Impressive Turbine Efficiency Against Thame Opponents

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 3 November 2018 at The Bee Arena
Result	Peterborough Sports 5 Thame United 0
Competition	Southern League Division One Central (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground 663 on my lifetime list. I am here non-randomly because of the need to be local-ish today.
Context
3rd plays 9th.
In one sentence
The points were secured with four goals in the first 24 minutes of the game.
So what?
Peterborough Sports stay 3rd, four points behind the leaders but with a game in hand.  Thame United drop to 13th.
Match Report
The match started in bright sunshine and both teams adapted well initially on a surface which could offer a good old bobble here and there.  Sports took the lead from their first corner of the game.  After some pinging around the box, Avelino Viera smacked the loose ball into the roof of the net at the far post.  They soon added a second, as the ball was played back to Paul Malone, unmarked from his own throw-in, and an excellent curling cross was headed in by recent signing Jim Stevenson. The third came with only 22 minutes gone.  Lewis Hilliard worked a short corner and clipped a cross from the edge of the box for Viera to score his second.  Then only two minutes later the roles were reversed as Viera’s right-wing cross led to a rebound goal for Hilliard after Thame keeper Craig Hill had made a good initial save.  Four up with less than half-an-hour gone and it looked like a cricket score to come. Thame steadied the proverbial ship but never really looked like scoring.  Just before half-time, the ref pointed to the spot, awarding a penalty to Sports for a clash that was just outside the area.  The assistant intervened to have it changed to a direct free-kick.  The home bench protested loudly and their frustration was increased when Hilliard's set piece pinged against the woodwork.  For the record, I was in a good position to confirm that the assistant was correct and the right decision was made. The fifth goal came early in the second half from the penalty spot at the other end.  It was given technically for handball – I can only assume that the defender was instinctively trying to protect himself and brought his hands up to the ball, because it was from point-blank range and initially it looked harsh.  Another recent signing, Spencer Weir-Daley, scored from the kick. The sixth goal never came as maybe the decision-making around the box suffered somewhat as everyone wanted in on the act.  Maybe Thame settled for defensive damage limitation.  They made home keeper Lewis Moat make his first real save after an hour, rushing out to hold up an attacker on the break before getting back into position to palm away the eventual shot. It was an impressive showing by the hosts who clearly merit their high position in the table.  There’s some tough talk from Jimmy Dean in the manager’s message in the programme who implies that some players will soon be leaving the club with another promotion as a definite target.
Pix
Peterborough Sports (The Turbines) in blue.  A ground where you need to trust your SatNav – the entrance to the ground is not particularly easy to spot.  All very neat and tidy as you would expect from a club that have had successive promotions in recent years, with a large clubhouse.
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats
New this season – a pre-match prediction based only on keeper top colours as a preliminary test of the data.  Proper statistical significance test to follow in due course.  Table based on my last 164 games seen. Today, a win and a clean sheet for Grey, a thumping for Radioactive Bile causing it to drop a place in the table. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Home Win Was the prediction correct? Yes % of correct predictions so far 68% (13 from 19) 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. For new readers the odd .5 was caused by a shocking half-and-half shirt and the .1 was due to a substitute goalkeeper 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 that orange is the best colour for a goalkeeper because it changes the behaviour of other players around the box. P W D L GC CS Pts PPG Red 10.0 5.0 1.0 4.0 11.0 3.0 20.0 2.000 Blue 40.1 18.0 7.0 15.1 56.0 14.0 75.0 1.870 Grey 48.5 23.0 10.0 15.5 79.5 14.0 69.5 1.433 Green 85.0 42.0 11.0 32.0 145.0 21.0 97.0 1.141 Fire Cracker 3.0 1.0 0.0 2.0 6.0 1.0 2.0 0.667 Maroon 5.0 2.0 1.0 2.0 9.0 1.0 3.0 0.600 Purple 19.0 8.0 3.0 8.0 41.0 5.0 11.0 0.579 Orange 38.5 12.0 8.0 18.5 73.5 6.0 0.5 0.013 Radioactive Bile 21.0 9.0 0.0 12.0 45.0 3.0 -3.0 -0.143 Yellow 33.0 9.0 7.0 17.0 70.0 5.0 -11.0 -0.333 Pink 17.0 5.0 5.0 7.0 35.0 1.0 -10.0 -0.588 Black 6.0 2.0 3.0 1.0 15.0 0.0 -6.0 -1.000 White 1.9 0.0 0.0 1.9 4.0 0.0 -4.0 -2.105
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter!  39 Step 4 grounds left, mostly Northern, to complete the level, which will take me into next season at least.