What is graunchhopping: how and why fans collect stadiums

Everyone has their own passions: some people like to knit in their spare time, some like to read, and some like to visit stadiums around the world. The essence of soundhopping is to record the maximum number of stadiums where you managed to watch a match.

Índice

What is soundhopping

Groundhopping was first started by English fans in the 70s, one of the first organizations was the “92 Club”. 92 is not just a number, it is the number of stadiums of the first four English divisions that you need to visit to become a real soundhopper.

In Russia, the most popular community now is the Russian Groundhopping League, abbreviated as RGL. Members of this association travel to different countries, go to matches to relax, immerse themselves in the soccer atmosphere, get in touch with national cultures and compete with each other to see who will visit the most stadiums in one calendar year. We asked the founder of the society how this trend originated in Russia and why it became so popular.

About Russian soundhopping

Kirill Chamberlain

soundhopper, founder of the Russian Groundhopping League community

Tells how the culture of visiting stadiums originated.

I first learned about groundhopping in 2014, when I went on a business trip to Hamburg. It was not the first time I was there, all the sights were familiar, so for a change I went to a match of the fifth German league and there I accidentally met two guys-grunhoppers from England.

They told me what it was. It turned out that this movement combines my two main passions: soccer and traveling. This hobby allows you to travel to different countries and cities and watch soccer.

Groundhopping is the best thing that could have happened to me!

About the world practice

I love English soccer the most. It has the coolest atmosphere there in my opinion. The UK is, after all, the birthplace of the sport. The best stadium I have visited is Everton’s stadium, Goodison Park. I can boast that I have been to all the stadiums where Scottish Premier League clubs play, as I love Scotland very much and I am also a fan of Glasgow Rangers.

Over the last 40 years, soundhopping has gained popularity in many countries of the world community, for example, in Germany, in Norway, in Belgium. In Russia, however, it is still a localized hobby that not everyone knows about. You may love soccer and often attend matches, be a grasshopper, but not even know about it.

Associations like ours are aimed at popularizing the attendance of soccer matches in their country and abroad, at uniting fans around the events taking place in soccer.

Mikhail Shichkov

soundhopper

Tells about how he became a soundhopper.

I’ve been subscribed to Kirill for a long time, I was interested in following travel, especially soccer travel. Besides, he is a representative of soccer culture, he has interesting content. You could say that thanks to Kirill, I learned what grunhopping is. I have always liked going to stadiums and watching soccer. After all, attending a match is simultaneously visiting the stadium, the fan shop, nearby establishments, and seeing the sights.

The brightest outings are, of course, the big championships. My first big tournament was the European Championship – 2012, then there was the World Cup in Brazil, I attended five matches there. I was at the Eternal Derby in Belgrade, at the scandalous match between Serbia and Albania in 2014. I watched the match where a banana was thrown at Roberto Carlos when he was playing for Anzhi, there was a big scandal there too.

I also attended 12 matches of the World Cup in Russia, and during the year I visited all the stadiums that were built for it. So far, I have no less than 103 stadiums and 32 countries in which I have attended soccer matches.

And although soundhopping in Russia is just gaining popularity and it still has a thorny path to follow, this movement has already started to influence the development of the community of soccer fans.