Dynamo Turned Over By Highwaymen of Morpeth

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 19 January 2019 at Craik Park
Result	Morpeth Town 4 Loughborough Dynamo 1
Competition	Northern Premier League Division One East (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground 675 on the lifelong list, and I am here randomishly but pragmatically because the home team very helpfully made a very clear and early “Game On” announcement on Twitter, allowing me time to travel.
Context
League leaders host 8th placed visitors.  Morpeth lost their last home game, but won away from home last week.  Loughborough lost at home last week, but had an away win the week before, and won the reverse fixture back in November.  Anything could happen.
In one sentence
Morpeth Town’s more effective cutting edge in attack secured a reasonably comfortable win.
So what?
It’s still 1st and 8th for the two sides.  Only seven points separates 3rd from 12th in this division.
Match Report
Pre-match credit for the home-made soup that accompanied my pre-match pie.  On the pitch, Loughborough really should have taken the lead in the first minute after good work by Alex Steadman. Then at the other end a missed defensive header let in Liam Henderson but the ref correctly waved away penalty appeals as he was closed down. The opening goal was a textbook towering header by a Morpeth centre-back from a corner, and the scorer was Jeff Henderson.  Their second goal was a disputed penalty, but David Carson put it away despite the keeper getting a touch. Then there was a penalty at the other end. Ryan Robbins scored it and so the score stood at 2-1 after 24 minutes.  Five minutes later it was 3-1.  Luke Foster, already booked, gave away a freekick on the edge if the area.  The first attempt from a glancing header was saved, the second was cleared off the line, but a looping header from Liam Henderson found the net. By now the officiating had upset both teams for some reason or other, Morpeth’s Tom Potter was booked for simulation before the home team missed several chances to add a 4th goal.  Good link-up play by Sean Taylor created a chance that went just wide.  A header grazed the post and due to a bobble (honest) I fluffed the control of the ball.  Then after a good save by Charlie Taylor I caught it nicely to restore reputational damage.  With the last kick of the first half, Sean Taylor chipped the ball on to the bar and Morpeth remained only two goals to the good at half-time. Loughborough needed a goal-line clearance to keep it that way at the start of the second half.  Generally, however, the visitors gave a better account of themselves in an end-to-end passage of play.  They made home keeper Dan Lowson work harder, but only to a fairly routine extent.  Sean Taylor finally got the fourth goal in the 67th minute.  A first effort was bravely saved by Charlie Taylor but the rebound fell kindly and he took a touch wide of the fallen keeper and planted the ball in the roof of the net from a narrow angle. The job was now done but Sean Taylor would have had a personal second if substitute Jack Foalie had made a better decision and passed rather than shot.  The final few minutes were scrappy but the result had long since been decided. Foalie also finished with a yellow card after kicking the ball away.
Other Pix
Morpeth in amber and black, Loughborough in green.
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.  Table compiled from my last 176 games. Today Green (albeit fluorescent) takes on Blue and gets the win but no clean sheet.  Not enough to change the order in the league table. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Away Win Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 65% (20 from 31) 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 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 44.1 19.0 7.0 18.1 68.0 14.0 66.0 1.497 Grey 49.5 23.0 11.0 15.5 80.5 14.0 69.5 1.404 Green 92.0 49.0 11.0 32.0 151.0 23.0 122.0 1.326 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 21.0 8.0 4.0 9.0 45.0 5.0 8.0 0.381 Orange 45.5 15.0 8.0 22.5 84.5 7.0 3.5 0.077 Radioactive Bile 21.0 9.0 0.0 12.0 45.0 3.0 -3.0 -0.143 Yellow 35.0 9.0 7.0 19.0 77.0 5.0 -18.0 -0.514 Pink 18.0 5.0 5.0 8.0 37.0 1.0 -12.0 -0.667 Black 6.0 2.0 3.0 1.0 15.0 0.0 -6.0 -1.000 White 1.9 0.0 0.0 1.9 4.0 0.0 -4.0 -2.105
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter!  Thirty Step 4 grounds still to be done.

