The Accidental Groundhopper

When Ronaldo scored the goals which won Brazil's fifth World Cup I was seated on a plastic stool in a Seoul restaurant, drinking beer ev...

A week after my day out with the bear-headed, megaphone-wielding wildlings at Tochigi Uva FC I'm back in the more familiar environs of ...

I arrived in Tochigi in the autumn of 2004, swapping a university city an hour away from Prague for a railway halt on the very northernmost ...

If you've ever wondered what British football terraces were like, try riding a Tokyo train between the hours of 7.30 and 9am.  I start m...

The last time I found myself in Sagamihara was by mistake.  An afternoon's hike turned into an eight-hour misadventure, only ending when...

Three and a bit months later, it feels as if I've never been away. A day after landing at Narita and two hours since waking up jetlagged...

It's blustery, dank and there's a hint of drizzle as we plough through fish and chips by the beach huts and gun batteries of Blyth...