Turner's Big Moment is the Torque of Bideford

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 12 January 2019 at The Sports Ground
Result	Bideford 3 Yate Town 1
Competition	Southern League Division One South (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground 674 on the lifetime list and I am here because the Met Office weather forecast for Bideford was warmer than at any of the other grounds on my shortlist.  See previous post for details – the successive tiebreakers of windspeed and precipitation probability percentage were not needed.  Bideford was forecast to be 10 degrees Celsius with everywhere else from Tadcaster to Ramsgate coming in at 8 or 9 degrees.
Context
Mid-table hosts league leaders. Reverse fixture back in August was a 2-0 win for Yate but Bideford have won four in a row over the festive period.  Yate are undefeated since the first day of December so something has to give today.
In one sentence
A deserved win for Bideford who did the main damage in the first half and stayed resilient when Yate replied just after the interval.
So what?
Bideford jump to 8th and Yate drop into 2nd behind Blackfield & Langley on goal difference.
Match Report
For the record, the Met Office was spot on with its forecasting and the match kicked off at a balmy 10 degrees Celsius, that’s around 283K (Kelvin) for any absolutists in the audience.  Bideford took the lead after 4 minutes with their first real incursion into the opposition penalty area.  By that time home keeper Joe Moore had already been busy with a dodgy punch followed by a timely interception.  The goal was a header by Ryan Turner from a right-wing cross by Ian Sampson. As league leaders, Yate did not take long to impose themselves back into the game, but they were then stunned by Turner’s second after 23 minutes.  A few blocks and rebounds eventually fell to the striker who found the bottom left corner.  It might have been 3-0 almost immediately but Turner's shot fizzed past the post.  Time for the, “Top of the league, you’re having a laugh!” song from the home faithful.  The hat-trick would have to wait. Yate were still looking dangerous and a great break was ended by a scything tackle by Ben Palmer that was so late that it was still in British Summer Time.  A yellow card was brandished, but it must have been at least reddish.  Palmer and central defensive partner Toby Down went on to have a very busy afternoon, and their no-nonsense defending was a big part of the win.  None of this playing-it-out-from-the-back rubbish down here.  Yate wasted the freekick, as they were to do several times more during the game.  The ball spent quite a lot of its time in the air today. Bideford held on to their two-goal lead until half-time but the first attack of the second half was a Yate move down their left which but the ball on a proverbial plate for a tap-in for Harry Warwick. Sampson soon had a yellow card of his own, and then keeper Moore was involved in controversy.  He came out to the edge of the area but fouled the attacker.  Yate felt that the incident was inside the box, and sadly I was at the other end so can’t settle the matter. Moore took the yellow card and the freekick was wasted. The need for Yate to press forward of course meant some chances for Bideford to break, and Turner might have done better with a one-on-one but Josh Ford did very well to get a foot in.  Billy Tucker was then unlucky with a dipping shot just over the bar from distance. With the clock at 65 minutes, Turner was thwarted yet again before, at the other end, Adam Price played in Joe Guest forcing a good save from Moore.  At this point in the game, both teams were now looking equally likely to get the next goal.  An edge-of-area tackle by Yate keeper Ross Grimshaw was correctly judged legitimate, and then Moore saved again from Olly Mehew after a miscued headed clearance. The decider came with just ten minutes left.  Turner was on the ground after a tackle but got up to be in the right place as the ball spun back, to curl in a shot for a hat-trick.  Moore still had to make one more decent save in stoppage time but the points had been won.  The earlier song got a reprise with slightly more conviction.
Pix
Bideford in red.  Interesting ground surrounded by a number of buildings in different styles, and with nice old-school floodlight pylons.
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.  Results based on my last 175 games.  Prediction success rate is around two out of three. Today Green beats Purple, as expected.  No change in league table positions.  Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Home Win Was the prediction correct? Yes % of correct predictions so far 67% (20 from 30) 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. 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.  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 43.1 19.0 7.0 17.1 64.0 14.0 70.0 1.624 Grey 49.5 23.0 11.0 15.5 80.5 14.0 69.5 1.404 Green 91.0 48.0 11.0 32.0 150.0 23.0 120.0 1.319 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 21.0 8.0 4.0 9.0 45.0 5.0 8.0 0.381 Orange 45.5 15.0 8.0 22.5 84.5 7.0 3.5 0.077 Radioactive Bile 21.0 9.0 0.0 12.0 45.0 3.0 -3.0 -0.143 Yellow 35.0 9.0 7.0 19.0 77.0 5.0 -18.0 -0.514 Pink 18.0 5.0 5.0 8.0 37.0 1.0 -12.0 -0.667 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!  31 Step 4 grounds to be done now and hopefully another one will be ticked off next Saturday.