlike BMO, BC Place is no stranger to a concert. In 2023, Ed Sheeran performed and set a new attendance record of 65,061, beating the previous record of 63,803 set by U2 in 2009. As all Canadian Swifties will know, BC Place hosted the final three shows of Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour in 2024.

During the World Cup, BC Place will host seven games: five in the group stages, including two home games for Canada, and two knockout matches, one in the round of 32 and one in the round of 16. If Canada wins their group, they will play in both of these knockout matches.

Looking ahead to June

If all goes to FIFA’s plan, Canadian and international football fans alike will get to experience the thrill of World Cup action at these two pillars in Canada’s football landscape. Both grounds are beautiful and steeped in history - well deserving of hosting football on the world stage. Time will tell what new pieces of BMO Field and BC Place’s legacies may (or may not) be written this summer, as eyes turn to Canada for the World Cup.

Thanks to all of our Club Groundhopper Sponsors for supporting our work

But you don’t need to look across the channel for British clubs to be playing in more than one sport, take for example Rugby League Super League side Leeds Rhinos, who also have a netball side in the ‘Superleague’, not to be confused with the rugby league competition, but in the same league as the Rhinos’ netball team, there is one football side, and a premier league side who have a netball team in the same division, and that is Nottingham Forest, who launched last season and finished just outside of the playoffs in 5th in their first ever season. They were one of 2 netball sides to have a football club backing them, the other being Birmingham Panthers, which is owned by Knighthead Capital Management, who also own Birmingham City.

But this is an anomaly in British sport; that hasn’t always been the case, especially when it came to the ball being oval or being hit by a cricket bat. One reason as to why I probably think about this more than is what is a presumably normal amount of time for someone who doesn’t have some kind of obsession is that the football club that I support, 101 years after it’s formation as a football club, decided to start a new club which added the word “rugby” before the word football and the word “league” between it and the word club. Those two teams have since gone their separate ways but their histories will always be aligned through the families and fans that sit in the stands at Craven Cottage and at the Cherry Reds Records Stadium a few miles down the road, those two clubs are of course Premier League side Fulham, and Betfred Championship side London Broncos, who since moving away from being called Fulham, have changed names 4 times (London Crusaders, London Broncos, Harlequins RL and London Broncos 2 Electric Boogaloo*) and have moved countless more times.

There are some fans who support both sides, and a lot of those are either because they had an interest in both sports and supported Fulham at the time, so had a club to support immediately off the bat, or those fans are children of those Fulham fans; thanks to my dad I am a part of the latter. I grew up watching rugby league over the 1990s, with the bulk of my memories of the sport being either watching the launch of the Super League with the fantastic presenting duo ‘Eddie’ and ‘Stevo’ on Sky Sports, or watching London Broncos who at the time, were groundsharing at The Stoop, which the club returned to in the mid-00s when the club was renamed to Quins RL, and in the period before that, my dad had bought season tickets for all 4 of us (him and my 3 brothers) for a handful of seasons when the club ground shared at Brentford’s Griffin Park.

Fast forward…more than 20 years later?! Jesus. After being brought up supporting the club, I am now the club commentator on the club’s youtube channel, which this year in particular has had a lot of interest from the other side of the world, with quite a lot of viewers being from Papua New Guinea, with the club signing a lot of the national team over the off season, as well as bringing in the PNG head coach to be the Broncos head coach, which has seen the club already smash their own record for highest score 3 times since the beginning of the season, with the highest score coming at the end of February, when they beat North Wales Crusaders by 106-18. Most scores in Rugby League aren’t this high (which is a huge understatement), but it is a hard hitting, fast moving, engaging sport to watch and be involved with, and it is a shame the league isn’t given as much of a chance compared to other sports, including the 15 man code that is Rugby Union.

Eventually, Fulham FC and Fulham RL went their separate ways and these two teams have gone on some similar but very different journeys. Both of which were bought and owned by very rich men during the 1990s, both of which turned out to be morally questionable at best, both were relegated on more than one occasion during the 2010s and both sides were on the losing end of a result in a major competition.

However, the London Broncos/Fulham story shouldn’t be seen as a failure, but seen as a platform to build upon for more football clubs to branch out into other sports and the wider community, as we see on the continent.

But with football more or less being the monopoly of team sports in the UK, especially in England, is it worth having traditional football clubs spreading their tentacles into other sports, like we have seen with Nottingham Forest’s netball team or the super clubs that we see on the continent? Imagine a basketball rivalry in the British “SLB” (Super League Basketball) between Manchester United and Manchester City, or a clash in the Betfred Super League Grand Final between Arsenal and Spurs, which does happen with some of Europe’s biggest football clubs in other sports. I feel that football clubs in the UK, especially those with big fan bases in the Premier League and in the Scottish Premiership (I’m looking at you Rangers and Celtic), could really add a flair of familiarity and interest in other sports whose leagues could really do with a leg up in popularity and getting numbers through the turnstile. That is something I would personally love to see, and it would also make sports outside of football more accessible to fans of those clubs.

Thanks to all of our Club Groundhopper Sponsors for supporting our work

This year, The Sport Don is marking the occasion by giving one non-league fan something special – a free 2026/27 season ticket for their club of choice.

Supporting the Non-League Game

From the National League all the way down the pyramid, non-league football represents passion, community, and the true spirit of the game. Whether it’s standing on the terraces, travelling to away grounds on a Tuesday night, or backing your local club week in and week out, non-league supporters are some of the most dedicated fans in football.

The Sport Don wants to celebrate that dedication by giving back to the community that makes the non-league game so special.

How the Giveaway Works

Entering the competition is simple:

1. Download for free The Sport Don app

2. Add your non-league club to your calendar in the app

That’s it – once you’ve added your team’s fixtures, you’re automatically entered into the draw.

What Is The Sport Don?

The Sport Don is a sports calendar app designed to help fans keep track of the teams, athletes and sporting events they care about most.

Users can personalise their calendar by selecting from over 3,500 teams, athletes and sporting events, ensuring they never miss an important match or fixture again.

From football clubs and competitions to other major sporting events, everything can be organised in one place.

When Is The Winner Announced?

The lucky winner will be announced on Saturday, 28th March 2026, following Non-League Day celebrations.

A Chance to Celebrate Your Club

For many fans, supporting a non-league club is about more than just football. It’s about community, tradition, and the matchday experience that you simply can’t replicate anywhere else.

This giveaway is a small way to celebrate that spirit and give one supporter the chance to enjoy a full season backing their team.

You can download The Sport Don App from the App Store by clicking the image below.

I have lived in Sittingbourne, Kent for the majority of my life, however I have been a West Ham supporter and season ticket holder since 2004.

