A Tale of Two Towns

 

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 28 August 2021 at Mill Road
Result	Barnstaple Town 0 Melksham Town 2
Competition	Southern League Division One South (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground 723 on my lifetime list. I am here because of a two-stage randomish process which made the decision for me. Firstly, Nicole Harvey was the best bowler last Wednesday from three sides in the Charlotte Edwards T20 Cup for women’s cricket. Her figures of 4-0-13-3 for Western Storm were better than anything from the bowlers of South-East Stars or Northern Diamonds. These three teams had been linked geographically to three football venues each, as explained in the previous blogpost here. Nicole’s performance narrowed it down to a destination to the west of Chateau Yapp, and so we moved on to stage two to decide from Glossop NE, Widnes and Barnstaple Town. This was done by distance, matching them with Brøndby, Dinamo Zagreb and Shaktar Donetsk respectively and using the “last goal scored” method (as used last week here) to make the final decision for me. Those three sides had European ties later in the evening. It’s not strictly random, it’s randomish. Widnes never came into it because it was scoreless in Croatia. As goals went in during the evening, my destination switched between here and Glossop. It was Marlo’s 74th minute goal for Shaktar Donetsk that brings me here in effect – it sent the tie to extra time so it was Barnstaple for me no matter what happened after that.
Context
Barnstaple had a good win over Bideford in the FA Cup last weekend but are bottom of the division having lost their first two games. Melksham are one place above but only on goal difference, and a cup defeat means that they have lost all three competitive games so far. It’s a bit early in the season to be calling this a six-pointer, but hopefully it will be a good contest for this passing neutral.
In One Sentence
A somewhat tetchy encounter settled with two penalties, the first one scored and the second one saved but followed-up.
So What?
Unusually, Barnstaple climb one place on goal difference because of Mangotsfield losing 0-6 at home to Plymouth Parkway. They go away to Bideford on Monday, who will be wanting revenge for the cup defeat, before the next round of the cup on the following weekend. Melksham move up to mid-table respectability in 12th place but it is of course very early in the season and further predictions are fairly pointless. You don’t get this kind of honest analysis on the telly.
Pre-match Entertainment
Regular readers will know that I was relieved when the lateral flow tests were negative after last week’s journey, but I gave the nation’s trains another chance this week. I arrived in Barnstaple in plenty of time for a good walk around Rock Park, the town centre and pannier market, and along the bank of the River Taw, before heading to the ground. The section from Exeter to Barnstaple is marketed as the Tarka Line, and the train trundles through very pretty rolling English countryside. For the mystified, Tarka is an otter, featuring in a 1920s novel by Henry Williamson. There’s a thermodynamics joke about otters being cool because, in the words of Flanders and Swann, heat cannot of itself pass from a hot body to an ‘otter body, and I’m here all week and sorry, not sorry about that. In recent weeks I have commented on pandemic precautions and risks, and I will do so here for the last time unless something changes significantly. The experience at the ground was absolutely fine and low risk. The experience on the trains and buses was broadly fine in the sense that as a mask-wearer I was unchallenged and respected. Some individual legs of the journey were riskier than others in relation to the number and behaviour of unmasked passengers, in an entirely unpredictable way. For me, the last two weeks have been part of trying to evaluate what post-pandemic travel will be like, and my train and bus journeys have as far as I can tell been less dangerous than what will be expected of me as a secondary school teacher next week. As a nation we are being led by ideology rather than science now, and that is certain.
Match Report
My notes from the match are relatively sparse because defences were largely on top, with two sides full of effort and commitment but both lacking a cutting edge. Jay Malshanskj blazed over the bar in the early exchanges after some hesitant home defending, and then Barnstaple failed to make the away keeper Matthew Hall work from a couple of set pieces. The first real chance led to a superb one-handed save from Barnstaple keeper Adam Seedhouse-Evans after 27 minutes. The first penalty of the afternoon was at the other end from me (again!) and it was contested somewhat. It was either a trip or a mistimed tackle, I can’t be sure. Phil Ormrod kept his cool and scored from the spot to give Melksham a half-time lead. The pic shows the keeper about to guess incorrectly this time. The second half followed the same pattern. Long clearances from hand by both keepers, aimed at target men with their back to goal, balls played into the channels for runners from midfield. Very few clear chances were created and the best came from the set pieces such as corner kicks. The second penalty came just after the hour, again for a trip or mistimed tackle and only just inside the box. My first impression was that it was the correct decision. Ormrod stepped up again, but this time needed the rebound to score. This more or less settled things. Melksham could have had a third but Seedhouse-Evans saved one-on-one with Malshanskj. A home defender almost sliced the ball into his own net from a corner, and then his side had a late chance for a consolation from a freekick. Job done for the away side, and they will be relieved to get off the mark for the season. The pics capture the initial save and the scoring from the rebound.
Other Match Pix
Barnstaple in Red.
Ground Pix
Adjacent to its rugby counterpart, tucked away at the bottom of a narrow lane. As is often the case at this level, mixed construction of various types and generally in good order. There was a good early-season playing surface. All looking very nice in late summer sunshine.
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 224 matches is here, on this separate page. This week Radioactive Bile loses to Grey, who also keeps a clean sheet. Once again, no change to the league table. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Away Win Was the prediction correct? Yes % of correct predictions so far 49% (39 from 79) 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’m hoping to take the chance on Monday for another (possibly randomish, maybe pragmatic given that it is a Bank Holiday) ticking off of one of the Step 4 grounds on my priority list.