Groundhopping journeys

 I decided to head upto the North East on a pre booked trip, after seeing a BBC documentary about the club and the day to day struggles the owners (all fans that just do their best) had just paying the wages on a month to month basis. Some very historic figures from football years gone by hail from Ashington including the Charlton brothers and Bobby Robson. I headed upto Newcastle on the flixbus and caught a train to Ashington for the bargain price of £2 each way, the line only reopened to passenger trains last year in 2025. Upon arrival in Ashington I drew big parallels with Workington, where I used to live, in that it was a huge ex mining area that has lacked much significant investment for a long time. The high Street was tired looking, with country wide problem of too many vape shops, Turkish barbers, takeaways and convenience stores. However their did look to be some really decent, proper cafes, an excellent looking home bakery and a packed out pub. Sadly I had already eaten s...

 Friday night football from the northern league was on the menu for this warm August evening. The opposition, FC Hartlepool, I've watched a lot over the past few seasons, despite still not visiting their ground, they are always a strong, solid team with threat up front and this evening proved no different. As usual I set off in good time, with the roads being extra busy due to the weekend getaway traffic. To find the ground from the south is really easy, follow the A1m and come off at junction 63,then bear left and follow the roundabouts straight on until you get a sign for the club and see the Chester Moor pub. It's only about 3 miles off the motorway and there is plenty of parking, just park opposite the pub for a slightly easier getaway after. At junction 61 is Durham services if you need fuel, although today the were sold out, there is also a McDonald's, Costa and WH Smith.  The game ebbed and flowed, end to end stuff, with neither team really dominating but both pushin...

 A rare trip to the LNER with my dad, for some Monday night football and our first game in the League Cup for 11 years. I had purchased the tickets with huge optimism and excitement to attend, however days after our manager Stuart Maynard was unexpectedly dismissed, a decision I still can't come to terms with. His replacement, the very uninspiring Scott Lindsay. I was looking forward to a visit to the club shop still, it was hugely difficult to navigate with it being packed, despite going in looking for a few new pin badges to add to the collection I instead came out with the new blue and black striped shirt, reminiscent of an old portakabin one we had from the 90s. At £55 shirts have certainly gone up in cost but it really is an excellent design. I didn't know what to make of the game, we played ok in patches and some of the new players show promise but it was far from a convincing performance against mediocre opposition. They cut us upon down the wing for a ruthless opener be...

 A beautiful summers evening for a visit to another West Yorkshire League side, one that I'd been trying to do for a long time, having already acquired a pin badge from ebay. We made a day of it, having fish and chips in the excellent Wharfe chip shop restaurant, before a walk down to the river and then back into town. I had some brilliant raspberries from the fruit shop in town before we went in Whitakers pub and just caught last orders for the food, as a side note, everywhere in Otley either closes early afternoon or stops serving food after 4pm, it's all catered for senior citizens, who all go home at 1pm. I had a beautiful homemade muligatawny soup with warm crusty bread and we both had half a lager. We made our way to the ground in good time, expecting a 1830 kick off, the opposition from Harrogate being Beckwithshaw FC. I'm not sure of the league they are in but my good friend Marc 'Wal' Watson used to be involved with them in some kind of coaching capacity ma...

 A glorious summers evening at Bardsey Sports Club, for a pre season fixture vs Ripon City. The ground is extremely basic, walk past the cricket pitch and club house to it, there is no railing to lean on for spectators, however we managed to sit at a bench at the corner of the cricket pitch, albeit we had to turn quite a way when the action was towards one of the goals, it was comfortable enough but not a ground to be visiting in the middle of winter! The ground had been the scene of heartbreak and despair getting on for 60 years ago as my fellow York fan and groundhopper, Pete Moss missed a penalty for Grafton FC, despite making amends by later netting a goal his team trudged off to a 4-1 defeat. I believe he upset the referee that day too for some reason! This evenings game also finished 4-1 to the away side, with Ripon showing their superiority and higher league status to run out comfortable winners. They rarely looked troubled at the back and had a good mixture of pace and powe...

 I was completing the quartet of Belfast based premiership clubs today, having already done Linfield, Glentoran and Cliftonville. Crusaders and Seaview were my favourite though, a real nice little ground, due only to get better through the UK governments levelling up fund, and real nice people associated with the club. It was a last minute decision to go there having been scuppered with my plans for Bangor Celtic in the FAI Cup, with them now playing at Crumlin United, where I had already visited, I wanted a new ground ticked off. I got the 0850 train from Connolly to Belfast, however upon arrival at just past Lurgan station, disaster struck as there was a tree on the line. They reversed us back to Lurgan, so I wasted no time in booking a taxi to Seaview at a cost of £60. I'd rather that than potentially miss the game though. The taxi driver was good to chat to, being a Polish football fan and we discussed the World Cup in great detail. Having arrived at the ground in real good tim...