On Saturday 7th March, groundhopper Paul Jeffrey completed an amazing challenge when he visited the South West Interiors Stadium, the home of Yate Town FC, to complete his visits to every Step 3 ground in England – that’s a total of 88 clubs in the four divisions at Step 3, comprising of 22 in each of the Northern Premier League, the Isthmian Premier, the Southern League Premier Division Central and the Southern League Premier Division South – where Yate Town play.
However, it didn’t start there for Paul, who has also visited the grounds of every one of the 92 league clubs (that’s 20 in the Premier League and 72 in the other three divisions) plus all the National League grounds (24) and the National League North (24) and National League South (24) – that’s a grand total of 252 grounds at all at those levels …. and Paul is well on the way to completing all the Step 4 clubs, saying that he has about another 30 grounds to visit at this level.
Paul, a part-time postman, who lives in Ely, Cambridgeshire, and has been married for 37 years, enjoys the travelling and meeting different people. He said that there is a group of groundhoppers that live in East Angia who meet up at times to travel to various ground together.
Paul was full of praise for the welcome that he received at Yate Town, enjoying talking to people at the club and commented on the friendly atmosphere at the game he saw, when Wimborne Town were the visitors.
We wish all the best to Paul and he continues on his marathon task.