Pica Pica Pecking Order Established in Dorset

Eurasian Magpie (pica pica)

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Tuesday 14 Uagust 2018 at The Cuthbury Ground
Result	Wimborne Town 2 Dorchester Town 4
Competition	Southern League Premier Division South (Step 3)
Hopstats	Ground 649 on the lifetime list.  I am here randomishly because of overnight events in the Ecuadorian Primera A League.  José Quinteros of LDU Quito scored in the 26th minute to cancel out an early lead for Aubas.  With no further scoring, the match finished in a draw, bringing me here.  A home win would have sent me to Dorking Wanderers, and an away win to Hartley Wintney.  The evidence is on Twitter.
Context
Second game of the season for both sides.  Both lost on the opening day of the season.  Wimborne went down at Farnborough and Dorchester lost at home to Met Police.
In one sentence
One-sided demolition job by the visitors in the first half, a modicum of respectability added by the home side in the second, and all at the other end from where I was standing.
So what?
Still too early for league tables in my opinion, but Wimborne fans might well be concerned about two defeats.
Match Report
Both teams are known as the Magpies so I am calling this game El Picapico for reasons that birdwatchers will understand.  Wimborne as the home side lined up in black-and-white but it was Dorchester, lining up in a colour that I call Radioactive Bile, who took a first-minute lead through Cameron Murray.  It was to turn out that all six goals were up at the other end, so expect vagueness in this particular match report! I can confirm that the second goal was the pick of the six.  A piledriver of a shot from the edge of the box, flying just inside the left-hand post, put Luke Winsper’s name on the scoresheet.  He got his second soon after, scoring after a superb double save by purple-clad home keeper Gerard Benfield.  Three down after 25 minutes, so this was not his night. Dorchester added a fourth just before the break, Billy Lowes scoring after the ball had been pinging around in the box.  I cannot recall many more one-sided halves of football.   Wimborne heads had not dropped, it’s just that nothing that they were doing was having any impact. When, very early in the second half, Sam Davidson scored for the hosts, there was a flicker of hope, especially when Dorchester then missed two good chances of their own in quick succession.  The second half was a more even affair, but Wimborne contrived to waste an indirect free kick in the opposing penalty area and the game rather petered out until Toby Holmes got a second goal in the final minute of normal time.
Pix
Wimborne in the black & white stripes.  This is a great old-school stadium with plenty of character and a playing surface of slants and slopes that would have made Euclid of Alexandria go, “You’re having a laugh mate!” but in Greek.  Well worth an awayday or a hopper visit but choose daylight so you can appreciate the fabulous Dorset setting.
Pre-Match Entertainment
I had time for a brief walk around the town, which makes a very good first impression.  Here’s the Minster and a pile of flowers (or whatever the technical term is…).
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats
New this season – a pre-match prediction based only on keeper top colours as a preliminary test of the data.  Proper statistical significance test to follow in due course.  Table now based on 150 results. Today, Purple loses heavily to Green and drops several places.  Green hangs on to the current league position. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Away Win Was the prediction correct? Yes % of correct predictions so far 4 of 5 (80%) 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.  It may not be statistically significant as yet, but football coverage ignores this point as a matter of routine. 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 Blue 38.1 16.0 7.0 15.1 54.0 14.0 71.0 1.864 Grey 46.5 22.0 10.0 14.5 73.5 13.0 67.5 1.452 Green 79.0 39.0 10.0 30.0 132.0 20.0 95.0 1.203 Fire Cracker 3.0 1.0 0.0 2.0 6.0 1.0 2.0 0.667 Maroon 5.0 2.0 1.0 2.0 9.0 1.0 3.0 0.600 Orange 33.5 11.0 7.0 15.5 55.5 6.0 14.5 0.433 Purple 15.0 6.0 3.0 6.0 35.0 4.0 6.0 0.400 Radioactive Bile 16.0 7.0 0.0 9.0 34.0 2.0 -3.0 -0.188 Yellow 31.0 8.0 7.0 16.0 65.0 5.0 -9.0 -0.290 Pink 16.0 5.0 5.0 6.0 31.0 1.0 -6.0 -0.375 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!  I have three or four choices for another Step 3 tick on Saturday.  With seven to go to reach the landmark, I may yet be able to get them all done to complete “The 248” before Tottenham Hotspur move into their new stadium and simultaneously mess up my 92, my 116, my 160 and of course my 248.

Magpie Photo Credit

Photographer: Pierre-Salim

Eurasian Magpie (pica pica)

Wikipedia

Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic