Let the World Decide

Image: Russian Presidential Press and Information Office,
via Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

I have three FA Cup ties at unvisited Step 4 grounds from which to choose randomishly for Saturday 4 September.

Basingstoke Town take on Bridgwater United. Corinthian are at home to Folkestone Invicta. Runcorn Linnets are welcoming Liversedge.

There are a number of World Cup 2022 Qualifiers taking place today. I can manufacture three groups of five international sides using a strained alphabetic link. The key stat will be the TOTAL number of goals scored by the five teams (not including their opponents).

I will go to the FA Cup tie linked to the biggest total.

In the event of a tie, either two- or three-way, I will look at the official times of the goals scored in the games (as conventionally reported such as 37, 90+1 etc) and it will be the group that reached their final total FIRST that will be declared the winner. It is highly unlikely that a second tie-break would be needed, but it would be something similar by countback to a penultimate goal.

A small number of other sides had already completed their game prior to this list being devised in the early afternoon on Thursday so they weren’t included. I also seemed to overlook the existence of Bulgaria (though it would have made no difference).

It’s randomish. Not strictly perfectly random as the outcomes are not of equal probability. However, it is a genuine unknown for me and that will suffice. The African games will be followed by the Asian and European zones and then my hopping fate will be decided by events in South America, with a final result around midnight. Thank you for your interest and/or bemusement.

What happened?

Dieumerci Mbokani's goal for DR Congo was the first of the session, getting Corinthian off the mark just before 4pm UK time. Norwich City fans will remember him. Three more games kicked off at 5pm. By the end of these African games, B for Basingstoke had a 3-2 lead over C for Corinthian, including a goal for Steve Mounié (lately of Huddersfield Town). All three B goals were scored against R for Runcorn sides, and it was already likely that they would need a hatful from at least one of Romania, Armenia or Ecuador.

At half-time across Europe it was clear that meanwhile in Australia, China were not going to contribute much, if anything, for C for Corinthian, even with a goal through the Czech Republic, they were falling further behind B for Basingstoke due to a Belgian brace in Estonia. Neither Romania nor Armenia were on the scoresheet for R for Runcorn, so we stand at 5-3-0 for B,C and R respectively. As of 9pm it now looked as if Bolivia v Colombia would be the key game for the final total.

This game kicked off in La Paz as the second half was starting around Europe. Belgium added their third (Romelo Lukaku's second) and Romania scored to finally put something in Runcorn's column. B for Basingstoke's lead, however, was strengthened by Belgium's fourth and fifth goals in Tallinn. A second for Romania but a blank for Armenia means that the scores were 8-3-2 with only South America still in action. No goals for Belarus proved to be relatively unimportant for B for Basingstoke. With Bolivia-Colombia looking to be a low-scoring game approaching half-time, it now seemed that C for Corinthian would be defeated and only an unlikely and exceptional avalanche of goals for Ecuador could turn things around in favour of R for Runcorn.

I fell asleep at this point but woke to the news that there had been a 1-1 draw in Bolivia and Ecuador had scored twice. So the final scores are now summarised in the table below and I am randomishly off to Basingstoke on Saturday.

FA Cup Home Side	Linked International Sides	Goals Scored	Group Total
Basingstoke Town	Benin v Madagascar (A)	Mounié	9
	Burkina Faso v Niger (A)	Konaté, Traoré (pen)
	Belgium v Estonia (A)	Vanaken, Lukaku 2, Witsel, Foket
	Belarus v Czech Republic (A)	-
	Bolivia v Colombia (H)	Saucedo
Corinthian	China v Australia (A)	-	4
	Czech Republic v Belarus (H)	Barák
	DR Congo v Tanzania (H)	Mbokani
	Congo v Namibia (A)	Hambira (og)
	Colombia v Bolivia (A)	Martinez
Runcorn Linnets	Romania v Iceland (A)	Man, Stanciu	4
	ARmenia v North Macedonia (A)	-
	EcuadoR v Paraguay (H)	Torres, Estrada
	MadagascaR v Benin (H)	-
	NigeR v Burkina Faso (H)	-

Bring more randomish decison-making into your life. It's stress-free. People will think you are crazy, but it's a small price to pay ;)

Where Will I Pitch Up Next?

