Here’s hopping

The Northern League staged the nation’s first ground hoppers’ weekend over Easter 1992, an event caricatured by a logo of a fat bloke – Harry Hopper – wearing an anorak, shovelling a pie and toting a rucksack.

More enigmatically, he carried a copy of The Independent.

They lasted for five years, 43 grounds and about five million pies. Others then so successfully ran with the idea – hopped with it, anyway –- that now there are several, commercially organised, each season.

To help mark its 125th anniversary, the Northern League will again be hopping mad next season. To discover what’s changed, and in the company of Peter Sixsmith, who conceived the idea before abandoning it in a cardboard box on my doorstep, we spent Good Friday at the Northern Counties East League hop – four games in south and west Yorkshire.

The lenses are longer, the shadows shorter. The hats are sillier, the appetites similar, the beards feared. Most travellers carry little notebooks in which are recorded not just score and scorers, substitutes and substituted but the brand of tea hut sauce and the referee’s mother’s maiden name (on the assumption, of course, that she ever married in the first place.) It had begun on the Thursday evening, a late change of plan taking them across the Pennines to Atherton Colliery because the Emley pitch was snowbound.

Estimates varied: some said three inches, others six. Some had it over the top of the telly mast.

• 11am Glasshoughton Welfare v Nostell Miners Welfare: The crowd’s usually about 70. Today it’s 307. There are no concessions, here or anywhere else, apparently because ground hoppers lie about their age. Most look about 95, anyway.

After five minutes there’s unexpected drama. Chasing a ball that’s gone out of play, a hopper goes A over T and lies motionless.

After attention he hobbles, if not hops, back to his place.

Stalls sell badges, books and old programmes. A raggy-bearded chap recognises me from the North League hops and asks if I can remember the gate at Chesterle- Street v Durham City in 1994.

“Oddly enough, no,” I reply.

• 1.45pm Pontefract Collieries v Selby Town. The pits may be exhausted but in Ponte Carlo the language remains vigorously industrial. It’s getting no warmer – “thin”, says the NCEL chairman – though the clubhouse is warm, welcoming and offers real ale.

“If you’ve tried the beer at Glasshoughton, you’ll need a decent drink,” says the programme. The crowd’s 424, a record for NCEL hops.

There are views of Ferrybridge Power Station and, out the back, a railway line. Were there to be a steam engine, and not the slow train to Pontefract Tanshelf, their joy would be complete.

• 4.30pm Hemsworth Miners Welfare v Knaresbrough Town.

This is Fitzwilliam, birthplace of Sir Geoffrey, though there appears not to be a statue. Carter’s Traditional Fish and Chip Shop enjoys a Good Friday bonus and offers “traditional battered desserts”, too. Deep-fried Snickers, 80p.

In one corner of the ground, a huge flag proclaims that Poey is innocent. Poey’s a Leeds United fan, apparently accused of throwing a 50p piece at someone from Leicester City.

“Rart stitch up, Poey would never throw 50p at anyone,” says a fellow Tyke. “20p, maybe...”

Knaresborough briefly threaten a cricket score, as Sir Geoffrey might have done, but stick at 4-0.

• 7.45pm Athersley Rec v Askern Villa. Top v bottom, the best till last, the only ground in history with a drinks trolley.

Behind the near goal there’s a sort of Hut City, a wonderful place where the clubhouse has more sofas than DFS. There’s bottled Barnsley Bitter, a drunk’s backside but, sadly, no cow heel.

Athersley’s a large council estate in Barnsley, said to be considerable rivalry between North Atherlsey and South Athersley. Some pronounce it “Attersley”, presumably as in Roy.

Community rooted, the club’s going places.

The crowd’s 507, another record, the hospitality excellent, the score 8-1 to the hosts. We’re home by 11 30pm, barely a leg to stand on and all this to return to next season.