Of Course There Are Hops in Kent

Hopperational Details
Date	Saturday 8 October 2022
Results & Venues	Staplehurst Monarchs 1 Rochester United 0  (Jubilee Field) Bearsted 2 Fisher 1 (Otham Sports Club, Honey Lane) Larkfield & New Hythe 2 Greenways 1 (Taray Group Community Stadium)
Competition	Southern Counties East Football League. First and third games in Division One (Step 6) and the second game in the Premier Division (Step 5).
Hopstats	Games 760, 761 & 762 on the lifetime list.
Context
The Saturday of the inaugural SCEFL hop. A mid-table contest, a mid-table v bottom side, and a playoff position contest respectively. Thanks, as ever, to the organisation and background direction of Groundhop UK.
In One Sentence Each
A game that was heading for a 0-0 start to the day before a well-taken goal sealed the win. Three good goals in a competitive game in which the visitors looked better than their league position would suggest. The hosts were made to work hard to hold on once the visitors responded well after being two goals down at the interval.
So What?
Minor changes to league table positions, the biggest being Larkfield & New Hythe climbing to second place in Division One.
Match Report
These will be brief on the basis that many hoppers have already been active on social media so there isn’t much left to say that is newsworthy. It’s more of an “I was there!” post. The result of all three games was in doubt right up to the final whistle, very good for a passing neutral. Staplehurst’s style of playing out from the back meant that the keeper was completing as many passes as anyone on the pitch. The ball spent a lot of time in their defensive third, and the closest to a first-half goal would have been good comedy from a wayward backpass. The winning goal, from substitute John Osagie was well taken and the moment is pictured here. He rode a couple of tackles, the ref played advantage, and the ball rolled nicely into the corner. The ballgirl knew. Ollie Freeman’s header pictured below opened the scoring for Bearsted, and it took a great double block from their keeper to protect their lead. A deserved equaliser did come from a good turn and shot by Jacob Katonia, but parity was brief as a great sliding far-post finish for Freeman’s second (think Haaland v Man U but with less hairgel) secured the points. However, not before Fisher had tried hard to get a share of the points. They lost a player to a late sin-binning but still hit the woodwork late on and forced Bearsted to make an off-the-line clearance. Larkfield & New Hythe went two up by half-time with goals from Luke Burdon and the set-piece header pictured below from Flavius Petrisor. Greenways made a game of it after an early strike from Oscar Saxton after the restart. His shot from right to left across the keeper made a very satisfying thunk off the post as it went in. Game on. Either side could have scored again as the tackles were also flying in, but the hosts held on for the win.
Other Pix
Three neat and tidy grounds, three clubs making an effort to raise some money from a bigger-than-usual crowd. Sunshine for most of the day. Staplehurst in red ...     Bearsted in white & blue           Larkfield & New Hythe in Yellow & Black ...
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 263 matches is here, on this separate page. The only mover is Maroon – it’s a small sample size and one result can make a big difference. Game 1: Green beats Grey and has a clean sheet Game 2: Grey beats Green, no clean sheets Game 3: Blue beats Maroon, no clean sheets Pre-match Predictions based on Keeper Top Colour: Predictions: Away, Home & Home respectively Was the prediction correct? No, Yes & Yes % of correct predictions so far 45% (53 from 118) 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! No firm plans for next weekend’s destination at the time of writing.