Review: The Futbology (Groundhopper) App

For dedicated football travellers, it’s easy to lose track of where you’ve been, when, who you saw play and the score line. Luckily, there’s an app for that! The guys at the Futbology app gave me unlimited access to check out my football travel history, and spared me some time to talk about the inspiration behind the app and their future plans.

It was a few years ago that a fellow football blogger friend of mine asked me if I used the Futbology app  (then known as Groundhopper app) to record my football travels. I’d never heard of it at the time. I downloaded it and played around at the time but didn’t get much further until the founders, Geir Florhaug and Lars Erik Bolstad, got in touch. Yes, it was time to give the app another go.

The inspiration behind the Futbology app

Lars (L) and Geir (R), co-founders of Futbology, at CD Leganés in Spain

I asked Geir why he and Lars decided to start the Futbology app. “Two blokes loved to travel and watch football. They looked for the perfect app for this. Found none. Made it themselves,” he tells me.

That’s the abridged version of the Futbology app. Geir and Lars launched the first version in December 2011 after a year of development. They didn’t outsource any work and they’ve been constantly developing since.

Review of the Futbology app

There is a free and a paid-for version of the app. With free, users can access venues and this season’s fixtures, but must enter any historical data. This is where I dropped off previously – where long-gone seasons, opponents and score lines all blur into obscurity.

With the paid version, you can access historical results prior to the previous season. I found this invaluable, and I could even go way back to the only FA Cup final I went to – 2001 at Cardiff’s Millennium/Principality Stadium.

I could even delve back to the 1990s and find the matches at the Bernabeu that I frequented as a student. And it isn’t just the big leagues, I even found a Segunda División match I went to at Hércules de Alicante in 2009.

Another key feature is ‘Nearby Fixtures’. Using it, I found there was a ninth-tier non-league team just 3km from my house! How did I not know about these guys?

“This is our most valued feature,” Geir says. “Letting you know what matches are taking place where you are or plan to be at a certain time. Listed or displayed on a map.”

The map feature is brilliant. It really sheds a light on which clubs are near you that you can tick off. Even if you know an area you can find somewhere new to check out.

There’s also a social element and you can collect badges for milestones, such as completing leagues and cup finals.

The User viewpoint

Roddy Cons runs the Madrid-based video blog, The Team on Tour. We recently interviewed him on groundhopping in Madrid and he is a serial user of the FutbologyApp into some obscure lower league grounds in central Spain and beyond.

“I can’t speak highly enough of the app, which makes running a groundhopping YouTube channel considerably easier than it might otherwise be,” Roddy told me. “There are loads of great features, but by far the best of them, for me at least, is ‘Nearby Fixtures’, which presents you with a comprehensive list of matches being played close to your location or one of your choosing.

“I initially discovered a whole host of Spanish lower league clubs that I’d never previously heard of thanks to this, while it’s really handy if you’re planning a trip away and want to take in a game,” he continued.

Future developments for the Futbology app

So, what’s next for the Futbology app?

“We will continue to develop what we call ‘the handiest tool for football fans’,” Geir added. “The most requested are match planning and women’s football. Some of these new features take quite a lot of restructuring, and as the two of us still are doing this as a spare time project we can’t really say what and when. We’ll keep you posted!”