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.