 

England Cricketers 2009 at Sydney
Image by NAPARAZZI from Wikimedia Commons
CCA-SA 2.0

I find myself again with nine matches at unvisited Step 4 grounds to choose from this Saturday, 28 August.

This week’s randomish decision-making will be in two stages, making use of the fact that 3x3=9. It won’t be truly random in the strict mathematical sense of the word because the outcomes aren’t equally likely, but I have no idea what will happen, which is good enough. Neither will anyone else to be fair, because these days there seems to be more interest in reading the Magna Carta than this blog, but I digress.

STAGE ONE

On Wednesday 25 August, there are a number of teams playing women’s cricket for the Charlotte Edwards Cup. They will unwittingly make the decision for me because three of those teams can be loosely geographically connected to my options. We’ll choose the BEST BOWLING FIGURES obtained by any one of the team’s players as the “winning” point of detail on the day.

So, if the best bowling figures on the day are from the South East Stars (who take on Lightning at Guildford) then I will go to one of Basingstoke Town, Corinthian or Lancing. Tash Farrant or Freya Davies might be the bowlers to send me in that direction.

Meanwhile, the Northern Diamonds take on the Sunrisers, in Garforth, which is in the north-east. So if the best bowling figures are delivered by a Diamonds bowler, then it is only right and proper that I should head in that general direction, to one of Liversedge, Yorkshire Amateur or Stockton Town. Names that could feature here include Nat Sciver, Beth Langston or Katie Levick.

The last group is slightly more contrived, but Widnes, Glossop North End and Barnstaple Town are either in the West or play in a league with the word West as part of its name. So there is some logic in attaching them to Western Storm, who take on Thunder at Cardiff. Anya Shrubsole and Fi Morris are among those who might perform well with the ball for them.

Small print: it can be any bowler, not necessarily one of those named here, but she must be from the nominated side rather than the opponents. In the unlikely event of two players on different teams having identical best figures, then the tie-break is the analysis of the second-best bowler on that same side. Best figures are decided in the traditional cricketing way with wickets being higher priority, so 3 wickets for 20 runs is deemed better than 2 for 10, irrespective of any other consideration.

These are T20 games starting at 2.30pm, so by the early evening my list of nine football venues should be reduced to three, ready for some other randomish events to take over. Watch this space. It might be related to the evening's football, or it might involve the casual toss of a Toblerone box. Such excitement and suspense. Thank you for your interest (both of you).

UPDATE 1: What Happened in Stage One?

Western Storm were the only team of the three to bowl first. Thunder struggled from the start, and leg spinner Nicole Harvey took 3 for 13 off 4 overs, whilst not conceding a boundary. Those are good figures for a T20 innings.

As SE Stars and Northern Diamonds started bowling in their respective replies, Stars' Tash Farrant took a wicket with the fourth ball of her first over. However, this was soon overtaken by Beth Langston of Diamonds, who struck with her fifth and sixth deliveries. However, she also conceded boundaries and interim figures of 2-0-16-2 meant that she could only now overtake Nicole Harvey by getting at least two more wickets.

Several other bowlers took an early first wicket in their spells: Alice Capsey and Bryony Smith for Stars, and Katie Levick for Diamonds. Alex MacDonald took two wickets in the second half of her spell for Diamonds to finish on 4-0-11-2. Kalea Moore had 1-7 from two overs as Stars suffocated Lightning, and really it looked like only a late flurry for someone as Lightning got desperate will beat the earlier performance.

Meanwhile, for the record, Western Storm were strolling to a seven-wicket win at Cardiff which has no further impact on my decision-making. It all came down to the final overs of the day at Garforth and Guildford. Hollie Armitage also took two quick wickets for Diamonds and finished with 4-0-18-2. Really only Beth Langston, or something exceptional from Katie Levick could displace me from a western journey of some description. However, there were not enough overs left. At Guildford, Tash Farrant and Bryony Smith also ended up with two wickets. As it happens, my three selected teams all won today. The key point is that, thanks to Nicole Harvey and 4-0-13-3, I now need a way to decide between Widnes, Glossop North End, and Barnstaple Town for a Saturday hop.

