United's Mint Performance Ends Brighouse Winning Run

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Tuesday 1 January 2019 at Ingfield
Result	Ossett United 4 Brighouse Town 0
Competition	Northern Premier League Division One East (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground 672 on the lifetime list.  I am here, up North, rather than at Blackfield & Langley v Winchester City, down South, because on Sunday the North (Burnley and Manchester City) beat the South (West Ham and Southampton) 5-1 on aggregate.  See my Twitter timeline for proof that I am not making this up.  I had picked the two alternative games because of the travel convenience of a 1.00pm kickoff.  It’s randomish.
Context
11th v 2nd in the league.  This is Ossett’s first United season after the merger of Town and Albion.  Two draws and a narrow defeat for them in their last three games, Brighouse are in form – three wins in a row as part of a long unbeaten league run going back to early October.  The August meeting between these two sides was a 2-2 draw.
In one sentence
Three goals in fifteen minutes and one right after the break made this a really good day for the league’s newest club in front of a crowd of 618.
So what?
United go up one place, Brighouse remain second but fall further behind league leaders Morpeth.
Report
I had time before the game for a short stroll through the town for a sneaky peek through the cricket club gates at Ossett Albion’s former ground at Queen’s Terrace.  Ingfield was Ossett Town’s ground before the merger. Ossett has everything that you would expect from a northern town – super stone buildings clustered round a town square, each of them architecturally interesting, especially the Town Hall.  The immaculately kept War Memorial.  The “Working Men’s Clubs” with dress codes on the doors (no steel toecaps or overalls).  It looked good in the late morning sunshine.  These days those features are supplemented by a bewildering number of takeaways, nail salons, hairdressers, dog grooming parlours and ridiculously threatening notices from car park management companies. The ground is full of character and is now clearly a work-in-progress after the brave but sensible decision to merge the two clubs.  For the moment, various huts and containers have been fitted with u-PVC front doors and double glazing as the New Era finds its feet.  I had a splendid pre-match meal of pie, peas and gravy, giving myself away as a southern interloper by having to be reminded about the mint sauce.  It was my moment of shame, like that geezer getting on the bus in The Great Escape. But I digress.  The match kicked off with the home defenders looking into the low sunshine.  United had plenty of possession, and forced a few corners.  Brighouse coped well and occasionally threatened a breakaway – typical home-and-away stuff with nothing to indicate what was to come.  The high-adrenaline moment midway through the first half came with the announcement of the raffle winner.  Then, the ball from this direct freekick for Brighouse will arrive at Ultima Thule just too late to be photographed by the Nasa New Horizons probe this evening. Things changed on 32 minutes.  The Brighouse keeper Jordan Porter was caught out by the bounce of the ball and Adam Priestley got in behind for a tap-in, as seen behind this beautifully auto-focused net here. It got worse for Brighouse five minutes later as Tom Greaves won the ball from James Hurtley on the right edge of the area and kept his cool to roll the ball under Porter from a narrow angle.  The third goal came soon enough in the last minute of the first half.  Again Brighouse failed to clear the danger on their right flank, and as the ball came in James Knowles turned it into the corner of the net despite Porter getting a touch. Any plans hatched by the Brighouse management depended on a strong start to the second half and coping defensively with even lower sunshine.  Instead, United went four up as Shiraz Khan led their first attack down the right, and worked his way along the edge of the area before lashing in a left-footer. It was all a bit anti-climactic after that, but United will not care a jot.  They coped well enough with the visitors’ attacking attempts, and home keeper Brett Souter only needed routine work to collect a clean sheet.  Greaves hit the post, but real chances were few and far between as the game reached its conclusion. As a passing neutral I have to be disappointed that it was not a closer contest but I enjoyed the ground, the food, the excellent programme and the sunshine and respected the significance of the home win.  I know many hoppers have been here already, but if not, get it high on your list, and remember the mint sauce.
Pix
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. Time to confess. The whole #keepertopcolourstats thing is a bit of fun.  Not quite as outrageous as my Northern Hemisphere Clockwise Zamboni Rotation Theory (my regular readers will both remember my coverage of a few ice hockey matches), but still rather tongue-in-cheek.  I am as bemused as anyone with the success rate of the predictions, now just over two out of three.  I don’t have hard proof of statistical significance yet, but I wasn’t expecting this. However, I claim to be the only “pundit” on the planet who predicted this result, so there.  The BBC website should put me up against Lawro imo.  Green beat Yellow and kept a clean sheet in the process. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Home Win Was the prediction correct? Yes % of correct predictions so far 68% (19 from 28) 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. League table based on my last 173 matches. 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 42.1 19.0 7.0 16.1 60.0 14.0 74.0 1.758 Grey 49.5 23.0 11.0 15.5 80.5 14.0 69.5 1.404 Green 90.0 47.0 11.0 32.0 149.0 23.0 118.0 1.311 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 20.0 8.0 4.0 8.0 42.0 5.0 11.0 0.550 Orange 44.5 14.0 8.0 22.5 82.5 7.0 2.5 0.056 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!  33 grounds left at Step 4, with another one to be chosen for next Saturday.  Look out for randomishness on Friday.