Groundhopping is the hobby of visiting as many different football grounds as possible. Groundhoppers track the stadiums they've attended, often across multiple clubs, leagues, and countries. It's not about supporting one club — it's about experiencing the game everywhere. The hobby has grown from a niche pastime into a global community with fans in 200+ countries.

The groundhopping community has its own traditions around this, and opinions vary. Some groundhoppers only count grounds where they watched a competitive match; others count any visit. TheFans lets you log grounds your own way — including an option to mark a ground as "watched on TV" if you didn't attend in person. You set the rules for your personal collection.

TheFans is primarily a football (soccer) app — our database covers 25,000+ football grounds from grassroots pitches to international arenas. Some users do add grounds for other sports manually, and the app supports that. Official multi-sport coverage may expand in the future.

Yes, completely. TheFans is free to download and free to use — no subscription, no in-app purchases, no ads. We built it because we love groundhopping, and we want as many fans as possible to be able to use it.

TheFans is available on iPhone (iOS 15 and later) and Android (8.0 and later). It also works on iPad. There is also a web app at thefansapp.com — note that the web app is still in development and doesn't yet have full feature parity with the mobile app.

The app requires an internet connection to use — logging grounds, searching the database, and all community features need to be online. Mobile data at a football ground is usually sufficient, but offline mode is not currently supported.

Easy — just search for the ground in the app and tap to add it to your collection. You can backdate visits if you remember when you went. There's no limit on how many past grounds you can add.

Our database is community-maintained and grows every day. Any user can submit a missing ground, team, or competition directly through the app. Once submitted, it gets reviewed and added — so if you don't see a ground, you can add it yourself for everyone to benefit from.

Yes, a free account is required to save your collection and access community features. Signing up takes under a minute and only requires an email address.

Your profile is public by default, so other groundhoppers can find and follow you. You can change this at any time in Settings — profiles can be set to public, friends only, or fully private. We never sell your data to third parties. For full details, see our Privacy Policy.

Yes. To delete your account, go to Account → Settings → Other → Delete Account. Deletion is permanent and removes all your data from our servers.

Yes. Your collection is saved to your account in the cloud, not just your device. Simply download TheFans on your new phone and log in with the same account — all your grounds will be there.

Inside the app you can follow other users and see their collections. We're also active on Bluesky, X/Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Join us for tips, new ground discoveries, and community events.

Badges are earned automatically as you hit milestones — visiting your 10th ground, your 50th, completing all grounds in a specific country, attending a cup final, and more. They appear on your profile and can be shared with the community.

We'd love to hear from you. The quickest ways to reach us are our Discord community or WhatsApp support (+44 7958 635490). You can also email hello@thefans.io. We read everything and try to respond to all messages.