Visions of Greatness Park

e-Programme

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 24 October 2020 at The Bourne Stadium, Greatness Park
Result	Sevenoaks Town 0 Hastings United 1
Competition	Isthmian League Division One SE (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground 717 on the lifetime list and here pragmatically as the weather has not been good and my other possibilities were both grass pitches and longer journeys. This visit completes the Isthmian League for me with the exception of Guernsey, which will have to wait until the end of the CV19 pandemic.
Context
Two sides unbeaten in the league, five games in. 5th hosts 2nd, so am expecting a competitive game. The quality will be helped by an artificial surface but could be hindered by the wind.
In One Sentence
A match indeed spoiled as a spectacle by the conditions but won by a magnificent goal.
So What?
Hastings go above VCD (who didn’t play today) to the top of the divisional table and Sevenoaks drop to eighth.
Match Report
My written notes were largely illegible by the end of the game so some of this is from memory. As I had feared, the game as a spectacle was largely ruined by the conditions. Bands of rain swept in laterally and almost horizontally with very short periods of respite. There were few chances created in the first half. Sevenoaks applied more of the early pressure. Hastings gradually got to grips with the tactics needed, apart from Ben Pope who got himself needlessly booked for a deliberate Maradona-type handball. They had one of the better chances when a through ball allowed Jake Elliot to get through one-on-one with keeper Ben Bridle-Card. He seemed to misjudge the bounce, though, and the moment was gone. Bridle-Card then had to be alert to tip over a Gary Elphick header from a corner. The Hastings fans had by this time amused us with a rendition of “It’s Grim Up North!” before one of them embarrassed himself with a foul-mouthed rant at the officials before that corner. I wouldn’t want to have to explain to my grandchildren what some of those words are supposed to mean. Half-time: Sevenoaks Town 0 Hastings United 0 Hastings scored what turned out to be the only goal of the game eleven minutes into the second half. Ryan Worrall picked the ball up in left midfield, went forward and right to create a shooting position and buried an absolute screamer just inside the left-hand post. Superb goal, and like so many for me this season, up the other end. With defences on top in these difficult conditions, it remained a game of few chances. Hastings keeper Louis Rogers made a fantastic stop from one of the Sevenoaks subs (Zachary Guerfi, I think) and there was another timely tackle just outside the box to protect the lead. The closing minutes were forgettable for this passing neutral as Hastings took the ball to the flanks and corners whenever they could. I don’t blame them in the slightest. This was a good win.
Match Pix
I managed to get a few snaps between the showers. Sevenoaks in blue and black.
Ground Pix
One of those grounds where you can sit on a bench on a nearby slope and watch some of the action for free. This is a newish community facility with other very good play areas adjacent. I had arrived at the time that lots of youngsters were being collected after a morning of football activity on the same pitch.
CV19 Opinion
This was by far and away the most rigorous of the arrangements that I have experienced on eleven hops this season, at least initially. Everything seemed organised. The ticket had been purchased online in advance, an electronic temperature check was carried out at the turnstile, and the hand sanitising on arrival was supervised and enforced. There was a clear one-way system. The club had also tweeted earlier that they were limiting the numbers below the allowed maximum. Hand sanitiser was available in various locations around the ground and there were plenty of relevant notices. As with all the games so far, I felt safe enough in my quiet corner. The price to pay for social distancing this time was a thorough soaking. The planned social distancing in the stands became a casualty of the circumstances as most people sought some form of shelter. Once again, it seemed clear that people were mostly operating in their own self-determined bubbles rather than adhering to the strict guidance.
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats Update
Usually accompanied by a pre-match prediction on Twitter just before kickoff. Working towards being able to compute a respectable statistical significance test by the end of the season. The full keeper top performance table from my last 218 matches is here, on this separate page. Today, Orange loses to Green. Orange drops back below Purple and the clean sheet widens Green’s gap to fifth but is not enough to overtake Blue. Notice how I write this stuff in the style of something important. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Away Was the prediction correct? Yes % of correct predictions so far 49% (36 from 73) 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 undeniable half-and-half tops or lower league 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 (and supported by anonymous scientists of some description) that orange is the best colour for a goalkeeper because it changes the behaviour of other players around the box. It is supposedly because of an innate primeval human reaction to the colour and the colour “spreads” more in the vision of a striker at the key moment of decision. Genius or garbage? The evidence is gathering here, and is leaning towards the latter.
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter! I genuinely don't know what will happen next. Many of my target grounds for this season are in Covid19 Tier 3 high-risk northern counties and a lot will depend on the relevant law and guidance relating to travel. I am unsure whether I would use the "it's only guidance, not the law" defence even though I feel confident with my own grasp of the science and maths. Barnstaple, Basingstoke, Melksham and Moneyfields are the southern possibilities in the weeks ahead. I would not be at all surprised, however, by the announcement of a so-called circuit-breaker CV19 lockdown by next weekend.