Groundhopping Gold and Colne Rule at the Sovereign Play Stadium

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 23 February 2019 at The Sovereign Play Stadium
Result	Colne 3 Kendal Town 1
Competition	Northern Premier League Division One West (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground 680 on the lifetime list.  I am here because of events in France’s Ligue 2 last night.  I randomly linked my nine shortlisted games to the nine French fixtures, and my destination would be decided by the last goal scored by a player wearing a number nine on his shirt.  An early goal at Nancy (linked to Blackfield & Langley) was ruled out at Brest (linked to Mangotsfield United) before Blackfield and Langley took over again in the 41st minute.  However, Pierre-Yves Hamel, wearing 29, scored a 72th minute match-winning penalty for Lorient at Clermont.  No other goals linked to a number nine were scored anywhere, and that game was linked here.  The full evidence trail is on Twitter.  Regular readers (hello, both of you) will not be at all surprised by this stuff.  If you are new to the blog, welcome to my world.  It’s random.  Well, randomish.  And not boring in any way whatsoever, oh no.
Context
Colne are just above mid-table and still have playoff aspirations.  They will be buoyed by a county cup semi-final victory over Bamber Bridge in midweek. Kendal are flirting with relegation in penultimate place.  They won their last away league game but have lost twice at home since then.
In one sentence
There can be no real complaints about the result, but Kendal were not really defeated until late in the game.
So what?
Colne move up one place and have a six-point gap to the playoff places.  Kendal remain last-but-one but their nearest rivals also lost today.
Match Report
Colne dominated the attacking play in the first quarter, with both wingers Matthew Morgan and Bradley Lynch prominent in the build-up.  They struggled however to create a clear opening until the 22nd minute when it took a magnificent save from visiting keeper Joao Mendes to keep the score at 0-0.   Mendes then got caught out of his area but the chance of a cheeky lob from distance was fluffed.  Meanwhile Kendal were gradually showing some ambition of their own. Colne got the opening goal in the 28th minute when a first-time flick from Alex Curran wrong-footed the Kendal defence and Lynch rolled the ball gently into the net. When they added a slightly bizarre second just before the break, it looked like game over.  There had been more waves of Colne pressure, before a mishit shot skewed to the left.  Mendes came out of the six-yard box to the byline to collect but somehow it ended up with a Colne attacker who crossed for Oliver Wood to head into an unguarded net at the far post. Kendal’s best chance so far came on 53 minutes.  Good work by George Mason on the right led to a volleyed chance for Ryan Moore, but it went over and maybe that was the hinge point of the game.  Both keepers were called into action again soon enough.  Mendes fingertipped a curling shot away for a corner and Colne’s Hakan Burton made a good block at his near post. Ripples of anxiety spread through the ground as Colne were caught on the break, Daniel Keenan scoring from route one with still a quarter of the game to go.  Colne finally sealed the points with twelve minutes to go.  Mendes could only parry a fierce low shot to substitute Mamadou Djabi who had an easy task to score.  Kendal were game to the end and had a half-chance to reduce the arrears in stoppage time, but this was a day of so near yet so far for them.
Pix
This place has many elements of the perfect groundhopping day trip – scenic drive, easy parking, magnificent views, friendly locals, good refreshment bar, and a sloping ground with character.  These days I do most of my “new” grounds in daylight and I felt vindicated when I saw those superb lines of Lancashire rooftops and chimneys.  Colne are in red.
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 181 matches. Today, Blue beats Radioactive Bile but neither gets a clean sheet.  Blue closes the gap on Grey and Radioactive Bile drops one place. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Home Win Was the prediction correct? Yes % of correct predictions so far 64% (23 from 36) 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. The odd decimal places were caused either by half-and-half tops or sub keepers 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 10.5 5.5 1.0 4.0 11.0 3.5 24.0 2.286 Grey 50.5 24.0 11.0 15.5 80.5 15.0 77.5 1.535 Blue 45.1 20.0 7.0 18.1 69.0 14.0 68.0 1.508 Green 96.0 50.0 12.0 34.0 161.0 23.0 116.0 1.208 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 46.5 15.0 9.0 22.5 86.5 7.0 2.5 0.054 Black 6.5 2.5 3.0 1.0 15.0 0.5 -2.0 -0.308 Radioactive Bile 23.0 9.0 0.0 14.0 51.0 3.0 -9.0 -0.391 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 White 1.9 0.0 0.0 1.9 4.0 0.0 -4.0 -2.105
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter!  25 grounds left at Step 4 and hopefully one more ticked off next week.  I will then be joining the North West Counties Hop for 7-9 March and the 4-pies-1-day challenge.