Lancing, When You're Winning

 

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 29 October 2022 at Culver Road (Sussex FA HQ)
Result	Lancing 1 Corinthian 0
Competition	Isthmian League Division One South East (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground #764 on the lifetime list. I am here randomishly because Lancing were the first club on my shortlist of four for today to tweet an invitation this morning. A quick check of the weather forecast and train times meant that the journey was not a risk – I was not aware that this game would be on a 3G surface anyway so it was probably never in doubt at any stage.
Context
Lancing are in mid-table but have won their two previous games. Corinthian are bottom of the division. They have scored one goal in their last five, which gave them a 1-0 win at Sevenoaks, but the other four were defeats without scoring.
In One Sentence
The spirited Corinthian effort (see what I did there) came to nothing because of a set-piece goal and a superb double-save from the home keeper in the closing minutes.
So What?
Lancing are 10th and curiously, Corinthian go up one place to 19th on goal difference because Faversham were tonked (technical term) 6-1 away at Whitehawk.
Pre-match Entertainment
A stroll along the coast, an ice cream and a little egret. Worryingly warm for the end of October. If you're not worried about how warm it is, you should be. Also, a brief conversation about whether a 99 is a 99 if it doesn’t have a Flake in it.
Match Report
The annals of the Isthmian League will record Thomas Butler’s header just before half-time as the winning goal in this contest. It was a textbook towering one, direct from a corner that had been obtained somewhat against the run of play. However, those records will not show the brave double save in the closing minutes by home keeper Conor Manderson which protected the win and the points. Corinthian will wonder how they went home with nothing from this game, but it was to be another scoreless afternoon for them. In the first half they had kept Manderson much busier than his counterpart Daniel Colmer. Corinthian were maybe a bit too reliant on the long throw, and after some early scares Lancing dealt with them well. Colmer did well enough on the rare occasions he was called upon in that first half, until Butler’s header (pictured below) beat him and the two fullbacks on the line. The corner had resulted from a good tip-over save from Colmer.   The second half was more end-to-end, but both sides looking equally likely to score. In my notebook, incorrectly as usual, I see that I had written, “This will be 1-1 or 2-0”. Neither team could manage to create the really clear chance needed. As often happens, it all got a bit tetchy, and the officials came under a lot of verbal pressure from all directions. A couple of free-kick decisions were only a few centimetres outside the area. Manderson was one of several players yellow-carded over the course of the afternoon. Corinthian finished the game strongly and Manderson earned the man-of-the-match award with his late contribution. In passing, I honestly don’t know why the refs and their assistants keep on putting themselves through this experience. Anyway, overall it was a decent day for this passing neutral. The trains were pretty much on time. The ground is well equipped and only a short walk from the station. When things were quiet on the pitch, there was a regular buzz of light aircraft, presumably out of Shoreham, and there was a very large number of starlings fluttering from floodlight to floodlight. I couldn’t stay for the murmuration later on. I will hopefully be at a Corinthian home game later on this season.
Other Match Pix
Lancing in yellow and blue, Corinthian in green hoops.
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 265 matches is here, on this separate page. Today, Radioactive Bile defies the form book and takes a win and a clean sheet, beating Blue. This is enough to cause some league table movement, as Bile jumps one place. New readers: don’t take this too seriously. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Away Win Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 44% (53 from 120) 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! At some point I need to get to Plymouth Parkway as my one remaining Step 3 ground. (They were promoted at the end of last season.) There are 16 more for me at Step 4, including Guernsey. I suspect this list will carry over into the start of next season in practice, unless I get lucky with weather and fixture combinations.

 

Go Go Power Rangers

Front cover of the e-programme (a free pdf file)

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Tuesday 25 October 2022
Result	Crawley Green 1 Risborough Rangers 2
Competition	Spartan South Midlands Premier League (Step 5)
Hopstats	Ground #763 on the lifetime list and I am here because it’s a short midweek journey to an unvisited ground. Have spent the best part of two days glued to chaotic UK politics and this seemed like a good way to escape.
Context
Crawley Green are heading the division with Rangers just on the right side of midway.
In One Sentence
A deserved away victory in a competitive game that was a good advert for the division.
So What?
Crawley Green remain first but Stotfold closed the gap and have a game in hand. Risborough are up to eighth.
Match Report and Clips
If you like planespotting too, chose a daytime game for your visit here. The ground lies pretty much under the final approach, or takeoff line, for the runway at Luton Airport. Also be warned that there is no spectator parking at the ground and you probably need to arrive early to get a reasonably close street parking space. The Brache is Luton Town’s training facility, and it's a standard 3G surface. By the way, it’s an e-programme. Not an issue (haha, see what I did there) for me, but a deal-breaker for some. The game was played at a good pace on this mild October evening, and the result was in doubt right to the end, great for the passing neutral. It was a goalless first half, but not for the want of trying. The visitors had the best of it, and you started to wonder whether they would eventually regret not having a halftime lead to match their dominance. The Crawley Green keeper Daniel Gould was busy and did well on several occasions to keep his side level. Risborough were having more success in getting behind the home defensive line, whereas home attacks were often snuffed out after the first ball forward. One imagines strong words could have been said in the home dressing room at the interval – they had not looked like table toppers. It was no surprise therefore, that Crawley Green fashioned a good chance in the opening moments of the second half. The ball went just wide of the far right-hand post. By this time I’d abandoned trying to take photographs and decided to settle for a couple of clips. The first shows a slick Risborough attack leading to a goal-line clearance, and the second has Crawley Green taking the lead from a break. The scorer is Joe Hankins.   The lead lasted no more than two minutes as Rico Greco stepped up from midfield and hammered an equaliser. The game then rather settled into the same pattern as the first-half. Risborough eventually got their second goal, and the points, courtesy of Asher Yearwood. I don’t think there can be much argument about the result. I headed to the nearby fast-food franchise – the one whose golden arches are visible from the dugouts – and a good number of the winning side turned up just as I was leaving. Perhaps that’s their dietary secret.
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 264 matches is here, on this separate page. Today, Green loses to Blue, which does not change the positions but means that Green’s lead over blue is an utterly insignificant 0.001 of a point per game. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Home Win Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 45% (53 from 119) 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! Quite a few of my grounds need long drives or train journeys and we are entering the season of less certain weather. It’s likely that there will be a lot of last-minute decisions. Plymouth Parkway is the main priority in order to restore “everywhere in the top seven tiers of the pyramid” on my list. Then there are seventeen at Step 4. I doubt whether I will make the next landmark after that before hanging up my notebook as there would be over a hundred more.