I came into this game with a little inside knowledge. I knew just how fortunate we’d been that the Sauchie Juniors but I also knew from Craig Dabbs just how nervous Whitburn were over the state of their pitch. He’d been there on Friday morning to collect their programmes for advance ticket holders, saw how hard they were working in their pitch, and clearly built up an excellent working relationship with Ann Haddow the club secretary. Now no organiser likes to see a postponement, but that relationship meant we all felt that little bit extra pressure.
We left the Perth area with mixed feelings. On one hand we’d visited 3lovelyclubs and taken advantage of the weather holding while we were visiting grounds with little or no cover, on the other the rain was hammering down putting the evening’s game at Sauchie in doubt, and by extension at Whitburn on Sunday morning.
We stayed in Perth for the third game of the day, and arguably the club I was anticipating visiting the most. The reason for that was pretty arcane, I’d been very taken by them being willing to help the event back in 2019 by playing on a Saturday evening at Linlithgow Rose. It felt like a major undertalking on their part; I was and am grateful, and their fans did add a new beverage to the groundhop lexicon, namely “Dragon Soop!”
Like some others I’d heard the so-called experts’ opinion on Kinnoull and their home Tulloch Park. If some were to be believed we’d be visiting a dull ground, and a club on their knees. While it was true that at kick-off Kinnoull had just 4 points all season, there had to more to it than witnessing a club having a poor season?
There are so many reasons to love the Scottish Hop. For me though there’s far more to it than just the chance to visit new places and to put more ticks in my imaginary black book. One of the great joys is the time I get to spend with Davie Baxter, secretary of the league. It’s got to a point where I arm myself with a couple of hopefully erudite questions to ask him. And this year the question was one of boundaries.
Goin’ to a show Stop in all the byways Playin’ rock ‘n’ roll…
I tell you, folks It’s harder than it looks
Bon Scott 1975
The coach had already been on the road for over 4 hours before it reached Robyn and I in Lewknor. From Cardiff to Perth via London isn’t most folks’ idea of normal, but I don’t think there’s too many folks who think us hoppers are entirely sane…
I felt under certain amount of pressure for this hop. Part of it was the loss of the two Blackpool games on the North West Counties Hop, we really didn’t want to lose a game on each of the last three hops. But much more than that, was where were heading.
Perth represented as far north as GroundhopUK have ever been, so getting the 3 Perth-area games on was important, how on earth would we ever be able to fit in a return to a single club? The elephant in the room was and always will be the Highland League. We know how much the hoppers would love to head there, but we know how set against the idea that league is. I can still hear the comment,
“You’d only attract the same amount (25) you get on the Swedish Hop”
That hurt, I help organise that hop too, so the need to do well when we’d have games right on the border of the league wasn’t lost on me, even if I’m completely comfortable with the idea that we’ll never see an organised hop in their league. Never has the River Tay, nominally the border between the Highland and Lowland League seemed quite so stark!
That was with the background of the weather continuing to be dreadful, so the opening game being on 3G did offer a sense of respite! I must admit my only other visit to the West Lothian town of Armadale was for speedway, for now the Edinburgh Monarchs are based at Armadale Stadium. We passed by there, but in sporting terms football should be seen as the more important sport, Armadale FC played Scottish League football at Volunteer Park from 1921 to 1932.
The Volley shows no end of signs of that history even if the playing surface is modern. The ground started life in 1880 as the training ground of the C Company Volunteer Battalion Royal Scots making the ground one of the oldest in Scotland. A year later Armadale Star FC were granted use of the park provided they joined the Volunteers. They did and changed their name to Armadale Volunteers FC. The ground became the home of Armadale FC in September 1889.
Armadale FC were bankrupted in 1932 over a £50 debt to Raith Rovers and the remnants of the club became Armadale Thistle who joined the Junior ranks, and took on Volunteer Park. The club became mainstays of both the East Region Juniors, and Junior football in general. In 2021 the club were one of the last clubs in the East Region to make the switch to the Senior ranks, which explains why they’re in the comparatively lowly Division 2. They had one season in the East of Scotland’s Conference X (extra) then finished runners up in last season’s Division 3.
This game saw Thistle in second place take on Ormiston who we’d visited on the 2017 hop. Now with the Primrose suffix happily reinstated, they were second from bottom but gave their hosts a real fright before two late goals saw the tie go the way of the form book.
Elsewhere the club sold a quite bewildering array of pies, including the one they claim to have invented- the doner kebab pie. While I’ll always hanker after something other than pastry, I do recognise its part of Scottish football culture so I took my place in the queue for the pie hut. Rude not to really….
Photo by Robyn ReadePhoto by Robyn ReadePhoto by Robyn Reade
These days I’m not used to being able to visit a new ground under lights on a work night and be able to drive there in less than an hour from Oxford. So how come Leggatt’s Playing Field sailed under my, and other groundhoppers’ radars?
I’m sure my regular reader is aware of how my version of groundhoppers’ O.C.D. shows itself, I tend to make a beeline for clubs I regularly see on road signs. Well, that must go double for a motorway service station mustn’t it? Clearly, I’m not the only one who’s thought that, as virtually the first thing I saw as I walked into Mossie Park was a banner with the legend,” Charnock Richard, more than a service station!”
Quite right, and I hope the hop visit helped in that way. Certainly the club’s hosting helped!
Sunday dawned in Blackpool and I had two reasons to marvel. The first was the Savoy Hotel’s ability to shift legions of the various coach parties staying there through a buffet breakfast, whilst maintaining the piles of bacon, sausages and so on. The second was relevant only to the GroundhopUK party- we still had two matches to watch.
Football: Wherever it may be 