I had no choice but to eventually support West Ham because of my family ties to the club, and I don’t for one second regret it.

The history of my family and West Ham stretch back generations, from uncles and cousins that worked on the West Stand upgrade at Upton Park in the 2000, to my dad’s Uncle George working on both Rathbone Market and Queens Market, and also owning George’s Pie and Mash shop in Hermit Road, Canning Town – just a stone’s throw away from the ground.

My dad, having been born in 1961, wasn’t old enough to remember the mid-60s where “Uncle George” had gone to Wembley three years in a row to watch West Ham’s Bobby Moore lift the FA Cup, European Cup Winners Cup and World Cup in the mid-60s. However. He did thankfully get to witness the Hammers achieve many promotions and win two and a half FA Cups.

I say two and a half FA Cups, because I was fortunate that me and my dad got to go to that 2006 FA Cup Final in Cardiff where a certain man who shall not be named scored a very late goal and before we lost on penalties to that team that shall not be named. I’ll take that as half an FA Cup win considering we weren’t behind in that game at all, we were 1-0 ahead, 2-0 ahead and 3-2 ahead. Hell, I’m a West Ham fan, that is the closest I’m going to get to seeing an FA Cup win! I’m sorry, I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

I had previously been to watch my local club in Sittingbourne shortly after I started going to West Ham in 2004. It was that beautiful feeling of discovering football, discovering the feeling of being independent, and being able to go out with a few quid in your pocket and having a day out with it!

My friend and I would occasionally walk to the ground together, we would watch the live scores on BBC Sport on our phone whilst watching the Sittingbourne game – I would keep up to date with the West Ham scores, he would keep up with the Millwall scores – a strange friendship, I know! To cut a long story short, if I weren’t at West Ham, I would occasionally go to watch my local club. A handful of times, a small group of school friends would go to watch West Ham, Millwall, Gillingham or Arsenal when they had “kids for a quid” games – as I said, it was that combination of realising football wasn’t just on TV, and you can go places without adults!

Since that youthful teenage innocence, football as a group fell down the pecking order once we all discovered so many other things from chasing girls, alcohol and everything else you tend to find in your teenage years to then becoming an adult. Oh, and around that time football streaming became a thing, and not the way you all know it as today.

My memories of going to Sittingbourne back then were; the entry into the ground being something like £1 or £2 for under 16s, buying a burger in the ground, and in one corner there was a bar, in the other there was a cabin club shop that sold donated programmes for 20p – I would buy all the West Ham ones.

In all honesty, I had totally forgotten the little memory of visiting Sittingbourne when, in what must have been 2004, something that must have happened only a handful of times, but something I came to later remember again in 2018.

What a run I had supporting West Ham; 2004/05 was my first season where we were promoted via the Playoffs, a game which I was fortunate to be at because my dad had purchased us a “five game season ticket” for the final five home games. That gave us season ticket privileges which meant that not only could we get tickets for that Playoff Final game, but we could renew them for the following season.

So then, we renewed that “five game” season ticket for the following season, the first season back in the Premier League. We reached the FA Cup Final, another two magical games which I was lucky to attend – the FA Cup Semi and FA Cup Final. The following season was complete chalk and cheese, winning a lot of games to losing most games, however it was never dull – Tevez and Mascherano signing, surviving relegation after winning 1-0 at Old Trafford on the final day of the season. And that’s just the first three seasons!

However, from 2011 things changed, David Gold and David Sullivan took over the ownership at West Ham and since that day everything changed. Little by little, the love for my club began to die as the new owners started to asset strip the club ready for the move away from Upton Park to the Olympic Stadium – a move which looking back, they had planning long before they even pulled up to Upton Park in their chauffeur driven Rolls Royce cars, wearing their fancy suits and spitting a lot of regurgitated rubbish about “saving the club”.

In five years, the owners had bulldozed Upton Park, sold all the seats, sold patches of the pitch, and sold signs from inside the ground. Hell, they even sold everything that was in the club museum, from trophies to memorabilia.

Upton Park was never about the winning, hell, we all had our gripes with owners, players and everything else that fans have their say on. However, the ground was ours, it was steeped in history from Bobby Moore, the FA Cup wins, European nights, the boys of ’86 that finished 3^rd. Every stand had its own history and its own character. It was a proper football experience.

I had given the London Stadium a chance, I wasn’t someone who believed the rubbish that the owners had been saying, however, I am a firm believer of actually experiencing something before having an opinion of it. My season ticket in the East Stand at Upton Park was £800, my season ticket at the London Stadium was £280, so I had nothing to lose, well a few hundred pounds! However, as the months and years rolled on, I knew that what was sold to the fans was quite clearly nothing but lies to feed the financial greed of pathological liars.

By 2018 I found myself thinking “West Ham as I know it is completely dead to me, if West Ham never existed, who on earth would I support?”

I found myself thinking back to those days when I would walk to Sittingbourne’s ground with my friend. It was a way of life I remembered without the hole in my heart that Gold and Sullivan made when they knocked down my second home. It was a way of life that I remember before technology had completely ruled our lives.

There was just one catch, though, like West Ham, Sittingbourne had also moved grounds.

Now, this is going to sound so hypocritical. However, unlike what West Ham’s owners may tell you, Sittingbourne genuinely had to move grounds. The move for Sittingbourne was a necessity, not because the owners were greedy and wanted a bigger capacity, easier access, a gated car park for their chauffeur driven Rolls Royce to safely park in, their own private road to the ground to avoid sitting in traffic with the fans, or their own private box to watch the game away from the fans - but for Sittingbourne it was simply to survive as a football club.

So, I made the visit. A place called Woodstock Park, a place that despite living in Sittingbourne for the majority of my life, I had never heard of. It turns out that it was less than a mile away from my secondary school’s private football field, which we would accidentally find ourselves playing football in on Saturday mornings – you know how it is being a teenager!

Woodstock Park is a lovely place to be fair, a small little football ground situated in the middle of loads of trees, wildlife etc. At the time it had three stands; one being a little seated directors’ stand, one being a slightly bigger seated stand beind one of the goals, whilst the other was a little wooden stand behind the other goal, which was affectionately named the “Blakey’s Garden Shed”.

It was £9 entry, £2 a programme and £1 for what was then the “golden goal” ticket. If you had the correct number of the first goal scored on your ticket, you won X amount of money.

