Two Bears Hitting Tons in St John's Wood

 

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Wednesday 29 September 2021 at Lord’s Cricket Ground
Result	Not yet decided, though Warwickshire are odds-on favourites at this point
Competition	Day 2 (of 5) of The Bob Willis Trophy – the end of season game at “The Home of Cricket” between the top two counties
Hopstats	My fourth visit, but the first for some considerable time. Lord’s is one of fifteen grounds at which I have watched organised competitive cricket. A group of five of us, with roots back in our university days and a combined wisdom of three centuries, sat in the Lower Compton stand to watch the game.
Context
Warwickshire took hold of this match yesterday by winning the toss, choosing to bowl, and then skittling Lancashire out for only 78 before reaching 120 without loss themselves. The only real question is whether the weather will stay good enough for the remaining days. For Day 2, we expect to see Warwickshire build a big lead with maybe a declaration after tea if things go well.
In One Sentence
It was only occasionally spectacular, but it was certainly very solid, as Warwickshire accumulated runs at a decent rate, with a string of productive partnerships led by centuries for both Yates and Rhodes, ending the day with a lead of 386 runs.
So What?
A declaration may be imminent. If the weather intervenes, Warwickshire take the trophy on the basis of highest first innings score.
Match Report
Warwickshire lost Dom Sibley shortly after he had completed his fifty, but that was the only wicket to fall in the morning session. Will Rhodes scored at a good pace, making over thirty of the fifty partnership with the opener Rob Yates closing on the century. It was generally calm progress. The Lancashire pace bowlers put in a good effort – one delivery got through Yates’ defence and passed over the stumps. The introduction of spin with Matt Parkinson slowed the run rate only slightly, and it was through an off drive off his bowling that Yates completed the ton. Rhodes also completed his fifty before lunch as we went in search of sustenance with Warwickshire at 224-1.   The range of available food in the ground was disappointing for a supposedly big showpiece occasion, and I equalled my personal record for the number of Danish pastries consumed in one day. The previous occasion was in Denmark. The post-lunch Warwickshire progress was serene, and landmarks were passed regularly. The hundred partnership, the new ball, the 200 lead and so on. The only blip was the departure of Yates for 113, the first of Parkinson’s victims. Sam Hain had joined Rhodes and they passed the 300 mark before Rhodes completed his own century, albeit with one of the least convincing shots of his innings. Hain reached his own fifty in good time, with a glorious drive, and the tea interval came with Warwickshire in total command at 339-2.   100 up for Will Rhodes - steered or edged? In the final session, before bad light ended the day, Warwickshire added another 125 runs but Rhodes watched the departure of Hain for 55 and Matt Lamb for a duck before building another fifty partnership with wicketkeeper Michael Burgess. Burgess was stumped for 44 by his opposite number Alex Davies (soon to join Warwickshire) but Rhodes kept up his personal accumulation, including the odd boundary. Tim Bresnan and Danny Briggs also fell to the spinners, who took five of the seven wickets to fall. The ball by Luke Wells to bowl Lamb turned enough to encourage Warwickshire to feel that they will have time to bowl Lancashire out again even if there are rain interruptions. 150 for Rhodes   At the end, Rhodes had reached 151 not out, with Craig Miles at the other end and the board showing a dominant 464-7 with a lead of 386. Matt Parkinson ended up with the best bowling figures of 3-71 from a marathon stint of 30 overs. It will be a surprise if Warwickshire don’t win this game from here. It is almost unthinkable that they won’t win the trophy. You Bears!
Other Match Pix
Rob Yates on his way to a century   Will Rhodes (Warwickshire)
Ground Pix
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter! All being well with Covid, fuel supplies, plagues of locusts and extinction events, a trip to York City v Whitby Town in the FA Cup is lined up for Saturday.

