by Aleks V |

There's a soccer app for just about everything, from keeping track of scores to the latest news from your favorite leagues and clubs. Until recently, though, there wasn't one for groundhopping. So Geir Florhaug and Lars Erik Bolstad of mobile apps developer Kepermat decided to make it themselves. “The idea came about a few years ago when we looked for an app to keep track of football matches we'd attended,” Bolstad recalls. “We launched the very first version in 2012, initially just for iOS, with a small subset of the functionality that's currently in the app.”

Type in “groundhoppers” in the Google search bar, and the eponymous app is one of the top results, after the Wikipedia entry explaining the popular hobby which involves attending as many soccer stadiums, or “grounds”,  as possible.



Available on Google Play and the iTunes app store, the app currently has over 20,000 monthly downloads, and made the Ten Best Sports Apps on German tech news site iTopNews. It features more than 700 leagues and various cup competitions around the world. One can locate nearby fixtures, register stats, and collect badges for hitting milestones, such as attending a certain number of games. A season summary displays your personal numbers, including games and countries attended and your most visited ground.

The app is free, but offers a monthly and yearly premium subscription for additional features.

The product has garnered “overwhelmingly positive” feedback from fans, which makes the effort worthwhile for its creators. “We have a lot of very enthusiastic users and seem to have really hit a nerve among those who enjoy watching football live,” Bolstad notes.

Lars Erik Bolstad (left) and Geir Florhaug

The community around the app is what keeps him and co-creator Florhaug going when the going gets tough. “Apart from finding time to work on the app besides full-time jobs and family commitments, the main challenge is to keep all the information in the app 100% correct at all times,” the former explains.

An ever-evolving beast

Like soccer itself, the app is an ever-evolving beast. Recent updates include the addition of women's national teams, right on time for the FIFA Women's World Cup in June. The number of languages has also expanded. “We just added the Greek translation and will soon have Czech, bringing the number of languages up to 13,” Bolstad notes.

Expect more updates, but don't count on it becoming the next Pokémon GO. At least, not until AR and VR “evolve beyond just gimmicks.” But do expect the Groundhopper app to attempt to “catch them all” by listening to users' appeals for more leagues and competitions.

In the meantime, Bolstad and Florhaug will keep spreading word. “In terms of growing the user base we're still trying out various ways to make more people aware of it,” says Bolstad. “Recently we have started cooperating with clubs, who promote our app in the form of competitions with prizes for those who attend the most matches during a season. In return we create special club badges that users can earn in our app.”

“So far our user base has mostly grown by word of mouth and we haven't really spent too much effort (or money) on marketing it, but based on the popularity in our core markets in Northern Europe, there should be a whole world out there waiting to discover the Groundhopper app.”

Download the Groundhopper app via Google Play or iTunes.