Back to Basics for Number 600

Hopperational details
Date & Venue	Sunday 5 March 2017 at Kimpton Recreation Ground
Result	Kimpton 3 GSS 1
Competition	Hitchin Sunday League Division 2
Hopping	This is the long-awaited number 600 on my lifetime list.
Pre-match preparation
My day job is as a team leader for Science in a large Hertfordshire comprehensive school and this year has been tough like no other.  A long-awaited move to fantastic new premises coincided with a huge amount of curriculum change.  I’m not getting any younger and after a couple of minor scares while driving home late at night I decided that weekends had to be more for physical recovery and intray catchup.  Hence my disappearance from the hopping scene during term time.  I managed some October half-term hopping in Estonia (and Slough) taking me to #599 but the dreaded manflu wiped me out both at Christmas and in February.  All of this means that I had plenty of time to think about #600. I am struggling to love modern professional football.  The whole culture of it.  The obscene player pay, the glory-hunter fans with no link whatsoever to the towns and cities.  The cost of replica shirts, the half-and-half scarves, the endless inane punditry.  Manipulation of referees.  Phone-ins where deluded fans shout their opinions about what rich owners should do with their money.  The rich owners themselves.  The sheer sense of entitlement of the top-six fans that they should win every trophy going every year.  The abuse on Twitter and social media.  Don’t get me wrong – I still love the game itself.  I’ll watch free televised live football whenever I get the chance and I admire the skill of the big names as much as anyone else.  But I see it all as a business rather than as sport. So for #600 I am going local.  My village team’s Saturday side used to appear in the Hertfordshire County League but they folded a few seasons ago.  I was delighted to discover, literally while forlornly looking out of my bedroom window one sniffly and sneezy Sunday morning, a Sunday league presence.  I can just see the end of the pitch across the rooftops.  A google or two later and I discover the Hitchin Sunday League Division 2.  A journey of about 500m.  It fits my personal hop rules.  It is organised, competitive, and I have not watched a game there before.  I am hoping that it will be a decent contest between teams who play the game for fun and the general health-and-well-being benefit of a sporting life. Kimpton FC are just below mid-table and a few places above GSS.  The hosts are unbeaten in four and the visitors without a win in five, including a 2-8 pummelling last time out.  The stats suggest a home win.  Kick-off is at 10.30am and as I write this (at 9.20am) it is teeming with rain and for all I know I will saunter down for a postponement.  If that happens, I will catch a couple of Pokémon near the War Memorial for street cred purposes, and sulk for the rest of the day whilst marking a set of Year 10 physics tests.  As ever, thank you for your interest!
This match in one sentence
Scruffy at times but reasonably entertaining while the result was in doubt.
So what?
The team below GSS also lost so they remain 9th. Kimpton will be up to 5th at least when today’s other results are in.
The drama unfolds
This is Hertfordshire and there were three BMWs and an Audi in the rec car park this morning. The rain cleared in an act of forecast defiance and we kicked off in sunshine. GSS lost their keeper to injury in the first few minutes, not a helpful turn of events.  Nevertheless Kimpton could not take advantage and the first real chance of any description did not appear until 26 mins when the GSS sub had to make a smart save.  Eventually Kimpton opened the scoring after a corner when #4 poked the ball home after some goalmouth scuffing.  1-0 The game continued to be contested in midfield and defence by and large and there were no more good chances before the break.  1-0 at half-time Kimpton were going to need a second goal and they got it within a few minutes of the restart.  A flick-on from a right-wing cross was buried at the far post by #24.  2-0 The wind worsened but GSS seemed to improve while playing into it.  Their first chance was a header, which looped over.  Then Kimpton’s keeper almost had a comedy moment but recovered just in time.  I saw a couple of things I have never seen before – a rolled-ball restart (instead of a dropped ball) by the ref back to a keeper, and the return of Kimpton’s #9 on to the pitch (he’d been running the line for the second half having played the first).  Then GSS got back into the game when #22 headed in almost unchallenged from a corner.  2-1 It got a bit tense.  Both keepers had to make a save.  There was a bit of push-and-shove at the other end involving the GSS keeper and a home player.  Kimpton ran the ball into the corners to wind down the clock before they finally added a clinching goal in the final minutes.  There was an overload on the right of the box and the GSS keeper had no chance with a close-range finish.  Final Score 3-1 After the whistle, there was a bit of unpleasant nose-to-nose posturing and exchange of unparliamentary language between the Kimpton keeper and a GSS official, instigated by the latter. Not sure whether the ref noticed.  As I left the rec, the home players had already dismantled the goalposts and nets.  Zlatan and co get that done for them.
Ground Pix
From here, you can watch the aeroplanes on final approach to Luton Airport.  Kimpton itself is a linear village, as they say in geography textbooks, stretching along a dry valley.  The recreation ground is in a slightly elevated position on the south side.  The River Kym is back underground after a brief surprise reappearance in the High Street in 2001, presumably now dissolving big holes underground to entertain future generations of tourists.  Best not think about it really.  There's a wiki page and a village website which tells you all the reasons why it is a good place to live.  Most of the residents are not as miserable and grumpy as I am.  The parish church dominates the skyline from most angles.  Generally it is a very pleasant and thriving place with a strong sense of community, a school, three Pokéstops, and a Pokégym which doubles as the village pub. You don't get this stuff in the Rough Guides.
Match Pix
Kimpton are in light blue.
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats
Yellow v Yellow so nothing changed by today’s result.  Have not posted the table for a while so here's an update – it is now based on the last 97 games I have watched. Kimpton's keeper with Yapp Acres somewhere in the upper left quadrant The story so far: 3pts for a win, 1pt for a draw, -1pt for a goal against (GA) and +5pts for a clean sheet (CS), rank order by Points per Game (PtsPG) P W D L GA CS Pts PtsPG Red 8.0 4.0 0.0 4.0 8.0 3.0 19.0 2.38 Blue 27.1 11.0 5.0 11.1 41.0 10.0 47.0 1.73 Green 46.0 25.0 5.0 16.0 75.0 13.0 70.0 1.52 Maroon 4.0 2.0 1.0 1.0 6.0 1.0 6.0 1.50 Orange 18.5 6.0 4.0 8.5 25.5 5.0 21.5 1.16 Grey 34.5 16.0 7.0 11.5 58.5 8.0 36.5 1.06 Purple 9.0 4.0 2.0 3.0 20.0 2.0 4.0 0.44 Yellow 20.0 6.0 5.0 9.0 37.0 4.0 6.0 0.30 Pink 11.0 2.0 4.0 5.0 25.0 1.0 -10.0 -0.91 Black 5.0 1.0 3.0 1.0 14.0 0.0 -8.0 -1.60 Radioactive Bile 9.0 2.0 0.0 7.0 23.0 0.0 -17.0 -1.89 White 1.9 0.0 0.0 1.9 4.0 0.0 -4.0 -2.11
What Next?
Term-time resumes but watch @GrahamYapp on Twitter for details!