Red Top, Red Mist, Red Card

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 29 August 2016 at The Memorial Ground
Result	Little Oakley 2 Biggleswade 2 (Biggleswade win 4-1 on penalties)
Competition	FA Trophy First Round Qualifying
Hopstats	Ground #815 on the lifetime list, and I am here randomishly because of the roll of a die, in the manner of the early days of this blog, almost 600 blogposts ago.
Context
Both teams play at Step 4, the hosts in the Isthmian League D1 North and the visitors in the Southern League D1 Central. Biggleswade narrowly missed promotion to Step 3 last season, and Little Oakley are playing their first ever FA Trophy fixture after their promotion as Essex Senior League champions.
Match Report
Well, for a passing neutral like me, this was compelling entertainment. Maybe not of the highest quality in terms of tactics and execution, but with a result in doubt until the closing seconds, and with an inexplicable late twist. Biggleswade led 1-0 at the interval, and on balance they deserved that. Little Oakley came back with two goals after the interval and it looked like their promising start to the season would continue. Of course, knockout competitions breed risk-taking and desperation, and Biggleswade got an equaliser in stoppage time, a neat finish by Alex Marsh. I was at the other end from this goal, and cannot tell you what provocation led the red-clad home goalkeeper James Askew to see a colour-co-ordinated mist. He made unwelcome physical contact with a Biggleswade player, pushing him to the ground. The referee consulted the assistant before showing the matching card. The clubs must have agreed that the match could go straight to penalties if drawn, and so, with all substitutes used (more of this later) the outfield substitute Joe Howard had to don the keeper’s jersey. The shootout itself was somewhat anticlimactic. Biggleswade scored their first, Little Oakley missed their first, but Biggleswade put two more good ones past the stand-in before the third home penalty was saved by George Rose (in blue). This meant that a successful fourth would win it for Biggleswade, and indeed that is what happened. How did we get to this point, you ask? Well, fortunately the rain eased off before kickoff and both teams looked positive about attacking and trying to win the game. Biggleswade winger B11 spent much of the first minute trying to turn his opposing full-back inside out, but the resulting corner came to nothing. Both teams were direct, with second balls and knockdowns of great importance, but occasionally each team would string together a sequence of one-touch passes on the break. Biggleswade’s opening goal after 25 minutes was a neat left-foot strike by Adam Hunt. The end-to-end exchanges continued. Who knows what was said in the dressing rooms at half-time but Little Oakley emerged with four substitutes in play. They could have equalised in the first minute after the restart. Then there was a comedy moment (except maybe for the club treasurer) when a ball was cleared into an adjacent garden only for the replacement ball to bounce over the same fence a few seconds later. The action continued with a disallowed Biggleswade goal – the home defence had stepped upfield just in time – and at this point both teams looked like they might score. Little Oakley had to press and this left space for Biggleswade on the break. The home side were maybe getting a bit more desperate now but it needed two interventions in quick succession from Rose to protect the lead. However, the equaliser came just after the hour, a textbook header by Jack Ladbrook from a training ground routine which involved all the players initially huddled together with the density of a neutron star. Conversation in the stands now turned to whether anyone knew whether it would be extra-time and/or penalties and/or a replay, but was curtailed when sub Jordi Papple rounded Rose to make the score 2-1. Rose soon made another excellent save to deny the home side their third. What a result that would have been for these Step 4 newcomers, but the denouement, as explained above was savage. Thanks to the home volunteers who were very welcoming. I left quickly for another tricky drive around the M25 with low sun and rain, but the roll of the die this morning had certainly given me an entertaining game to watch. As would be expected, the ground itself is in transition now between Step 5 and Step 4 requirements.
So What?
Cliché time : Biggleswade are in the proverbial hat for the next round, Little Oakley are not.
Pre-match Entertainment
Plans for a quayside walk thwarted but not by traffic this week. This time, a mighty deluge meaning that a good Duolingo session in the car was a more attractive option. Spot the differences between The North Sea and the Mediterranean
Pix
I’d left my Canon compact at home so I had to make do with my mobile phone this week … hosts in blue-and-black.
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats Update
The background to this, and the latest keeper top colour league table, is here on this dedicated page. Today, a rare appearance for Red, lining up against Blue. The result is enough to demote Red in the colour league table, mainly because it is a small sample size. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Home Win Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 48% (107 from 221)
What Next?
Hopefully another ground ticked off on Bank Holiday Monday. No decision made as yet, will depend on weather. I’ve added Workington to my priority list for the season – I had forgotten that they have a temporary home with their rugby league counterparts for a season or two.

 

El Tel Tells It Like it Is as The Manager

Welcome to another MHR blogpost looking back at the world of football games before the age of the personal computer and games consoles. I have no recollection of how I came to acquire this pristine copy of The Manager, a game co-invented and endorsed by Terry Venables. It dates from 1990, when I would have been a youngish deputy headteacher with two young children and a tight domestic budget, and Terry himself was the manager of Spurs. Although my own copy, shortly to head to a charity shop, is clearly unused, it’s more likely that I picked it up from eBay around the turn of the century. Today it gets dusted off, literally, for this nostalgic blogpost.

The football-related aspects of Terry Venables’ career are inevitably linked to a large number of other commercial activities. These got plenty of coverage once again when he died in 2023 at the age of 80. I’ll concentrate on this particular board game here, but you can easily track down tales from his forays into the retail world, professional singing, co-writing novels and private members’ club ownership. Some of the novels were adapted for a TV series. What is striking about those articles is the sheer range of the activity. Most of the contributors to the stories are glowing and positive about his vision and business acumen, but he also ruffled some feathers. Similarly, his football and management career was varied and broadly successful, starting with promotions at Crystal Palace, a trophy or two at Barcelona, and then leading the England team at Wembley in Euro ’96.

So, this game. It is manufactured to a very high quality. It benefits from Barclays League branding and three photographs featuring Terry and one other person. Two of them would have been instantly recognisable as Paul Gascoigne and Gary Lineker. I don’t recognise the third, but it could well be Paul Riviere who is credited as the co-inventor of the game. I cannot shed any more light on him, but the company name on the rules booklet is Glenhope Management with an address in Exhibition Road in London. A quick couple of Google searches also suggests that a Polish Hearth Club (yes, hearth not health) and Restaurant has been located there since 1989, and it is also the registered address for at least one other management company.

The main features of the game seem to be collecting player cards to build a team, managing money, answering quiz questions and, to a certain extent, winning trophies. These two sentences stand out in the light of 21^st century norms and expectations …

“The Manager can be enjoyed and won by those who have no special interest in soccer and it may be found that women are frequently the winners.”

“The player with the most money is declared the winner.”

It’s clear from the rules that there is a huge financial penalty in the endgame for having an incomplete squad. The quiz questions come in three categories – soccer, entertainment and general knowledge. Inevitably some of them have now been superseded. Answering a question correctly was deemed to add a goal to the score you had achieved with a throw of the die. The dodecahedral (12-side) die was part of the player collection mechanism. Other aspects of the game would be common features in many of this type – land on a certain type of square, pick up the corresponding type of card, follow the instructions immediately. I’ve captured a few of those in the photos here. The FA Cup turns up along the way as a side hustle with possible financial reward once a player has reached a certain point on the board. The rules as originally printed have auctions of teams and players at various points, but there is an additional printed slip in my box saying that, “Terry suggests that playing The Manager is improved if players ignore the Auction Option completely.”

Although the first player to pass the Final Whistle space with a full team gets a ten million pound prize from the Banco de Venables, that person may not end up as the winner until a lot of arithmetic is completed. You might even need to calculate the 25% interest on your overdraft. To be fair, the rules booklet is well-written and unambiguous with a final warning that “… should players disagree … we are sorry, but these rules and the answers provided are final.”

If you’d like to pick up a copy of this game for yourself, there are plenty of copies around on eBay and such like with asking prices ranging from £5 to £20. Postage costs would add another several pounds – there’s a lot of weighty paper and cardboard in that box.

The 1990 release must have been successful enough as a product to be re-launched under the leading Waddingtons brand in 1996, with a redesign of the playing board too.

Image credit : sircollectalot.com

Thanks for your interest! Hopefully the photographs that follow will give you a more detailed sense of the gameplay. I have kept a pdf copy of the full rules if anyone needs them.

Terry's Invitation Letter

Links to previous football game posts on this blog:

Wembley

Soccerama

Soccerboss

Emlyn Hughes’ Team Tactix

Penalty!

Kevin Keegan’s Matchday

 

Colliers Go Down in the FA Cup

 

Front page of e-Programme (downloadable pdf)

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 22 August 2026 at Woodhorn Lane
Result	Ashington 2 Thornaby 3
Competition	FA Cup Preliminary Round
Hopstats	Ground #814 on the lifetime list and I’m here because it’s a good day weather-wise for a long drive and this is the furthest ground of my season priorities that is hosting a game today. I’m also very fond of early-season FA Cup games.
Context
Step 4 Northern Premier League Division One East hosts Step 5 Northern League Division One. Ashington beat Hordern CW 2-0 and Thornaby won 1-0 at Guisborough Town in the previous round.
Match Report
This was a good game for the passing neutral. Ashington almost gifted Thornaby an early lead by losing the ball in a dangerous central area with the keeper out of position, but calmed themselves by taking the lead themselves in the 11th minute. Good play down their left flank led to the ball being rolled gently past the visiting keeper Sam Taylor into the far corner, but it came back of the post. A valiant attempted block could only deflect Jamie Holmes’ shot into the roof of the net. Mid-way through the first half, Thornaby were level, slightly against the run of play. Home keeper Matty Alexander was judged to have brought down Spencer Walker as he was rounded. It looked a soft one, admittedly from the other end of the stadium, but Walker himself made no mistake from the spot. Alexander was soon called into action again with a good low save to keep the scores level but there was still no sign of what was to come later. Ashington led 2-1 at half-time when Craig Spooner scored with a well-placed shot after 37 minutes after another fluid build-up. My notes say that the scoreline felt right. Ashington had definitely had the better of the first 45 minutes, usually just missing the clinical final pass after some good approach work. Thornaby’s second equaliser came from the first corner of the half, just a minute after the restart. A textbook header from Jacob Thompson brought the scores level again. Thompson's header hits the back of the net in the 46th minute Thornaby were now gradually to take control of the game and on the hour Walker gave them the lead with a well-taken goal and the tide had turned. There was still plenty of time but Ashington struggled to get the final ball into the box to make Taylor work harder except for one good save in the closing stages. For the last few minutes Thornaby sat back more and played on the break and took the ball to the corners when they could. In this game of two halves you have to say they deserved their win.
So What?
Cliché time – Thornaby into the proverbial hat for the First Round Qualifying.
Pre-match Entertainment
No time at all after a 5hr journey! Caught up with the global news via the BBC World Service en route. What depressing times we live in.
Pix
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats Update
The background to this, and the latest keeper top colour league table, is here on this dedicated page. Today we had Green (Matty Alexander) v Orange (Sam Taylor). Five consecutive incorrect predictions in a row equals the longest streak in my long sequence but as any mathematician will tell you these are independent events and this has no bearing on the odds for or the outcome of the next game. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Home Win Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 48% (106 from 219)
What Next?
No specific plans as yet. Step 3 priorities will be Redcar Athletic and Worcester City to complete that level, also Liverpool Women (at St Helen’s RLFC) in the WSL. Then there are 30 unvisited grounds at Step 4.

 

Prioritising the Priorymen

 

front cover of pdf programme

 

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 15 August 2026 at The Kevin Edward King George V Stadium
Result	Guisborough Town 1 Bradford (Park Avenue) 3
Competition	Northern Premier League Division One East (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground #812 on the lifetime list. Here because I chose the longest journey on my list of unvisited Step 4 grounds before the bad weather season kicks in. Traffic delays meant this turned into a 480 mile 9hr round trip. It’s my first new ground for some time due to work commitments and life’s practicalities after bereavement. This post is dedicated to mum who was probably one of the few to read the blog every week. Since the last blogpost I did take in several WSL and other women’s games and re-completed the 92 at Everton when England Lionesses hosted Ukraine in a Women's World Cup qualifier. Those games have also been included in the #keepertopcolourstats update, which will trickle on under the radar as usual until I know enough mathematics to complete a Kruskal-Wallis rank-based non-parametric statistical test. So there.
Context
Guisborough were Northern League Division One champions last season and this is their first home game at this level after an opening away draw last week. It’s Bradford PA’s first league game of the season.
Match Report
This is a very neat and tidy ground, and credit goes to club volunteers who have started to make it more in line with Step 4 expectations. You don’t get flower beds and hanging baskets in the Premier League. The ground has a good clubhouse and the food on offer was very decent too. It’s a pdf programme which will mean that some hopping purists will choose to miss out on the pie and peas too. The match started at a cracking pace and the home side took an early lead from a corner. Matthew Willshaw’s header crept in off the unguarded post, the moment caught on my photo below. The pace and end-to-end action continued. Guisborough had another shot saved and their defence held firm at the other end. Bradford had their fair share of possession but the home keeper was relatively untroubled. His opposite number fluffed a clearance and was stranded, but then relieved when Willshaw’s shot from 30m or so drifted just wide of the unguarded goal. That may have been the game’s turning point because with half-time approaching Bradford were getting stronger and I wrote a note that “one goal won’t be enough”. Bradford continued to dominate in the second half and it was no surprise when they equalised, though they needed a well-taken penalty kick to do so. Marcus Carver scored from the spot after Guisborough had been caught on the break leading to a trip on Louie Chorlton. Bradford took the lead six minutes later after another slick break and cross allowed Carver to bundle the ball over the line in a heap which included the opposing goalkeeper. The ref’s assistant was in line to confirm the goal. Guisborough were never really too threatening after that as their challenge subsided. A red card for a Guisborough official (for entering the field of play, I suspect) and a couple of yellows followed a player melée as tempers began to fray. Bradford then added a third goal after some calm interpassing play in the penalty area, with credit to sub Adam Haw for his composure in providing the assist for Chorlton rather than shooting from a narrow angle. Overall, a good, entertaining game with the result in doubt until midway through the second half. Nice ground, lovely area, long (for me) journey.
So What?
I continue to shun league tables at such an early stage of the season. Nothing to see here.
Pre-match Entertainment
Nothing whatsoever due to the aforementioned traffic holdups! I had planned on a woodland walk before the game, but it was not to be.
Pix
Insert own "club with bright fuschia" joke here
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 (Ryan Catterick) v Blue (Declan Lambton). Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Home Win Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 49% (106 from 218)
What Next?
I have re-opened a Twitter/X account at @ModusHRandom, by the way, but I won’t be as active on there as I used to be. My priority grounds for this season are two in Step 3 (Redcar Athletic and Worcester City) to re-complete that tier and one in the WSL (Liverpool Women), and I have another 30 or so to get to at Step 4. Some of the original randomness of choosing destinations has been displaced by pragmatism for the moment, since many of my priorities are relatively long journeys for me, but hopefully that feature of the blog will return one day.