New Mills, old hills

I was unusually gung-ho this weekend about the prospects of Prescot Cables' game away at New Mills going ahead: with not much rain having fallen during the week, I had no inkling there would be a pitch inspection shortly before midday, by which time I was on a train climbing towards the Derbyshire hills.

I decided to make the best of the scenery, so I got off at Strines, and walked to a pub I had found on the CAMRA WhatPub site, the Fox Inn in the hamlet of Brookbottom.

The Fox Inn - 50 yards outside Greater Manchester

The entry suggests the pub is close to a railway station, which is true, it is about half a mile, although one needs a modicum of fitness to make the trip, up a steep bridleway. Once inside its foot thick walls, I enjoyed an immaculately kept pint of Robinsons' Dizzy Blonde, in what I might also describe as immaculately kept surroundings. I may have been sitting in one of the regulars' seats, as an elderly couple came in, and the gentleman was casting rather confused looks in my direction until his wife chose a table.

Had the weather been less pleasant, I would have stayed for a while, but I decided exercise was in order, and walked to the Pack Horse, a mile away up and down another hill, then on to the ground, another mile or so, involving descending to the level of the River Sett, and up another hill. I was glad to reach the town and its pavements: whilst I am used to walking country roads, I am used to a hedge in which to shelter from any passing cars that get a bit close, whereas dry stone walls look a bit less yielding.

I arrived five minutes before the scheduled kick off to find warming up still in progress. The match referee had not been happy with some areas of the pitch, and was minded to call the game off, but was prepared to accept sand being spread on the affected areas. Unfortunately, there was no sand on the premises, and a trip to the nearest builders' merchants in this part of the world is not as quick as you might at first think. Still, at least I got pictures of Manager Dave Powell and Assistant Manager Carl Furlong taking training.

Dave Powell

Carl Furlong

The original date for this fixture was the first of January's postponements. Quite a few of our Train Crew planned to travel on that occasion, but our numbers were depleted this time by some of our regulars jetting off on foreign holidays, and some taking the train to what might be a foreign holiday next season - in Scotland.

Not that we were short of supporters who travel on the coach or by car.

Dave, Cliff, Ken and Peter keep a close watch on Dave Dempsey

Players move between clubs all the time, so it is no surprise to encounter former players in the opposition line up. Mike Smith moved to New Mills earlier in the season, and was as energetic, and appeared as much in the frame, as he did when playing for us.

Connor McCarthy gets away from Mike Smith

With so few games over the last few weeks, we have not experienced the gradual extension of daylight, instead jumping from a dark second half to full daylight in a couple of jumps. Even with the delay for purchasing sand (kick off eventually occurring at 3.25), there was a decent amount of daylight right to the end.

The floodlights were on on one side for the first half, and both sides for the second. As is often the case, this gave some pictures a blue cast, which in the more extreme cases I tried to remove, you can judge for yourself how natural the end result looks.

Robert Gilroy - colour not adjusted

Phil Bannister - colour adjusted

We were disappointed not to come away with the first away win of the season, although, when we had not been able to score downhill in the first half, I thought we might find it even more difficult to do so uphill in the second. Still, all points are useful, and we kept a clean sheet and therefore avoided a defeat that would have improved the hosts' position at our expense.

The rest of the pictures from the game can be seen here.

Final score: New Mills 0 Prescot Cables 0