Sittingbourne Comfortably, Hastings Stung

Hopperational details
Date & Venue	Saturday 13 January at Woodstock Park
Result	Sittingbourne 2 Hastings United 0
Competition	Isthmian League Division One South (Step 4)
Hopstats	Ground 631 on the lifetime list, here randomishly because of Jay Rodriguez scoring for WBA against Arsenal on New Year’s Eve, and the postponement of Sittingbourne v Ramsgate on New Year’s Day.  All is explained in an earlier blogpost.
Context
12th plays 9th in the league.  Sittingbourne halted a losing streak in midweek with a big victory over Guernsey.  Hastings have won two from the last three but the last time out was a big defeat at home to Greenwich Borough.
In one sentence
It would have been nil-nil except for the two very early goals, which is not as crazy as it sounds.
So what?
Sittingbourne overtake Hastings and the teams are now 10th and 12th respectively.
Match Report
Firstly, Sittingbourne’s home-made soup is excellent.  They also seem to have a home-made club song too.  Like all home-made club songs, it is rubbish but fair play for having one.  It must be the main reason that Hastings found themselves two goals down in six minutes. There was a charitable element about the first.  Hastings lost the ball on their left flank playing out from defence, and a square ball gave Kane Rowland a clear chance which he took well.  Sittingbourne went through the middle again three minutes later and the same player poached his second of the day.  And that was it really for this fairly unusual game. Hastings steadied their ship and the rest of the first half was pretty uneventful. In the second half, Hastings deserved a goal for their territorial domination and undoubted effort.  There was just a few minutes where you wondered whether a second goal would follow if they could only get their first.  Sittingbourne played on the break and might have done better – the away keeper Charlie Horlock needed to head the ball away as a sweeper several times but didn’t have much else to do.  Finally, in the last minute of normal time, the referee pointed to the penalty spot with five minutes of stoppage time to come.  However, there was to be no further excitement as Harry Brooks palmed Davide Rodari’s shot away to safety. Sittingbourne 2 (Rowland 3, 6) Hastings United 0
Ground Pix
Ground in transition – Sittingbourne have been here since Woodstock Sports folded.  Hoppers strongly advised to consult the helpful information on the club website otherwise your SatNav takes you on a tour of rural single-track roads before parking you up at a science laboratory. Warning: that rearranged Ramsgate date may be incorrect ... !
Match Pix
Sittingbourne in Red, Hastings in … errrrm … Highlighter.
Something you don’t get in the Premier League
Trees, especially knobbly ones with interesting bark textures.
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats
Green beats Grey and has a clean sheet so very little now between these two. 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. 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, and it deserves to be last, trust me.  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 Maroon 4.0 2.0 1.0 1.0 6.0 1.0 6.0 1.500 Blue 30.1 12.0 6.0 12.1 47.0 10.0 45.0 1.495 Grey 43.5 20.0 9.0 14.5 72.5 11.0 51.5 1.184 Green 71.0 35.0 9.0 27.0 121.0 18.0 83.0 1.169 Orange 28.5 9.0 6.0 13.5 46.5 5.0 11.5 0.404 Purple 11.0 5.0 2.0 4.0 25.0 2.0 2.0 0.182 Radioactive Bile 13.0 6.0 0.0 7.0 26.0 2.0 2.0 0.154 Yellow 28.0 8.0 6.0 14.0 58.0 5.0 -3.0 -0.107 Pink 15.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 30.0 1.0 -8.0 -0.533 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 Fire Cracker 1.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 4.0 0.0 -4.0 -4.000
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter for details!