Westfield Show Their Potential

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 17 November at Woking Park
Result	Westfield 2 Tooting & Mitcham United 1
Competition	Isthmian Division 1 South Central (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground 665 on the lifetime list.  I am here randomishly (you’ll love this, bear with me if you missed this) because this is my nearest unvisited Step 4 ground to the parliamentary constituency of Maidenhead, whose MP was the first to be mentioned by name after 12 noon on The Guardian’s live coverage of Brexit on Friday 16 November.  Since that is Theresa May, then I guess this was the more predictable of the randomish hops I have done recently.  However, it was only just before Liam Fox popped up in Bristol with some political pontification, and this would have sent me to Mangotsfield instead.  It’s randomish, and the evidence is on Twitter.
Context
12th v 7th.  Westfield came up from the Combined Counties League last year.  Not to be confused with Westfields FC of Hereford, in the Midland Premier League.  Tooting & Mitcham have been yo-yoing of late and came down from Step 3.
In one sentence
A long shot found the corner of the net in the 93rd minute to decide the game, and all this after the visitors had led for almost an hour.
So what?
Westfield remain 12th, Tooting & Mitcham drop one place to 8th.
Match Report
The match kicked off in bright but cold sunshine, and Westfield looked wobbly.  Isaiah Jones held off a defender easily enough and rolled the ball past the advancing keeper Gary Ross for an early lead for the visitors.  There was an element of home generosity about it.  It took twenty minutes before Westfield made the other keeper Luke Colquhoun make a save, and in the meantime T&M had looked dangerous and sharp except for the final pass.  There were very few really clear chances, and I noted (honest) that T&M might regret being only one goal up.  They were nearly caught just before the interval but Colquhoun made the necessary save at his near post. Isaiah Jones (r) is about to open the scoring The second half continued in the same pattern.  The visitors had much of the play minus a cutting edge.  The game was competitive with plenty of midfield tackling, and we entered a stop-start phase as some of the challenges were mistimed.  On the hour mark, I noted that T&M would have been exceptionally frustrated by now had they not had the early lead.  Ross became irritated with some of his defenders’ positioning.  Then, the equaliser.  A long cross from the right flank caught the T&M defence out of position and Aaron Watson had a straightforward header.   The game became open and frantic, and two desperate defensive touches stopped T&M from regaining the lead almost immediately.  I had predicted a draw and was feeling content as the game entered stoppage time and Colquhoun palmed the ball away for a corner.  With the clock at 90+3, the corner was cleared but the ball came out to substitute William Efambe whose low shot found its way into the corner of the net for a dramatic home win.
Pix
Modern, tidy ground with a view of Woking FC from the clubhouse balcony.  Use the postcode in the SatNav to find the vicinity but follow the signs to the Leisure Centre for the final turning.  Friendly club with good facilities.  Westfield in yellow.
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. Today, an unusual situation.  Both keepers in orange (albeit one rather dusky and one bordering on fluorescent) so a draw prediction.  So close!  No change to the league table, now based on 166 matches. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Draw Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 67% (14 from 21) 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 40.1 18.0 7.0 15.1 56.0 14.0 75.0 1.870 Grey 48.5 23.0 10.0 15.5 79.5 14.0 69.5 1.433 Green 86.0 43.0 11.0 32.0 145.0 22.0 105.0 1.221 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 Purple 19.0 8.0 3.0 8.0 41.0 5.0 11.0 0.579 Orange 41.5 13.0 8.0 20.5 78.5 6.0 -1.5 -0.036 Radioactive Bile 21.0 9.0 0.0 12.0 45.0 3.0 -3.0 -0.143 Yellow 33.0 9.0 7.0 17.0 70.0 5.0 -11.0 -0.333 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!  37 grounds to go to finish Step 4.