Pilgrims' Ambition is More Than a Feeling

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 25 September at The Jakemans Community Stadium
Result	Boston United 2 Guiseley 1
Competition	National League North (Step 2)
Hopstats	Ground 729 on the lifetime list is not a random choice. After my recent attention to The 92 & 115, there is only one sequence of fixtures for ticking off my three remaining Step 2 grounds on consecutive Saturdays to restore The 158, so I am here. It would normally have been The 160, but the combination of Bury and Macclesfield Town folding, alongside the disruption of promotion and relegation during the pandemic, means that the National League, and National League South, are running with an odd number of teams this season.
Context
13th v 15th before kickoff. Both teams have similar mixed records and sit in mid-table. Boston will be looking for a third consecutive home win to follow on from a 6-0 hammering of Corby Town in the FA Cup last weekend. Guiseley also won in the cup, winning away at Colne.
In One Sentence
Workmanlike rather than impressive, but a win is a win.
So What?
A move of one place for each team, up to 12th and down to 16th respectively. Both have home FA Cup ties next weekend. Boston United host East Thurrock United and Guiseley host Blyth Spartans.
Pre-match Entertainment
One of the reasons for taking car rather than train today was to be able to make a morning visit to the nearby Bubblecar Museum in Langrick. What a magnificent collection, with the distinctive and unusual vehicles supplemented by collections of furniture, toys, kitchen utensils and other domestic artefacts. It is well worth an hour of your time if you are ticking off this new ground this year.   As I then drove towards the town centre, clusters of people at the roadside, many with cameras, indicated that something unusual was about to happen. I parked up and joined them, and a discreet enquiry established both that, no, I’m not from round here, and the Flying Scotsman was imminent, on its way to Skegness. Well, I had a glimpse of it last Tuesday evening, and it would have been rude not to wait until it had passed by today.  I then had a pleasant walk around some of Boston’s town centre and side streets. The town has an active port (shellfish, I believe) and an interesting religious and political history with connections to the settlement of what is now the United States. Walking down the footpath alongside the A16 to the ground takes around 30-40 minutes. There is a shuttle bus as an alternative, but I wanted the exercise. It’s perfectly OK in daylight on a dry day – it’s not a walk I would particularly want to do in the rain or in darkness, or with young children. You have to cross and re-cross the busy A16 as you get close to the stadium.
Match Report
Guiseley started well and it was only a superb block by Luke Shiels on Jordan Thewlis that stopped them taking an early lead. Shiels was impressive throughout that first half. Kaine Felix had the visitors’ second chance with a one-one-one breakthrough but a defender got back just in time to disrupt his shot. When Boston took the lead after 14 minutes it was somewhat against the run of play. An excellent trap and turn in midfield by Danny Elliott allowed him to fashion a move down the right flank through Jordan Preston and when the ball came in Jordan Burrow was in position to score. The game entered a spell of mutual cancellation. Patient Guiseley buildup in the modern fashion was met with good Boston defensive organisation, and they themselves looked dangerous on the break. Andi Thanoj sent in a fierce strike, but too high, on one such occasion. The rest of the scoring was completed in a two-minute spell before half-time. With 38 minutes on the clock, a misplaced clearance from home keeper George Sykes-Kenworthy left him out of position and an empty net for Thewlis To roll home the equaliser from distance. However, Boston were back in front almost immediately. Keeper Luke Jackson did well initially to block a shot from Connor Dimaio but the ball bounced up for a free header for Fraser Preston to score what turned out to be the winner. Just after the break, Guiseley hit the post with a neatly-worked freekick routine from the training ground, but as the half wore on, a third Boston goal began to look more likely as the visitors ran out of ideas. A flick from Burrow rolled just wide of the post, at the end of a few minutes of sustained pressure. It was a game that rather fizzled out rather than reached a crescendo, but a win is a win.
Match Pix
During the pandemic I tend to stay in one of the quieter corners of the ground, hence the lack of variety in the pix this season.
Ground Pix
This is a classy new build with features that remind the hopper of similar developments at Aveley and AFC Fylde, for example. Plus Rushden and Diamonds, of course, and Boston United, like the others, will need to get up a tier sooner rather than later. The ambition is clearly there. It’s an excellent playing surface. On balance you can understand why they moved away from their previous town centre position, with a compromise over location. There is scope for further development on the fourth side.  Some groundhoppers talk about “proper” old grounds but for me these are the standards that future generations will rightly expect. You never catch them talking about “proper” old school buildings for their children, to make a comparison with my own field. Hopefully readers will pick up the 1970s musical reference hidden in the blogpost title. It was initially going to be called Transports of Delight but on balance my days out are more about the football than the cars, trains, boats and planes.   The floodlights of the old ground are still there, for now
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 230 matches is here, on this separate page.  Today, it was two shades of Green facing each other, and neither kept a clean sheet. Once again the league table of colours remains unchanged. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Draw Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 49% (42 from 85) 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, and is leaning towards the latter.
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter! The provisional plan has been revised to York City v Whitby Town in the FA Cup next Saturday, followed by Gloucester City v Bradford the following weekend. Always subject to weather, roadworks and Covid19 of course, and now also on the availability of fuel for the Yappmobile.

Forceful Brentford Fire Four for Finn Forss

A poster-style programme today.

Photos in this post may be of lesser quality than is usual. All were taken on a battered smartphone using the Whatsapp app due to some new internal storage issue or software glitch on my aged phone. Apologies.

