Smith's Hammer Blow Takes the Shine Off El Glossico for Cirencester

E-programme only.  I’ve captured the front cover for the blog but unless I am being incompetent it is not in a downloadable format.  I don’t mind e-programmes but I’d prefer to be able to put a souvenir copy on my own hard drive.

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 9 February at Thornhill Park
Result	Slimbridge 2 Cirencester Town 2
Competition	Southern League Division One South (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground 678 on the lifetime list and I am here pragmatically rather than randomly as Slimbridge were the first on my shortlist to declare “Game On” this morning.
Context
I did not have much time for pre-match research except to note that Slimbridge are just above the relegation zone and Cirencester are chasing the playoff places.  The pre-match publicity calls the game El Glossico - love that!  The reverse fixture last November was a 3-3 draw.
In one sentence
A superb equalising goal followed by a rearguard action gave Slimbridge a share of the points after they had surrendered their early lead.
So what?
The teams are 18th and 5th respectively in the table.
Match Report
There was a stiff breeze, strong enough to affect the flight of the ball.  Slimbridge took an early lead.  A freekick was taken right-footed from the right flank by Liam Smith and his curling cross was initially cleared.  The ball fell nicely for William Hawes who smashed in an unstoppable shot. Smith (8) watches his freekick cleared but Hawes (10) is lurking. They should have had a second goal.  A superb through ball, right to left, by Dean Turner was crossed with the breeze by Hawes but Danny King’s header was just wide.  Cirencester were taking time to hit their stride and by this time their manager, Charlie Griffin, serving a touchline ban in the opposite stand, had already made a couple of phone calls to the away dugout.  Disappointingly, no laundry baskets seemed to be involved in moving him around. "'Allo? Tell him what?" Divine guidance reaches the dugouts by the magic of microwaves. By the midpoint of the first half they were bossing possession, looking very good in midfield, but the Slimbridge defensive line held well.  Home keeper Lewis Adams was alert to parry a far-post header by Tom Anderson from a left-wing cross by Aidan Bennett.  Their equaliser came ten minutes before the interval.  Ben Whitehead shot from distance and the ball seemed to dip and bounce in front of Adams.  The ball flicked his hand but ended up in the net. I moved from the main stand to the opposite touchline for the second half, fortified by an excellent hot dog.  The teams traded half-chances in the early stages of the second half.  A scuffed shot for Cirencester and a header just over from Slimbridge meant that the score stayed level.  On 57 minutes, Cirencester won a freekick in about the same place as Slimbridge’s very early one.  It was taken left-footed by Jack Freeman, curved the other way and missed everyone on its way into the far corner. Textbook Scuff Cirencester were looking good value for a win at this point but then Slimbridge forced visiting keeper Mateusz Wieczorek into a superb one-handed save low to his right.  The clearance came out to Liam Smith who ran directly at goal, riding several challenges before scoring a quite magnificent leveller. Cirencester had by now adopted the breeze as a team member.  They forced a number of corners, all of which were delivered as vicious inswingers.  Somehow Slimbridge held on with last-man clearances, and on one occasion with the help of the underside of the crossbar.  Most of my pix today are of corner chaos - reminded me of my Faroe Islands trip! For the passing neutral, a good game in these conditions with the result in doubt right to the end.  I didn't get to use the "wild foul" pun (birdwatchers will understand).  The point probably does Slimbridge more good than Cirencester.
Pix
Slimbridge in Blue.
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats (#keepertopcolourstats)
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. This week, Orange and Green share the points, but no clean sheets.  No change to league table positions. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Away Win Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 62% (21 from 34) 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. This table is derived from the last 179 games on the blog. 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 Blue 44.1 19.0 7.0 18.1 68.0 14.0 66.0 1.497 Grey 49.5 23.0 11.0 15.5 80.5 14.0 69.5 1.404 Green 95.0 50.0 12.0 33.0 156.0 23.0 121.0 1.274 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 Radioactive Bile 22.0 9.0 0.0 13.0 48.0 3.0 -6.0 -0.273 Black 6.5 2.5 3.0 1.0 15.0 0.5 -2.0 -0.308 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!  27 Step 4 grounds to go to my next landmark.