Away in the Cup

For many of us, the FA competitions provide a chance to visit clubs that we might not otherwise see. An away draw will have us poring over maps, timetables and the Good Beer Guide. Come the day, off we go, all tin hat and Dunkirk spirit, to some settlement clinging to a hill the other side of Huddersfield. It is all good fun, with the only disadvantage being that the Good Beer Guide is published in September, so we can be out of the Cup before the new Guide comes out.

So, it was with a certain sense of anticipation that Prescot Cables approached the Preliminary Round of the FA Cup. We were drawn away to the winner of the tie between AFC Blackpool, familiar from our time in the North West Counties League as Blackpool Mechanics, and AFC Liverpool. With AFC Liverpool winning, that meant a trip to, er, Hope Street, our home. So, off to the match on the number 10 bus it was.

AFC Liverpool's flags and banners on display

Playing away at your own ground is a rare, and potentially dislocating experience, with different people on the turnstiles, different stewards and different announcements over the tannoy, although we provide the bar and catering facilities. The match officials joined in - about 99% of referees take the diagonal from right back to right back, with the assistants on the opposite diagonal. However, it is up to the referee, and the officials today decided to work the other way round.

With two local games over the weekend, there would be a few of our former players playing for the opposition. In this game, the one that caught my eye was Steve Williams, one of my favourite players from when I started to take pictures, as his running style and willingness to challenge for the ball always guaranteed a good image.

Steve Williams

As a landlord v tenant local derby, this was never going to be a game for the purist, with the game being settled by a single goal from James Thomas, who we found out later had already picked up an injury by the time he scored. The term "up and under" is more familiar in rugby league, but this goal probably qualified as such. James gets a foot to the ball - the goalkeeper is outside the penalty area, so if he uses his hands, the rest of the afternoon will be his own ... 

 ... up ...

 ... and under - and in the goal. You can see the pitch markings in this shot.

If you look closely at the picture, you can see that the focus is on the goalkeeper, which was not entirely intentional. This was the picture I sent in to the Liverpool Echo for the Merseymart - they put it on the back page, and cropped it so the outfield player was mostly cut out and the goalkeeper was in the top left corner of the picture.

Our record at holding on to a 1-0 lead has not been good over the last few seasons, so we were in for a nervous second half. The effect of seeing the game through a small rectangular window, and operating precision electronic equipment, can be a certain sense of detachment. However, by the end I was finding it difficult to remain calm, and was pointing the big round thing on the front of the camera in the direction of the action and fairly indiscriminately pressing the button on the top, which makes for a lot of shots finding their way to the bin, but some made it through.

The results can be seen here.