Go Go Power Rangers

Front cover of the e-programme (a free pdf file)

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Tuesday 25 October 2022
Result	Crawley Green 1 Risborough Rangers 2
Competition	Spartan South Midlands Premier League (Step 5)
Hopstats	Ground #763 on the lifetime list and I am here because it’s a short midweek journey to an unvisited ground. Have spent the best part of two days glued to chaotic UK politics and this seemed like a good way to escape.
Context
Crawley Green are heading the division with Rangers just on the right side of midway.
In One Sentence
A deserved away victory in a competitive game that was a good advert for the division.
So What?
Crawley Green remain first but Stotfold closed the gap and have a game in hand. Risborough are up to eighth.
Match Report and Clips
If you like planespotting too, chose a daytime game for your visit here. The ground lies pretty much under the final approach, or takeoff line, for the runway at Luton Airport. Also be warned that there is no spectator parking at the ground and you probably need to arrive early to get a reasonably close street parking space. The Brache is Luton Town’s training facility, and it's a standard 3G surface. By the way, it’s an e-programme. Not an issue (haha, see what I did there) for me, but a deal-breaker for some. The game was played at a good pace on this mild October evening, and the result was in doubt right to the end, great for the passing neutral. It was a goalless first half, but not for the want of trying. The visitors had the best of it, and you started to wonder whether they would eventually regret not having a halftime lead to match their dominance. The Crawley Green keeper Daniel Gould was busy and did well on several occasions to keep his side level. Risborough were having more success in getting behind the home defensive line, whereas home attacks were often snuffed out after the first ball forward. One imagines strong words could have been said in the home dressing room at the interval – they had not looked like table toppers. It was no surprise therefore, that Crawley Green fashioned a good chance in the opening moments of the second half. The ball went just wide of the far right-hand post. By this time I’d abandoned trying to take photographs and decided to settle for a couple of clips. The first shows a slick Risborough attack leading to a goal-line clearance, and the second has Crawley Green taking the lead from a break. The scorer is Joe Hankins.   The lead lasted no more than two minutes as Rico Greco stepped up from midfield and hammered an equaliser. The game then rather settled into the same pattern as the first-half. Risborough eventually got their second goal, and the points, courtesy of Asher Yearwood. I don’t think there can be much argument about the result. I headed to the nearby fast-food franchise – the one whose golden arches are visible from the dugouts – and a good number of the winning side turned up just as I was leaving. Perhaps that’s their dietary secret.
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 264 matches is here, on this separate page. Today, Green loses to Blue, which does not change the positions but means that Green’s lead over blue is an utterly insignificant 0.001 of a point per game. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Home Win Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 45% (53 from 119) 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! Quite a few of my grounds need long drives or train journeys and we are entering the season of less certain weather. It’s likely that there will be a lot of last-minute decisions. Plymouth Parkway is the main priority in order to restore “everywhere in the top seven tiers of the pyramid” on my list. Then there are seventeen at Step 4. I doubt whether I will make the next landmark after that before hanging up my notebook as there would be over a hundred more.

 

In the Cup for Tott-ern-hoe

Hopperational details
Date & Venue	Saturday 3 February 2018 at Totternhoe Recreation Ground
Result	Totternhoe 5 Crawley Green Reserves 0
Competition	Bedfordshire Senior Trophy Semi-Final
Hopstats	Ground 634. Was staying local this week, partly due to the weather and partly because of a trip next week, but the Codicote game was called off.  A quick check on Twitter revealed possibilities in the downlands of Bedfordshire and in the end I made it to Totternhoe in good time for kickoff.  Sedimentary chalk bedrocks from the Cretaceous and Jurassic eras allow for quicker drainage, as any groundhopper will tell you.
Context
No time for much research.  This is a cup semi-final so I am expecting a competitive game.  Totternhoe are sitting 3rd in Spartan South Midlands D2, and Crawley Green Reserves are leading the Bedfordshire Senior League.
In one sentence
A runaway win in the second half, with Totternhoe scoring well-taken goals at good times and a final score somewhat harsh on the visitors.
So what?
Totternhoe play Cranfield United under floodlights in the Final, somewhere to be confirmed, on Wednesday 7 March.
Match Report
Thanks to the Totternhoe Twitter feed for help to identify goalscorers. Not surprisingly after all the rain, this was a heavy and slippery pitch. The first half was largely forgettable with few really clear chances created.  The ref imposed his authority with three early yellow cards as the conditions encouraged the sliding tackle.  Totternhoe did most of the early pressing but Crawley Green were getting back into the game in the latter stages of the first half.  Nothing much else to write about as the whistle went for the break.  At half-time I could have bought a jar of chutney, presumably in aid of club funds, but I went for the more conventional Mars Bar.  There is a very un-PC statuette of a smiling black person in the corner of the bar, wearing what must be a club tie.  There must be a story behind it, but I didn’t ask.  It ought to end up in a skip very soon now that we all know that the era of these things is rightly over.  I messed up my pic but you get the idea. Fed up with being drizzled on, I watched the second half from the covered patio area of the clubhouse, and as it turned out all the goals were down this end.  The first chance was averted by a timely defensive deflection for a corner, but just before the hour Joe Smith was tripped in the box and scored from the resulting penalty, even though the keeper dived the right way. The same player scored with a placed shot seven minutes later after a quick break from defence, to punish the visitors who had been forced to press forward. The third was another classy finish on the break, and effectively secured the win.  Joel McCormick controlled a through ball then chose his moment to flick the ball high and over the advancing keeper into the net.  Effective, and rather annoying if you were in a blue shirt.  Any worries I had about extra-time and penalties evaporated.  As it turns out, only the latter would have applied anyway. There were two more goals in the last ten minutes to add insult to injury.  A rehearsed move, including “use your big sub to block the keeper’s route to the ball”, gave Wayne O’Connor a chance to head home at the far post from a corner.  Then another sub, Andy Cleere, was in acres of space and we all enjoyed his textbook volley from a right-wing cross.  Great finishing from the home side.  Crawley Green weren’t five goals worse than Totternhoe in their general performance, but they lacked the home side’s cutting edge today.
Ground Pix
Match Pix
Totternhoe in red.
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats
A big win and a clean sheet for Green, who go up one place, over Yellow. Results so far after 134 matches: 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, and it deserves to be last, trust me.  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 Maroon 4.0 2.0 1.0 1.0 6.0 1.0 6.0 1.500 Blue 31.1 13.0 6.0 12.1 49.0 10.0 46.0 1.479 Green 73.0 36.0 10.0 27.0 122.0 19.0 91.0 1.247 Grey 43.5 20.0 9.0 14.5 72.5 11.0 51.5 1.184 Orange 29.5 9.0 6.0 14.5 49.5 5.0 8.5 0.288 Purple 11.0 5.0 2.0 4.0 25.0 2.0 2.0 0.182 Radioactive Bile 13.0 6.0 0.0 7.0 26.0 2.0 2.0 0.154 Yellow 30.0 8.0 7.0 15.0 64.0 5.0 -8.0 -0.267 Pink 15.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 30.0 1.0 -8.0 -0.533 Black 5.0 1.0 3.0 1.0 14.0 0.0 -8.0 -1.600 White 1.9 0.0 0.0 1.9 4.0 0.0 -4.0 -2.105 Fire Cracker 1.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 4.0 0.0 -4.0 -4.000
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter for details!  I am flying out of the UK on Tuesday and if all goes to plan there will be an unusual post in midweek.  That is what, in the trade, they call a teaser.  Consider yourselves teased.