Hillmen Avengers

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 1 October 2022 at Surrey Street
Result	Glossop North End 2 Ramsbottom United 1
Competition	Northern Premier League Division One West (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground #759 on the lifetime list and I am here pragmatically rather than randomly because I am trying to get a few long journeys done from my priority list, before the weather worsens and fuel reaches the same price per litre as other pricey liquids such as Chanel No 5 perfume or Hewlett-Packard magenta printer ink.
Context
Glossop (aka The Hillmen) are doing much better in the league than Ramsbottom, but Ramsbottom knocked Glossop out of the FA Trophy last month. See what I did there with the blogpost title? Both sides conceded four goals in home defeats last time out – the hosts against Hanley Town in midweek and the visitors in the subsequent round of the FA Trophy at home to Clitheroe.
In One Sentence
A strong start to the second half in difficult conditions was enough to win the game for Glossop.
So What?
The sides finish the day in 7th and 19th (of 20) places in the division. Glossop are one of six teams separated only by goal difference, four points off the lead. Ramsbottom are three points above the last-placed team.
Pre-match Entertainment
No spare time today before kickoff, but I had chosen the scenic route across the A628/A616 into Derbyshire. I’ve never seen those reservoirs so low.
Match Report
Ramsbottom took the lead with an early penalty, converted by Michael Fitzgerald. It was given when the home keeper and one defender jumped for the ball with one attacker. It looked fairly innocuous to me from a distance and was the first of several disputed decisions in the game. However, I wasn’t as close as the referee, of course. Glossop equalised before half-time. A shot was blocked but came back to Louis White, and his low shot back across the keeper nestled in the far right corner. Ramsbottom could have retaken the lead soon enough. A bouncing ball through the middle fell nicely for James Murphy. He rounded the keeper but was forced wide and by then excellent positioning by Ekow Coker allowed him to clear off the line. So, level at the break with all to play for, as they say. Glossop took command of the second half and started to use the breezy conditions to their advantage. Ram’s keeper Charlie Monks produced a flying one-handed tip-over to keep out a long-range shot, but the winning goal came before too long from a viciously inswinging corner. Monks missed his punch and the ball pinged around for a moment before being touched in from close range by Harry Freedman. This pic shows the development of the crucial chaotic moment. With about twenty minutes to go, it was now about game management. Ramsbottom would need to commit forward, and conditions favoured fast breaks. For this neutral observer, the game rather fizzled out. The game had become increasingly niggly, and eventually in the dying moments something happened in the visitors’ penalty area which led to an old-fashioned bundle. The ref and assistants waited patiently for the rutting to stop before administering a flurry of yellow cards. Not long after the re-start, Coker picked up a red card and Glossop saw out the last few moments with ten men. A small amount of water, or maybe expensive isotonic fluid, who knows, was thrown towards a spectator as the players left the field, in response to some verbal provocation, and of course the officials received their traditional “welcome” as they followed. I headed for the return drive through the High Peak in the remaining sunshine of the day.
Other Match Pix
Glossop in Blue.
Ground Pix
Some of the best surroundings on the Step 4 circuit. This is a neat and tidy ground with decent facilities for this level, and a bit of a slope to add character.
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 260 matches is here, on this separate page. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Today, Yellow meets Green, and the win is enough to lift Yellow off the bottom of the table. No clean sheets. Prediction: Away Win Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 44% (51 from 115) 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 am planning to take in the three Saturday games of the Southern Counties East League Hop next week before returning to the priority list.