Hopping with the March Hares

Hopperational details
Date & Venue	Saturday 9 September 2017 at the GER Sports Ground, Robingoodfellows Lane, March
Result	March Town 2 Peterborough Northern Star 3
Competition	FA Vase 1st Round Qualifying
Hopstats	Ground 615 on the lifetime list. Not randomly chosen, but I had to be reasonably close to home today with a reliably predictable journey time.
Context
Step 6 (Eastern Counties Division 1) takes on Step 5 (United Counties League Premier).  Both sides have had a mixed start to their respective league seasons.
In one sentence
Immensely frustrating for March who levelled the game from being two down only to immediately concede the winning goal to the ten men of PNS.
If only…
… the last defender in the 84th minute had eaten three Shredded Wheat (other cereals are available) this morning.  He and the scorer tussled for what seemed like an age before the winning goal was scored.
So what?
Peterborough Northern Star will travel in the next round to the winners of the replay between Netherton United (of the Peterborough & District League) and Potton United (of the United Counties Division 1).
Match Report
Thanks to the excellent PNS Twitter timeline for help with identification of scorers. March held their higher-ranked opponents comfortably enough until midway through the first half. Zak Munton finished off Connor Pilbeam’s cross to open the scoring.  Munton got the second from the penalty spot before the interval too, getting up from being fouled.  March delivered a couple of crunching tackles – if they were meant as “reducers” they were much too late in all senses, and it looked a long way back for March as the half-time whistle was blown. March had a penalty appeal denied after the restart but the game settled into a fairly tedious pattern of long shots and set pieces.  Then the home side got back into the game with a penalty.  PNS defender Christian Gordon used a hand to stop a goalbound header and was correctly red-carded.  Michael Chow scored from the spot.  Suddenly, maybe the last 15 minutes might be interesting after all. So it proved, when substitute Dayne Moore scored a superb goal with a swerving shot on the turn from about 20 yards to tie the game.  With seven minutes left, Neil and I (see below) had a brief discussion about tactics, and we both decided that as manager of a lower-ranked side at home against ten men, we would “go for it”.  What do we know?  From the restart, a hopeful long ball caught March short of manpower at the back, and after what seemed like an age Jack Flintoft left the last man on the floor and scored the winner.  Absolute heartbreak for the home side. March Town 2 (Chow 73 pen, Moore 83) Peterborough Northern Star 3 (Munton 22, 39 pen, Flintoft 84)
Ground Pix
I watched this match mainly from the splendid old wooden main stand, in the knowledgeable company of @NFJensen of gameofthepeople.com. Therefore we remained dry, unlike the players – the match took place through varying degrees of drizzle and downpour against a backdrop of grey skies.  Although the stand is showing its age, the clubhouse is excellent and a trip to March is recommended to all hoppers.
Match Pix
March Town are in amber and black. Munton makes it 0-2 to PNS Good save!  Oh, wait ... The Doh! moment Chow scores from the spot to give March some hope Wild but soon-to-be short-lived celebrations after Moore's screamer
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats
Since last week, a definitive Twitter exchange with Dulux UK (thanks, Roxy) has established that the Ware Sports keeper was sporting something that should be called Fire Cracker. That’ll do for me.  Today’s game confirmed the recent decline of Green.  Both custodians were wearing it – one somewhat more limey it has to be said, so Green takes the win, the loss and the five goals conceded. 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. P W D L GC CS Pts PPG Red 8.0 4.0 0.0 4.0 8.0 3.0 19.0 2.38 Blue 28.1 11.0 5.0 12.1 44.0 10.0 44.0 1.57 Maroon 4.0 2.0 1.0 1.0 6.0 1.0 6.0 1.50 Grey 40.5 20.0 8.0 12.5 66.5 11.0 56.5 1.40 Green 57.0 27.0 7.0 23.0 100.0 15.0 63.0 1.11 Orange 22.5 8.0 4.0 10.5 34.5 5.0 18.5 0.82 Yellow 24.0 7.0 6.0 11.0 46.0 5.0 6.0 0.25 Purple 11.0 5.0 2.0 4.0 25.0 2.0 2.0 0.18 Pink 13.0 4.0 4.0 5.0 27.0 1.0 -6.0 -0.46 Radioactive Bile 12.0 5.0 0.0 7.0 26.0 1.0 -6.0 -0.50 Black 5.0 1.0 3.0 1.0 14.0 0.0 -8.0 -1.60 White 1.9 0.0 0.0 1.9 4.0 0.0 -4.0 -2.11 Fire Cracker 1.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 4.0 0.0 -4.0 -4.00
What Next?
Watch @GrahamYapp on Twitter for details!

