Going Up? A milestone or a lead balloon?

When it comes to groundhopping and keeping count of all the grounds you've watched a game at, there inevitably come milestones. This weekend's game of choice marks ground number 300 for me, which seems fairly insane to say the least. That said, when it's a weekly hobby for the best part of two decades in various home cities over the years, it's not as difficult as it might seem.

But when reaching those milestones, you spend so long pondering - should I make it a special one? Should I finally try and tick off Cork City, club of my grandad's hometown? Would I have enough time and money to head to Berlin and tick off Hertha? And while I was quite annoyed that I couldn't make Lokomotiv Plovdiv the 300th ground, it led me to think - why does it matter? 

In many ways, it doesn't. After all, the hobby of groundhopping for me was essentially an extension of following Stevenage home and away, and moving from Stevenage and essentially being unable to do so on a weekly basis from Glasgow, and now Brno. These days, it tends to just be a fixture or two over the festive period, maybe one in the summer. 

This got me thinking, perhaps the milestones matter more if you don't make specific plans around them. After all, ground 100 by chancce happened to be Carrow Road for a 3-1 Carabao Cup defeat to Norwich in 2018. Four years on, I was watching Leeds v Cagliari in a friendly at Elland Road, which marked the 200 milestone - it finished 6-2, so that could have certainly been worse, though I did miss some goals to catch a train...

Now for 300, things seem to have fallen into place in ways that I feel have come to define my groundhopping experience, especially in recent years. I'd planned to do Boskvice-Letovice for a while, given that a friend of mine was local and occasionally went to games. It was lucky that I'd double checked Futbology to see that this would be one of the few occasions in the season the team would play in Letovice rather than Boskovice, as they hosted Brno based side, Bosonohy.

So it was a visit to a Czech fifth tier side's second ground, underneath a castle on one side, and beneath some forest on the other, on a public holiday Friday evening no less. It was all feeling incredibly on brand.

A blog full of hot air

I set off from Zidenice station at around 3pm, with trains seemingly more limited given the public holiday. It would get me into Letovice an hour before kick-off, but it was the last one that would allow me to get to the ground before kick-off. I used the journey to do some more reading - currently Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men - and arrived in good time.

In many ways, it's lucky I arrived when I did given the confusing goose chase Google Maps sent me on to begin my journey to the ground. After a couple of dead ends and a dual carriageway that couldn't really be walked alongside, I headed back toward the station and instead skirted around the edge of the village along the river. It was a gorgeous walk, particularly in such lovely weather - tranquil and a far cry from the noise of the city.

I got to the ground, paid 60kc for entry and a programme and took in the gorgeous surroundings - as mentioned, forests, a castle, and the occasional train roaring past on its way to either Prague or Brno. I always enjoyed visiting grounds in which birdsong is just as audible as the chatter of the crowd. In fairness to that crowd, it was fairly sizable, which given Boskovice-Letovice's title ambitions, made a lot of sense.

Going into the day's game, Boskovice-Letovice were three points off Krumvir at the top, though Krumvir had played a game fewer - two games fewer by the end of the evening. Boskovice-Letovice have been in incredible form, though rather frustratingly for them, their only two defeats in twelve were to fellow promotion hopefuls Krumvir (0-1) and Dosta Bystrc (1-0). That being said, they did beat the latter 4-0 a couple of weeks back at least...

The game was a fairly routine 2-0 success, with goals either side of the excellent half-time klobasa, coming from the brilliantly named Jan Minx and captain Jiri Fadrny, who'd seemingly injured himself bundling the ball home. Thankfully he was okay, and the rest of the game passed by without too much really happening.

I must confess, for maybe the last ten or fifteen minutes, I wasn't really paying attention to matters on the pitch, given that a hot air balloon was being inflated and flown just behind the goal. Frankly I'd never seen a balloon take-off before, so it was an oddly special moment for me on a personal level. I'm not one to believe in pre-destiny, fate, or whatever, but it felt like somehow for ground number 300, I was supposed to be here.

I headed back down that gorgeous route to the station - it being almost summer, it was still light until I got back to Brno. Annoyingly I had to wait almost an hour for my train back, but in such a picturesque and tranquil place, and in glorious weather, you'd happily wait all evening. 

With four games left, Boskovice-Letovice were hoping for favours from Cezava who hosted Krumvir, and Banik Ratiskovice who hosted Dosta Bystrc, but for now they could enjoy their moment in the sun at the top of the pile. Sadly for them, Krumvir went back into the driving seat with a 5-2 win, and Bystrc also won 5-3.

Five things you didn't know about Boskovice-Letovice (mainly Letovice this time...I'll cover Boskovice when I catch a Boskovice-Letovice game there I promise...)

1.)  Boskovice were originally formed in 1921, with many teams in the town existing prior to the formation of the current club. There was Makabi Boskovice, Red Star Boskovice, as well as SK Boskovice who are today's iteration. All Boskovice clubs merged in 1926 to become Velen Boskovice,  with the club adopting names like Spartak Boskovice and Minerva Boskovice throughout their history.

2.) The club merged with AFK Letovice in 2023 to become Boskovice-Letovice, which is why the games are occasionally played in Letovice. Their highest ever finish as either Boskovice or Boskovice-Letovice was 2007, when they finished 12th in Divize D (the South Moravian regional fourth tier).

3.) Letovice may be small, but isn't lacking in history, with Moravia's largest linen factory founded in Letovice back in 1754. The industry is still going today, with the Tylex plant one of the first things you see on leaving the Letiovice Zastavka station.

4.)  The village is most famous for its castle, the neo-Gothic Zamek Letovice. The castle dates back to an original wooden fortress built in 1208 and still stands today  through various wars, battles, and reconstructions.

5.) Perhaps one of the most fascinating figures from Letovice was Jan Barta Letovsky, editor of the first Czech language newspaper in the USA back in 1861, Slowan Amerikansky.