Groundhopping is a hobby that involves attending sports matches at as many different stadiums or grounds as possible. Participants are known as groundhoppers, hoppers or travellers. Groundhopping is largely a football-related pastime. Generally, groundhoppers are football fans who usually have a neutral opinion regarding football clubs and try to attend as many football games in as many football stadiums or venues as possible, seeing the whole process as a leisure activity.[1]
The term 'groundhopping' originates from the late 1980s. From the late 1980s fans in Germany started groundhopping as well. Currently it is especially popular in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and Norway.
Generally, groundhopping is not officially organised. However, there are some formal organisations for groundhoppers, including The 92 Club in England, which consists of groundhoppers who have visited matches in all stadiums of the Premier and Football League.[2] With this there are also (mostly) charity based races to see who can go round the 92 Football League Stadia in the shortest amount of time, initially being called 92 Grounds in 92 Hours, the current record is 72 hours, set by four fans of Swindon Town in 2015.[3]
Groundhoppers usually organize themselves as a group of friends or through online forums or social media (e.g. Facebook and Twitter) in particular. Other groundhoppers do not organise with others at all and visit grounds alone by themselves.
Enthusiasts of the hobby sometimes use apps such as Futbology[4] or Europlan[5] to track their progress. The Europlan website[6] also acts as the digital mouthpiece of the Association of Groundhoppers in Germany (German: Vereinigung der Groundhopper Deutschlands; V.d.G.D.)[7]
There is no universal set or rules for counting ‘hopped grounds’, although an unwritten rule is that a groundhopper must have seen a full football match at the ground.[8]