Barnet v Solihull Moors
It’s difficult to tell from watching them play football, but Barnet are a club who have moved up in the world. The last time I saw them, back in 2009, they were still playing their matches at Underhill. That was a ‘proper’ ground, which is football luddite-speak for anywhere in desperate need of an upgrade. Fast-forward ten years to 2019, and their base is The … Continue reading Barnet v Solihull Moors
Beckenham Town v Punjab United
Beckenham Town’s home ground puts the “Eden” into “Eden Park Avenue”. Well, that’s maybe going a bit far. There are no snakes, or apples, or naked people here (thankfully), but I suppose what I’m trying to say is that it’s a pretty nice place to watch football. On a warm opening day of the season like this one, it seems tailor-made for sitting outside, drinking … Continue reading Beckenham Town v Punjab United
Old Man in a Football Top
I’m not one of those fashion guys. I’ve never been stylish. When I’m out and about, I do my best to look presentable, and I wear stuff that I like to think looks alright, but that’s pretty much as far as it goes for me. The second I get home, I fling on a knackered pair of Sports Direct trackie bottoms and I’m basically in … Continue reading Old Man in a Football Top
AFC Ajax v VVV-Venlo
As a football fan, there’s a certain romanticism to Ajax that’s hard to resist. To think of Ajax is to think of Johan Cruyff, Marco van Basten, total football, and of course that iconic kit. Ooh, the kit. Sure, it’s lost the striking simplicity it had in the ‘60s and ‘70s, but even in cynical old sponsor-laden 2019, it remains incredibly easy on the eye. … Continue reading AFC Ajax v VVV-Venlo
ASV De Dijk v DVS ’33 Ermelo
To the untrained eye (of which I can boast two), the world of Dutch football can feel like a confusing and impenetrable place. A place of bafflingly long team names made up of seemingly random bundles of letters and numbers. A place where a large, metropolitan and multicultural city like Amsterdam can often feel like it has only one team. The top end of Dutch … Continue reading ASV De Dijk v DVS ’33 Ermelo
Dulwich Hamlet v Slough Town
Champion Hill is a cracking place to watch football, if you know what you’re doing. Over the last ten years, average attendances here have soared from under 200 to well over 2,000, and occasionally even bypass the 3,000 mark. Given that the entire stadium doesn’t hold much more than that, the swelling crowds can often make matches feel like a real squeeze, but in the … Continue reading Dulwich Hamlet v Slough Town
Two Days in York
In York, crumbling city walls encircle narrow, dimly-lit streets where the businesses revel in nostalgic names plucked from a forgotten past, such as Ye Olde Pie and Sausage Shoppe, Ye Old Shambles Tavern, and HMV. Ask any Brit if they’ve been to York, and the chances are they have, when they were a kid. Given how jam-packed it is with museums, it’s easy to see … Continue reading Two Days in York
Croydon v Lewisham Borough
One of the pleasures of non-league groundhopping is arriving early and having a wander round to take in the whole ground. You could easily fill an entire Instagram account with the unexpected junk so often spotted lying around the seemingly never-visited corners of some. At Beckenham Town, I spotted a cheerily-decomposing fox corpse that had clearly been there for months, if not years. Here, they … Continue reading Croydon v Lewisham Borough
Seven Days in Freiburg
I guarantee you this: you will never see a more charming drainage system than that of Freiburg. In this leafy university city, each little street comes fully equipped with its own tiny waterway, irresistible to toddlers and doggos alike. And, on a hot day (of which there are many), adults too find the lure of shedding shoes and going for a quick paddle simply too … Continue reading Seven Days in Freiburg
Playing by Mail
In the mid ’90s, when I was around 14 or so, I developed an obsession with a play-by-mail game called ‘Pure Fantasy Football’. Each week, you had to fill in a form to pick your team, and send it off in the post. The actual post. With stamps, and paper, and envelopes and that. The way it worked was, you sent in your managerial selections, … Continue reading Playing by Mail
