Page 7 - Deal Round Up August 2021

So, that’s three good examples of the ‘Groundhopper’. When my club were playing at Ripple
Vale School a few seasons ago, four different hoppers turned up for one match on a Saturday.
One came from Peterborough another from London (neither knew each other), the third from
Croydon met the fourth (from Folkestone) and they did know each other and had planned the
visit. All four called into the Plough, watering holes being an important part of the hoppers
itinerary. Fortunately I had enough programmes because normally we would not expect too
many spectators.
I well remember, over fifteen years ago when I was involved with Deal Town FC, I took a
phone call on a Friday afternoon from a groundhopper planning to attend the match on the
Saturday. He wanted to make sure the match was on because he was travelling down from
Nottingham! I told him to come in through the St Leonard’s Road end, as I was operating the
turnstile at that end, and I would make sure there was a drink for him at the bar. When he
arrived with the usual camera and notebook, I asked him where he was staying in Deal but
to my surprise he said he was travelling back to Nottingham after the game! I wondered how
many football grounds he had passed on his way down? I asked him why he chose Deal’s
game and he said that he had already visited all the Football League grounds, had visited
many other clubs in the minor leagues and was now focusing on the Kent League (now the
Southern Counties East League). I wonder if he managed it?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Groundhopping is a hobby that involves attending matches at as many different stadiums or
grounds as possible. Participants are known as groundhoppers, hoppers or travellers. Largely
a football-related pastime, groundhopping probably found its origin in football in the 1970s in
England. From the late 1980s fans in Germany started groundhopping as well. Currently it is
especially popular in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Norway.
There is no universal set of rules for counting ‘hopped grounds’, although a generally accepted
one is that a match must have been seen at the ground.
There are some formal organisations for groundhoppers, including The 92 Club in England,
which consists of groundhoppers who have visited matches in all stadiums of the Premier and
Football League. With this there are also (mostly) charity based races to see who can go round
the 92 Football League Stadia in the shortest amount of time, initially being called 92 Grounds
in 92 Hours, the current record is 72 hours, set by four fans of Swindon Town in 2015.

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from top to bottom and is the recognised authority on non-league football.
Established since 2000 as the pre-eminent publication dealing with the na-
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