Recorded History at Park View

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Wednesday 2 September 2020 at New River Sports Stadium
Result	Park View 1 Hashtag United 2
Competition	FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round
Hopstats	Ground #708 on the lifetime list, and the nearest unvisited ground with a competitive game this evening. The stadium has an artificial surface inside an athletics track and is also home to London Skolars rugby league side.
Context
First competitive game of the season AND first-ever match in the FA Cup for both sides. Park View are in the Spartan South Midlands Division One (Step 6) but pre-match Twitter was full of comment about the appearance of a team named Hashtag on the BBC fixtures web page. Most were amused or bemused, but supportive rather than abusive in tone. An increasing number of people are “in the know” since their admission to the football league pyramid at step 6 in the Eastern Counties Division One. Their first season, 2018-19, saw them promoted to the Essex Senior League and they are among the clubs most frustrated to see the annulment of 2019-20. Their YouTube channel has half a million followers, and most fully professional clubs can’t match that. Fans of Northampton Town should be aware that midfielder Scott Pollock came their way after a spell with Hashtag, itself the reward for winning a competition. I gather he turned up this evening to watch his former team. It will be interesting to see whether this new model for club culture will be sustainable, and whether other clubs will take even more notice of the e-sports phenomenon. Google “Hashtag Tom” if you didn’t see the news on the ePremier League at the end of August, and especially if you didn’t know there was an ePremier League. Sponsorship in e-sports has come a long way (and with a lot more money) than the days when work colleagues would slip me their spare 10p pieces, just so that they could laugh at the contorted expressions on my face while I was setting the high scores on “Arcadians” machine at The Cricketers in Ickleford in 1982.
In One Sentence
Job done for the visitors, who imposed themselves on the second half and eventually subdued the home side’s efforts.
So What?
Hashtag will host Felixstowe & Walton United in the Preliminary Round. Park View, as they say, will be able to concentrate on the league.
Pre-match Entertainment
Achievement unlocked: using a pay-by-phone service that I haven’t used for years, and paying to park my previous car whose details were stored automatically.
Match Report
Both teams started positively and we soon saw a chance at each end, with a Park View shot bravely blocked and a smart tip round the near post by keeper Daniel Conteh from a Hashtag effort. Hashtag could have taken the early lead but a rebound was skied after another good save by Conteh. By this stage it was clear that both clubs were being very active on Twitter, keeping the world informed. There were some crunching tackles from committed players and Park View had to make two substitutions before half-time which cannot have helped their cause. Park View scored first (35’) when Keleon James burst through the Hashtag defensive line at pace and sent a low shot straight through the net (you don’t see that very often!) and on to the running track. Hashtag were level from the penalty spot after Toby Aromolaran was tripped. George Smith buried the kick into the top of the net. The visitors finished the first half well, looking dangerous from set pieces, especially a low driven freekick from the right which scooted across the six-yard box and out, just before the interval. Half-time: Park View 1 Hashtag United 1 Hashtag started the second half very brightly and Conteh was very busy, in fact you could say that he kept Park View in the game for about twenty-five more minutes. It was the 70th minute before the home side made another clear chance. A break down the left needed a good save from Jamie Jackson and then a timely interception to clear the rebound. The winning goal was fashioned with good work down the right channel from lively sub Joshua Osude. His cross from the byline found Aromoloaran at the far post and the cameras clicked for ages as he scored and celebrated the winning goal with 78 minutes on the clock. It’s a good job the youth of today don’t have to wait a week for their rolls of 36 snaps to come back from BonusPrint, I tell you. Park View kept their heads up and looked for the equaliser but Hashtag were able to manage the game to conclusion and create another chance to increase the fanbase next week. Result: Park View 1 Hashtag United 2
Opinion
There is a great view at this stadium, much more so than at many Step 6 venues because of the height of the main stand, but it really needs a good clean, especially below where the pigeons have been roosting. The toilets weren’t opened until after I’d complained (though I won’t claim cause and effect). I would like to thank the steward who helped me to avoid an accident, shall we say, by having me escorted into the changing room block to use the facilities there. The artificial surface, however, is much better and conducive to good football than most grass pitches at this level. There was no organised queueing or track-and-trace data collection, but people were being sensible. As at yesterday’s game, I felt that groups of family and friends have quietly sorted out their own bubble arrangements. There was plenty of space for me to find a quiet seat with adequate social distancing. The existence of a programme, albeit over-priced at £2 for three sheets of A4, was a pleasant surprise and credit to the club for that. Tickets had not been available in advance and the pay-at-the-door crowd must have been at or near the allowed figure of 300, including a core of support for the home team. One thing you need to know if you ever attend a Hashtag game, you are never more than 10m away from a serious amount of photographic and recording equipment. Make sure your hair (and makeup if necessary) is in good order and they get your good side. I watched literally thousands of photos being taken, and the in-play club Twitter feed is all that you would expect from a very media-friendly club.
Match Pix
Park View in white with pale blue stripes. Standard of pix is terrible compared with the club's own stuff of course. My compact little Canon is not as big as the ones on display this evening!
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats Update
Usually accompanied by a pre-match prediction on Twitter just before kickoff. Working towards being able to compute a respectable statistical significance test by the end of the season. The full keeper top performance table from my last 209 matches is here, on this separate page. Today, the fluorescent version of Green plays Orange. Petr Cech will be happy with the result. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Home win Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 52% (33 from 64) 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. The odd decimal places were caused either by undeniable half-and-half tops or lower league sub keepers 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 (and supported by anonymous scientists of some description) that orange is the best colour for a goalkeeper because it changes the behaviour of other players around the box. It is supposedly because of an innate primeval human reaction to the colour and the colour “spreads” more in the vision of a striker at the key moment of decision. Genius or garbage? The evidence is gathering here.
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter! I have to choose somehow from 53 possible step 5 league games on Saturday. It is the week of the blog's tenth birthday. It's been through a few developmental stages but has come through its mid-life crisis and is settling down for an increasingly eccentric dotage. Thanks as ever to my small but loyal readership.