No Consolation for Citizens with The Money Problems

Second e-programme of the season

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Wednesday 26 December 2018 at The Simplyhealth City Ground
Result	Winchester City 0 Moneyfields 3
Competition	Southern League Division One South (Step 4)
Hopstats	669 on the lifetime list.  Not random, but chosen for the noon kickoff time which meant that my hours of travelling were reasonable.
Context
Mid-table Winchester host Moneyfields who are in the lowest play-off position at the time of writing.  Moneyfields will be out for revenge after Winchester won the reverse fixture back in August.
In one sentence
Two well-taken first half goals from the visitors put the home side’s missed chances into perspective.
So what?
Moneyfields hold on to their play-off position and Winchester remain mid-table.
Match Report
The home side made the early running, though Moneyfields’ keeper Steve Mowthorpe only had one real save to make, a tip-over from a sharp shot from a narrow angle.  Moneyfields then missed their first real chance, an unchallenged header from a free-kick.  Back at the other end, Mowthorpe narrowed the angle enough to thwart Oli Bailey who was through one-on-one after a rebound.  That was to prove a big miss in the light of subsequent developments.  Winchester then needed a goalline clearance to stop Moneyfields again.  With 20 minutes gone, it looked as if there would be goals in the game. Bailey needed treatment after being hit in the face by the ball, but shot back on like a greyhound without permission to earn a yellow card.  There was a fair amount of moaning at the officials going on from both sides.  Moneyfields’ Steve Hutchings questioned a throw-in call from the assistant – it is just me or were all footballers away when they did parallax errors in physics at school?  I digress. Bailey recovered well enough to force Mowthorpe into a good save, and then City’s Joe Hayward was played in by a clever backheel only to shoot just wide. Moneyfields showed their hosts how to finish as they took the lead on 34 minutes.  Joe Briggs curled a great shot across the keeper into the far corner after a set piece had been initially headed clear.  We had several niggles and yellow cards by this point too.  Then, in the 45th minute, Hutchings met another free-kick cross on the half-volley, back across the keeper into the other corner.  They even tried to claim a third in stoppage time but a goal-line clearance from a corner limited the first-half damage.  Nevertheless, it felt like job done. The third goal came just after the hour.  Hutchings, ever the irritant up top, went to ground.  The ref ignored the calls for a foul but the clearance rebounded somewhat kindly for Lloyd Rowlatt and the ball rolled over the line into the corner. After that, Winchester had plenty of possession and won several corners and freekicks.  The Moneyfields defence absorbed all the pressure and were not above the occasional old-school agricultural clearance.  A three-goal away win and a clean sheet has to go down as impressive and they are hard to beat. Winchester, with a crowd of 182 (GY note: corrected from first posting) today despite £5 admission for all, are holding their own well enough in the division and team spirit looked in good order despite the scoreline.  Today just goes to prove that oldest of pundits’ adages that you have to take your chances against the higher-placed teams.
Pix
Winchester in red-and-black.  This week's match pix are brought to you by the letter J.  J is for Jumping.
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.  The table is now based on my last 170 matches watched. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Away Win Was the prediction correct? Yes % of correct predictions so far 64% (16 from 25) 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 Blue 42.1 19.0 7.0 16.1 60.0 14.0 74.0 1.758 Grey 49.5 23.0 11.0 15.5 80.5 14.0 69.5 1.404 Green 87.0 44.0 11.0 32.0 147.0 22.0 106.0 1.218 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 20.0 8.0 4.0 8.0 42.0 5.0 11.0 0.550 Orange 43.5 14.0 8.0 21.5 80.5 7.0 4.5 0.103 Radioactive Bile 21.0 9.0 0.0 12.0 45.0 3.0 -3.0 -0.143 Yellow 34.0 9.0 7.0 18.0 73.0 5.0 -14.0 -0.412 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!  34 more Step 4 grounds to go – hopefully another one to be ticked off on Saturday.