A moment with the silverware

After completing our league season, Prescot Cables had one more game: our second successive Liverpool Senior Cup Final, against Southport. Despite our being only a year younger than the competition, we had never won it.

A couple of games in this competition had come at just the right time this year: our morale boosting win at Ashton Town made the perfect start for Brian Richardson, and the semi final at Bootle enabled us to bounce back from the draw against Goole and prefaced a strong finish to the season.

Liverpool County FA fixtures can seem a bit low key, with little in the way of publicity. However, programme editor Gareth Coates used to manage competitions for the Middlesex FA, so he used his template from there to produce what may be the best programme in the competition for some years.

Last season's final attracted a crowd of 865 against Everton on a warm night in August. I was not expecting to beat this, but we had more time to prepare and had all hands on deck publicising it, so attracted 907. A substantial number gathered behind the goal at the Safari Park End, which would prove significant later.

Some of our team had been tantalisingly close to silverware, with Jordan Wynne and James Doyle in the Knowsley Under 19 side who were runners up in the Dallas Cup. Andy Scarisbrick had won some, coaching this evening's mascots, Belle Vale Under 8s, to success in their cup competition.

We were helped by the weather, which had turned out bright after a dull day.

Dominic Marie

With relegation confirmed, the visitors had no reason to save players for the league, so fielded a strong side, but it quickly became apparent we had the best of the motivation. As the light fell, I moved round, after half an hour reaching my preferred night time position on the Gasworks Side, from where I saw Joe Herbert score. The opportunities for individual glory are few for a central defender, so where better to take one?

Joe Herbert (5) celebrates his goal. That fence is not long for standing.

As Joe and Lloyd Dean went to celebrate with the crowd, the section of fence with the flags gave way, leaving about 20 people in a heap. It looked worse than it was - the structure is a rail and post, with the wood to stop the ball going out of play. No-one was seriously injured, although Lloyd Dean was hobbling a bit, and came off at half time. The stewards were quickly able to clear the area. The video went viral, and is assisting us in crowd funding to replace the fence and other sections of similar construction.

For the second half, I joined Jonah O'Reilly and his father watching on the half way line. Twenty minutes in, Andy Scarisbrick ensured he would be adding silverware won as a player to his season's collection with our second goal.

Andy Scarisbrick

The rest of the game had us glued to our watches ...

Marcus Burgess

... but in reality the visitors offered little threat. Last season, the presentation to Everton was done before I even had time to walk round to the stand, so with five minutes to go, I murmured to the O'Reillys that, whilst I did not want to tempt fate, it  might be time for me to wander round. I donned some high vis, and former club secretary Doug Lace, now with the County FA, was on hand to make my presence on the pitch side of the barrier official.

We had to wait for the cup, as the County FA Chairman, Mr Wild, I suspect to comply with the insurance conditions for the trophy, was not willing to make the presentation with spectators on the pitch. This was my moment to try to get everyone in, starting with the medal presentations.

Valter Fernandes receives his medal, Dominic Reid, Josh Dolling and James Edgar look on

I rushed out a couple of pictures of the team with the cup for publicity: this one seems to have become the official picture, appearing all over the web, and on posters, mugs etc.

Readers may think the cup will look resplendent in our trophy cabinet, but a few minutes later it was on its way back to the safe at the County FA. As well as extremely valuable material and workmanship, it is priceless sporting history, won by Everton before the foundation of the Football League, the first trophy won by Liverpool in 1893, and containing the names of everybody who is anybody in local football (well it will after the base comes back from the engravers), so the cost of secure storage and insurance would be prohibitive.

We actually keep the one on the left

The rest of the pictures from the game can be seen on the club website here, and on Google Photos here. The rest of the pictures of the presentation can be seen on the club website here, and on Google Photos here.

Final score: Prescot Cables 2 (Herbert, Scarisbrick) Southport 0.