When Herts Refuse to Be Beaten

 

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 6 November 2021 at New Cuthbury
Result	Wimborne Town 3 Kings Langley 3
Competition	Southern League Premier Division South (Step 3)
Hopstats	Ground 734 on the lifetime list. Wimborne’s new ground is the only one currently left for me at this level, and this is the first fixture here since I completed the new Step 2 grounds at York, Gloucester and Bolton earlier this season. So this isn’t random, but it completes “The 243” which is all the grounds in the first seven tiers in England. There are 245 teams in those divisions but two (Cray Wanderers & Kingstonian) are currently groundsharing with grounds already counted in that total. Another three (Hendon, Truro City and Rushden & Diamonds) share with clubs who operate in a lower tier.
Context
The clubs occupy the bottom two places in the division with six points each, although Wimborne do have two games in hand.
In One Sentence
A very entertaining game for the passing neutral, and a red card didn’t stop the visitors from grabbing a point with a very late equaliser.
So What?
Both on seven points, closing the gap by one to Merthyr Town who lost today.
Match Report
I’d only just finished tweeting the #keepertopcolourstats prediction when Wimborne had the lead. The ball was turned in from close range by Lewis Beale. Kings Langley had the ball in the net themselves within a minute but there was an offside call. After this crazy start the game settled, and the visitors started probing, enjoying the major share of possession. However, they wasted a couple of set pieces from good positions and when Beale scored again after 18 minutes it looked as if Kings Langley were going to be all style and no substance. The incident was on the far side of the ground from me (a regular occurrence this season) but Wimborne’s Charlie Gunson was perhaps slightly fortunate that the ref waved yellow rather than red after a moment of retaliation. The home side then had a good chance for a third before the visitors got on the scoresheet to make a game of it. It was a good finish across the goalkeeper to the top corner (pictured) by Harrison Crawford, leaving debutant Ryan Hall with no chance to save. Half-time arrived with the result still in doubt, just the way that us neutrals like it. After the break, Kings Langley continued with their policy of playing out from the back, with the ball on the deck for the most part. With only 50 minutes on the clock, Crawford slotted home his second and the equaliser from a very neat move, triangles everywhere. However, in less than a minute, Wimborne had the lead again. There was a push in the penalty area and Beale completed a hat-trick by converting the spot-kick. Kings Langley were not yet beaten. Hall had to be alert to smother the ball at the feet of Crawford, who could then have had his own hat-trick. His header, from another neat passing move down the left, went just wide. As we entered the final quarter, Wimborne exerted some pressure of their own, presumably having decided that three might not be enough. Then came the red card for Crawford, adjudged to have made a dangerous challenge. Wimborne pushed again for their fourth but Kings Langley did just enough to hold on, and we had reached stoppage time before another lovely flowing move down the left ended up with two subs queuing up at the far post to score. It was Will Hoskins with the final touch, whose name will be familiar to quite a few EFL supporters from his earlier career exploits. Even that wasn’t the end of the action, and just before the final whistle it took a sharp save from keeper Alfie Marriott at the other end to protect the hard-won point. I think both sides will feel they could and should have won, it was that sort of occasion.
Match Pix
Wimborne in white and black.
Ground Pix
Very well-appointed new build as you would expect. Grass pitch with an adjacent artificial surface for training.
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 235 matches is here, on this separate page. This week, two shades of blue share a draw and there is no change in the positions, a result which also brings the prediction success rate back to 50%. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Draw Was the prediction correct? Yes % of correct predictions so far 50% (45 from 90) 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! There are now 15 Step 4 grounds on my priority list which would complete the ninth tier. We are moving into the season of potential weather disruption, though, so there may have to be late, pragmatic decisions if I am to get through them all this season. Random or randomish decisions will be back whenever possible.

