With six months of the season passed, clubs have found out where they sit in the standings of the Frank Whittle Partnership (FWP Group) Technical Area Conduct award.
www.thenpl.co.uk
Part of the league's commitment to the FA Respect campaign, the standings are calculated by the marks given by referees after every match to both benches which range from Excellent (3pts) and Good (2pts) to Satisfactory (1pt) and Poor (-1pt).
Clubs are penalised for bookings (-1pt) and sendings off (-3pts), as well as poor behaviour.
The top club at the end of the season will be awarded a cash prize at the league's Awards Dinner at the end of the season.
Leading the way are NPL Premier Division club Whitby Town, who dropped just six marks in the second quarter of the season to maintain their position from the first three months.
Match Report
I went to Whitby vs Morpeth on Saturday. The attendance was 404 - quite low. The weather and atmosphere were both fairly gloomy. Morpeth didn't show us much respect and began pressing up immediately. They scored after seven minutes, then dialled back the pressure a little. We have our #1 goalie Shane Bland back, which was a good thing or Morpeth probably would have scored more. As it was he was kept very busy and made a lot of good saves, claims, clearances and interventions.
The game was quite testy, with some heavy tackles, scuffles and five yellow cards. As we got into the second part of the first half we did come into the game a little more, and had a few chances as the match went on but nothing really close. The strikers and defence were outmatched, but possession did pass back and forth quite a bit in midfield. We were more competitive there.
Still Morpeth clearly had the upper hand the whole game and it was a frustrating experience for the Whitby players and fans. I was expecting Morpeth to score at least one more, and they did get a second at 70 minutes. I'm glad it was only 0 - 2 tbh. Just a poor performance all round, but the goalie did well and we showed a few signs of life in midfield.
The money isn't good, the form is poor, especially at home, the league position is worrying and we don't have a proven manager. Gary Liddle has got 800 games in though and is retiring to become full-time manager, and Jason Kennedy has recently signed a new Assistant Manager contract to the end of next season. So we'll have to rely on these local lads to get us through this rough patch and upwardly mobile again!
Morpeth move up to ninth.
Whitby slip to 19th - one above the relegation spots, although with a five-point cushion.
![Slightly frowning face :slight_frown: 🙁](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png)
We have to be careful now.
/
Impressive away win for Stuttgart this weekend!
Disappointing result for Chelsea though.
Prediction
Man City 2 - 1 Real Madrid