Groundhopping24

Contrary to the David Brent reference in the title, I haven’t actually been to Winnersh. But I have been to Didcot. Not to brag or anything, but my short trip to the Oxfordshire town yesterday marked the start of my 2023-24 season. I expect the season to take in some football from a variety of nations - from my first foray into French football, to some Polish, Czech and Slovak football, as well as whatever else crops up on my radar.  Didcot didn’t exactly offer the most glamorous of starts, but it got me thinking about each opening fixture of the last ten years - how do they all rank alongside one another? Admittedly it’s a Stevenage-centric list, with only three of these games not involving a Stevenage side of some kind, but it’s always fun to take a look back at my groundhopping career to date. They say pre-season is meaningless, and in many ways it is, but it marks the return of football to at least some degree. Without further ado, here are my opening days of the last decade ra...

With the first quarter of the year behind us, I decided to bring in the month of April with yet another trip to Prague. Previous readers of some of my other blogs may recall some unfortunate encounters from previous trips to the capital (check out the Slavia blog for more on that), but this trip would thankfully be less problematic.   It was to be a solo trip in this instance too, which gave me a bit of time to have a walk around some parts of Prague I’d been yet to see. Namely Letna, which was a lovely spot to just sit and read for an hour as I bided my time before kick-off. On arrival, I’d chosen to walk from the station to Sparta’s ground, gradually taking various spots in along the way.                I made the initial mistake of choosing an Italian restaurant which was an obvious tourist trap, but it filled the necessary hole. I took in all the usual sights, not venturing too far off-the-beaten track on leaving the Italian pla...

We’ve already had three Slovakia related football blogs in a row, and now here’s a fourth in the form of MFK Skalica, though they are situated right on the Czech border. It was almost walking distance from Hodonín as we discovered on a particularly mild Saturday, but more of that later.   We’d chosen a slightly later train to get us to our first stop of Hodonín under the assumption that there would be a bus from there to get us to the ground in time for kick off. Oh no. That would have been far too convenient.   On arrival to this charming border town, we’d discovered the next bus to Skalica would arrive well after kick off time. Plus we had to walk to the ground. We could have taken a taxi which would have been reasonable and wouldn’t break the bank too much, but we decided on a much more unconventional route to Skalica.   Given that I’ve mentioned the walking distance, you can probably tell where this is going, but yes we walked there. In actual fact, we wal...

  The final instalment of my long weekend in Vienna and Bratislava sees the trip culminate in a visit to one of Slovakia’s biggest sides in Slovan Bratislava. Having witnessed a decent 2-2 draw between 2 nd tier Petržalka and Tatran Prešov earlier in the day, Slovan’s home game against MŠK Žilina had a lot to live up to.   I’d purchased my tickets during a brief wander of the city at the reasonable price of around 8 Euros, though during that particular wander, I’d discovered that Bratislava perhaps wasn’t as enjoyable as it had been during my first visit last year. Perhaps it’s about where you are in the city, or the fact it was a Sunday, but there didn’t seem to be a lot to do or see where I’d been.   Granted it can’t have helped that it was a solo trip, or that I had little money to spare at this point, but I’d expected slightly more from my trip to the Slovak capital this time. There’s no denying the city’s modern veneer, but beneath that it seems to only be s...

Having already visited First Vienna and Spartka Trnava, there would still be two other games to attend on the Sunday, which I’d be spending in Bratislava. The second part of the day would involve Slovan Bratislava, but first a trip to the southern part of the city to watch FC Petržalka – formerly Artmedia Bratislava, but more on that later.   I’d been staying in a flat somewhere in a place called Toryska (booo!), which was only around half an hour via bus – buying a 24 hour ticket is fairly straightforward via the IDS BK app, and only around three euros. The bus would cross the Danube toward the southern part of Bratislava - not the most scenic or picturesque, but pleasant enough.   I arrived with around 45 minutes to spare, though given it was a Sunday morning, there was very little else to do other than sit on a bench near the stadium and continue making my way through the excellent Calcio by John Foot – a superb history of the Italian game up to 2007 which I'd high...

The 18 th instalment in this series sees the first Slovak league game, rather unbelievably given my newfound proximity to the western part of Slovakia at least, not to mention the Sopranos-referencing name of this blog series including Slovakia.   This weekend, however, would see a first in that regard, though not a first Slovak ground – Žilina’s ground holds that honour from March last year, as I watched Slovakia’s Under 21s beat Northern Ireland’s Under 21s 2-1. Things would, however, be a lot more complicated than I would have liked or anticipated en route to Trnava.   I’d left Vienna around 9am, hoping to get to Trnava fairly early in order to explore the town and see what it had to offer. Unfortunately, the wind had some alternative ideas, meaning the train had to return to Vienna having only made it to the outskirts of the city – I’m not 100% but it was probably a tree on the track somewhere.   Attempt two would happen an hour later, and would arrive i...

With a week off in which to spend more time travelling, it provided the perfect opportunity to attempt a four-game, two-country weekend (technically three if you include travelling to and from Brno). This weekend would see a Friday night in Vienna, a Saturday afternoon in Trnava, and a double header in Bratislava on Sunday. More on the latter three games in future blogs though. First, Vienna…   Having finished work around 10:30, I packed my few belongings and headed to Benesova to catch the 2pm bus down to Vienna. The plan was to take in a game in Budapest on Monday too, but funds were regrettably lacking in the days prior to payday.   I was reminded again just how vast the city was, especially in comparison to Brno. I took the tram to my hotel, which was essentially a hostel with a boarded up bed (advertised as a ‘pod’), which also had a few bugs on the floor. It served a purpose though…   Kick off wasn’t until 8:30 for whatever reason, which gave me plenty o...