Seaham Out Despite Quality Up the Front

Hopperational details
Date & Venue	Saturday 6 August 2016 at Seaham Park (now known as Ferguson Motor Repairs Stadium)
Result	Seaham Red Star 1 Morpeth Town 3
Competition	FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round
Hopping	Ground 586 on the lifetime list.  I am here, randomly, because of a roll of 80 on a d100 “golfball” die (see previous post).
Hello Again
Life has been hectic to say the least and last season I had to cut back on groundhopping because I had neither the time nor the energy to make the longish journeys that my spreadsheet is now demanding.  The same thing may happen again, but August brings the early rounds of the FA Cup and random groundhopping is great fun.  I am continuing with the teaching day job as a Head of Science for the foreseeable future.  The nation needs science teachers and it is about having a raison d’être and making a difference.  I also considered starting an education blog but decided to let Modus Hopper Random have another season, trying to inform and entertain in the eccentric little niche I have slowly built.  Thanks, as ever, for your support and encouragement.
Pre-match preparation
Not much to be said.  I saw Morpeth win the FA Vase at the end of last season, but this is the first competitive game of the season for both teams, and both will have some new faces.  Morpeth’s knockout track record will probably make them marginal favourites.  I decided to make this a train journey and for an extra few quid came home in First Class for a lifetime first.  I could get used to that.  There was also time for sit-down seaside cod and chips in a place with a very long queue (always a good sign) and a WINE LIST.  Awesome. Plenty of old-school station architecture for me today. This is Darlington.
This match in one sentence
Seaham will look back with regret at a number of what-if moments in a game that Morpeth in the end won comfortably enough.
So what?
Morpeth Town will play either Jarrow Roofing or North Shields in the next round.
The drama unfolds
The Northern League feels more like Step 4 than 5 and these two large sides broadly cancelled each other out in the first twenty minutes of glaring northeastern sunshine.  Morpeth created the first clear chances though, the best coming midway through the half as Liam Henderson shot over.  The same player was denied moments later by a combination of keeper and post.  Nevertheless, the Morpeth pressure was building and Paul Robinson opened the scoring with a low shot from distance.  Shaun Newbrook in the home goal got a hand to it but to no effect.  0-1 after 33 mins Morpeth were now on top and Ben Sayer shot just over before Robinson hit the woodwork.  Newbrook had done as much as anyone to keep Seaham in the game at half-time, with only one goal in it.  0-1 at half-time The first what-if moment came ten minutes after the restart when Seaham’s Dan Kirkup glanced a header just wide from a set piece.  Then, what if Craig Lynch’s shot after cutting inside had crept inside rather than beyond the post.  For a minute later his team became “the ten men of Seaham Red Star” as Kirkup saw a red card for a last-man indiscretion.  It would eventually prove to be a big factor in the game. In the short term, however, Seaham scored a splendid equaliser.  Nicky Kane rode a challenge or two and set up Lynch for a magnificent curling shot into the top corner.  Game on!  1-1 after 65 mins Maybe not, because Luke Carr caught the home defence flat-footed and scored almost immediately following a corner.  1-2 after 67 mins Damen Mullen then hit the bar again for Morpeth from an outrageous distance but what if Seaham sub David Paul’s dipping 25-yarder had gone under the bar a moment later rather than smacked it and bounced out to safety.  So nearly parity again but to be fair Morpeth went close themselves once more before adding an icing-on-the-cake third through a header from sub Michael Chilton.  1-3 after 85 mins and at full-time
Ground Pix
Match Pix
Seaham Red Star in red, of course.
Big Lads Up Front at Seaham: “Tommy” and "The Brothers"
Tommy is actually Eleven-Oh-One, a steel sculpture by Ray Lonsdale that was created to mark the centenary of World War One.  It is highly photogenic, it dominates its surroundings, and it was getting plenty of attention as usual.  Not just from the Pokemon players. The Brothers, by Brian Brown, marks the town's mining heritage with three figures "waiting t'gan down" the pit.  Seaham had three coal mines.
