The President Decides

Greetings, everyone.  My hopping season begins a little later than some because last weekend’s sporting action was in a paternal role at the British Firefighter Challenge in Leicester, watching a Hertfordshire team including a certain Matthew Yapp picking up a bronze medal in the relay event.  Well done to them, and maybe a blogpost to come from next year’s event in Suffolk.

Meanwhile, I have 102 FA Cup ties at unvisited grounds on Saturday.  I just love the early rounds of this competition.  The HOME teams are shown in the table below.  President Trump’s Tweets will generate a shortlist according to the following rules.  It’s about time he made a decent decision.  I will decide how he will select from the shortlist once I know how the how short the shortlist is.  It might be very short, or it could still be quite long for a shortlist, even though I won’t change the name.  You still here?  OK, then, here’s how it works.

    1)      If his first tweet following this post contains any words that are part of a team name, then those team(s) go straight on to the shortlist and rule 2 does not apply.  If it turns out to be a shortlist of one, then that is that, job done, I’m going there.  If the tweet does NOT contain any words that fit this rule, go to rule 2 and count letters.

    

    2)      Take the 10^th letter of the tweet.  Look for teams whose names begin with that letter.  If there is one or more, we have a shortlist and the process ends.  If there are none, go to the 20^th letter.  If necessary, repeat with 30^th, 40^th … go back to 9^th,19^th …. etc etc until one or more teams have been pseudorandomly selected.  Then stand by.

The last tweet was at about 2.00pm Thursday UK time and began, “Our relationship with Russia…”.  So now we wait for the next one.

102 Unvisited Home Teams for 5 August 2017

Abbey Rangers	Irlam
AFC Mansfield	Kimberley MW
AFC St Austell	Kirby Muxloe
Amesbury Town	Kirkley & Pakefield
Ashington	Knaphill
Athersley Recreation	Litherland Remyca
Barnoldswick Town	Little Common
Billingham Town	Loxwood
Birstall United	Lydney Town
Boston Town	Maine Road
Bottesford Town	Newhaven
Bradford Town	Newmarket Town
Bridlington Town	Newport (IW)
Brimscombe & Thrupp	Newton Aycliffe
Brislington	Oadby Town
Brocton	Padiham
Bromsgrove Sporting	Parkgate
Buckland Athletic	Penrith AFC
Camberley Town	Plymouth Parkway
Cammell Laird 1907	Pontefract Collieries
Charnock Richard	Rainworth MW
Cheddar	Ringwood Town
Chessington & Hook United	Rochester United
Chipping Sodbury Town	Royal Wootton Bassett Town
Christchurch	Runcorn Linnets
Clevedon Town	Runcorn Town
Clipstone	Sevenoaks Town
Coleshill Town	Shaftesbury
Congleton Town	Sheppey United
Consett AFC	Shepton Mallet AFC
Corinthian	Shildon
Coventry Sphinx	Squires Gate
Coventry United	Street
Dunkirk	Sunderland RCA
East Preston	Swaffham Town
Eastbourne Town	Team Northumbria
Fairford Town	Team Solent
Fakenham Town	Thackley
Farnham Town	Thatcham Town
Felixstowe & Walton United	Walsall Wood
Framlingham Town	Washington
Glebe	Wellingborough Whitworths
Guisborough Town	Wellington AFC
Hailsham Town	Wells City
Hamworthy United	Westfields
Hanley Town	Whitchurch United
Harrowby United	Whitstable Town
Hassocks	Wolverhampton Casuals
Horley Town	Wolverhampton SC
Horndean	Woodley United
Hullbridge Sports	Worthing United

UPDATE

We have a result!

Applying rule 1 gets us nothing as far as the words "See", "you", "tonight" and "Huntington" are concerned but then "West" causes the search box to light up uniquely at Westfields!  No second stage required because the shortlist is as short as it can be while still being a list.

So on Saturday I will be heading back to Herefordshire, the ancestral county of this branch of the Yapp family, for the FA Cup tie between Westfields and Bewdley Town.  Thanks, Mr President, you made a clear decision.  Great!