Impasse in Ipswich

 

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 24 August at the GBS Stadium, Humber Doucy Lane
Result	Ipswich Wanderers 0 Heybridge Swifts 0
Competition	Isthmian League Division One North (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground 788 on the lifetime list, here pragmatically rather than randomly today because of the weather prospects. The steady rain eased during the first half and there was plenty of covered space for a smallish crowd. Ipswich Town were being dismantled at Manchester City at the same time, which could have been a factor.
Context
Second league game of the season for both sides.
Match Report
My match report theme this season will be the idea that every game has a hinge point or turning point, and if it occurs later rather than earlier in the game, the more enjoyable the experience for the passing neutral such as myself. In this game it happened just after the hour. Heybridge were awarded a penalty for handball. Wanderers’ debutant keeper Warren Burford saved it. Within a minute at the other end they had a penalty appeal of their own turned down as their attacker couldn’t get a shot away in a tangle of feet. Then they headed narrowly over from the resulting corner. I’d already had my suspicions that this was going to be a scoreless afternoon, and now I felt certain with about half an hour to go. This game, which had started in steady rain, was never boring. Defences were on top for both sides but had to work hard. These are two strong and well-organised sides, trying to play the modern way whenever possible. It’s now an era where players wearing number five are expected to control and pass for a significant portion of the game. The teams largely cancelled each other out during the poor weather of the first half with no significant chance at either end. Heybridge will rue the missed penalty, Ipswich will point to a strong final fifteen minutes in which they stretched the Heybridge defence several times in succession. However, they could also have lost a player with a straight red near the end of the first half for a cynical trip to end a Heybridge break. Overall, the draw was probably a fair result.
So What?
I am not a fan of league tables this early in the season, but Ipswich Wanderers have four points and Heybridge Swifts have two. Much too soon to be saying anything more.
Pix
Groundhoppers beware that some satnavs will take you to the wrong place. “We get it all the time!”, said the gatekeeper at Ipswich Town’s nearby academy after I drove in through their half-open gate. The ground had a good clubhouse and plenty of covered areas, and is clearly now under further development given the club’s rise to Step 4 level. However, surely the attendances will need to be larger for this to be sustainable. In these pix, the home side is in blue.
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats Update
The background to this, and the latest keeper top colour league table, is here on this dedicated page. Today, Green (three simultaneous shades, no less) and Grey both keep clean sheets. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Away Win Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 49% (81 from 167)
What Next?
Not going to jinx it in case the traffic on my least favourite section of motorway ruins things, but I have provisionally planned a Sunday-Monday Bank Holiday double, with a few alternatives if I cannot get to the furthest destination on time. These days I am posting on Threads rather than the toxic wasteland of Twitter.

 

 

Yes, Wivenhoe Banana Skin, Wivenhoe Banana Skin Today

Hopperational details
Date & Venue	Thursday 22 August 2013 at the Maple Tree Cars Stadium
Result	Wivenhoe Town 0 Ipswich Wanderers 1
Competition	FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round Replay.  Wivenhoe play in step 5 and Wanderers in step 6, in the respective divisions of the Eastern Counties League.
Hopping	Number 519 on the lifetime list, and an FA Cup midweek hattrick for me in the only game being played this evening.
Pre-match preparation
It finished 0-0 between these two sides last Saturday, and to be honest, that’s about all I had time for today due to GCSE result declaration duties!
This match in one sentence
The result was in doubt right to the end, but Wanderers took and kept an early one goal advantage and had more and better chances overall on the night.
So what?
Ipswich Wanderers progress to play AFC Sudbury in the next round at the end of the month.
The drama unfolds
The game’s only goal arrived very quickly and unexpectedly.  What appeared to be a routine cross from the right seemed to deceive the home keeper Glen Morrison – maybe the bounce (I was at the other end) – and the ball crept in at the near post to the surprise and delight of scorer Ross Myhill.  0-1 after 3 minutes Wivenhoe responded after 14 minutes as Kevin Bugg had to tip a shot from Marley Spindler over the bar but Wanderers were also creating chances and a second for them looked on the cards.  My scene-setting clip starts 23 minutes into the game – Wivenhoe are in blue. After this I joined local footy guru @essexfootie at the top of the main stand.  Wanderers had another great chance just after that as Morrison missed a corner but the header went wide, but he made a good save just before the interval to keep the margin at one.  0-1 at half-time Morrison made two superb saves early in the second half and was kept very busy as Wanderers continued to look the better side.  One finger-tip stop was exceptional.  He needed treatment, though, after colliding with the post when keeping out another effort.  Wanderers could not yet count themselves safe.  Wivenhoe’s big chance came after 65 minutes, but Josh Grimes’ effort was narrowly over. The game entered a very entertaining (for the neutral) period of end-to-end play.  Wanderers’ Dan Tredray made a magnificent headed clearance off his own line, and with only a few minutes left a Wivenhoe header was pushed onto the bar in a goalmouth melee.  Morrison came up to join the attack on a couple of occasions, as shown in this final clip. Wanderers headed for the corner flag as often as they could in stoppage time as the home challenge petered out.  It wasn’t Wivenhoe’s night but they can’t really have too many complaints about the final score.  Final score 0-1
Ground Pix
Match Pix
Something Random
Here’s a link to @essexfootie’s highlights channel: http://www.youtube.com/EssexNonLeague
Huddle Stats
Ipswich Wanderers huddled and went on to win the game in defiance of the season's trend thus far. The winning huddle 2013-14 Summary so far: P W D L GF GA Pts Pts per Game Non-Huddlers 9 4 2 3 12 10 14 1.75 Huddlers 5 2 0 3 4 6 6 1.20
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats
Today’s winning goalkeeper was in grey, and the clean sheet sends this colour into second place.  The losing (and much busier) one was in green, which drops to third. A clean sheet for the man in grey, Kevin Bugg 2013-14 Summary so far: P W D L CS(5pts) GA(-1 each) Pts Pts per Game Yellow 3 2 1 0 2 3 7 2.33 Grey 2 1 0 1 1 1 4 2.00 Green 4 2 0 3 1 7 -2 -0.50 Orange 1 0 0 0 0 1 -1 -1.00 Radioactive Bile 1 0 0 2 0 2 -2 -2.00 Pink 2 0 1 1 0 5 -5 -2.50
Hopping for Moorfields Update
Cheques totalling £819.30 are winging their way to Moorfields imminently.  When an element of Gift Aid is added to part of this, the final total for the charity will be £933.11.  This will go to help fund leading-edge research into a variety of eye conditions.  Well done, everyone, and thank you again.  I will publish the acknowledgement in due course.
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter for announcements!  Could be one of my Step 3 priority grounds on Saturday.