The Itinerant Football Watcher

I started the Itinerant Football Watcher groundhopping blog in late 2012 mainly for two reasons.

The first was that when looking for information on groundhopping abroad the amount of genuinely useful and well-researched information was quite low and many posts seemed to concentrate on how many beers could be consumed rather than the important things like how to obtain tickets or get to stadiums. The second reason was almost like an aide memoir for my own travels, I watch over have done well over 2,000 grounds so thought it would be ideal to record some highlights.

“Readership can be up and down, my post on “20 Glorious Non-League Grounds” is five years old but still attracts readers now. Over 30,000 hits later, I have heard it referred to as the “Miles 20” in terms of ticking off the grounds.”

It’s flattering of course but I just wanted people to see there were stunning grounds at the grassroots level. It’s kind of like what Alfred Wainwright did with his little books on the Lakeland fells, the intention was really to help educate people.

The blog has led directly to me working with great magazines like Football Weekends and The Football Pink. It has also led to me helping organise groundhopping weekends abroad with foreign hoppers to keep showcasing their own countries. Groundhops in Serbia and Romania have been a tremendous success and we believe the 45 people that attended one of the Serbian Groundhops is a world record for attending an organised Groundhop weekend abroad.

I have been hopping since 1984 so I am really pleased Groundhopping is now a vibrant hobby with apps, blogging and vlogging opening up this amazing lifestyle to new and younger audiences. My hopes for the future is to carry on traveling and find stuff to write about. I hope the blog will be regarded as in equal parts inspiring and informative.

Be sure to check out the Itinerant Football Watcher website peterrmiles.wordpress.com & Twitter page @PeterRMiles

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