You Won't Believe This Scoreline

Hopperational details
Date & Venue	Saturday 10 March 2018 at Queen Street
Result	Chipperfield Corinthians 0 Sandridge Rovers 0
Competition	Herts Senior County League Premier Division (Step 7)
Hopstats	Ground 637 on the lifetime list, and here because I was forced to stay local by uncertainty over postponements elsewhere.
Context
The home side are low in the division, though probably safe enough from relegation.  The visitors are fourth and will start as favourites.  This is a late travelling decision after plans A, B, C and D were all called off or not confirmed while I still had time to travel.
In one sentence
No goals were scored, meaning that it was a goalless draw, with neither side scoring the goal that might have won the match for them, given that their opponents didn’t score either.
So what?
No change in league positions.  Sandridge could lose a place as other teams catch up on games in hand.  Chipperfield could still be in relegation danger if Evergreen win all their games in hand.
Match Report
Sandridge occasionally looked the more likely to score during the first half.  The home keeper’s clearance kicks were variable and sometimes Chipperfield were exposed at the back, but he redeemed himself with some timely clearances and punches.  Neither team had a real cutting edge, so the battle was largely fought in midfield with many, maybe most, refereeing decisions openly questioned both on the pitch and from the dugouts.  Sandridge’s centre-back (and presumably captain) used foul and abusive language every other word, but only directed at his own players so no cards were shown.  I fear for the game at this level if VAR really does eliminate honest human errors from televised games.  The officials did get a few decisions wrong in relation to throw-ins and corners particularly, and of course players know this.  The over-riding culture of the game now is to keep up as much pressure on the officials as possible whilst staying just within the rules.  I’m writing this because my other first-half notes are very thin – it was of course goalless at the interval. I bought the unexpected but welcome progamme in the club-house.  In stowing it away safely I totally failed to notice the presence of Cieran and Conor Yapp on the Sandridge squad list.  No close relation but I will have to make further enquiries – there aren’t that many of us down in the south-east.  I wonder if we have a common ancestor somewhere in Herefordshire or Shropshire from when one of the early Georges was on the throne and John Motson was just starting out. I digress.  So, in the second half, the teams seemed to be on a more equal footing.  Certainly Chipperfield nearly got caught on the break several times because they were pressing forward in numbers.  Sandridge’s failure to convert any of those one-on-ones and two-on-twos cost them the win.  Chipperfield will also point to a disallowed goal just after the 70-minute mark.  There was a long conversation between the referee and one of his assistants before the decision was made.  Other than that there were few near misses or great saves.  Mostly we watched moves break down on the edge of the area or shots blocked or deflected before troubling the keepers. In the last end-to-end phase I noted a great last-ditch tackle by a Chipperfield centre-back which saved a certain shot on goal at least, and both sides had their half-chances in the closing moments.  By that stage I’d decided that a 0-0 draw was a fair result and the only decision I needed to make was whether to add an alien abduction or volcanic eruption to spice up the match report.  In the end I decided that I don’t want the blog to be labelled as Fake News, and I’ll only go as far as a teaser clickbait tweet ;)  Thank you for reading this far.
Ground Pix
This is a little gem.  Some great views beyond the perimeter, including horses in a nearby field, and several mature Scooby-Doo trees.  Tucked away at the end of a village lane – I recommend parking near the church and enjoying the stroll from there.
Match Pix
Chipperfield in red and black.
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats
A draw but a clean sheet each for Grey and Orange, a result that showed up a minor error for Orange in recently published versions of the table, so now all corrected with some checking formulae added to the spreadsheet.  Nobody noticed.  Anyway, Grey goes above Green as a result. Results so far after 138 matches: Based on conventional 3pts for a win, 1pt for a draw, but also -1pt for a goal conceded (GC) and +5pts for a clean sheet (CS).  Colours ranked on a points per game (PPG) basis. For new readers the odd .5 was caused by a shocking half-and-half shirt and the .1 was due to a substitute goalkeeper in a different colour.  The Fire Cracker colour was confirmed with the help of the social media team at Dulux UK.  All of this arises from a comment attributed to Petr Cech that orange is the best colour for a goalkeeper because it changes the behaviour of other players around the box. P W D L GC CS Pts PPG Red 10.0 5.0 1.0 4.0 11.0 3.0 20.0 2.000 Fire Cracker 2.0 1.0 0.0 1.0 4.0 1.0 4.0 2.000 Blue 33.1 15.0 6.0 12.1 49.0 12.0 62.0 1.873 Maroon 4.0 2.0 1.0 1.0 6.0 1.0 6.0 1.500 Grey 44.5 20.0 10.0 14.5 72.5 12.0 57.5 1.292 Green 74.0 36.0 10.0 28.0 123.0 19.0 90.0 1.216 Orange 30.5 9.0 7.0 14.5 49.5 6.0 14.5 0.475 Radioactive Bile 13.0 6.0 0.0 7.0 26.0 2.0 2.0 0.154 Yellow 31.0 8.0 7.0 16.0 65.0 5.0 -9.0 -0.290 Purple 12.0 5.0 2.0 5.0 31.0 2.0 -4.0 -0.333 Pink 15.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 30.0 1.0 -8.0 -0.533 Black 5.0 1.0 3.0 1.0 14.0 0.0 -8.0 -1.600 White 1.9 0.0 0.0 1.9 4.0 0.0 -4.0 -2.105
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter for details!