I stood on the halfway line and was waiting for the teams to come out when an elderly gentleman started talking to me, I still talk to him to this day. His name is Brian, a lovely man, someone who used to work as a steward at one of the previous grounds if my memory serves me well. He had obviously noticed that in the crowd of 167 people, I was someone he hadn’t noticed before, probably someone new. Brian and his friends began by telling me about the opponent, Carshalton Athletic – top of the league, 99 points, looking to seal promotion as Champions today on what is Sittingbourne’s final home game of the season. I was confused, the last home game of the season in April, but I asked no questions seeing as this was completely new territory for me. I had been to football games by myself before, but I was in a place I didn’t know, I didn’t know anyone, I was trying to make sure I could remember the time on my “golden goal ticket” and I had realised that I know absolutely nothing about my local football club or the League they play in.

I did, however, have a lovely Saturday. The away side took the lead early on and I expected the worst, but mid-table Sittingbourne came from 1-0 down to win 3-1. I would have probably gone again next week had they been at home again, but they were away to Hastings United on the final game of the season. The fact that I’ve only just researched that shows how little I knew about Sittingbourne or non-league at the time. In fact, I didn’t even know whether teams in non-league took away fans or not.

I returned the following season, and I attended maybe 2 or 3 games in that 2018/19 season. One of the games I watched saw a player from each side sent off. From what I remember, one player said something which angered his opposite number which resulted in the player who said something getting kicked. The two players ended up hitting each other and the referee gave them both red cards simultaneously. What the referee hadn’t taken into consideration, both players were sent off at exactly the same time and would have to walk off the pitch side by side. You can only imagine what happened next, and it was something almost from a sketch show. Both players ended up fighting each other whilst slowly jogging off the field, into the area where the fans stood, along the path and into the changing room with all the players running after them and trying to separate them whilst the officials were stood on the halfway line looking perplexed.

The players re-entered the field a few minutes later and the referees got the game back underway. Well, that certainly made the £9 entry fee worth it. Ninety minutes of football and a boxing match, I’ll be here again next week!

By the time 2019/20 came around I was attending more non-league games. That pre-season I had attended a few friendlies, even away friendlies. The away day with Sittingbourne had become a favourite of mine especially considering that by the time West Ham had moved to the London Stadium, all the away season tickets had been snapped up by disgruntled Hammers fans who refused to go to the new stadium. There were a good few away grounds you could easily get to by train, with a pub or two along the walk to the ground!

By the time January 2020 came around, covid hit and you know the rest.

During covid non-league was all but non-existent, and the only things to do were watch Premier League on TV or go shopping in the new age. Shopping in the new age consisted of doing a covid test before leaving the house, putting on a mask, constantly wash your hands in hand sanitiser, queuing for what seemed an eternity just for your two packs of toilet rolls, two tins of tinned goods, and two bags of pasta or rice. Fun times!

By the summer of 2021 lockdowns were scrapped and things were all but normal again, and I had returned to West Ham. It was as if nothing had happened. Lockdowns were lifted, fans rushed back, we all simply wanted our football back! It was Mark Noble’s retirement season and our first campaign in the Europa League. Everything clicked and it was magic, but that lasted for just one season.

By the 2022/23 season, that magical atmosphere from the previous campaign soon faded, and soon reverted to the disillusioned and disgruntled atmosphere. Even when results were going good, fans remembered that this wasn’t the West Ham they grew up watching at Upton Park and the owners were still up to their dirty tricks. I missed 5 of the 27 home games during that season when we had lifted the Europa Conference League.

The poor League form from the 2022/23 continued, only this time the Europa Conference League Trophy couldn’t paper over the cracks. The disgruntlement and disillusionment continued, and despite being able to get from my front door to the London Stadium in one and a half hours thanks to the high-speed train, I simply started to silent quit, having attended just 16 of the 26 home games.

During the 2024/25 season I missed 19 of the 20 games, the only game I attended was the 5-0 thrashing at the hands of that team that I cannot mention- you know, the team that beat West Ham in the 2006 FA Cup Final on penalties. Honestly, I’m not bitter at all, I promise!

You’re thinking, how does one “silent quit” a football club? Well, I simply sell the tickets for the games I don’t attend on the ticket trader, accumulate “club cash” and use that “club cash” to pay for the next season’s season ticket. This season’s season ticket cost me £70 because three tickets didn’t sell.

If I were to give up my West Ham season ticket, I would lose my band 5 seat which costs me just £380 and my dad would lose his senior rate price because the club brought in a scam, sorry, I meant a scheme, whereby only people with pre-existing season tickets could have a senior rate – those who are only just now purchasing season ticket do not get a senior discount. I’m not sure whether that is something that they have changed now, however, I remember at the time most Premier League clubs were doing the same and by then I had totally lost interest in modern day Premier League football.

The thing is, I’m not the only one, and West Ham isn’t the only club.

I’m not the only fan of a Premier League club that has become disillusioned with everything Premier League. Many made their decision because of VAR, many made their decision because of other similar mismanagement of their clubs.

Like in 2018, I returned after years away to watch one of the last games of the season for Sittingbourne. That being a local derby away at Faversham, a 1-0 win, a midfield player going in goal from the bench after the goalkeeper was injured – up he stepped to save an Adebayo Akinfenwa penalty on what was the striker’s debut for Faversham. A great away day all round!

The following season, 2023/24, I was back. I was invested, and I was back volunteering – only this time I was all in!

Throughout the 2024/25 season I attended 50 games. Sittingbourne went on a history-making campaign having accumulated 101 points in the League and reached the FA Trophy Quarterfinal having beaten a number of National League South sides and won 1-0 at National League Southend United. We lost in the Quarterfinal to eventual winners Aldershot Town, and then eventually lost out on promotion via penalties in the Playoff Final despite finishing second in the League with 101 points. Don’t get me started with that whole “one team promoted automatically” nonsense!

This season I have missed just one Sittingbourne game, that being a Tuesday night trip to the Jersey Islands to face Jersey Bulls.

Now, it isn’t about games attended, games missed etc. I’m not doing a whole player appearance type thing for myself; however, it’s a good example of how I’ve attended less and less top flight games, whilst I started to attend more and more non-league games.

I can’t speak for everyone, but at non-league level, at least in the Isthmian League South East where Sittingbourne play, there is a great respect between players and fans, fans and chairman & directors, fans and opposition fans.

I can literally stand at pitch-side without stewards telling me off for standing, I can have a beer whilst watching the game, I haven’t got to wait an hour to get a beer or queue for half an hour to go to the toilet.

After the game the players walk around the side of the pitch and shake the fans hands, and then they’ll have some food and a drink in the bar with the fans after they’ve had a debrief from the manager and had a shower.

The fans have a say in big decisions, all directors must agree when money is spent and any big decision is made, even on signing players. Every decision could be one that puts the club into non-existence, every decision is made delicately.

