Police Nick the Win at Blackfield and Langley

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 17 August 2019 at Gang Warily
Result	Blackfield & Langley 3 Metropolitan Police 4
Competition	Southern Premier League South
Hopstats	Ground 701 on the lifetime list. I had originally planned a simple coin-toss to decide between here and Radcliffe today, but the latter’s 10am pitch inspection was too late for me to travel realistically. The M25/M3/M27 combo did its best to thwart me with a longer-than-expected journey but I was safely installed, with programme, in the main stand at kick-off time.
Context
Blackfield & Langley had a second successive promotion at the end of last season, and have started well with two wins from two games. Met Police missed out on promotion to Step 2 at the super-playoff stage last season and have one point from their first two games.
In one sentence
The late winner will hurt the home team, who failed to manage the last phase of the game having built a 3-1 lead.
So what?
Still too early in the season to make any sensible comment. Therefore, unlike MotD and Sky and their ilk, I will not take up any more of your valuable time with speculative punditry.
Match Report
Let me start by saying that this is a very friendly, welcoming club. It has climbed the leagues in recent years and has the space to develop further if they can establish themselves at this level. It has good facilities and a very decent playing surface.  The stacks and vents in the background are from the Fawley Oil Refinery. The home side took the lead on 11 mins through Hisham Kasimu. He ran powerfully and directly from the right flank, eased past the keeper and found the net. The equaliser came from the penalty spot just before the half-hour mark. I was at the other end so can’t comment on the decision that there had been a push. Jack Mazzone was the taker. Blackfield & Langley restored their lead after 36 mins with a goal from Joshua Harfield.  The first-half had been played at a good tempo, with direct running and a few bruising tackles. It was only five minutes into the second half before we had a two-goal margin. A very neat placed header did the job, and unfortunately it has gone into the annals as an own goal by Jeremy Arthur. I suspect most people thought that the result was now more or less decided.  Met Police had other ideas. On the hour, a floated free-kick drew the home keeper out of position and the visitors pulled a goal back with a looping header by sub Hani Berchiche back into the far corner. With fifteen minutes to go, a loudly disputed freekick was hoisted into the area and this time Oliver Robinson was in the right place to head home and level the match. By this time there was a certain amount of dissent and frustration being shown and had there been sin bins at this level we would have needed revolving doors. I exchanged tweets with the home team to the effect that this was great stuff for the passing neutral and the visitors might yet get a fourth.  So it proved only seconds later as the game entered stoppage time.  It was an excellent low left-foot shot from just outside the box from another sub, Bilal Sayoud, and a worthy winning goal. Acknowledgement: League Website for checking the goalscorers
Other Pix
Blackfield & Langley are in green.  "Take our picture!", they said. Well, would be rude not to! Hello Malcolm in the background getting better photos as usual!
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats
Today, Orange loses to Yellow and there are no clean sheets.  No change in rank order but the prediction success rate continues to regress back towards 50%.  The table is based on the last 202 games watched. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Home Win Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 53% (30 from 57) 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 half-and-half tops or 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 that orange is the best colour for a goalkeeper because it changes the behaviour of other players around the box. P W D L GC CS Pts PPG Red 11.5 6.5 1.0 4.0 11.0 4.5 32.0 2.783 Grey 53.5 25.0 12.0 16.5 84.5 16.0 82.5 1.542 Blue 49.1 22.0 8.0 19.1 78.0 14.0 66.0 1.344 Green 110.0 55.0 12.0 43.0 191.0 25.0 111.0 1.009 Fire Cracker 3.0 1.0 0.0 2.0 6.0 1.0 2.0 0.667 Purple 22.0 8.0 5.0 9.0 45.0 6.0 14.0 0.636 Maroon 5.0 2.0 1.0 2.0 9.0 1.0 3.0 0.600 Orange 60.5 21.0 13.0 26.5 106.5 11.0 24.5 0.405 Radioactive Bile 24.0 9.0 1.0 14.0 51.0 4.0 -3.0 -0.125 Black 6.5 2.5 3.0 1.0 15.0 0.5 -2.0 -0.308 Yellow 39.0 10.0 9.0 20.0 88.0 7.0 -14.0 -0.359 Pink 18.0 5.0 5.0 8.0 37.0 1.0 -12.0 -0.667 White 1.9 0.0 0.0 1.9 4.0 0.0 -4.0 -2.105
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter! Atherton Collieries, Horsham and Radcliffe are my remaining Step 3 grounds and of course I am waiting for a chance to get in at Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium. Then I will turn my attention to 19 remaining Step 4 venues.

