Hoppers Eat, Roar, Meet with Stamford Lions

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Friday 26 July 2019 at The Borderville Sports Centre
Result	Stamford Lions 1 Peterborough Polonia 1
Competition	Peterborough & District Football League Premier Division (Step 7)
Hopstats	Ground #700 on my lifetime list! Also my first game of the new season (I don’t do club friendlies…). The ground sits adjacent to AFC Stamford’s relatively new stadium.
Context
Very little to go on – first competitive game of the new season for both teams. The Lions finished 4th last season whereas the visitors finished in last place and the corresponding fixture finished 6-0.
In one sentence
The Lions did not score the second goal to match their first half superiority and they paid the price with a second-half equaliser.
So what?
Far too early to make any sensible comment.
Brief Match Report
One of the lesser known joys of groundhopping is hearing male northern stadium announcers reading out the names of players with African heritage. Faced with an Eastern European catalogue of consonants, a member of the visiting club staff was invited to perform the PA honours for their side. The home team took the lead after 17 minutes with a tap-in by Kieran Duffy-Weekes. The assist goes to Jake Showler. Having created some space near the byline, he had the composure to wait and time the pass perfectly so that the scorer could not miss. My notes say that Lions were marginally better at keeping the ball in midfield, but despite territorial supremacy they failed to add a second goal before the interval. The equaliser came from the penalty spot on 65 minutes. It was a clear trip by fullback Edwin Pentney on Edyinas Puzara. Lukas Bielskis sent the keeper the wrong way. After that, both teams went for the win and had half chances to do so. There were a number of yellow cards for trips and fouls, and Karolis Vladicka collected two of them, so Polonia played the last few minutes with ten men. Probably a fair result overall, and it seems clear that Polonia will not be such pushovers in the division this season.
Pix
Lions in yellow and blue. The "dugouts" are a delight.
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats
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. Today, Blue v Orange and the points are shared. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Home Win Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 30 from 56 (54%) No change in the league table positions. Full table published here once a month or so. Look back to my Cinderford post for the end of last season if you are desparate!
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter! Once the season settles down my priorities will be Tottenham Hotspur (somehow, tba) then Atherton Collieries, Blackfield & Langley and Radcliffe to restore my “everywhere down to Step 3” status.  After that, I have 20 more grounds to do to complete Step 4 and I am hoping be possible to get them all done in the coming season. In the meantime, the rest of this weekend will be spent at the British Firefighter Challenge in Watford (my elder son Matt is a competitor) and I have family commitments on the first two Saturdays of August. Maybe a cheeky midweek hop will be fitted in. Watch this space.