In fact, I’ve seen a few people who I used to go to West Ham with many years ago, people who I lost contact with, turn up to Sittingbourne games. I’ve seen old school friends that I hadn’t seen in years turn up to games despite being season ticket holders at Spurs and Chelsea respectively.

Whilst volunteering I have also picked up so many new skills from programme editing, match reports, concreting, advertising and how to fix floodlights.

I have met some lovely people throughout the years too. Those include volunteers, directors, fans, players, family members of the player and so on.

A lot has changed at Sittingbourne FC since that afternoon of April 2018 when I got my first taste of non-league football. Last year the club brought in its biggest League crowd since 1997, a new stand was brought in last year too. This year we have converted three containers; one into an extra set of youth changing rooms because there are more youth teams than ever, one into a bar, and one which is on top of the youth changing room for sponsors to sit in. The club have employed a fulltime groundsman, and the club have also hired a fulltime social media team who have also set up occasional live streams and radio commentary to go with the weekly post-game highlights and interviews. There is also a lager called “Brickies Lager” which has just been released a few weeks ago.

There are plans for lots of ground renovations once the season has ended, from new LED floodlights to be installed and more standing areas to be made.

By the summer, the club should also know the final decision on whether the club gets a new ground or not.

If you are disillusioned with your Premier League club, or just disillusioned with modern day football, give your local non-league club a try. You may well be very surprised by what non-league football has to offer.

Thanks to all of our Club Groundhopper Sponsors for supporting our work

Fixture Congestion & Momentum

The major knock on effect with this lovely weather causing postponements is the huge backlog of fixtures that follow.

The Saturday–Tuesday cycle, along with cup commitments can really compress recovery time and can quickly swing a season’s momentum, for better or worse.

Other effects of the condensed fixtures are:

• Heavy pitches rewards physical resilience and adaptability and reduce the impact that skill players have on a result.
  

• Squad Depth & Rotation means clubs who have a larger squad often with more funds are the ones who benefit, meaning smaller teams are tested even more.
  

• Player availability even comes into things, a-lot of these players are part-time and need to prioritise the work that pays the bills.
  

• Fans are often left out of pocket if they have already travelled to a game for it to be called off when they arrive
  

• The mental health aspect, often the first thing to be forgotten amongst footballers is the toll it takes on the players mental wellbeing. Balancing the fixture congestion alongside full time work is tough and thats without factoring in the travel before and after the games.

What is the solution, if there is one?

Like most things in life, there is more than one, but the one I think is the only true solution (others have suggested starting the season earlier, a non-starter if you ask me) is to invest HEAVILY in the standard of the pitches at all levels of the game. Now this does require money and lots of it, money I can see coming from two sources…

Solution 1 - Clubs foot the bill

This is of course I feel not a viable option for so many within Non-League, if you look to install an artificial turf you are looking at upwards of £1m and whilst it is an investment that can of course generate a huge amount of revenue through pitch hires, that initial cost and ongoing maintenance is of a level that is just not sustainable at all but the top levels of the Non-League pyramid.

Solution 2 - Government Funding

Now this is the clincher for me.

I believe the funding for this kind of activity should come from central government, for too long football pitches have been lost to development companies who ultimately build more housing on, leaving a higher toll on the remaining pitches and therefore a premium price attached to them to use. And ultimately clubs need help, they are the focal point of the community for so many towns and having an all-weather pitch or at least the means to keep a grass pitch playable opens up many doors for the local areas in which they serve. |

If a huge proportion of teams were given the ability to build their own artificial pitches in exchange for making the pitch available x amount of times per week to local community projects/schools you would solve multiple problems in one go.

Kids would be able to exercise in a safe and happy environment, it would allow younger people a place to to go and keep them off the streets causing problems for the local police forces (due to boredom) and most importantly of all (in my eyes) it would allow clubs a real sense of security and base to be able to build off. Overnight 90% of postponements would disappear and with it all of those other knock-on issues which are caused by these postponements.

Yes it would cost a-lot of money and there would need to be some control measures put in place to ensure it is spent properly, but I feel it is long overdue that some money was put towards this kind of activity. There is currently some funding available, with one of the largest providers being the ‘Football Foundation’ who this year have £98million to spend, ultimately that funding is set aside to improve, repair facilities. There will be some new facilities created but the impact wont be to the level in which I feel is needed.

Conclusion

I would like to see the football regulator (which is due to come in the 2026/2027 season) use its power to look at revenue distribution from the Premier League and ring fencing some of that for this cause. Alongside this I would like them to start putting pressure to the Government to really look at spending that chunk of public money, it is a project which in my mind could be one of the biggest community projects in decades, might even be something a Government could be praised for!


Written by Christian Obray

Founder of www.tttonlf.com

Thanks to all of our Club Groundhopper Sponsors for supporting our work

First up is Kaden Openshaw, the Media Officer at Atherton LR who play in the North West Counties Premier Division (Step 5). It’s only fair I start here, as Kaden has been really supportive of me ever since I started my Twitter page, regularly liking and retweeting my posts, and it was great to finally meet him earlier this season when I made my first visit to LR’s home, Crilly Park for their FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round win over Ossett United. Kaden has promoted Fellow Fan too, and very kindly announced it over the PA system that day in August. He text me asking to let him know when I’d arrived, but when he made the announcement, I was in the bar and missed it! My wife heard it though, as did many others present that day.

Kaden is a Bolton Wanderers fan, and had a season ticket at the Reebok Stadium until recently (I’m not calling it the Toughsheet!), but he now much prefers the non-league game, as is the case with a lot of people I come into contact with. He still follows Bolton from a distance, but his priority these days is absolutely LR.

Kaden went to his first non-league game around 4 years ago, and it was in fact to see LR’s local rivals Atherton Collieries, on a cold, wet Tuesday night in January. It was a little out of boredom that took him there, as well as his desire to start Groundhopping, but funnily enough it was the only non-league game he got to then, ‘just’ as a fan.

Fast forward a few months, and Kaden was becoming interested in media, so his dad’s friend put him in touch with Rob, the media officer at Atherton Colls. Rob invited Kaden to shadow him during a couple of games, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Kaden described his time at Colls:

“My one and only role was being the secondary videographer, which is an experience I’m really grateful for, as it gave me some experience with proper cameras. I got into cameras and filming watching Marcus Harrison at Bolton Wanderers, I used to love watching his Inside Matchdays highlights package!”

At the start of the 23/24 season, Kaden wanted to experiment more with media skills, and so he moved over to LR. He wanted to test himself, to identify his strengths and his weaknesses, and he felt he could do this at a club slightly lower in the pyramid where there would be fewer eyes on him, and likely less criticism if he got things wrong.

