20 n.o.

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the award winning Heed Hopper blog… or the website formerly known as ‘The 100 Football Grounds Club’ 

The 100FgC part of the site was formed on the 25th July 2006 with 5 founder members, posting their ground lists on launch day. Membership closed after 5 years in August 2011, the squad coming to a close with the final allotted total of 199 members. Due to popular demand, membership reopened in 2013, with the introduction of the ‘Affiliated Squad’  which eventually closed in June 2019 with 101 members, which gave us a total of 300 Groundhoppers. 

On the 25th May 2023, I declared the club defunct, due to a lack of interest from its membership, the Futbology app killing all interest in the squad using the site to keep a record of logging football grounds. 

Over the last two decades I’ve photographed and put words to almost 900 different grounds, some of which are no more and a lot unrecognisable from the original visit. There’s been many highlights along the way, but the main element has been the friends I’ve made, some of whom are sadly no longer with us and who I miss terribly.

Many other Groundhopping blogs appeared, mimicked, then soon disappeared, but I’m pleased I’ve kept it going and  still have the enthusiasm to still do it, so hopefully with the aid of good health and faculties intact, I’ll still be producing this bollox for another twenty years. Cheers!