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Tuesday 21 September 2021 at Brentford Community Stadium
Result	Brentford 7 (Seven) Oldham Athletic 0
Competition	League Cup Round 3
Hopstats	Ground 728 on my lifetime list is a midweek hop to Brentford’s new ground, restoring my complete coverage of the current 92 (Premier League to League Two) and 115 (to National League).
Context
Assuming league form is irrelevant (with Brentford likely to field a changed side) is the best way to keep this match-up interesting. Brentford reached this round with a 3-1 win over Forest Green. Oldham have had two penalty-shootout wins, over Tranmere Rovers and Accrington Stanley respectively, in the earlier rounds. However, you can’t really ignore that they are up against Premier League opposition today, while they themselves sit bottom of League Two, and that there have been recent fan protests against the club’s owners.
In One Sentence
The game was over as a contest within minutes, and from then on it was closer to an exhibition match, but for a ticket price of £10 there are no complaints from me.
So What?
Brentford are in the draw for the fourth round later today (Wednesday), and, as is the way with cup competitions, Oldham are concentrating on the league. Maybe even, in their case, on survival.
Pre-match Entertainment
A day of teaching A level thermal physics, and electron configurations of the elements for chemistry. Now, that’s entertainment.
Match Report
Some elements of the Griffin Park experience have been kept. Red girders and brickwork on the concourses. Singing Hey Jude for some reason just before the teams come out. Domination of possession from the kickoff. Any chance of a giant-killing depended on Oldham making a good start and irritating the home crowd. Instead they were a goal down within three minutes. Yoane Wissa was fouled and Marcus Forss opened the scoring from the penalty spot. The dominance continued. Another neat move led to Wissa’s shot hitting the post, and the rebound falling for Forss. Two-nil, any nerves settled, already now a case of how many they would get. Mention should be made of the link play between Dominic Thompson and Tariqe Fosu-Henry on the left flank who must have been watching the Shaw-Sterling videos from Euro 2020(21). Oldham did improve and managed to play out from the back themselves occasionally, keeping the possession stats (for what they are worth) down to 65:35 when it felt more in Brentford’s favour. On 38 minutes, Wissa scored the third, assisted by Mathias Jensen who had pounced on a breakdown in his own half and surged through the middle on the break. Ruthless and effective. It was five-nil before the interval. The ball bounced off defender Raphael Diarra for an own goal, and then Forss completed his first-half hat-trick. The own goal arose from a savage Brentford response to an Oldham breakdown, and the fifth was straight through the buttery middle like a knife in a mixed metaphor. Oldham made a triple substitution including the introduction of teenager Harry Vaughan. I’m noting this because he has attracted some attention and been described as “exciting”, so, just in case, this is my “I saw him play before you’d heard of him!” post to go alongside one of my previous ones for Jamie Vardy. He is of atypical height for a midfielder these days – Tony Pulis, for example, would never sign him, but he certainly wasn’t hiding on the pitch and his team-mates seemed happy to let him have the ball. Oldham should have had a consolation goal. A momentary lapse at the back was seized on by Benny Couto. His long-distance attempt to loop the ball over home keeper Alvaro Fernandez was tipped away acrobatically to keep the clean sheet intact. Within two minutes, on the hour mark, Forss smacked in his fourth and Brentford’s sixth off the crossbar courtesy of Mads Roerslev’s cross. Brentford made their own triple substitution with twenty minutes to go. By now the crowd were shouting for a shot at every possible opportunity. Centre-back Charlie Goode obliged from about eight perches out (old British imperial unit of length there to keep government officials happy) and stung Jason Leutwiler’s palms. (He should ditch the yellow top, trust me.) Brentford continued to play with the same pace and purpose, and it was good to watch even though several moves broke down through over-intricacy. It didn’t matter much. A good proportion of the crowd left after the sixth goal and missed the magnificent seventh at the 87-minute mark. Saman Ghoddos floated the ball in for a superb overhead kick from Wissa to round off the evening. You couldn’t really say it was harsh. This game should have finished about 10-1. As I was funnelled by stewards down a hole in the ground post-match, and held in a grumpy crowd with a teasing view of the platform, there was the momentary glimpse and unmistakable sound of a steam train shooting through Kew Bridge Station. It turns out to have been the Flying Scotsman on the way back to London from Salisbury. Given that Brentford’s ground gives you a clear view of Heathrow approaches, that’s trainspotting, planespotting and groundhopping all done in one evening. And they say I should get a life.
Match Pix
None this week.
Ground Pix
I know that there is (or was) a lot of hopper affection for Griffin Park, and it may be an unpopular opinion that this new stadium is a much better spectator experience. I am sure that many hoppers will tick off this ground and take basically the same photographs this season (except maybe for the one with the full moon). The only downside is that I had followed the advised route from the TfL website and arrived at Gunnersbury by Overground. Finding that Gunnersbury was closed for an hour after the final whistle, and that there were no Overground trains stopping, forced me on to the Tube through central London and into some indoor crowded situations that I would not have chosen. If today’s lateral flow test is negative, I got away with this roll of the covid dice. My advice to any other visiting fans is to research your exit route carefully.
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 229 matches is here, on this separate page. Today, Green hammers Yellow, and has a clean sheet too. Still not enough to change the league table positions, but just right to take the prediction success rate back to 50%. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Home Win Was the prediction correct? Yes % of correct predictions so far 50% (42 from 84) 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, and is leaning towards the latter.
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter! My first priority is to tick off three remaining new Step 2 grounds at Boston United, Gloucester City and York City. Still waiting on a rearranged date for York v Hereford after the recent postponement.