Anchors on the Rise - a D8 with Destination

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 20 November 2021
Result	Stockton Town 4 Tadcaster Albion 0
Competition	Northern Premier League (Division One) East (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground 736 on my lifetime list and I am here because I rolled a 7 on a standard d8 octahedral die on Thursday evening. I am here by car (which was not the original plan) because of engineering works on the East Coast main line! Here’s the proof:
Context
Stockton’s recent league record is WLWDD and they sit in eighth place. Tadcaster’s is an anagram, LWWDD, but they are fifteenth. They are a few points away from their respective dotted lines for playoffs or relegation.
In One Sentence
A comfortable second half following on from a clinical first half.
So What?
As it happens, no change in the league position for either team, but the points gaps to those dotted lines have lessened.
Pre-match Entertainment
After a long drive, I had time to pause briefly at the Infinity Bridge in the last of the late morning sunshine. It gets the name because the bridge’s two arches, together with their reflections, look like the infinity symbol from the next bridges along the river. The other picture is of the Tees Barrage.
Match Report
Tadcaster looked ambitious early on and there was an element of unexpected softness about Stockton’s first goal. A ball over the top into Route One gave Alfie Conway a shooting chance and although keeper Ally Hughes got a touch, the ball nestled in the corner of the net. Tadcaster continued to look neat in midfield but the second good chance also came to Stockton, with Nathan Steel shooting over the bar. We had reached the midpoint of the first half.  The second goal was probably the hinge point of this game. Mikey Roberts was bundled over in the penalty area by Romario Vieira and he scored from the spot himself.  Then, still only just after the half-hour mark, a neat lay off from Roberts to the onrushing Dan McWilliams gave the defender the opening to score the best-worked goal of the day. For once this season, the action had been right in front of me rather than at the other end. It would now have to be something exceptional to deny Stockton the points. The second half would need an early response from Tadcaster to change the story, but Stockton could now play risk-free football. The visitors continued to look neat in midfield with some good running with the ball, but the defence stayed disciplined to shepherd them wide or to block when the time came. It looked fairly straightforward as these things go. The purple-clad Callum Roberts had nothing much to do except to boot a child’s football (accidentally to be fair) straight out of the ground. The only time Tadcaster had the ball in the net, it was correctly disallowed for handball, and in any case by then Stockton had added their fourth, a classic far post header from a set piece, scored by Adam Nicholson. This passing neutral has to be content with an impressive demolition job done rather than a result in doubt until the end.
Match Pix
Stockton in yellow and blue.
Ground Pix
Artificial surface, part of a shared complex with the sixth form college. A substantial clubhouse is at the other end of the site. On arrival, turn left for the pitch, right for the bar.
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 237 matches is here, on this separate page. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Away Win Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 49% (45 from 92) 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! Thirteen grounds to go at Step 4, seven northish and six southish, most of them quite long trips (especially Guernsey!). It’s possible that the season for pitch inspections and postponements will arrive soon, so it may be a while before the next one. In such cases the declaration that the game is on rarely gives me time enough to travel.

 

More Adventures in a Yorkshire Landscape

No programme available on the day but hoping for an e-programme to follow by email in due course

