Nomads Win is No Mean Feat

Slight crease to programme cover: 3pts on Groundhopping Licence

Hopperational Details
Date	Sunday 10 March 2019
Result	Rylands 3 Cheadle Heath Nomads 5
Venue	Rylands Recreation Club
Competition	North West Counties Division One South (Step 6)
Result 2	Irlam P-P West Didsbury & Chorlton
Venue	Silver Street
Competition	North West Counties Premier Division (Step 5)
Hopstats	Number 687 on the lifetime list.  Many thanks to Groundhop UK, particularly Chris Berezai and Laurence Reade but also their other helpers, for organising this weekend’s event.  Thanks too of course to the numerous club officials and volunteers who rose to the occasion.  Only one game today due to an early call for postponement at Irlam.
Context
1st v 10th.
In one sentence
The visitors adapted better to the blustery conditions and held on for a very good away win.
So what?
Rylands still lead but now by only four points, Cheadle Heath go up one place to 9th.
Match Report
This match was several days ago now and it is a reasonable shout that everyone who cares was actually there.  The conditions were grim and you have to pay tribute to the clubs, the league and the players for letting this spectacle take place.  Under the circumstances it was a superb game, very competitive and of a decent standard, even though it was freezing and blustery. The GroundhopUK group held a pre-match meeting on the bank in response to the news of postponement at Irlam.  Other spectators looked on and chatted about a suitable collective noun for hoppers and compared the effectiveness of different brands of carrier bag.  In objective terms this match should probably not have taken place either, but we were there, they were there, and goodwill prevailed.  Well done everyone. The teams switched ends after the toss, so fair to say the wind was going to be a factor.  On the pitch, Cheadle Heath would not have planned to gift an early goal to the league leaders.  Wind-assisted confusion led to a ball being squared (crucially not played forward, negating the calls for offside) to allow Ste Boothman to score easily with the keeper out of position.  Cheadle Heath responded soon enough through Jimmy Green, and the same player gave the visitors the lead from the spot after the home keeper was adjudged to have brought down an attacker. After 39 minutes Kieron Herbert added a third for the visitors with a low shot in off the post, so this was not going with the form book.  Nevertheless, when Rylands got one back in first-half stoppage time with a cracking goal by Boothman again, after a good move, I thought that the change of ends would help the home side in the second half and they were now probably in the driving seat. I know nothing. Cheadle Heath defended well and overall adapted much better to the conditions today.  With Rylands committing players forward, the visitors went to a 2-5 lead with goals from a header by Ashley Harrison and a close-range bundle by Andrew Simpson.  Jay White got a third for Rylands with three minutes to go, but by then the points were in the bag. I've said this elsewhere, but thanks again to the organisers, the clubs (especially the volunteers) and the league for a splending hopping experience this weekend.
Pix
Rylands in Blue. The tracks of the White Lino are clearly visible.
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. It has to be said that this weekend has been a shocker for the predictions, which have plummeted back towards the 50% success rate that might have been expected.  Orange beats Green today, but lots of goals conceded.  Pre-match Predictions based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction 1: Home Win Was the prediction correct? No Prediction 2: N/A Was the prediction correct? % of correct predictions so far 56% (24 from 43) 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. A full recalculation will appear next week, and see two posts back (Friday) for the rank order before the start of this weekend’s hop.  Since then, Orange has overtaken Purple.  The damage done to Green was not enough to cause a drop in position.
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter!  Hopefully I will be ticking off one of my target Step 4 grounds next Saturday, but the weather forecasts are not great.