Let Them Eat Cake at Clevedon, Curry Favourite at Hallen

Work commitments meant that I was only able to dip into part of the excellent Western League Hop this weekend.  On the basis that most people who care about these results were actually present, here’s a brief personal view on two of Saturday’s games.

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 6 October 2018 2.15pm Everyone Active Stadium 5.00pm Hallen Centre
Results	Clevedon Town 1 Buckland Athletic 3 Hallen 0 Shepton Mallet 3
Competition	Western League Premier Division (Step 5)
Hopstats	Grounds 658 and 659 on my lifetime list.
Context
Pre-match league table would suggest two home sides starting as favourites.
In one sentence
Two entertaining games, two results against league form, the former a much more niggly affair than the latter.
So what?
In the league table next morning, Clevedon stay 4th, Buckland climb to 12th, Hallen drop to 14th and Shepton Mallet stay 16th.
Match Reports
Clevedon took an early lead with a classic diagonal run and textbook dink from Alex Camm.  However, Buckland’s approach play was neat and tidy with plenty of triangles and lots of space down the left flank for Lloyd Gardner.  They had already hit then woodwork once before Charlie Johansen headed in the equaliser from a Gardner cross on the half-hour.  It was a stop-start game at times with several yellow cards and an undercurrent of niggle.  Buckland sealed the win with two goals in the last quarter.  Substitute Ryan Bush rode a tackle and rounded the keeper to roll the ball in. They missed another good chance soon after, and they added a third through James Richards.  Buckland will be very happy with a good win on the road. Johansen heads in for 1-1 Shepton Mallet were always on top territorially at Hallen, even though the best save of the half was from the Hallen keeper. It took until the 45th minute to break the deadlock.  Shepton’s defence had held firm but finally a minute of chaotic pinball in the box ended up with the ball sneaking in at the near post.  Ashley Willmott gets the credit.  The result was sealed by two second half goals.  Tyson Pollard’s deflected shot looped up, over and in.  Hallen then threatened briefly before home keeper Liam McFarlane made the save of the day only for Shepton to score from the resulting corner.  Joe Morgan got the goal.  Much of the second half had been played in remarkable lighting conditions, with bright low sun reflecting off the green surroundings under a slate-grey sky.  All we needed was a downpour and a rainbow – well, maybe not. Deadlock broken moments before the interval Special mention for the home-made cakes and curry at Clevedon and Hallen respectively.  Great stuff.  Thanks too, as ever, to the hop organisers.  I appreciate the work that goes in to setting up these events.
Pix – Clevedon Town v Buckland Athletic
Pix – Hallen v Shepton Mallet
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.  Now up to 160 games. Today, Green lost unexpectedly to Black at Clevedon, and Radioactive Bile lost to Purple.  The clean sheet caused a jump up the table for the latter, in the first league table positional change for several weeks. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Clevedon win Was the prediction correct? No Prediction: Shepton Mallet win* Was the prediction correct? (Yes) % of correct predictions so far 67% (10 out of 15) *I made a mistake on Twitter just before KO – didn’t read the numbers correctly on my phone and said it would be a draw!  What do I know … 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 39.1 17.0 7.0 15.1 55.0 14.0 73.0 1.867 Grey 47.5 22.0 10.0 15.5 79.5 13.0 61.5 1.295 Green 84.0 42.0 10.0 32.0 142.0 21.0 99.0 1.179 Purple 18.0 8.0 3.0 7.0 38.0 5.0 14.0 0.778 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 Radioactive Bile 20.0 9.0 0.0 11.0 40.0 3.0 2.0 0.100 Orange 36.5 11.0 7.0 18.5 69.5 6.0 0.5 0.014 Yellow 32.0 9.0 7.0 16.0 66.0 5.0 -7.0 -0.219 Pink 17.0 5.0 5.0 7.0 35.0 1.0 -10.0 -0.588 Black 6.0 2.0 3.0 1.0 15.0 0.0 -6.0 -1.000 White 1.9 0.0 0.0 1.9 4.0 0.0 -4.0 -2.105
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter!  No set plans yet for Non-League Day next weekend, but possibly some randomness this week based around my 42 Step 4 target grounds.