Hertford get a Suffolk Punch

Hopperational details
Date & Venue	Saturday 30 December 2017 at Recreation Way
Result	Mildenhall Town 2 Hertford Town 0
Competition	Isthmian League Division One North (Step 4) aka Bostik North Division
Hopstats	Number 628 on the lifetime list, and I am here for pragmatic reasons – this is just over an hour away from Yapp Acres and there were a lot of pitch inspections and postponements this morning. “Game On” was declared early enough for me to travel.  Hoppers travelling by car – look for the Free Parking sign adjacent to Costa Coffee.  The postcode on the SatNav took me onto a supermarket car park – you can reach the free zone by driving down a ramp at the far end.  Alternatively set for St Mary’s Close rather than Recreation Way.  The entry turnstile is tucked away at the “bottom” end of the ground near the swimming pool.  Allow time for an excellent burger too!
Context
Two mid-table teams, the visitors ahead by eight points.  Mildenhall, newly-promoted to this level from the Eastern Counties, are on a longish run without a win, though with several draws, and in the programme manager Dean Greygoose is unusually quoted as somewhat critical of his players, promising changes.  That could go either way.  The teams met in a 2-2 draw at Hertford earlier in the season.  Hertford are also new at Step 4 this season, having been promoted from the Spartan South Midlands.
In one sentence
A dour contest for much of the time but home supporters and management will be relieved that the winless run is over.
So what?
Mildenhall are 18th but will need to look over their shoulders for a while yet as most teams beneath them now have games in hand.  Hertford are 13th.
Match Report
Mildenhall kicked down the slope for the first half.  The match kicked off in bright low sunshine but the clouds moved in and the temperature soon began to drop.  The first half had relatively few clear chances.  Mildenhall’s Claudio Ofusu caught the eye initially with some tricky direct running at the opposition defence, but the final pass was usually missing.  He caught the eye of the ref too for a pointless booking later on, deemed to have kicked the ball away at a stoppage.  Hertford tried to get a passing game going, but the surface was tricky and they had to settle for a less risky percentage game.  They had the best chance of the half when Charlie Cole was sent through with only the keeper Jacob Marsden to beat, but he shot well wide.  Then Marsden slipped while clearing to present another chance, but Phil Lowen’s lofted shot came back off the bar.  So, goalless at the interval and all to play for.  With hindsight, those were two bad misses. The teams traded early chances in the second half, and Ofusu started well again with his running with the ball.  One took him all the way from left wing to right wing as Mildenhall built up some pressure.  The breakthrough came after 66 minutes, Joshua Curry arriving at the back post to score with a first-time shot from a corner.  Then the second came six minutes later.  Ofusu anticipated where a second ball would drop then took the ball forward to place a really neat finish just inside the far post. Hertford tried to respond but couldn’t really create anything clear-cut.  There was a brief altercation after a late (unwise and desperate rather than malicious) tackle by their centre-back Michael Toner leading to a yellow card, but in truth Mildenhall were able to hold on easily enough for the win.  Fair play to the travelling support who took the frustrating defeat on the chin with a degree of good humour. Mildenhall Town 2 (Curry 66, Ofusu 72) Hertford Town 0
Ground Pix
Match Pix
Mildenhall are in gold-and-black.
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats
Radioactive Bile, with a clean sheet, beats Grey to climb two places in the table.  Grey stays 4th.  The table also includes my unblogged trip to Brentford v Villa on Boxing Day, where Yellow scored a 2-1 victory over Green. Results so far: 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 9.0 4.0 1.0 4.0 9.0 3.0 19.0 2.111 Maroon 4.0 2.0 1.0 1.0 6.0 1.0 6.0 1.500 Blue 30.1 12.0 6.0 12.1 47.0 10.0 45.0 1.495 Grey 42.5 20.0 9.0 13.5 70.5 11.0 53.5 1.259 Green 69.0 34.0 9.0 26.0 117.0 17.0 79.0 1.145 Orange 27.5 9.0 5.0 13.5 45.5 5.0 11.5 0.418 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 28.0 8.0 6.0 14.0 58.0 5.0 -3.0 -0.107 Pink 14.0 4.0 4.0 6.0 29.0 1.0 -8.0 -0.571 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!  Weather permitting, my Step 3 priorities are Ashton United, Athersley Recreation (as Shaw Lane’s landlords), Tiverton Town and Whitby Town.