Northern Star in the Ascendant

Hopperational details
Date & Venue	Saturday 7 May at Kiln Park (Raunds Town FC)
Result	Peterborough Northern Star 2 St Ives Town 0
Competition	United Counties League KO Cup Final
Hopping	Lifetime ground #400, and I am here because a tetrahedron landed on face number 3 in the middle of the night.  See previous post for explanation.  (This is the second time I have watched PNS this season - click on the team name in the tag cloud on the right to get to the earlier post on the home league win over Irchester United.)
This match in one sentence
An efficient goal-in-each-half win for Peterborough Northern Star, with the second coming from Karl Gibbs who has the satisfaction of scoring in every round.
So what?
This is PNS’s second cup win in consecutive seasons – they were the holders of the Hinchingbrooke Cup until yesterday.  St Ives were the cup-holders in this competition but have lost two finals this year – one here and one to St Neots Town in the Huntingdonshire Senior Cup.
The drama unfolds
The first half was rather uneventful in terms of real chances and incident, but gradually Northern Star gained the ascendancy and it was no real surprise when they took the lead after 39 minutes.  Ali Nyang was prominent in midfield.  Yellow-booted Josh Moreman received the ball on the left and someone shouted “One on One!” from the touchline.  He made the space to shoot and finished well from just outside the area.  The first clip shows Moreman finding his shooting range just before the goal.  1-0 at half-time Northern Star nearly added a second right after the restart but Conroy-Owen made a good stop in the St Ives’ goal.  However, the second was not long in arriving.  St Ives’ Scott Fielding was booked for a cynical trip on an opponent.  The ball was floated into the box from the free kick and Gibbs placed a header just inside the post.  2-0 St Ives made a double substitution and managed to exert some pressure while leaving themselves vulnerable to the break.  Full-back David Cobb in particular ran his socks off and turned up anywhere and everywhere on the pitch.  Northern Star should have added a third just after the hour when Jon Stead rounded the goalkeeper but his shot from wide towards the open net clipped the post. The second and third clips show some of the St Ives' attempts to get back in the game.  English viewers will enjoy the tackle at the end of the second and may reflect on how long the game would have paused for theatrics had that happened in the Premiership. St Ives came close on a couple of occasions – Nicky Conroy saved at close quarters from substitute Liam Read, and then a stoppage-time consolation was denied for offside.  This was a workmanlike and efficient performance from a strong and well-organised side – PNS were better on the day and deserved the win.  Final score 2-0 Conroy saves from Read late on
Alternative activity of equal excitement for tourists in Raunds
This was not a pulse-racer of a game to be honest, so it would be watching the DVD of Time Team’s 2003 visit to the town when an Anglo-Saxon cemetery is unearthed in someone’s garden.  Then burying your DVD collection nearby so someone can get equally excited in the year 3011.
A snippet from the programme
Peterborough NS were promoted from step 6 last season and have had a good season in the higher division – for the record, this is their route to the trophy: 1st round: Sileby 2 Peterborough NS 3 (a Gibbs hat-trick) 2nd round: Huntingdon T 4 Peterborough NS 4 aet (Peterborough NS win 5-4 on penalties) QF: Newport Pagnell 2 Peterborough NS 3 SF: Peterborough NS 2 Boston Town 1
What I learned today
The Hinchingbrooke Cup is a more impressive trophy than the United Counties League Cup, but the UCL have a natty tablecloth to add class to the presentation.  League winners St Neots had been kicked out of this particular competition for fielding an ineligible player in the QF against King’s Lynn, but King’s Lynn themselves were beaten in the SF by St Ives Town.
What Next?
The FA Vase Final at Wembley – Coalville Town v Whitley Bay.