ASIB on the WEB

You may not have noticed – indeed, if you were with the Third Team, you wouldn’t even have been there – but amidst all the excitement of the 1^st team’s home draw with the League Leaders on Saturday, 7^th March, as well as the County Junior Cup Semi Final between the Reserves and Frampton United, there were some footballing aficionados that no one would have recognised. In actual fact, the attendance at Cheltenham Road was “swelled” to well in excess of double figures by a collection of individuals who had travelled many a mile just to be able to say that they were there.

These days, “Ground Hopping” is a well established pastime and commands the attention of numerous dedicated web sites as well as magazines that concentrate not only on the fixtures that might interest its followers in the future but, also, reviews of matches and grounds that have been visited in the past. The holy grail for the “Non-League Traveller”, as it is believed that they prefer to be collectively known, is that the games to which they devote their Saturday afternoons must benefit from the production of a programme, which is what made our tiny corner of a village at the top end of Cheltenham so attractive on the first weekend of March. If there is a Cup Semi Final to be played, then Star FC tends to do a programme and when the club was playing two such matches on the same day, it was a dead cert, so the occasion attracted “travellers” from as far afield as Stockport like an open honey pot attracts bees!!!

Now, with the club looking likely to carry on producing a 12 page programme, for match days on which the first team are playing, at least until the end of this season, but possibly beyond, the presence of Ground Hoppers might become something of a regular occurrence at Cheltenham Road. So even though it might seem, to the uninitiated, like a pursuit that would only be entered into by those who own an enviable collection of anoraks it has to be said that, for the particular type of person who prefers to see a wide range of football in an abundance of locations, never ending up in the same place twice and not being entirely sure who you are going to meet as you learn something different each week about the place you visit and the way that another football club is run, it is a way of life. It might be easy to dismiss it all as a bit sad and to suggest that these people ought to get out more, but the fact is that they do – and, for good measure, they contributed £20 to our club funds with the number of programmes they bought when they turned up at our ground!!!!!!

Now, for something that really does seem a bit sad and that actually does appear to be populated by people who seriously need their horizons widened – and quick – follow the link below!