"Each To Their Own"

We've all got strange quirky hobbies
Pray tell what is it you do?
Do you have a love of animals
And can't resist a zoo.
Perhaps you're nerdy old fashioned
Call yourself a trainspotter
Or keep on writing poetry
Scribbled down in a jotter.
Maybe you're a stamp collector
The Stanley Gibbons is your bible
Then there's the old skool football hooligan 
Who likes his hobby tribal.
Are you one to collect pottery
A big fan of Royal Doulton
Or whisper it quietly like me
A groundhopper at Alton?
For tonight I was down in Hampshire
Watching a game at step six
Alton Town at home to Fleet Spurs
That's how I get my kicks.
Train pulling into the station
Floodlights shine on my right
My heart is really pumping
Pylons do that at first sight.
I've got a rare free Tuesday
No Dulwich Hamlet this week
And Alton are soon moving
So their 'old' ground I can seek.
Non-League wise it's nothing special
But oh that wooden stand
It's what they call groundhopping porn
Atcost monstrosities should be banned.
New-builds are oh so samey
All tip-up seats and steel
You can feel the past in these wooden benches
Forgotten history becoming real.
I am so glad I got here
The football's almost incidental
Ok, I admit I love visiting football grounds
Which doesn't mean I'm totally mental.
I'm not a serious groundhopper
Abiding by every 'rule and regulation'
I'm not going to travel two hundred miles
To stand in fields up and down the nation.
I do prefer a programme
But not essential at the end of the day
I'm not bothered if it's just a friendly
As long as there's two sides to play.
And nor will I get upset
If nil nil's the score
Certainly not so desperate for the line-ups
By battering on the referee's door!
I don't do drugs or alcohol
This is my fix and buzz
The bottom line is does it matter
What anyone says or does?
So I'll admit...I'm a bit of a groundhopper
And tonight was really fun
Wessex League Division One football
Ticking ground number six hundred and sixty one.

Dulwich Poet 10th November 2015


( I wrote this on the train home, after going to Alton Town 0, Fleet Spurs 2...the only reason I went to the game was because Alton are moving ground imminently , & I hadn't been there before.)