Seaham Out Despite Quality Up the Front

Hopperational details
Date & Venue	Saturday 6 August 2016 at Seaham Park (now known as Ferguson Motor Repairs Stadium)
Result	Seaham Red Star 1 Morpeth Town 3
Competition	FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round
Hopping	Ground 586 on the lifetime list.  I am here, randomly, because of a roll of 80 on a d100 “golfball” die (see previous post).
Hello Again
Life has been hectic to say the least and last season I had to cut back on groundhopping because I had neither the time nor the energy to make the longish journeys that my spreadsheet is now demanding.  The same thing may happen again, but August brings the early rounds of the FA Cup and random groundhopping is great fun.  I am continuing with the teaching day job as a Head of Science for the foreseeable future.  The nation needs science teachers and it is about having a raison d’être and making a difference.  I also considered starting an education blog but decided to let Modus Hopper Random have another season, trying to inform and entertain in the eccentric little niche I have slowly built.  Thanks, as ever, for your support and encouragement.
Pre-match preparation
Not much to be said.  I saw Morpeth win the FA Vase at the end of last season, but this is the first competitive game of the season for both teams, and both will have some new faces.  Morpeth’s knockout track record will probably make them marginal favourites.  I decided to make this a train journey and for an extra few quid came home in First Class for a lifetime first.  I could get used to that.  There was also time for sit-down seaside cod and chips in a place with a very long queue (always a good sign) and a WINE LIST.  Awesome. Plenty of old-school station architecture for me today. This is Darlington.
This match in one sentence
Seaham will look back with regret at a number of what-if moments in a game that Morpeth in the end won comfortably enough.
So what?
Morpeth Town will play either Jarrow Roofing or North Shields in the next round.
The drama unfolds
The Northern League feels more like Step 4 than 5 and these two large sides broadly cancelled each other out in the first twenty minutes of glaring northeastern sunshine.  Morpeth created the first clear chances though, the best coming midway through the half as Liam Henderson shot over.  The same player was denied moments later by a combination of keeper and post.  Nevertheless, the Morpeth pressure was building and Paul Robinson opened the scoring with a low shot from distance.  Shaun Newbrook in the home goal got a hand to it but to no effect.  0-1 after 33 mins Morpeth were now on top and Ben Sayer shot just over before Robinson hit the woodwork.  Newbrook had done as much as anyone to keep Seaham in the game at half-time, with only one goal in it.  0-1 at half-time The first what-if moment came ten minutes after the restart when Seaham’s Dan Kirkup glanced a header just wide from a set piece.  Then, what if Craig Lynch’s shot after cutting inside had crept inside rather than beyond the post.  For a minute later his team became “the ten men of Seaham Red Star” as Kirkup saw a red card for a last-man indiscretion.  It would eventually prove to be a big factor in the game. In the short term, however, Seaham scored a splendid equaliser.  Nicky Kane rode a challenge or two and set up Lynch for a magnificent curling shot into the top corner.  Game on!  1-1 after 65 mins Maybe not, because Luke Carr caught the home defence flat-footed and scored almost immediately following a corner.  1-2 after 67 mins Damen Mullen then hit the bar again for Morpeth from an outrageous distance but what if Seaham sub David Paul’s dipping 25-yarder had gone under the bar a moment later rather than smacked it and bounced out to safety.  So nearly parity again but to be fair Morpeth went close themselves once more before adding an icing-on-the-cake third through a header from sub Michael Chilton.  1-3 after 85 mins and at full-time
Ground Pix
Match Pix
Seaham Red Star in red, of course.
Big Lads Up Front at Seaham: “Tommy” and "The Brothers"
Tommy is actually Eleven-Oh-One, a steel sculpture by Ray Lonsdale that was created to mark the centenary of World War One.  It is highly photogenic, it dominates its surroundings, and it was getting plenty of attention as usual.  Not just from the Pokemon players. The Brothers, by Brian Brown, marks the town's mining heritage with three figures "waiting t'gan down" the pit.  Seaham had three coal mines.
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats
Yellow against something that is just about allowable as green.  Here’s a full updated league table that is now nearing a total of 100 games.  At some point I will get round to doing some proper statistical significance tests.  My suspicion is that the variances are such that it really doesn’t matter much.  However, I am starting the red-is-best self-fulfilling myth here and now.  Bad news for any team who actually play in red, eh José? I counted this as green.  Dulux would not be happy. The story so far: 3pts for a win, 1pt for a draw, -1pt for a goal conceded and +5pts for a clean sheet P W D L GC CS Pts PPG Red 6.0 3.0 0.0 3.0 6.0 2.0 13.0 2.17 Green 42.0 22.0 5.0 15.0 64.0 13.0 72.0 1.71 Orange 12.5 4.0 3.0 5.5 14.5 4.0 20.5 1.64 Maroon 4.0 2.0 1.0 1.0 6.0 1.0 6.0 1.50 Grey 31.5 14.0 7.0 10.5 45.5 8.0 43.5 1.38 Blue 24.1 9.0 5.0 10.1 40.0 8.0 32.0 1.33 Purple 9.0 4.0 2.0 3.0 20.0 2.0 4.0 0.44 Yellow 17.0 4.0 5.0 8.0 31.0 4.0 6.0 0.35 Black 3.0 1.0 2.0 0.0 7.0 0.0 -2.0 -0.67 Radioactive Bile 6.0 2.0 0.0 4.0 12.0 0.0 -6.0 -1.00 Pink 10.0 1.0 4.0 5.0 23.0 1.0 -11.0 -1.10 White 0.9 0.0 0.0 0.9 3.0 0.0 -3.0 -3.33
What Next?
Watch @GrahamYapp on Twitter for details!  I have new grounds at West Ham and AFC Fylde, and first-time visits to Poole Town and Darlington to restore my 92, my 116 and my 160 and then I am only a dozen or so away from “everywhere down to Step 3” (is that 226? must check).  They will be the season priorities for league fixtures.  I suspect West Ham v WBA will be unattainable.  Hopefully a bit more FA Cup and Vase thrown in soon too.  Gotta love knockout football. Edit: I now see that Worcester City are tenants at Bromsgrove Sporting so I will need to go there too for the "160".