The Groundhopping App for Planning and Logging Away Days

What groundhopping actually is

A groundhopper collects stadiums the way other people collect vinyl. Some chase the giants — Wembley, Signal Iduna Park and its Yellow Wall, a night at Anfield. Others get more joy from a sixth-tier ground with a tea hut and a sloping pitch, because a new ground is a new ground. The unwritten rule most hoppers follow: you have to see a match there for it to count. Not drive past. Not peek through the fence. Ninety minutes, in the ground.

Once you're past ten or fifteen grounds, two problems show up every single time: where next, and where have I actually been.

How hoppers have always tracked it

For decades the answer was a spreadsheet. Ground, club, date, competition, score — rows and rows of it, lovingly maintained, backed up nowhere. The other pillar was forums: long threads where hoppers swap fixture tips, parking advice and which turnstile opens first. Both still exist, and honestly, both still work.

But here's the thing — a spreadsheet is a list, and groundhopping is a map problem. "I'm in the Ruhr for a weekend, what's within an hour and who's at home on Saturday?" is a question a spreadsheet cannot answer. And it holds none of the good stuff: no photo of the away end, no ticket stub, no note about the 94th-minute equaliser. Just a row.

What a groundhopping app must do

Strip it down and a proper groundhopping app needs three jobs done well:

1. Plan on a map. Show every ground — big and small, everywhere — so you can see what's near you, what's near your next trip, and what's clustered enough to double up in one weekend.
2. Log every ground properly. Date, photos, ticket, who you went with. A tick-box tells you nothing in five years. A logged matchday tells you everything.
3. Track the totals. Grounds, countries, continents. Hoppers count. It's half the point.

How Grada does groundhopping

Plan the hop on the Explore map

Grada's Explore tab is a world map of stadiums. Search by stadium name, club or city, or pan around a region you're visiting and see every ground nearby. Open any stadium and you get the teams that play there and their upcoming fixtures — so "which of these grounds has a match while I'm in town" takes seconds, not a night on the forums. Grounds you're saving for later go straight into Dream Stadiums, your hop wishlist.

Log the ground as a Memory

After the match (or on the train home), create a Memory at that stadium: mark it as a match or a tour, add photos, a short note, your ticket, the date, and tag the crew you hopped with. That's your row in the spreadsheet — except it has the away end in it.

Watch the passport fill

Every Memory stamps your Football Passport, and the passport counts your stadiums, countries and continents automatically. No formulas, no maintenance. Your groundhopping career, in one screen.

See where other hoppers go

The best hop ideas have always come from other hoppers. Grada's community feed shows memories fans share from grounds worldwide — a Tuesday night in the Regionalliga, a first trip to La Bombonera, a non-league double-header. Sharing your own memories is entirely optional; your log stays private unless you choose otherwise. But when you do share a gem of a ground, you're doing what forum hoppers have done for decades — just with better photos.

Frequently asked questions

Does it cover non-league and lower divisions?

Yes. The stadium database is worldwide and goes well beyond the top flights — which matters, because real groundhopping mostly happens below the Premier League and the Bundesliga.

Can I plan future trips?

Yes. Save grounds to Dream Stadiums as your bucket list, then use each stadium's upcoming fixtures to pick the actual match for your trip.

Do stadium tours count?

That's your call — the classic hoppers' debate. Grada supports both: log a Memory as a match or a tour, so your record stays honest either way.