“I saw a Media Assistant advert on the LR website, and so I emailed James Lobley, who was then the Head of Media, asking if I could join. With the experience Rob had given me in the Northern Premier League, I had a good idea of what I wanted to do there.”

In his time at LR, Kaden has done a bit of everything, from creating the programme, to writing match reports for the local newspaper. Now he runs the social media accounts, he videos and edits the games, and plays the matchday music.

So I asked him, what’s your usual matchday routine for a home game?

“My routine actually starts the night before, with the pre-match stuff; I send out build-up tweets and write a match preview. On a home matchday, I get the train from Manchester and tend to arrive at Crilly Park around 2-3 hours before kick off.

“Shortly after arrival I usually do photos and videos of things like the players’ arrival and the warm-ups, and I get them ready for before the teams come out. I then hand over the social media reins to my colleague Oliver, and he will tweet out live updates during the game. After heading home, I do the match report and edit the videos, ready to post the following day. That usually takes me all evening and the following morning, so a lot of time goes into it. But I love what I do, so it’s all worth it!

“I get to as many LR games as possible, and I’ll only tend to miss if I’m away or it is a real struggle to get there. I don’t drive, but there are lots of lovely people at the club willing to give me a lift to away games.”

A few weeks after my aforementioned visit to Crilly Park and after another FA Cup win, LR were drawn against local rivals Colls in the First Qualifying Round, in what is dubbed the ‘Flat Cap Derby’, and lots of work went into promoting the game, as Kaden explains:

“I did a big write up for Bolton News as usual, but I knew that if we wanted to get a big crowd, we’d need big attention, and it was the LR manager Dave Jones who suggested I contact Granada TV. I emailed them and BBC Manchester, not really expecting a reply, but to my surprise Mike Hall from Granada replied and was very keen to do a live preview. So we set up a day with Colls and got the shoot done. I even managed to get Mike Hall’s phone number, so that’s my answer to ‘who’s most famous person in your contact list’!

“We also had a lot of national and even international interest, from a number of YouTubers, to The Non-League Paper as you’d expect, and even a Dutch newspaper! It was really cool communicating with all of these different sources for that game!

“It was a tad stressful on the day meeting and greeting all the media people - usually I only see the opponent’s media team! After the game, Dave Jones had about 5 people lined up to interview him, and he joked to me that I needed to watch to see how it’s done properly!”

LR put in a fantastic performance to cause the ‘cupset’, not only beating their higher tiered rivals, but putting 5 past them! They were rewarded with a trip to Macclesfield, who of course have recently done some giant killing of their own, and it was here LR’s FA Cup journey ended for the season, with their heads held high.

LR won a historic treble last season, taking the NWC Division 1 North title and promotion to the Premier Division. This was followed by the Edward Case Cup (NWC Step 6 cup) and the Champions Cup (contested between the winners of both Division 1 leagues, North and South). And the club continues to go from strength to strength in Kaden’s view:

“I think we’re holding out really well at a crucial time of the season, for a newly promoted side (at the time of writing, LR are only a point off the playoffs). We look more like a progressing club rather than this being a one-off promotion. We’ve made huge investments off the pitch in what is our 70^th birthday season, with new changing rooms being built this year, a redesigned clubhouse, and some padel courts on the far side of the ground. We’re hopefully becoming a big social hub!”

When I asked Kaden his favourite thing about non-league, he said that it was the uniqueness of the clubs and the grounds, and he cited Altrincham and Burscough as being two of his favourites grounds. He refers to the age of the grounds and the largely original stands which all differ in shape and size. Whilst I’ve not been to Burscough myself yet, I’m inclined to agree, I do love a ground that can only be described as ‘quintessentially non-league’.

I asked as well his views on what non-league club could do to get more people through the turnstiles...

“These days it’s all about social media – unfortunately some teams don’t have as strong a social outreach as others, but simply advertising makes a massive difference. It’s easier said than done of course, but if they advertise their uniqueness, they can thrive!”

In a couple of weeks, LR will host one of the North West Counties Groundhop games, where 7 games are staggered over the weekend, allowing fans to watch them all should they wish. Hundreds of Groundhoppers travel from all over the country and even from abroad, so Kaden told me a bit about what extra goes into hosting a game like this with such a large crowd.

“We’ve got plenty in store! It’s probably the biggest programme we’ve ever produced, we’re bringing in food vans with lots of different options, and we’re doing a limited edition pin badge to celebrate the event.

“We’re treating it as a huge opportunity to introduce people to LR, what we’re about, why they should stick around, or why they will leave thinking, ‘I really enjoyed that’. Exciting non-league football, pints in the stand, crunching tackles, and great food - what more could you ask for?”

I think that sums it up perfectly!

The North West Counties Groundhop takes place from Friday 27^th February to Sunday 1^st March, and Atherton LR host Euxton Villa at 11:30am on the Sunday. You can find more information via the Grounhop UK website, and you can follow LR on Twitter.

Thanks so much to Jordan Wilcock for providing this week’s article. You can support his work by following him over on Twitter & Blue Sky

Thanks to all of our Club Groundhopper Sponsors for supporting our work

Matt’s parents have lived out there for many years among the ex-pat community, and we’d be staying not far from them at the lovely Scala Apartments in Afantou for the duration of our short break.

We flew out from Birmingham with Ryanair and arrived in Greece early on Saturday morning to be greeted by blue skies and warm temperatures and headed to Afantou and settled straight into the apartment and met up with Matt’s parents, his father affectionately known as “The Don” and his mother Patricia, chatting away while we chilled out in the local bars, knocking back the beers and the enjoying some delightful meze.

Now the ex-pat community is quite the eccentric bunch, we were introduced to “The Blade”, “Johnny Hotpants” and The Don’s nemesis “Dutch John”. Of course, none of these names were explained, so the reasons why are anyone’s guess.

While the purpose of the trip was for Matt to catch up with his folks, and to get some autumn sunshine and escape the rain back in the UK. I thought to myself, well when in… Rhodes… So out comes the mobile and straight onto Futbology to see what games would be taking place while we were there.

As luck would have it, we could see Rodos FC Vs. APO Ellas Syros, which was due to be played on Sunday, with the visiting team travelling from Ermoupoli on the island of Syros. Rodos FC play in the Gamma Ethniki Group 3, which is the third tier of Greek football, at Diagoras Stadium in Rhodes city, which was about 20 km from where we were staying.