Kings Langley Pip Bedford in a Game of Chances

Hopperational details
Date & Venue	Saturday 3 May 2014 at Gaywood Park
Result	Kings Langley 1 Bedford 1
Competition	Spartan South Midlands Division One (Step 6)
Hopping	Ground 536 on the lifetime list.  Not often that there is a match of vital importance at an unvisited ground less than 30 mins away from Yapp Acres, so an easy choice.
Pre-match preparation
Sun Postal Sports have won the division, but this game between 2nd and 3rd will decide the other promotion place.  Both have 85pts but KL have the better goal difference, so a draw will do for them.  Bedford have to win.  The previous league meeting was a 3-3 draw way back in August.
This match in one sentence
Bedford will rue all of their missed chances, particularly from a first half that they dominated.
So what?
Kings Langley head into the Step 5 world of the South Midlands Premier division for the first time in their history, and Bedford, as Anne Robinson would have put it, you leave with nothing.
The drama unfolds
Bedford started the game strongly so I took a very early clip.  A lovely scything foul on the wing leads to a booking and a set-piece.  Home ‘keeper Steve Bourke makes the first of many saves and someone shouts “1-0” just as a goal-bound shot is deflected wide.  It was an exciting and frantic start to the game.  Kings Langley are in black-and-white. Bedford striker Josh Ford then rode two tackles and smacked the crossbar before I took another clip.  This is save-of-the-season from Bourke as he tips a deflected 20-yard shot onto the bar.  These two clips were typical of the first quarter-hour and Bedford’s management could not believe it was still 0-0. Kings Langley had their first sight of goal when Gary Connolly’s shot past an outrushing Aaron Bodger went just wide, and Bodger made another save as it appeared that the home team had now weathered the early storm.  Ford then had another chance but Bourke was able to fall on a tame shot.  Kings Langley missed a shot from a corner before Bourke did enough to foil Ashley Kersey as a red kite circled overhead.  I took a clip of a Bedford set-piece on 35 minutes and then a last-ditch tackle just before half-time.  (Note: not suitable for family viewing  due to rude words floating on the breeze…)  0-0 at half-time The second half was more even, and both sides kept a balance between attack and defence.  Here is how the deadlock was broken, and it was a goal for Kings Langley.  The scorer is Jonny Munday.  1-0 after 67 mins This meant that Bedford needed to score twice and Bourke was soon back in action with a full-length save.  The visitors appealed for a penalty when a driven ball was deflected on to a defender’s arm but the ref quite reasonably declined.  Kings Langley held out until the arrival of a freight train on the adjacent line with 10 minutes to go.  Here’s the clip.  1-1 after 80 mins Bedford were almost certain to create a chance to win it.  In fact they had several as defence became increasingly desperate.  Here is the moment that they probably realised that they were staying down, followed shortly after by the final whistle.  As a neutral, I enjoyed this thoroughly.  Well done to both sides, and congratulations and commiserations respectively to the two clubs.  Final score 1-1 We love this game because of its unpredictability and fine margins.  That's how close it was, that could have been Bedford's defining moment.
Ground Pix
The best hand-written teamsheet ever ... *applause*
Match Pix
Huddle Stats
Kings Langley are the second team to use a twin huddle this season, and Bedford made do with the one.  I think we have established that it doesn't make any difference. 2013-14 Summary so far: P W D L GF GA Pts Pts per Game Non-Huddlers 29 13 3 13 45 48 42 1.45 Huddlers 16 6 5 5 19 15 23 1.44 Twin Huddlers 2 0 2 0 3 3 2 1.00 2nd Half Huddlers 1 0 0 1 1 2 0 0.00
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats
Yellow (home) drew with Green (away), no clean sheet for either side. 2013-14 Summary so far: 3pts for a win, 1pt for a draw, -1pt for a goal conceded and +5pts for a clean sheet P W D L GA (-1 each) CS (5 each) Pts Pts per Game Purple 1 1 0 0 0 1 8 8.00 Grey 12 7 2 3 13 5 35 2.92 Red 3 2 0 1 3 1 8 2.67 Green 11 5 1 5 16 2 10 0.91 Yellow 5 1 2 2 9 1 1 0.20 Orange 3 1 1 1 6 0 -2 -0.67 Radioactive Bile 3 1 0 2 6 0 -3 -1.00 Pink 7 1 3 3 16 0 -10 -1.43 Blue 3 0 1 2 6 0 -5 -1.67
What Next?
I will be sitting with the Sholing faithful, and hopefully the Yapplets, at the FA Vase final at Wembley next Saturday.  Come On You Boatmen!  Watch @GrahamYapp on Twitter for details!