Why I started this blog

I became interested in watching and playing football as far as I can remember.  I started watching football as a spectator in the mid 70s, watching my local teams Gillingham and Chatham Town (aka Medway).  My first affinity to a club however, was Crystal Palace around 1976, with their diagonal red and blue stripe on their shirt, followed by the flair brought through the coaching of Terry Venables, then finally watching them from the Homesdale Terrace in 1982.  I followed Palace regularly until the tragedies of Heysel and Bradford in the mid 1985, coupled with the rising hooligan interest in visiting South London.  This put me off going to league games until I met a football friend who watched Maidstone United at Watling Street around 1988. After the 1990 World Cup, my friend and I wanting to visit all London clubs, then began my journey of visiting firstly all league grounds and subsequently as many non league grounds as possible.  In 1993 coming back from an Ipswich Town match, we decided to visit Carshalton Athletic.  The seeds of non league football were sown the following week as the Robins won 6-1.  Despite my friends choice to just follow Carshalton a few years ago, I still look to visit a new ground each Saturday.  I now count 492 grounds visited, a stat among many kept among "groundhoppers".  As season 2012-2013 commences, I've decided to start this blog, to share my rambling about each visit and occasional views on the fascinating game.