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats
Yellow against something that is just about allowable as green.  Here’s a full updated league table that is now nearing a total of 100 games.  At some point I will get round to doing some proper statistical significance tests.  My suspicion is that the variances are such that it really doesn’t matter much.  However, I am starting the red-is-best self-fulfilling myth here and now.  Bad news for any team who actually play in red, eh José? I counted this as green.  Dulux would not be happy. The story 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 GC CS Pts PPG Red 6.0 3.0 0.0 3.0 6.0 2.0 13.0 2.17 Green 42.0 22.0 5.0 15.0 64.0 13.0 72.0 1.71 Orange 12.5 4.0 3.0 5.5 14.5 4.0 20.5 1.64 Maroon 4.0 2.0 1.0 1.0 6.0 1.0 6.0 1.50 Grey 31.5 14.0 7.0 10.5 45.5 8.0 43.5 1.38 Blue 24.1 9.0 5.0 10.1 40.0 8.0 32.0 1.33 Purple 9.0 4.0 2.0 3.0 20.0 2.0 4.0 0.44 Yellow 17.0 4.0 5.0 8.0 31.0 4.0 6.0 0.35 Black 3.0 1.0 2.0 0.0 7.0 0.0 -2.0 -0.67 Radioactive Bile 6.0 2.0 0.0 4.0 12.0 0.0 -6.0 -1.00 Pink 10.0 1.0 4.0 5.0 23.0 1.0 -11.0 -1.10 White 0.9 0.0 0.0 0.9 3.0 0.0 -3.0 -3.33
What Next?
Watch @GrahamYapp on Twitter for details!  I have new grounds at West Ham and AFC Fylde, and first-time visits to Poole Town and Darlington to restore my 92, my 116 and my 160 and then I am only a dozen or so away from “everywhere down to Step 3” (is that 226? must check).  They will be the season priorities for league fixtures.  I suspect West Ham v WBA will be unattainable.  Hopefully a bit more FA Cup and Vase thrown in soon too.  Gotta love knockout football. Edit: I now see that Worcester City are tenants at Bromsgrove Sporting so I will need to go there too for the "160".

Un 'Baller in Marske - Hero

Note to readers: have a look at the end of CLIP 2 even if you skip the rest!

Hopperational details
Date & Venue	Saturday 13 September at The GER Stadium
Result	Marske United 2 Dunston UTS 2
Competition	FA Cup First Round Qualifying
Hopping	I am here for ground 544 because of a unique sequence of events which, although not random in the strict mathematical sense, certainly took the decision out of my hands and made it subject to events totally outside my control.  The final twist was Vaclav Pilar’s late, late winner for the Czech Republic against the Netherlands last Tuesday. He still has no idea of the life-changing significance of this event. The story was played out on Twitter over two nights and is explained in the previous blogpost.  Firstly, the times of the two goals in the Switzerland v England game in Basel on Monday last gave me a shortlist of two games (this one and Burscough v Curzon Ashton). Secondly, a random selection of four home and four away sides in the next night’s games scored 10 goals for Marske and only 9 for Burscough.  Marske were represented by Andorra (1), Czech Republic (2) , Bosnia-Hercegovina (1), Croatia (2), Bulgaria (2), Italy(2) with blanks for Turkey and Latvia.  Burscough had Wales (2), Netherlands (1), Cyprus (2), Iceland (3) and Azerbaijan (1) with no contributions from Kazakhstan and Norway.  Marske took an early lead through Bulgaria’s early win and for much of the evening were three goals ahead.  Suddenly an Icelandic brace brought Burscough close and then Gareth Bale’s second of the night gave them the lead (8-9) for the first time.  Croatia’s second made it 9-9 but this would still have been an away-goals win for Burscough – but with seconds left the Czech Republic grabbed their winner to send me NE rather than NW.
