Groundhop Day
A guide to Groundhopping
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When I was in Australia recently, one of my friends commented that she was getting to see the ‘behind the scenes’ of Stadium Obsessive. It wasn’t something I’d really thought of - where a lot of content creators are shooting for their TikTok with a real plan in mind, talking to their phone screens and concentrating on nobody but themselves, I kind of do the opposite.
Most of the photos I take are quickly snapped as I’m walking from tube to stadium, ticket gate to seat, seat to toilet, and so on. I try to be a little artsy fartsy about it, but most of the photos I take are for my own memories and they sit in my camera roll amongst an ever growing library until I get to posting about the stadium at some point.
I’ve talked about why I like the stadiums, but haven’t gone into what it means or, indeed, what it takes to be a Groundhopper.
Choosing a ground
There are plenty of ways to skin a cat, and plenty of ways to choose a football game to go to (the majority of which don’t involve any feline violence - unless of course, Kurt Zouma is involved). Out of 153 stadiums that I’ve visited to date, I could tell you the reason why I went to each and every one of them - that’s kind of the point of this Substack.
They range from being on my bucket list from the moment I started to love the beautiful game, right through to … it was the closest one to my residence.
I’ve planned for months to visit World Cups and planned for 5 minutes to visit local games. I’ve booked flights because I was able to get tickets to a hard-to-reach fixture, and I’ve discovered games when I just happened to be visiting a city.
If you follow a team, you’ve probably been to their ground more than any other and if you go to away games, you might have been to some pretty grim places more than you care to admit.
Some of the more curious reasons I’ve been to grounds before are:
St Albans City: the Chicken George food truck
Milton Keynes: There’s a hotel in their stadium so you can wake up to a stadium view
Rochester United: I liked the look of the Rochester Castle that I saw whilst on the way to Gillingham v Porsmouth
Bonnyrigg, Sydney United and Bankstown City and the entire city of Zagreb: Cevapi
Giuseppe Meazza (the San Siro): because it’s getting knocked down
Padstow Park: a non-descript park in western Sydney for an Australian 4th tier match, but I needed one more game to make the Women’s World Cup Final my 300th
From tickets to the tick*
Most teams sell their tickets online and it’s easy enough to get them, outside the most popular clubs in the world. If you’re going to another country, Google Translate will do most of the work for you, but you might encounter something dumb like the payment system not accepting foreign credit cards (you being the foreigner, in this case), or needing to have a local ID to complete your purchase.
If you find yourself red-faced and throwing your phone across the room because you can’t just FUCKING BUY A FUCKING BIGLIETTI THROUGH THIS FUCKING WEBSITE BECAUSE FUCKING ITALY IS WEIRD LIKE THAT then don’t worry… I’ve been there too. I’ve navigated Chinese language apps with a Hong Kong e-sim, had locals buy my tickets, asked around on the day at the pub, and got tickets through fan groups.
How did I know to do all this? Reddit, probably. Most popular clubs around the world will have a subreddit, and a quick search for ‘tickets’ will have a dozen other foreigners with the exact same issue as you, and a handful of helpful (and some not so helpful) locals pointing you in the right direction. They’ll let you know the process, when the tickets will likely go on sale, how likely the game will be to sell out, where to drink with the fans beforehand, and how not to get beaten up by ultras.
The only time I’ve ever been unable to find any way to get a ticket was the day that Como FC got promoted to Serie A - there wasn’t a chance in hell of getting into that game, and the locals told me as such. I made it in for the celebrations afterwards though.
*A ‘tick’ is the name that groundhoppers give to ticking off a stadium. There are rules to the tick, and even people that name and shame cheaters - hence, Como FC is not one of mine - but how seriously you take the rules is obviously up to you.
Matchday routine
My groundhopping routine starts before I’ve bought the ticket. Whether the game is in 2 months or 2 hours, I research, research, research.
This isn’t to say that you must do research before a game - I’m just a Google Maps fanatic. I like knowing the way to get to the game, and an alternative route if the first one doesn’t work, and what food, drinks, coffee and local attractions are nearby. I also like to make sure I haven’t bought a seat with a dog-shit view or somewhere I’m going to get drenched if there’s a down pour during the game.
