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.

It's Raining Pens

No programme (just a teamsheet) so here's the food menu instead - well above average!

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Wednesday 22 August 2018 at Hayden Road
Result	Rushden & Higham Utd 6 Cogenhoe United 1
Competition	United Counties League Knockout Cup Preliminary Round
Hopstats	Ground 652, and this is a pragmatic midweek visit to the only one of my priority grounds hosting a game tonight.  Rushden & Higham United are landlords to AFC Rushden & Diamonds of Step 3, and I choose landlords rather than tenants if I possibly can for my visit.
Context
Step 6 plays Step 5 and the visitors will start as favourites.  However, hard to know in advance whether sides will be full strength.  League Cup competitions vary – pre-match consensus was that this would go straight to ET and pens if level after 90 minutes.
In one sentence
Surprisingly straightforward win for the home side after the visitors missed their third-minute penalty (one of four spot-kicks awarded tonight).
So what?
Rushden & Higham will visit Eynesbury Rovers in the next round.
Match Report
This was a game with several potential hinge points, and the first came as early as the 3rd minute.  A penalty was awarded to Cogenhoe for handball, but Ryan Dove’s spotkick was pushed away by Kyle Swailes.  Cogenhoe were applying the early pressure but Dave Townsend was able to break the defensive line on the break to score the opening goal.  It was a tidy left-foot finish whilst holding off a defender.  Jory Mann, full of running for most of the evening, added a second from the penalty spot.  He had been tripped at the byeline whilst heading for goal.  Untidy defending again and now a two-goal deficit. Cogenhoe were back in the game from the third penalty of the night.  The ref judged there had been a trip (I think) and Dove made no mistake this time.  However, here’s a second possible hinge point as within a minute Mann was sticking away his second penalty of the four awarded so far.  He had again been brought down, this time at edge of the area, and the keeper Callum Patching escaped with a yellow card.  Fair enough, but the two-goal lead now restored. I think Rushden and Higham were surprising themselves with the half-time score, which was 4-1 due to a horrible defensive miskick falling straight to Mann who duly completed his first-half hat-trick. It would be essential for Cogenhoe to score first after the break, but the home side were holding out easily enough until we reached 65 minutes or so.  As the visitors pressed forward, there was even more space at the back, but the goal to make it 5-1 was another gift.  Patching’s clearance rebounded off Jamie Russell and rolled gently into the net.  Game over.  It remained entertainingly end-to-end and the final goal came very late on from substitute Callum Dench who seized on a short backpass and kept enough composure to score under challenge.  A final 6-1 scoreline that would not have been predicted by anyone, even #keepertopcolourstats, and great entertainment for the passing neutral.
Pix
Home side in orange-and-black.  Main stand not in use.
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats
New this season – a pre-match prediction based only on keeper top colours as a preliminary test of the data.  Proper statistical significance test to follow in due course. Tonight Radioactive Bile faces up to Grey and takes a big win but neither has a clean sheet.  Grey holds position but Bile jumps above Yellow. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Away Win Was the prediction correct? No. Not even close. % of correct predictions so far 75% (6 from 8) 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.  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.  It may not be statistically significant as yet, but football coverage ignores this point as a matter of routine. 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 Blue 38.1 16.0 7.0 15.1 54.0 14.0 71.0 1.864 Grey 47.5 22.0 10.0 15.5 79.5 13.0 61.5 1.295 Green 80.0 40.0 10.0 30.0 135.0 20.0 95.0 1.188 Fire Cracker 3.0 1.0 0.0 2.0 6.0 1.0 2.0 0.667 Maroon 5.0 2.0 1.0 2.0 9.0 1.0 3.0 0.600 Purple 16.0 7.0 3.0 6.0 36.0 4.0 8.0 0.500 Orange 34.5 11.0 7.0 16.5 59.5 6.0 10.5 0.304 Radioactive Bile 18.0 8.0 0.0 10.0 37.0 2.0 -3.0 -0.167 Yellow 31.0 8.0 7.0 16.0 65.0 5.0 -9.0 -0.290 Pink 16.0 5.0 5.0 6.0 31.0 1.0 -6.0 -0.375 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
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter!  Five more Step 3 grounds to go, but I am now doing other things for a few days so my next hop is likely to be Saturday 1 September.  Alvechurch, Bamber Bridge and South Shields are all possibilities for that day but it also depends on the FA Cup draw because I want to get the five grounds done by the end of September, before Tottenham move into their new place.