Street View

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 16 March 2019 at The Tannery Ground
Result	Street 0 Blackfield & Langley 0
Competition	Southern League Division One South (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground #688 on the lifetime list, and I am here because the home club were the first to declare “Game Definitely On On On” on my Twitter Saturday Shortlist, in time for me to travel.
Context
11th plays 1st.  Blackfield & Langley won the reverse fixture but both teams lost last weekend. Likely to be a wind-affected match.
In one sentence
It was indeed a wind-affected match, and Street will argue that they had the better of it.
So what?
No change in league positions but Yate’s win means that the visitors’ lead at the top of the table is cut to one point.
Match Report
The stop-start nature of the game was established in the first fifteen minutes.  Street were playing in the slightly more comfortable direction in relation to the very blustery wind.  The pitch condition was pretty good all things considered.  Not much of note happened for the first half-hour, until the home keeper Liam Kingston saved well from Lerone Plummer, who had broken through when a defensive header went astray in the wind.  Then Street’s Harry Foster shot high and wide from his own rebound before teammate David O’Hare emulated the feat even more spectacularly a minute later.  This was a case of creating space and then sending the ball into outer space.  Kingston then had to save a swirling shot from distance and the rebound fortunately fell to safety.  It was generally a dour contest and I noted that Blackfield & Langley would be the more content given the change of ends to come for the second half.  Their keeper Lewis Noice caused a momentary flutter with a fumble but recovered, then there was almost chaos and confusion from their long throw at the other end, and finally Street got the ball in the net but the flag was up for offside.  So, nil-nil at half time. The second half actually saw Street more than hold their own.  Some of their approach play was neat, as they used the headwind to their advantage with clipped balls into the channels and flanks.  Both sides were, however, giving the ref a hard time.  We had some industrial language from both pitch and dugouts which should have been calmed down.  There were some firm tackles flying in, and the odd one was mistimed in the conditions leading to rolling around, yellow cards and general disjointedness, with plenty of offside flags thrown in. By the hour mark, Street were arguably looking more likely to score, though Blackfield & Langley did look dangerous on the break.  Street tried a training ground routine with a low driven corner to the “D” instead of a lofted cross, but it came to nothing.  Harry Foster tried to cross when he might have shot and Noice got down well to smother the chance.  In stoppage time, Zak Sharp took a yellow card for the visitors with a rugby tackle worthy of Twickenham.  I don’t think anyone will feel particularly happy with the result, other than to point out that it would be tough to play pretty football in those conditions.
Pix
Tidy ground with nice clubhouse, friendly people and comfortable seats in the stand opposite the changing rooms.  Street in green.
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats
New this season – a pre-match prediction based only on keeper top colours as a preliminary test of the data.  Proper statistical significance test to follow in due course.  The table is compiled from the last 189 live games that I have attended. Today, a draw and a clean sheet for both Orange and Yellow.  Yellow jumps above Radioactive Bile in the table.  Another incorrect prediction takes the success percentage another point back towards 50%. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Home Win Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 55% (24 from 44) 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 half-and-half tops or 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 that orange is the best colour for a goalkeeper because it changes the behaviour of other players around the box. P W D L GC CS Pts PPG Red 10.5 5.5 1.0 4.0 11.0 3.5 24.0 2.286 Grey 50.5 24.0 11.0 15.5 80.5 15.0 77.5 1.535 Blue 47.1 21.0 7.0 19.1 76.0 14.0 64.0 1.359 Green 104.0 52.0 12.0 40.0 181.0 23.0 102.0 0.981 Fire Cracker 3.0 1.0 0.0 2.0 6.0 1.0 2.0 0.667 Maroon 5.0 2.0 1.0 2.0 9.0 1.0 3.0 0.600 Orange 51.5 19.0 10.0 22.5 90.5 10.0 26.5 0.515 Purple 21.0 8.0 4.0 9.0 45.0 5.0 8.0 0.381 Black 6.5 2.5 3.0 1.0 15.0 0.5 -2.0 -0.308 Yellow 36.0 9.0 8.0 19.0 77.0 6.0 -12.0 -0.333 Radioactive Bile 23.0 9.0 0.0 14.0 51.0 3.0 -9.0 -0.391 Pink 18.0 5.0 5.0 8.0 37.0 1.0 -12.0 -0.667 White 1.9 0.0 0.0 1.9 4.0 0.0 -4.0 -2.105
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter!  23 Step 4 sides left to visit to complete the tier, and hopefully another one ticked off next Saturday.