After a few google searches, I learnt that Rodos FC was created in 1968 after a merger between 3 clubs. They have spent the vast majority of that time in the second and third tiers of Greek football, with just a couple of seasons in the top flight, at the end of the 70’s and beginning of the 80’s. The club was in the second tier as recently as 2021/22 season, but also in the local divisions as recently as 2018/19 season.

The stadium was built in 1932 by the then Italian authorities and named the Arena Del Sole. It may also have been called “Stadio Mussolini” in the late 30’s, but there are no valid sources to back that up. Towards the end of the Second World War it was renamed “Diagoras” after the legendary ancient boxer, the international airport on the island also bears his name.

The game was being played early Sunday afternoon. We were lucky in that The Don gave us a lift to the stadium, accompanied by his friend Hans another expat, this time from Sweden. That meant we didn’t need to use any public transport, but I did look it up just in case. There are a few bus stops very close to the stadium, one called “San Francisco” on Meg. Konstantinou street, which had multiple bus routes including 3, 3A, 3B, 012, 015, 016, 018, 41, 062, 064, 103, 109, 113,114, 115, 118, 297, 362 and 365, so plenty of choice.

We arrived at the stadium to find it nestled up close to the old city wall with St John’s Gate just across the road from the northern corner of the ground. The stadium itself has one small main stand with seating and a roof offering shade from the sun, the rest is open terracing, with seating and standing around three quarters of the ground. The far end is open and leads onto the athletics track next door. The venue also has a velodrome track around the pitch.

We paid our 10-euro entrance fee through one of those traditional ticket windows and stepped into the ground. Once inside we grabbed a drink, while being shaded by one of the many trees dotted around inside the perimeter wall. We then bartered with the club for some merch picking up used second and third choice goalkeeper tops, great additions to the collection. Cash is king here, they didn’t have a facility to accept card payments at the ground, as I have found on several foreign football trips. While wondering around taking pictures and chatting to people, including a lovely older couple from Wiltshire, and a German groundhopper called Konnor Foogler who is very active on Instagram. The mood was very friendly and the ground while far from luxurious, definitely has that charm of yesteryear, with its proper old school tower floodlights in the corners.

There was a moment to reflect on the loss of Greek international George Baldock prior to kick off. The game itself was something of a Greek tragedy, considering that this is the third tier of Greek football, I’d say its equivalent to the southern league back here in England. We wondered around the ground, drinking and chatting to people while the game went on. We ventured over to the northern corner to join the small group of “Ultras” and got involved with the drum, cheering on the home side.

The game was dominated by the visitors. A 35 min goal from Panagiotis Pavlopoulous put the visitors 1-0 up at the break and they made it 2-0 just after the hour when Demir Zahi found the back of the net, which enabled the away side to run out a comfortable 2-0 victory. This win put them top of group 3 and into the single promotion spot. While the standard was so poor, it didn’t matter, the people were lovely, there was sunshine, and there was beer!

This break was about chilling out and we spent the rest of the evening and the next day hanging out in the local bars, making something of a name for ourselves with the locals and ex-pats in Afantou, Matt’s mum was receiving texts all night keeping her up to date with our shenanigans and whereabouts throughout the evening.

Tuesday was our last day, so a round of golf at Afantou Golf Club was in order. Apparently, there are very few golf courses in all of Greece, so to find that Rhodes has a course was something of a result. The course is located in the Afantou bay as well, so we didn’t even have to travel. The course isn’t exactly PGA standard, but it did the job and the beautiful blue sea just metres from the course was stunning on yet another spectacular day. I hadn’t played in a while, and The Don stopped accepting my scores after about the 6^th hole, but we had a wonderful time. Our afternoon was wrapped up at a little taverna next to the beach, more meze with beer in hand, looking out over the sea. Literally life couldn’t have gotten better in that moment.

Rhodes is a beautiful island, and Afantou was full of very friendly people. It was lovely to see the ex-pat and local side of the community rather than just the tourist side of the island. The football and golf were fun, if not of the greatest of standards. I would absolutely recommend a break to the island of Rhodes. I got just a little taste of what there is on the island, at some point in the not too distant future I’d love to head back and investigate the old town with its historic harbour and the many historical sights Rhodes has to offer.

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Fast forward almost eleven years to the summer of 2015 - just a few months before the final Premier League season at Upton Park kicked-off. I decided to sit down and go through my boxes of old programmes and match tickets from my first season watching West Ham (2004/05). Had it not been for the physical matchday programmes and paper tickets I would never had known just what games I had attended, nor would I have been able to pin point my first ever game as a fan was in fact Mark Noble’s debut for the Hammers.

Nostalgia, it’s a crazy thing! Although I remember the ritual of buying the programme on the walk to Upton Park, I cannot remember how often I actually read the programme. I did, however, sit down and flick through them again for inspiration and ideas when I started the role of creating the Sittingbourne FC programmes back in September 2024.

Every time I reopen that box of physical programmes and paper tickets I get sent back to 2004, all those memories come flooding back. Memories of walking down the Barking Road and buying two pieces of chicken, chips and a drink for £2; walking past the Green Gate and Castle pubs opposite each other on the Barking Road whilst both sets of fans in each pub sung songs to each other – “Green Gate give us a song” etc; those simply beautiful Reebok West Ham shirts; buying a burger for £1 after an evening game when the staff on the burger van wanted to go home quickly; getting my programmes and tickets signed by players who I had no idea who they were at the time; walking past people on the way to the game that I recognised from school; the legend that is Teddy Sheringham scoring for fun in the claret and blue; playing Leeds United on a Friday night on perhaps the coldest day known to mankind and typical Leeds buying a late penalty – that still winds me up to this day!; bringing friends along on “kids for a quid” games; the smell of the wet grass on a Saturday afternoon; playing Gillingham (the town just a few miles from where I lived at the time); the smell of people smoking next to you in the stands. And that’s just the memories from the first few months of the 2004/05 season!

Now that I’ve blown my cover, you’re thinking “why does this glory hunter support West Ham and not Gillingham?”. Rightly so, support your local team and all that!

I’ll let you into a little secret - there is very little glory supporting West Ham! And, quite honestly, I didn’t have any choice in who I supported.

My Dad is just one of seven siblings that all supported West Ham – some have worked on building the Dr Martens West Stand at Upton Park, My great-uncle George owned two market stalls just a stone’s throw away from Upton Park on Rathbone Market and Queens Market before later owning George’s Pie and Mash shop in Hermit Road in Canning Town, as well as having a relative who would sell hot peanuts at the ground at half-time.

My dad still tells me the stories of “Uncle George” - as everyone would affectionately call him – and how “Uncle George” watched West Ham win the FA Cup, the European Cup Winners Cup and the World Cup at Wembley in just three years in the mid-60s!

