Normally the local groundhop is one of the high points of the season for us but due to the second day of it clashing with the Imps last game of the season, sadly it meant we were unable to do the four games on the Saturday. In recent years the hop has covered CML league sides but as most of the sides have now been visited it has moved on to the Nottingham Senior league (NLS) And first up was a trip to leafy West Bridgford to watch Magdala take on Bilborough Town.
As Felice's passion wagon is knackered again, Lee made a rare appearance at football and drove. Baz was unable to make it as he was psyching himself up for the Imps showdown with Hyde. Yet again Felice's phantom sat-nav failed to appear, so yet again it was down to myself to save the day and get us to the ground. Honestly this whole operation would fall to bits without me. Sometimes I feel like the shepherd guiding his flock of sheep to the promise land. There were a couple of moments when we thought we could be lost, but we made it to the ground ten minutes before kick off (or so we thought) passing the Nottingham Forest training academy on the way. When we rocked up at the car park however we found that the game had already kicked off and we had missed the first five minutes, which is no huge deal to us. But I can imagine plenty of hard core hoppers being irate about this and furiously writing about it in their little books. Books eh? I mean who brings a book to write in to football I ask you?
Entrance to this heavyweight footballing clash was a mere £3, the ground can be described in a single word; basic. There is a pitch which is surrounded by a metal railing and that is it. Next to it is the rather upmarket looking ROKO Health Centre and that's your lot. But seeing how the weather was rather nice that is all we needed.
I believe that most clubs in this League don't issue programmes for every game, but all clubs on the hop had to. Magdala had a club stall selling tonight's programme along with club shirts. Unfortunately though, they had sold out of badges so I was unable to get either myself one or one of the old boys at work who had asked me to get him one.
Events like this do attract lots of football memorabilia sellers, which was music to Lee's ears as there were football programme stalls aplenty. I myself stopped buying
For my part I managed to pick up a couple of badges from Terry's Badge stall that I needed. A Maltby Main one and a rare Nottinghamshire Police FA badge. We saw Notts' Police play one of their last few games on last years hop so its nice to be able to pick up one of their badges for a mere £3.
The match was decent enough for the level that is at and a good crowd of over 240 were in attendance; which is high considering that this kind of game normally gets a crowd of about 20 or so. It was very pleasing to see a decent number of non league WAGs in the crowd which is always a plus. I must admit that i didn't watch all the game like a hawk as i normally do, as Josh had brought his football so we had a little bit of a kick about on the pitch next to the one that the game was on. As we showed off our silky skills a few things became apparent.
1) My silky skills remain intact.
2) Josh has definitely got his uncles football skills and not his dads.
3) Lee has the goal keeping skills of a haddock (MEGGED!!!!!!)
4) Felice in stature is very similar to Diego Maradona in the late 90's.
For the record Magdala won the game 2-1. This may not have been the most serious or detailed blog or i have written, but like the game itself, it was a bit of fun really with two big games for me on Saturday and Sunday i wanted to have a bit of fun with this. I just need to do a couple of shout outs before i go.
Firstly Rob Hornby is the mastermind behind these hops and once again he has done a fantastic job. Events like this take a lot of planning and i know he has been working on this for over a year. It was nice to grab a quick word with him at the game and i am sure the rest of the hop will be a huge success. Magdala only had 6 weeks notice due to Attenborough having to pull out due to work on their ground running behind schedule but they proved to be excellent hosts.
Lastly to Mr Delcolle for getting us lost on they way back. He claimed his knew a short cut but alas it seemed a longer journey on the way back to the one going. However on the plus side we did end up at MacDonald's in Newark so it wasn't a total disaster.
Ok that's enough from me. I have a football match in Hyde to get ready for. Over and out chaps.
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