UPDATE 2 : STAGE TWO

There are THREE Champions League Playoffs this evening. In order of distance from Chateau Yapp they are at Brøndby in Denmark, Dinamo Zagreb in Croatia and Shakhtar Donetsk in Ukraine. These can therefore be linked randomishly to Glossop (169mi), Widnes (177mi) and Barnstaple (221mi). I will use the same "last-goal scored" method as last week (see here for details and small print) to have the decision made for me. Basically, whichever of these matches supplies the latest goal (as measured by the timekeepers for that particular game) makes my decision. It's randomish, but good enough.

UPDATE 3 : What happened in Stage Two?

RB Salzburg scored two very early goals at Brøndby, and then Monaco scored in Donetsk. That was the game that was level on aggregate at that moment and so something would have to give. I realised at this point that I needed to tweak the "small print" a bit. For my purposes, extra time goals would count but penalty shootouts will not. Monaco added a second goal to break the deadlock, and as things stood at half-time, I would therefore be headed to Barnstaple Town.

A goal in Denmark just after the hour turned my attention back to the north-west and Glossop North End. Then, with 15 minutes or so left to play, Marlos, one of Shaktar's Brazilians, pulled one back for them and bringing Barnstaple back into play. That goal took their tie to extra time, but with nothing else happening elsewhere, that's the decision made no matter what happens now. Barnstaple Town v Melksham Town on Saturday. Thanks, as ever, for humouring me.

Czechs and Balances

This is randomish.  In the absence of alternative entertainment, I’m going to watch the England game tonight.  I’ve linked seven events with an approximate probability of 12.5% (at least according to a leading bookmaker an hour before kickoff) with eight different Step 4 matches taking place tomorrow.  They all have odds of around 8/1 against, in the range 7/1 to 9/1.  This leaves one space for a “catchall”, which is that none of those seven events have occurred.

If more than one of these events takes place, then a truly random second-stage event will take place (such as the toss of a coin) to determine my destination.

Event	Linked to …
The scores are level at both HT AND FT Er, no	Brighouse Town v Morpeth Town
James Ward-Prowse scores the last England goal of the game No, didn't get on from the bench	Clitheroe v Glossop North End
Kieron Trippier scores for England at any time No, likewise	Pickering Town v Stamford
Lukas Masopust scores for the Czech Republic at any time No, came on but didn't score	Pontefract Collieries v Frickley Athletic
Both teams hit the woodwork No, not a ping	Radcliffe v Runcorn Linnets
There are over 5.5 goals in the game No, just the five	Ramsgate v Phoenix Sports
England win both halves AND Harry Kane scores at least two personally Yes and No, so No	Sevenoaks Town v Greenwich Borough
The catchall outcome – none of the above have happened	Whyteleafe v Whitstable

As things stand at kickoff, it would be a trip to Brighouse.  But as anyone who has followed my Friday nights will know, that will change. It might even be described as exciting.  If you are the excitable type.  Stand by for an update at the end of the game.

How it unfolded:

0-24 min: No goals, so would make it level at both HT and FT and I'm going to Brighouse.

24-45 min: Sterling's goal actually would mean "none of the above" at the moment, so a trip to Whyteleafe takes over.

45-45+1 min: Kane's penalty secures a HT lead for England so Brighouse is the first destination to be ruled out entirely.  The goal is a big step towards Sevenoaks but it would need another Kane goal in a winning half to seal the deal.  So at half-time, we remain in the "none of the above" category and the trip to Whyteleafe remains on the table.

61 min: Sterling's second goal does not displace Whyteleafe, but arguably Ramsgate and Sevenoaks close the gap.  Would need three more goals (from anyone) and another Kane goal, respectively.

67 min: Masopust comes on for the Czechs, so Pontefract Collieries are in the game if he scores.