The Beginning of Becoming a Programme Editor:

With that much nostalgia for the matchday programme, I jumped at the opportunity to create the Sittingbourne programme when the opportunity arose in 2024 despite having no previous experience in creating a programme and having very little writing experience other than blogging about the history and nostalgia of West Ham when the club left Upton Park in 2016.

When I took over the role of programme editor, we had 32 or 38 pages, just over a year into the role we are now struggling to keep it down to 48 pages thanks to the great relationship we have not only with our sponsors who take out adverts in the programme but also the relationship we have built with other contributors such as Non-League Paper, The Untold Game and Groundhopper Weekly. I am at the point now where I have the confidence to write every now and again as a guest writer for this very website – Groundhopper Weekly.

Working for a Non-League Football Club:

And that leads me to this - if you want to get involved in the beautiful game or learn more about it, I honestly suggest finding your local non-league team. We all need volunteers, we all need creativity, fresh ideas and modern skills.

Success won’t come overnight and you likely won’t be paid if you don’t have the experience until you reach a certain level in the football pyramid, but that’s the point – gaining the experience and learning new skills!

What you’ll find is a group of people with experience and a common goal – the love of the local community and the beautiful game we call football.

I’m fortunate that in the last three years I’ve learnt so much from those that have been involved at the club for decades, and I’m truly grateful for what they’ve taught me including programme editing, writing match reports, providing live match updates, doing commentary on live games, how to concrete properly, and how to bring down and realign floodlights.

Now then, I’ve explained why the programme is important to me. How can the matchday programme be important to others?

For the football club itself, especially non-league clubs, the programme is a great way to bring in some additional income - not only from selling the programme but also selling advertising space and advertising themselves.

Without the social media and online presence that Premier League clubs have, non-league clubs can use the programme to advertise their upcoming games, events, sales in the club shop, fixture rearrangements, share some of the club’s history and share more recent history such as match reports, information on new signings, player statistics, league tables, results.

For the fans, the matchday programme is a ritual. It’s one of the remaining rituals that may last in a person’s matchday routine with so many clubs moving grounds and the constant change to our everyday lives.

It gives fans something to read before the game, at half-time or when they get home. You never know what someone else’s circumstances are, you never know whether someone lives alone or whether the only time they leave the house is when they go to a game of football on a Saturday afternoon.

There are several fans of the older generation at Sittingbourne that simply do not have the internet, so I try my very best to get all the up-to-date information added to the programme.

Just like myself, the programme is a great way to look back on your favourite games and your favourite periods of time – oh, and looking back at the adverts from your childhood, priceless, absolutely priceless!

If nothing else, when I see the young mascots and young children stood at the side of the pitch after the game asking for their programmes to be signed, I know my efforts are worth it because I was once that very same child wanting my programme signed. I hope that one day they can dig out those very programmes and have the very same feeling of nostalgia that I have!

The matchday programme has been part of football culture for over 150 years, but why it is more important than ever today?

In a modern world where we rely so much on digital books, digital streaming devices, online communication, online banking and everything else digital; physical newspapers, sports magazines/programmes, physical sports and concert tickets and physical DVDs are more important than ever.

There are obviously huge benefits to the digital world, in fact I am currently writing this whilst watching the Robbie Williams documentary on Netflix (yes, typical 90s nostalgia), however it must be in moderation.

There is something quite peaceful in today’s world where I can switch my phone to silent and just read a football programme at my own leisure without pop-up ads, without being told I must sign up and subscribe to read an article, worry about my battery level or have phone notifications distracting me.

I grew up when computers and the internet were only just becoming affordable for normal households, and by the time I was 14 years old the internet had just started to forge its way into my everyday life thanks to MSN Messenger. Back then I would use the internet to escape the real world, however nowadays I find myself more regularly using the real world to escape the digital age – and just sitting down to read a book or matchday programme is my escape nowadays!

Thank you for reading.

Jacob Waller.

Thanks to all of our Club Groundhopper Sponsors for supporting our work

The football system is much younger and the pyramid much smaller than many other countries across the world. The grounds, then, are less numerous and also much more spread out. However, the quality of the football is high. For example, in 2025 the Northern Super League (NSL), described below, attracted 39 players with senior national team experience, boasting a combined total of 1,342 international caps, and the fifth highest attendance for women’s football in the world.

Let’s start our tour of Canadian football with the NSL.

Northern Super League

The Northern Super League (NSL) is the highest tier of women’s football in the country. The league launched in April 2025 with six teams: Vancouver Rise, Calgary Wild, AFC Toronto, Ottawa Rapid, Montréal Roses, and Halifax Tides. AFC Toronto took home the inaugural Supporters’ Shield for coming out on top of the table at the end of the regular season. The Vancouver Rise won the league’s inaugural Diana B. Matheson Cup after defeating AFC Toronto 2-1 in the playoff final. The league, which originally intended to launch with eight clubs, is planning to expand in 2027. Some rumoured expansion cities include Victoria, British Columbia and Winnipeg, Manitoba.

All six NSL teams play at medium sized grounds, typically outside of the city centre. The league opener in Toronto as well as the league playoff final were played at the much larger and more centrally-located BMO Field, which is home to Toronto FC (discussed below) and will be home turf for AFC Toronto for half of their games in the 2026 NSL season.

Major League Soccer

Founded in 1993, Major League Soccer (MLS) is the highest tier of men’s football in North America. The league includes 30 teams, three of which are north of the border in Canada: Vancouver Whitecaps FC, Toronto FC, and CF Montréal. Philadelphia Union won the Supporters’ Shield for leading the league at the end of the regular season in 2025. Inter Miami - co-owned by David Beckham and led on the field by Lionel Messi - beat the Vancouver Whitecaps 3-1 in the playoff final to win the club’s first MLS Cup, having won the Supporters’ Shield in 2024. Toronto FC was the first Canadian expansion team in 2007 and has had the most success of the Canadian teams, winning both the Supporters’ Shield and MLS Cup in 2017.

In part due to the severity of the winter weather, the Canadian football season generally runs from the spring to the fall. The MLS, however, will be moving to a July to May season starting in the summer of 2027 to align with other major international leagues.

The Canadian MLS teams play in larger stadiums in the city centre. BMO Field, home to Toronto FC, and BC Place, home to the Vancouver Whitecaps and where the NSL was launched in April 2025, will host World Cup games this summer. CF Montréal split their games between Stadium Saputo and Olympic Stadium, which was built for the 1976 Summer Olympics.