Once I get past all that, I’m ready for match day.
Let’s imagine a 3pm kickoff in England - the traditional football hour. And let’s imagine I’m somewhere I had never been and am never likely to go again.
Peterborough, for example.
A city about 120km north of London, so about an hour on the train from Kings Cross. I’d been through Peterborough a thousand times on my way to my old work’s head office, so I knew you could see the stadium from the train station - always noting that it would be an easy ground to walk to.
So, typically I’d aim to get to the city centre about 2-3 hours before I need to head to the game.
Whether a place is known to be ‘nice’ or ‘a fucking shithole’ (there’s no in between in England), I like to try and find something beautiful about it. In Peterborough’s case, I had my coffee and took a stroll around the giant Cathedral and surrounding grounds where Katharine of Aragon (divorced) is entombed.
The actual city centre isn’t particularly memorable to me, but I had scoped out some good eating spots and found myself at Gold Shish Meze Bar & Grill.
A kebab shop? For lunch?
Sure - it’s 2am somewhere.
Not expecting much other than a fully belly and if I was unlucky, a mild case of tap arse, I ended up having one of the best kebabs of - not Peterborough, not the UK, but of my life.
Fresh, fluffy Turkish bread with big chunks of well seasoned meat and brightly coloured salad, with plenty of sauce but no drips.
They aren’t paying me, I was just very impressed.
It’s after that, that my routine becomes more standardised.
I give myself time to head to the ground and get there about an hour before kickoff. I take photos of the fans (as long as they aren’t ultras), local establishments and landmarks.
Once at the ground, I take as many snaps as I can of the outside of the stadium, including the clubs logo wherever it’s positioned and a statue or two. I head to the club shop to get a fridge magnet, or a keyring and stick some magnets on the back of it when I get home.
My ticket always works because I don’t use touts, so I head inside and sample the food and beer, if I’m not full of delicious kebab.
It’s usually sometime around here that I check in to Futbology. It’s a clever app that knows where you are, so it offers to check you in as long as you have reception (and the new Stadium Mode means it works with far less service than it used to need).
I find my seat and, preferably before kick off, take a pano shot on my phone of the ground, and maybe a few of the stadium features.
The game happens and I take terrible photos of the match where none of the players are recognisable, and if I’ve got time afterwards, I stick around after the game so I can get shots of the empty seats and whatever message is emblazoned through the stand.
After that, it’s home time and the end of another lovely Saturday - the kind that I could only dream of back in 2016, when I visited my first match on English soil as a tourist.
I didn’t mention - but I do all this myself. So if you’ve ever wanted to go to a game (or a gig, or social gathering, or networking event, or whatever) but haven’t got anyone to go with - just fucking do it. It’s brilliant.
It doesn’t always go to plan…
At lower league games, you can just walk straight up to the gate and practically let yourself in - the biggest worry is whether the game is on or not. Frozen and unplayable pitches are a nightmare, particularly if you’ve travelled.
A few years ago, I caught the train to Crewe for Crewe v Pompey. Crewe is one of those places where people change trains, and it’s an absolute melting pot on a Saturday afternoon of football fans, hen’s and stag parties, people dressed all fancy to go to the races or the theatre or something, and other regular train users wondering what the hell is going on.
Crewe is about 2 hours north of London and trains in the UK are traditionally very fucking expensive. Crewe Alexandria are the local team and their stadium is pretty close to the train station - so again, a nice little away day to tick off while watching Pompey away.
Or, as the God’s and the referee’s would have it - a complete and utter waste of time and money. It wasn’t just me, but a couple of thousand Pompey fans had travelled up north only to have the game called off about an hour before kickoff. The ball was rolling on the pitch, but the pitch looked like mud.
Making the best of a bad situation, I headed into the town centre. Crewe isn’t exactly known for it’s tourism, but my map pointed me in the direction of an establishment called the Crewe Dog - a craft beer bar located inside a new market hall. It was a great place to keep dry, have some tasty hazys, and make the most of my day out for no other reason than to ride a train and get a little bit pissed.
Which, let’s face it - apart from the football - that’s how we groundhoppers spend our Saturdays.