Pre-match preparation
These two teams have had good starts in the step 5 Northern League and lie 3rd and 1st, though the away side’s 2-pt advantage is offset by the home side’s two games in hand.  Marske had emphatic wins in the two previous rounds – 7-1 at home against Billingham Town and 4-1 away at Armthorpe Welfare.  The two teams met at Dunston in the first league game of the season and Marske came away with the points. They have the highest number of home goals scored and the best goal difference, and have won eight of their last nine in all competitions. Dunston have yet to concede a goal in this season’s FA Cup and have beaten Morpeth Town (away) and Durham City (home) to get to this point.  They have won their last eight in all competitions after that early blip. So, bound to be a dour 0-0 draw then?  (Postscript: no it wasn’t!) On the day, my pre-match walk along the sands was shorter than planned owing to travel delays, but good for me nonetheless.
This match in one sentence
A compelling first half and a tense second, but capped with a dramatic final few seconds as the Dunston keeper kept his 10-man team in the draw.
So what?
Replay at Dunston on Tuesday.  This will be well worth seeing, trust me!  By then they will know their potential opponents for the next round after Monday’s draw.
The drama unfolds
Marske started brightly and should have taken the lead in the fourth minute.  Jamie Owens created the chance for himself through persistence but poked wide.  Then at the other end, Scott Fenwick scooped a shot over the bar after the bounce of a long high ball had been misjudged in the home defence.  Here is my scene-setter clip,  Marske are in yellow and blue. The opening goal was a cracker.  A corner was initially cleared but fell kindly for Darren Hollingsworth.  Liam Connell made a valiant attempt to keep the shot out as it headed for the top corner, and needed treatment afterwards because he collided with the upright.  1-0 after 23 mins 1-0 Dunston responded and here is a pic of the moment that their captain Michael Dixon rose to place a glancing header into the net from a corner.  1-1 after 41 mins 1-1 The visitors then took the lead with a penalty that was awarded by the assistant referee.  It was a soft one because the ball was not really in the danger area at the moment of contact.  Fenwick sent Robert Dean the wrong way with the spotkick.  1-2 after 41 minutes 1-2 My second clip caught (in addition to some lovely interjections from locals!) the fourth goal of the game, another excellent strike, this time by Owens from a set piece.  This was in stoppage time so that the game was all square at the interval.  2-2 after 45+2 mins and at halftime 2-2 The second half was less dramatic but just as tense.  The two sides largely cancelled each other out in midfield or restricted their opponents to shots from long range.  Connell made one very good save early in the half. After 72 minutes, Dunston were down to ten men as Daniel Halliday received his second yellow for a trip on winger Josh McDonald, who was flying past him on a break down the right wing.  No real arguments about that call.  Marske sensed their opportunity and pressed forward strongly in the closing minutes, and the third clip shows how close they came with efforts from McDonald and Owens.  I wish I’d let the camera run for another minute – with seconds left before the whistle, Connell made another quite magnificent save, from Owens yet again, to send the tie to a replay.  Final score 2-2
Ground Pix
This is a great ground with a clubhouse shared with bowls and tennis clubs, tucked away among some houses.
Match Pix
Something You Don’t Get in the Premier League
A tended garden area in one corner of the ground.  Great stuff!
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats
A draw and two conceded for each of the two most popular colours, green and grey.  Updated league table in a week or two.
Soapbox Section
For what it’s worth, I hope all you Scots out there will vote to stay with the UK this week and that the politicians of Westminster will go on to make the necessary changes to make us all happier with our governments so that we never need to ask the question again.  The turnout should really be very close to 100% - what could be more important than making a decision that affects the future of all your descendants?
What Next?
A trip next Saturday around the North Berkshire League with Groundhop UK on a minibus called Jane.  Four games in a day (for only the second time in my life).  Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter for this and other stuff.