Dynamo Turned Over By Highwaymen of Morpeth

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 19 January 2019 at Craik Park
Result	Morpeth Town 4 Loughborough Dynamo 1
Competition	Northern Premier League Division One East (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground 675 on the lifelong list, and I am here randomishly but pragmatically because the home team very helpfully made a very clear and early “Game On” announcement on Twitter, allowing me time to travel.
Context
League leaders host 8th placed visitors.  Morpeth lost their last home game, but won away from home last week.  Loughborough lost at home last week, but had an away win the week before, and won the reverse fixture back in November.  Anything could happen.
In one sentence
Morpeth Town’s more effective cutting edge in attack secured a reasonably comfortable win.
So what?
It’s still 1st and 8th for the two sides.  Only seven points separates 3rd from 12th in this division.
Match Report
Pre-match credit for the home-made soup that accompanied my pre-match pie.  On the pitch, Loughborough really should have taken the lead in the first minute after good work by Alex Steadman. Then at the other end a missed defensive header let in Liam Henderson but the ref correctly waved away penalty appeals as he was closed down. The opening goal was a textbook towering header by a Morpeth centre-back from a corner, and the scorer was Jeff Henderson.  Their second goal was a disputed penalty, but David Carson put it away despite the keeper getting a touch. Then there was a penalty at the other end. Ryan Robbins scored it and so the score stood at 2-1 after 24 minutes.  Five minutes later it was 3-1.  Luke Foster, already booked, gave away a freekick on the edge if the area.  The first attempt from a glancing header was saved, the second was cleared off the line, but a looping header from Liam Henderson found the net. By now the officiating had upset both teams for some reason or other, Morpeth’s Tom Potter was booked for simulation before the home team missed several chances to add a 4th goal.  Good link-up play by Sean Taylor created a chance that went just wide.  A header grazed the post and due to a bobble (honest) I fluffed the control of the ball.  Then after a good save by Charlie Taylor I caught it nicely to restore reputational damage.  With the last kick of the first half, Sean Taylor chipped the ball on to the bar and Morpeth remained only two goals to the good at half-time. Loughborough needed a goal-line clearance to keep it that way at the start of the second half.  Generally, however, the visitors gave a better account of themselves in an end-to-end passage of play.  They made home keeper Dan Lowson work harder, but only to a fairly routine extent.  Sean Taylor finally got the fourth goal in the 67th minute.  A first effort was bravely saved by Charlie Taylor but the rebound fell kindly and he took a touch wide of the fallen keeper and planted the ball in the roof of the net from a narrow angle. The job was now done but Sean Taylor would have had a personal second if substitute Jack Foalie had made a better decision and passed rather than shot.  The final few minutes were scrappy but the result had long since been decided. Foalie also finished with a yellow card after kicking the ball away.
Other Pix
Morpeth in amber and black, Loughborough in green.
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 compiled from my last 176 games. Today Green (albeit fluorescent) takes on Blue and gets the win but no clean sheet.  Not enough to change the order in the league table. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Away Win Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 65% (20 from 31) 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 44.1 19.0 7.0 18.1 68.0 14.0 66.0 1.497 Grey 49.5 23.0 11.0 15.5 80.5 14.0 69.5 1.404 Green 92.0 49.0 11.0 32.0 151.0 23.0 122.0 1.326 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 21.0 8.0 4.0 9.0 45.0 5.0 8.0 0.381 Orange 45.5 15.0 8.0 22.5 84.5 7.0 3.5 0.077 Radioactive Bile 21.0 9.0 0.0 12.0 45.0 3.0 -3.0 -0.143 Yellow 35.0 9.0 7.0 19.0 77.0 5.0 -18.0 -0.514 Pink 18.0 5.0 5.0 8.0 37.0 1.0 -12.0 -0.667 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!  Thirty Step 4 grounds still to be done.