Wednesday 27 January 2016

Reactivating Groundhoppa

I can't believe quite how long ago it was I started this blog (six and a half years, four jobs and a degree have passed since my trip to the Hawthorns) or quite how long it's been that I've let it lapse. I find I have forgotten much about what I wrote; I was excited to discover I had a follower, then disappointed to find it was me.

The groundhopping certainly hasn't stopped - I'm not sure what number the Hawthorns was, but I've just clocked my 50th (Hull City's KC Stadium) and 51st (Doncaster Rovers' Keepmoat Stadium) League grounds and will be blogging these shortly. But the good news, I guess, is that with 41 league grounds yet to cover (not to mention the Conference National and even below) there's plenty left for me to cover here.

In fact, I'm almost surprised I haven't covered more in the years since I started groundhopping. I'm not absolutely sure when the first thing I'd call a groundhop was, but I tend to think it was my trip to Kenilworth Road in Luton, which was before Luton fell into the Conference. The day I went, there was a minute's silence for the late LTFC player David Preece, whose date of death suggests that it was the first Luton home game of the 2007-08 season. So I've been doing this for well over eight years now, and in that time I've averaged no more than five or six grounds a season.

In my defence, there have been some distractions, including a two year spell living overseas. And like anyone working towards the 92, some grounds have slipped away from me. Several clubs I've visited have fallen out of the League, with Cheltenham, Darlington, Tranmere, Hereford and Aldershot falling into this camp. Others - a surprising number in fact - have moved grounds, including Colchester, Chesterfield, Cardiff and my local club Barnet. I can't claim to have been taken by surprise by any of this, as the very reason I visited Layer Road, Saltergate and Ninian Park was to see them before their demise (Barnet's abandonment of Underhill was rather more of a shock). Were it not for these events, I'd have closer to sixty current League grounds on my hopping CV.

Highlights so far? Of the grounds still standing, I should undoubtedly include a dank night in Birkenhead to see Tranmere with my doughty (and continuing) travel companion Sir Robert; a trip to Walsall in the same company, where we found an Arthurian-themed West Bromwich pub and had one hell of a balti; the madness of Kenilworth Road with its shoehorned surroundings; and the microclimate at Adams Park, where it snowed in May for the last game of the season.

Next up? I've decided to focus more on the upper two divisions so that relegations don't have me running to stand still. I can see Wolves and Everton featuring in my immediate future. More to follow...

Hop on

No comments:

Post a Comment