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 11 September at Southerns Stadium, Roxholme Road, Leeds
Result	Yorkshire Amateur 0 Pickering Town 0
Competition	Northern Premier League D1 East (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground 726 on the lifetime list should have been the new home of York City. I would have been there randomly because of two independent events – the second was Northern Diamonds winning the toss in their game against Western Storm. They are a women’s cricket team, playing on Friday in the Rachel Heyhoe Flint Trophy, and substituting for the England men’s test team who were lined up for this role initially before their controversial postponement. A die-roll/coin-toss combo was a truly random way to choose from my list of twelve possible unvisited grounds for today. A roll of six at about 8.00am had narrowed my choices down to York City or Yorkshire Amateur, and the cricket coin toss selected the former, so I went ahead and bought tickets for match and trains at about 11am. With the mid-afternoon postponement of the York fixture due to Covid-19 in the Hereford team, I was luckily able to track back to the die roll and add an extra train leg from York to Leeds in order to get to this fixture, fortunately at a ground also on this season’s priority list. The original decision-making evidence is here in the previous blogpost.
Context
The late evening re-planning of my trip meant that there was little time for detailed research, but this fixture is 6th plays 18th (of 19). The home side have won both of their home league fixtures, and the visitors are seeking their first win of the season. Last year Yorkshire Amateur played at Step 5 in the Northern Counties East and were promoted at the end of the season through the points-per-game method as the pyramid reorganised.
In One Sentence
This was one of those games where both teams will feel they could and should have won it, even the one with ten men for more than half the game.
So What?
League table places remain 6th and 18th respectively.
Pre-match Entertainment
I stuck to the first part of Plan A and walked the circuit of the York City Walls, and what a splendid walk (about two miles) it is. I also had time to walk through Leeds and up the Chapeltown Road and Potternewton Park to the ground. I am increasingly obsessed with city architecture and the layers of rooftop development over the centuries as more and more has been crammed into the space. Photos below, after the football coverage.
Match Report
When I saw the keeper shirts (see below) I tweeted tongue-in-cheek that this had 0-0 written all over it, but that would not be the whole story. Pickering’s early performance seemed to contradict their low league position. They were bright and forced an excellent early save from home keeper Kyle Trenerry. He would go on to have a busy afternoon. Pickering should have taken the lead after 14 minutes when Devonte Newman-Morton rounded the keeper but defender Matty Dempsey had made it back to block the goal-bound shot. It was a full half-hour before the home side created their first real clear chance, and before half-time they were down to ten men. As so often for me this season, the incident was at the other end. It was a straight red so all I can really say is that the ref must have seen (and he was in a good position) something cynical or of violent intent and other sources describe it as either “soft” or “senseless”. Ross Duggan headed to the dressing rooms and we reached half-time, still no goals. The second half started with Amateur more than holding their own, and Pickering not really able to make the extra man count. There was another unseemly bundle after a tackle, with lots of players involved, and a Pickering player was clearly pushed. Whether he made the most of it I can’t say (guess what, it was up the other end) but I expected the home team to be down to nine imminently. In the end it was a yellow for each side. Well, the ref was closer than me. Pickering continued to miss chances, particularly when Newman-Morton rounded the keeper again and hit the post when scoring looked easier. With 15 minutes to go, Amateur’s turn came to nick the win. Dempsey was brought down in a moment of penalty area chaos. From the penalty, Pickering’s Adam Kelsey dived to his right (pic below) to keep out Stevie Crawford’s shot. In the finale, Pickering had the ball in the net twice but offside flags meant that it remained a stalemate. Trennery, in goal, did as much as anyone to keep it that way for the home side. At the whistle I needed to get on the road sharpish to make my train connections and thanks to fellow Hertfordshire hopper Dave, whom I met for the first time today, who organised the Uber to get us back into the city centre. On a side note, that's six penalties (two missed) and five red cards for me in six matches so far this season, and at least three multiple-player bundles. That seems well above the usual frequency. Are we all a bit more stressed?
Match Pix
Yorkshire Amateur in white shirts.
Ground Pix
Tucked away behind some houses, the ground is undergoing some upgrading. The refurbished clubhouse is in very good order and there are plenty of motivational messages around the place linked to images of past Leeds United players.
City Pix
York: Leeds: Falconry Level 1 uses stunt pigeons
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 227 matches is here, on this separate page. Today, a clash of heavyweights as Green faced Grey and both keep a clean sheet (somehow). Once again the league table order remains unchanged. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Away Win Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 49% (40 from 82) 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! Before the York postponement I was hoping to neatly tidy up “everywhere in England down to Step 3” in the next few weeks before carrying on randomishly with 18 more Step 4 grounds on my priority list. All being well I will re-complete “The 92” this month with visits to AFC Wimbledon v Plymouth Argyle next Saturday and then Brentford v Oldham on the following Tuesday. Assuming no disruption for weather or cuptie rearrangements, I can also see the possibility of trips to Boston United (25 Sep), Wimborne Town (2 Oct) and Gloucester City (9 Oct). I now of course have a ticket for York City v Hereford and much will depend on the future date set for that fixture.

 

A Test of Decision-Making

Dice image from Wikimedia Commons Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0, Old Trafford taken by me June 2019 during Cricket World Cup.

It’s Friday, my day off, and time to decide my groundhopping destination this weekend. I have twelve grounds on my priority list that are hosting a game tomorrow, for once I can make a truly random decision using the strict definition that all outcomes are equally likely. These twelve grounds are from a list of twenty-four that I need to complete “everywhere in England down to Step 4”. The others are not hosting a game this weekend.

The number 12 lends itself to a 2x6 approach using the classic Head-Tail divide for the factor of two and a single d6 die roll for the factor of six. Here’s the combination table. However, I might as well take the opportunity bring a bit more meaning to the life of the umpire at today’s Old Trafford test match. He can do the coin-toss for me. There are only two outcomes – I don’t need to know whether the call was heads or tails, or what the captain decides, I just need to know which one of them wins the toss.

Home Team	Score on d6	Win Coin Toss at Old Trafford
Brighouse Town	1	England
Clitheroe	1	India
Corinthian	2	England
Glossop North End	2	India
Gloucester City	3	England
Lancing	3	India
Liversedge	4	England
Lymington Town	4	India
Stockton Town	5	England
Wimborne Town	5	India
York City	6	England
Yorkshire Amateur	6	India

Here’s the die roll, recorded at around 8.00am this morning

 

 … and now we wait for another random event in Manchester. This should be, depending a little on the weather, sometime between 10.00 and 11.00am this morning. If it rains all day (which is not the forecast) then I will have to find a coin myself later on this afternoon.

9.00am update: Well, I didn't see that coming. Nothing to do with me, honest, no cause-and-effect to see here. The Old Trafford test match is not taking place, in controversial circumstances. Let's pass the mantle to the Northern Diamonds. This women's cricket team featured in a recent decision on this blog and they can be trusted to deliver. Their game against Western Storm in the Rachel Heyhoe Flint Trophy is due to start at 10.30am, so I assume there will be a coin toss at around 10.00am.

If Northern Diamonds win the toss, I go to the first game of the two relevant choices in the above table. If they lose the toss, it's the second. What could possibly go wrong?

10.10am update: Northern Diamonds win the toss. They chose to bowl first but that is of no consequence for this random decision. Job done.

Afternoon update: fixture called off due to Covid in the Hereford team. Will have to re-think. Will be constrained by the train tickets that I bought!