ABSTRACT
Despite the considerable amount of academic literature devoted to football, football culture and football fandom, comparatively little attention has been given to the subculture of football fans known as ‘groundhoppers’ (aka ‘hoppers’), or the activity of ‘groundhopping’ (aka ‘hopping’). There is no agreed definition, but this leisure pursuit can broadly be described as the ‘collecting’ of experiences of watching a complete ninety minutes of football at as many different grounds or stadia as possible, with the ultimate aim being to ‘tick off’ the complete set of visits in a particular league. In other words, if groundhopping is about collecting football experiences, it is concerned with the venue rather than the match.
