Flyers Staying Grounded

 

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 23 December 2023 at Lye Sports Ground
Result	Lye Town 2 Hinckley LR 3
Competition	Northern Premier League Division 1 Midland (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground 768 on the lifetime list. I am here non-randomly because I was in the area today for family reasons. This is a much-delayed start to the 2023-24 season for me. Since the last post, I’ve had Covid (followed by a period of recovery), I’ve spent several Saturdays on the touchline so that my grandson could play in his U9 games in Bedfordshire, and there’s been a family bereavement. This blogpost is dedicated to my late father Raymond Yapp (1934-2023) who joined me on several groundhop trips over the years and passed away last month at the age of 89.
Context
3rd plays 6th. Lye are flying (appropriately enough, see programme cover) in their first-ever Step 4 season although they lost last time out. Hinckley LR (which stands for Leicester Road) are in their second season in this division. The reverse fixture took place back in August and finished 2-2. Lye’s squad today is boosted with two new signings.
In One Sentence
A clinical second half performance from Hinckley, with a late Lye goal making the result look closer than it would appear.
So What?
It’s very tight at the top of this division. Lye drop to 6th on goal difference with Hinckley LR leaping over them into 5th.
Match Report
The first two decent goal chances fell to Lye. Joe Palmer shot just over and then a decoy run by Adam Meacham at a free-kick left some far post space that led to a scramble and a chance. Hinckley played the ball out from the defence as is the modern custom, and the playing surface was good enough to allow that. However, they were not so effective with the final pass and the better half-chances continued to fall to the home side. It was no surprise when Lye took the lead just after the half-hour, but it took a good through ball and composure from Matt Funge to give the keeper no chance. The two sides traded chances thereafter but the score remained one-nil at the interval. Hinckley were much more effective in the second half and soon grasped control of the game. The equaliser came on 52 minutes. Andre Williams had a far post tap-in after a good surging move down the left flank and good work by Aaron Nuttall. They took the lead just five minutes later when Williams poked home his second from close range after some pinball following a corner. The points were then pretty much in the bag in the 68th minute as more left-wing trickery and a low driven cross from Nuttall rebounded off the keeper on to the chest of Liam Read and into the net. Hinckley proceeded to see out the rest of the game reasonably comfortably. Lye never gave up, and there was the odd chance at each end. Lye’s second goal was scored by Palmer in stoppage time but there was no time to get another to get a share of the points. So, my first game for seven months. Not bad at all. Interesting ground, five goals, keenly contested.
Ground Pix
This is an unusual three-sided ground shared with the cricket club to some extent. There is work-in-progress and some old-style seating and covered terracing. I enjoyed hearing the Black Country accents drifting past me – it doesn’t take much to reawaken mine, which has been largely dormant after four decades in East England.   This is the regional flag for the Black Country
Match Pix
Lye in the blue-and-white. Only had my compact camera with me today so some match pix are fuzzier than usual.
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 test of statistical significance, it looks like a Kruskal-Wallis one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test will be appropriate. The full keeper top performance table from my last 283 matches is here, on this separate page, and I’ll organise the test when we reach 300 pieces of evidence. Today Green beats a two-tone top which on balance I have classified as Orange. Black was the other half. To be honest, from the front it was very close to the other team’s kit colour. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Away Win Was the prediction correct? Yes % of correct predictions so far 48% (66 from 138)
What Next?
Undecided – maybe a Boxing Day trip? As my last Step 3 ground, Plymouth Parkway has been my number one priority for some time now, but that is a long journey for me that will need absolute certainty over the weather. More likely is another Step 4 (I have 25 left), or a cheeky Step 5 double if kickoff times permit.