The Tigers Who Came to W

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 7 September 2019 at The Bill Stokeld Stadium, Stoke Lane, Gedling
Result	Carlton Town 1 Worksop Town 3
Competition	Northern Premier League Division One South East (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground 702 on the lifetime list. I am here randomishly because of a certain event in the House of Lords yesterday. There were no games on at my Step 3 priorities today, so I had made a list of ten games at unvisited Step 4 grounds. On Friday morning, I tweeted that I would go to whichever ground was nearest the place associated geographically with the first peer of the realm to speak in the afternoon session. After a tough morning of pedantry, putdowns and clause-ripping, they finished the committee stage of the Withdrawal No 6 Bill and went for lunch. The opening postprandial event was Lord Rooker proposing that the House should receive the report of the committee. The noble lord, Jeff to his friends, is irrevocably associated with his former constituency of Perry Barr in Birmingham, a mere 55 miles away from Carlton Town, and significantly closer than anywhere else on my list. Runcorn Linnets were next nearest.
Context
Carlton are unbeaten in the league and have four wins out of four, coming back from two down for a 3-2 victory last time out. Worksop are mid-table and lost narrowly at home in the last fixture. They are back at this level following promotion from Step 5 last season.
In one sentence
An entertaining game won by the visitors with their more clinical finishing and exploitation of the first-half spaces left by the host.
So what?
The teams are 4th and 9th respectively in the league table.
Match Report
The early exchanges set the tone for an open, attacking game with plenty of effort on both sides. Worksop’s fullback Ben Rhodes had to make a triple block as early as the fifth minute to deny a chance for Tyler Blake. Then at the other end Craig Mitchell skied a good chance high and wide. Worksop took the lead after 12 minutes when Lynton Karcach hooked the ball back from the right flank into the box. Nial Smith was arriving from the fullback position to head home, largely unchallenged. Just two minutes later, space opened up on the left for Smith to overlap and cross, and this time Mitchell made no mistake. Carlton thus found themselves somewhat bemused and two down for the second game in a row. The hinge point in the game probably came with Carlton’s first attack from the restart. Aaron Opoku timed his run perfectly, showed good strength to hold of a challenge, but shot wide by the narrowest of margins. If that had gone in, I could be writing a different report. Carlton scored from the penalty spot after 19 minutes. Matthew Reay brought down Opoku and home captain Tom Maddison sent the keeper the wrong way. The rest of the first half settled into an even contest, with both teams looking equally likely to get the next goal. However, the defences had sorted themselves out until, just before the interval, space was created with a neat passing move for Mitchell to get his second and restore Worksop’s two-goal lead. It was a critical time to score, with a calm but again unchallenged finish. The second half was entertaining but less dramatic. Carlton pressed and created several half-chances, but the visitors had no need to commit defenders forward and they coped well enough. Territorially the home side probably shaded the second half but the damage had been done. Worksop keeper David Reay was the busier of the two, but much of his work was routine. If both teams play as well for the rest of the season they will certainly be at least safe at this level. A very decent game for the passing neutral.
Pix
Carlton in yellow-and-blue.
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. Today, Green loses to Pink, in defiance of league position. Not enough to change any positions. This table is based on the last 203 games watched. Prediction percentages have steadily dropped back toward 50% after the initial success. Hopefully no shirts have been lost. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Home Win Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 52% (30 from 58) 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 11.5 6.5 1.0 4.0 11.0 4.5 32.0 2.783 Grey 53.5 25.0 12.0 16.5 84.5 16.0 82.5 1.542 Blue 49.1 22.0 8.0 19.1 78.0 14.0 66.0 1.344 Green 111.0 55.0 12.0 44.0 194.0 25.0 108.0 0.973 Fire Cracker 3.0 1.0 0.0 2.0 6.0 1.0 2.0 0.667 Purple 22.0 8.0 5.0 9.0 45.0 6.0 14.0 0.636 Maroon 5.0 2.0 1.0 2.0 9.0 1.0 3.0 0.600 Orange 60.5 21.0 13.0 26.5 106.5 11.0 24.5 0.405 Radioactive Bile 24.0 9.0 1.0 14.0 51.0 4.0 -3.0 -0.125 Black 6.5 2.5 3.0 1.0 15.0 0.5 -2.0 -0.308 Yellow 39.0 10.0 9.0 20.0 88.0 7.0 -14.0 -0.359 Pink 19.0 6.0 5.0 8.0 38.0 1.0 -10.0 -0.526 White 1.9 0.0 0.0 1.9 4.0 0.0 -4.0 -2.105
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter! 23 priority grounds for this season comprising Tottenham Hotspur, 3x Step 3 and 19x Step 4, many in the north and west of the country.