68 min: Sterling completes his hat-trick. England will almost certainly win the second half so another Kane goal means Sevenoaks.  Only two more now from anyone to change the destination to Ramsgate.  However, Whyteleafe holding on.

70 min: Callum Hudson-Odoi comes on for England, so we will not be seeing either Ward-Prowse or Trippier, thus Clitheroe and Pickering will have to wait for another day. Five out of eight possibilities still alive.

84 min: England's 5th goal is an own goal.  One more switches me to Ramsgate, unless it's scored by Kane, in which case we have a toss-up between Ramsgate and Sevenoaks.

Final whistle:  outcomes summarised in the table above.  Despite all the action, Whyteleafe held on since the 24th minute.  Thanks for your interest - it's randomish.

Image Credits:

England: https://ya-webdesign.com/download.html

Czech Republic: By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49661605

Attaquons ... la perfide Albion

My groundhopping destination for tomorrow will be decided randomishly by events at Elland Road this evening.  Hopefully, my hometown team WBA will score at least one goal.

Possible scorers of WBA’s final goal of the evening can be linked to the twelve games on my shortlist if I allow one link for the possibility of a Leeds clean sheet.

The first ten games are linked in alphabetical order of home team to the ten starting outfield players, also in alphabetical order.  Game 11 is linked to the no-goal-for-WBA outcome (or an own goal) and Game 12 to the possibility that WBA’s final goal is scored by any one of their substitutes (or the goalkeeper).

It’s randomish.

Here are the links:

Game	WBA Last-Scorer Link
Atherton Collieries v Colne	Adarabioyo
Blackfield & Langley v Mangotsfield Utd	Barry
Carlton Town v Lincoln Utd	Dawson
Clitheroe v Chasetown	Gayle
AFC Mansfield v Pontefract Collieries	Harper
Melksham Town v Thatcham Town	Hegazi
Pickering Town v Cleethorpes Town	Holgate
Ramsgate v Three Bridges	Livermore
Street v Evesham Utd	Robson-Kanu
Radcliffe v Droylsden	Rodriguez
Ramsbottom Utd v Widnes	No WBA scorer or any Leeds player scoring an own goal
Whyteleafe v Ashford Utd	Any WBA substitute or Johnstone (GK)

I think we can all agree that this will liven up the occasion.

UPDATE:

Leeds scored a sensational goal in the first minute, and another before half-time, but neither of those changed the starting position of a trip to Ramsbottom United v Widnes.  In the second half, Leeds added a third but the substitutions of Gareth Barry and Rekeem Harper meant that I would not under any circumstances be headed for either Blackfield & Langley or AFC Mansfield.  Street was soon closed down too, as Hal Robson-Kanu also went off.  Albion's abject performance meant that the Ramsbottom game looked more and more likely as the game entered the final ten minutes.  In fact, the only other goal was a fourth for Leeds, in stoppage time.  Therefore, I will head north-west in the morning for the second successive Saturday.  (I'll be up there for the NW Counties hop the following weekend too!)

A Fresh Angle on Groundhop Planning

As regular readers will know (hello, both of you!) I am working my way randomishly through 30 remaining unvisited Step 4 grounds on my list.  Most of them are a fair distance away from Yapp Acres.

Tomorrow’s journey will be geographically decided by events at Ashton Gate tonight.  Bristol City host Bolton Wanderers in the 4^th Round of the FA Cup.

I will go to the ground that is nearest the place of birth of the scorer of the last goal in this game.

The thirteen far-flung possibilities are:

Blackfield & Langley

Brighouse Town

Carlton Town

Cinderford Town

Clitheroe

Melksham Town

Pontefract Collieries

Ramsbottom United

Sevenoaks Town

Slimbridge

Street

Tadcaster Albion

Whyteleafe

If the scorer is UK-born, then Google Maps is my friend and I will take the shortest practicable distance by foot.