A1 for Hatfield

Hopperational details

Saturday 20th November 2010, Hatfield Town 3 Hertford Town 0 in the step 5 South Midlands Premier League.  I am here because I live only 15 minutes away and needed a local hopping venue today.

This match in one sentence

An efficient win for Hatfield Town in manager Adam Parker’s first league game in charge.

So what?

Hatfield Town climb to 7th and Hertford Town stay in mid-table.  These two meet again in a county charity shield competition on Tuesday.  I’ve seen Hertford Town twice this season, three times in all, and they have lost all of them.

Who caught the eye on the pitch?

For the right reasons, no-one in particular this week.  Hatfield were “up for it” and played directly and efficiently, although all three goals had a helping hand to some extent from the visitors.  Hertford lined up with five at the back, and one of the centre-backs headed an own goal for the first.  Their more measured passing game did not work well on this step 5 shared surface.  Epic confusion between the defence and the goalkeeper Ashley Harris led to the second goal, and the game was virtually over as a contest by half-time.  The third came just after the break and killed it off completely, which makes a ridiculous incident described below even more inexplicable.  In the meantime, Hertford's Chet Johnson was lucky to avoid a card after his shout of, "Do you know the rules, Lino?".  The ref didn't hear it, and the lino was generous in not telling him.  No wonder we have an officiating crisis in the grass roots game.

This match had the same effect on my pulse rate as …

… finding my marbles.

A snippet from the programme

“Hatfield Town are an ambitious club whose plans for the future include the building of their own ground and advancement within the pyramid.” Fair play to them – I saw them last season as the middle game of my first-ever bank holiday triple in a feisty 3-3 draw against their landlords Welwyn Garden City.  They seem to be a club full of fighters for the shirt.  They have moved to the Gosling Sports Park this season and the sooner they can move again the better.  I am struggling to think of a game that I have really and truly enjoyed from the other side of an athletics track.

What I learned today

Saturday was some sort of deadline for ordering made-to-measure curtains in time for Christmas in these parts. Just don’t talk to me about it, please.

Modus Hopper Random Talking Point

Let me say at the outset that by this stage I had climbed to the back of the main stand and I was a starship journey away from the first stage of this incident.  With the game dead at 3-0, the ball went behind the Hertford goal and was in the hands of a Hatfield “official”.  This was not a ball-boy, but a mature man (of sorts).  No doubt both parties will have their own accounts of what happened but here’s what I can say for sure: It's a long walk for the red-carded The goalkeeper tried to get the ball back but the man passed it round behind his back to prevent him from getting it.  There’s no doubt that he could have given the ball to the ‘keeper, but I can’t tell you what was said between the two of them. The goalkeeper objected and views were exchanged.  The man, still with ball in hand, definitely made a slight movement towards the keeper. There may have been minimal contact but the keeper went down with an acceleration of more than 9.8m/s2.  Trust me on that one. The ballholder was out-of-order but no way should the keeper have ended up on the floor. Neutrals groaned at the prospect of a later finishing time as the obligatory period of “handbags” ensued. The man made his way to the Hatfield dugout, and the referee, after consulting his assistant, sent him from the field of play (which meant a walk round behind the same goal and the chance to exchange further pleasantries with the now-upright Ashley Harris). Hormonal levels subsided enough to allow the game to finish without further incident.  My view, for what it’s worth – the red card was correct.  I then proceeded in a north-westerly direction away from stadium as soon as I could.