Canadian Premier League

Founded in 2017, the Canadian Premier League (CPL) is the highest tier of men’s football in Canada. In the 2025 season, the league included eight teams: Vancouver FC, Pacific FC, Cavalry FC, Valour FC, York United, Forge FC, Atlético Ottawa, and HFX Wanderers FC. Forge FC won their third CPL Shield in 2025 for leading the league at the end of the regular season, with four North Star Cup playoff final wins under their belt since 2019. Atlético Ottawa won their first Cup in a snowy home game against reigning champs Cavalry that featured a bicycle kick seen around the internet. At the end of the 2025 season, York United was rebranded as Inter Toronto FC and Valour FC declared bankruptcy. In 2026, FC Supra du Québec will be added to the league, bringing the number of clubs back up to eight.

Similar to the NSL, most CPL teams play at medium sized grounds outside of the city centre. In several cases, NSL and CPL teams play at the same ground: York United and AFC Toronto play at York Lions Stadium, Atlético Ottawa and Ottawa Rapid play at TD Place, HFX Wanderers and Halifax Tides play at Wanderers Grounds, and Supra du Québec and the Montréal Roses will share the Stade Boréale in 2026.

Premier Soccer Leagues Canada

Founded in 2022, Premier Soccer Leagues Canada is the second tier of football in the country, after the NSL and the CPL. It rebranded from League1 just this week. It is pro-am and made up of five regional leagues: British Columbia Premier League, Alberta Premier League, Prairies Premier League, Ontario Premier League, and Ligue1 Québec. Each regional league has women’s and men’s divisions, for 39 women’s and 39 men’s clubs across the country. The Cup winners in 2025 were the North Toronto Nitros in the women’s division and Scrosoppi FC in the men’s division, both Ontario-based clubs. Simcoe County Rovers FC, also from Ontario, won the inaugural Women’s Inter-Provincial Championship - an annual tournament held with the provincial league champions. Such a championship has not yet been held for the men’s divisions.

The size and amenities of grounds in the Premier Soccer Leagues Canada are varied. Many are pitches without terraces, food stands, or even actual toilets. These are, though, where you’ll find the most sense of local community and get a chance to see the upcoming talent in the country.

Groundhopping at Scale

With the size of the country and lower ratio of grounds, groundhopping in Canada is not for the weak. If you’re considering embarking on a Canadian groundhopping trip, you’ll want to focus on one of British Columbia, Ontario, or Québec, as these provinces have clubs in all four of the leagues mentioned above. Visiting in the spring (April or May) will also ensure all four leagues are in action (and reduce the chances that you’ll get stuck in a snow storm). You’ll also definitely want to rent a car if you want to hop, as the grounds are spread out and the public transportation system isn’t as well developed as other (smaller) countries. With these tips in mind, I encourage you to make the trip - the football system is rapidly developing, the grounds are varied, and the scenery is breathtaking.

If you enjoyed this article and want to follow more of Sasha’s groundhopping exploits, then why not visit her Instagram page and give her a follow?

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All of them are written with passion and often contain a wide mix of hard hitting articles as well as some light hearted fun too. In a world where everything is online and on social media sites, you would think that print media like Fanzines would be a thing of the past, something people just don’t want anymore.

Well, that is far from the case.

Rise of Nostalgia

There has been a huge clamour and increase in popularity over the past 12-18 months for nostalgic based products. This has seen the return and demand rise dramatically for Barbie dolls, Pokémon, Physical media (DVD, CD and Vinyls), Retro game consoles and Polaroid cameras. The demand for these is being heavily driven by Millennials and Gen Z (ME!), acting as a psychological band aid for what has been a turbulent last few years.

There has actually been a study which has shown that “nostalgia enhances mood, increases optimism, and fosters social cohesion – a trifecta of emotional benefits that resonate strongly today.”

This desire for the comfort of nostalgic items has led to the growth of football fanzines. Print is something which has been a dying industry for some time now, with the masses moving online for their news and content fix. However…there is a pocket of growth amongst this decline, and that growth is from, you guessed it, fanzines. I mean, the title gave that one away really, didn’t it!

But yes, Fanzines are seeing a surge in popularity as people shift away from the overwhelming mass of content which is all over the internet. Yes, some of it is amazing, but there is SO much of it that the old fashioned physical magazine is almost relaxing. All of the material you need can be tucked under your arm, no screen, no searching, no pop up adverts!!

The most appealing aspect of the fanzine is that escape from the digital world, for sure, but also the amount of excellent content being produced by these publications means the appeal to simply absorb what is being created is enough to be an appeal for people to buy copies on its own.

I am a very tactile person, I am a huge fan of print media myself and regularly buy and read the newspaper, I also subscribe to When Saturday Comes and MUNDIAL, so quite a fair bit of print!

When I launched my website Through the Turnstile of Non-League Football, I always in the back of my mind had ambitions and plans to one day launch a physical magazine to complement the online offering.

I probably didn’t envisage the launch of the magazine to come just 8 months after the launch of the website, but these things always find a way of working themselves out! As I said earlier, a lot of the fanzines are associated with a particular club. I was extremely keen to offer something for people who were fans of the whole of Non-League football, and so in November 2024, the number of fanzines in the world increased by 1; Parks to Pitches was born.

Yes, the rise in popularity is great and especially so for someone who had just launched a fanzine himself, yet that was never in my mind when launching; like many others, it was simply to create something real that you can hold in your hands, for it to be read and hopefully enjoyed.

Taking Back Control

It will be interesting to see if this surge in nostalgic products, such as fanzines, is just a short burner or if it is here to stay. I am inclined to think that this switch back to physical products could well be here to stay for the longer term.

Why?

I think it touches on people being able to take back control in their lives, when it was introduced video streaming sites and music streaming sites (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple Music, Spotify and many more) were presented to everyone as an easier and new alternative to having to physically have all of the films, series or music in disc format.

The drawbacks of that, of course, are that you are then at the whim of the companies having what you want to be on there and stay on there, and then there are the adverts. Another reason people are turning back to nostalgic products and relying on physical DVD’s in particular is that adverts are a permanent fixture on all sites, something that was inevitable.

Football articles are similar in that respect, like I said previously, there is content aplenty online, but more and more of it is now being put behind a paywall, so why not grab yourself a magazine that you can keep forever and enjoy whenever, wherever you would like to.

Not only that, but if you like what you buy, it doesn’t just disappear to be forgotten about, but instead continues to exist, you can save them and keep your memories in a box or even pass the magazine on to someone else.

Conclusion

Physical media of all kinds is on the rise, and maybe if you haven’t joined in, then why not start today!

Go on out there and see what the fuss is all about.

You never know, you might realise a printed magazine is just what you have been waiting for!

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