If the scorer was born overseas, then the formula below will be used to calculate the central angle of the arc of a “great circle” connecting the two places concerned, P & Q on the diagram.  This will assume that the Earth is a perfect sphere, which isn’t true, but it is close enough for this purpose.  A great circle is always the shortest distance between two points on the surface of a sphere.  The equator is an example – the shortest distance between two points on the equator is always along the equator.  The route is not always a straight line on a conventional map, because of the distortions caused by projecting a curved surface onto paper.  Fascinating stuff, I am sure you’ll agree, and no, I don't need to get out more, thank you.

The length of the arc is directly proportional to the angle, so the smallest angle will be what I am looking for.  The actual distance would be the angle (in radians) multiplied by the radius of the earth.

The formula is:

where Δσ is the central angle we need and Φ and λ are the conventional latitude and longitude for places 1 & 2 measured from the reference points of the equator and Greenwich meridian respectively.  Bear with me, you’ll need all this stuff when you are plotting your private-helicopter groundhopping routes on the back of your promised post-Brexit prosperity.  This blog keeps you ahead of the game either way, because if post-Brexit prosperity turns out to be a dud you can place your bets based on #keepertopcolourstats and hope for the best.  If this happens I will cover home brewing and distillation techniques in a future post.

Small Print: if it is 0-0 then I will go by the place of residence of the match referee as published by the FA.  Own goals also count, based on the place of birth of the own-goalscorer!  Why haven’t I chosen Arsenal v Manchester United?  Well, that lot get enough attention anyway, the bunch of overpaid prima donnas.

Diagram credit:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Central_angle.svg

Author CheCheDaWaff, Own Work, 30 April 2016 and this file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International licence.

Formula credit:

Taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great-circle_distance

UPDATE:

Mark Beevers (b Barnsley) gave Bolton a short-lived lead before Callum O'Dowda equalised.  Callum is from Kidlington near Oxford and this would have sent me (narrowly) to Slimbridge, just two miles closer than Melksham Town.  However, Niclas Eliasson stepped up with a spectacular winning goal as early as the 30th minute.

As the game neared its conclusion with Bolton still trailing, I checked the birthplace of their goalkeeper Remi Matthews in case there was a classic FA Cup ending to come.  He was born in Gorleston-on-Sea on the east coast and could have sent me to Carlton or Sevenoaks. 

Niclas Eliasson hails from one of the Varbergs in Sweden and fellow groundhopper Laurence Reade helped to confirm that I needed to measure from the settlement on the west coast rather than the eastern village or the Stockholm suburb.  Tadcaster looked the most likely, but with the curvature of the earth to take into account, I have also looked at Carlton (near Nottingham) and Sevenoaks as a check.

Here are the parameters from Excel.  The longitudes and latitudes have been taken from Wikipedia and converted to decimal format.  The angles in degrees are converted to radians before taking the sines and cosines and working out the key angle, delta sigma.  Care is needed over calculating the longitudinal difference because some of the grounds are east of the Greenwich meridian whereas others are to the west.  The SMALLEST delta sigma means the shortest great circle distance across the earth's surface, and Tadcaster Albion wins by about 0.006 of a radian.  Thanks for all the interest!

Place	Lat
Varberg	57.116667
Tadcaster	53.855200
Place	Long
Varberg	12.216667	E
Tadcaster	1.262000	W
sin phi1	0.839778
sin phi2	0.807529
cos phi1	0.542930
cos phi2	0.589828
delta lambda	13.478667
cos delta lambda	0.972457
delta sigma	0.144625
Place	Lat
Varberg	57.116667
Sevenoaks	51.278100
Place	Long
Varberg	12.216667	E
Sevenoaks	0.187400	E
sin phi1	0.839778
sin phi2	0.780191
cos phi1	0.542930
cos phi2	0.625541
delta lambda	12.029267
cos delta lambda	0.978041
delta sigma	0.159198
Place	Lat
Varberg	57.116667
Carlton Town	52.966944
Place	Long
Varberg	12.216667	E
Carlton Town	1.087778	W
sin phi1	0.839778
sin phi2	0.798288
cos phi1	0.542930
cos phi2	0.602276
delta lambda	13.304444
cos delta lambda	0.973161
delta sigma	0.151126