Greeting old friends

Prescot Cables' game at home to Burscough was something of a reunion, with a number of our former players - Ben Morrow, Jonah O'Reilly, Phil Bannister, Josh Nicholson and Rob Doran - appearing for the visitors. There were former players in the crowd too, including Joe Evans, who has been trying his hand (well, both hands) at boxing with some success, and Jack Phillips, who looks to be out for some time with a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Also joining us was Jack's brother Anthony, who completed a 10k walk the previous weekend to raise money for the Seddon Unit at St Helens Hospital, where he received treatment following his stroke this time last year. Not having seen him for a few months it was great to see for myself the progress in his recovery he has reported online.

Jonah O'Reilly

Phil Bannister

Rob Doran goes for a header with Joe Herbert

The game would have consequences for both clubs. Failure to win for Burscough would confirm the relegation that has looked inevitable for some time, whereas a loss for us would considerably increase our chances of joining them.

Marcus Burgess has been selected for the England Universities squad, who I think are playing in April, so I was concerned which games he would be missing. I need not have worried, as we have secured the services of Nosakhere Aghayere, who impressed me in our games against Colne.

Nosakhere Aghayere

We were also without James Doyle and Jordan Wynne, representing Knowsley Youth in the Dallas Cup. Chris Almond carried on where he left off at the weekend with a goal after half an hour, and a second just before half time.

Chris Almond with Josh Nicholson

We had taken a firm grip on the game, but we had seen against Goole a few days previously what could happen to a two goal lead against determined opposition, so I felt we could do with a third. Dale Wright duly obliged on the hour.

A few minutes later, James Edgar was brought down for a penalty, with Dale Wright stepping up to take it. Ben Morrow's first touch in Senior football was to save a penalty, but he was without luck this evening. To cap it all, the picture I thought I had of a rather good save he made later came out too blurred to use.

Ben Morrow

Unfortunately, towards the end of the game, Dominic Reid sustained an ankle ligament injury that looks as though it has ended his season, so we hope he makes a full recovery over the summer.

Dominic Reid

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

Final score; Prescot Cables 4 (Almond 2, Wright 2 (1 pen)) Burscough 0

Turnstile body ready

An advantage of a game at Burscough on August Bank Holiday is that if you are beach body ready, you will also be trim enough to fit through the hosts' unfeasibly narrow turnstiles. As for the rest of us...

Dr Tony and I arrived at the Hop Vine at the same time from different directions. They had had a beer festival over the weekend, and were selling off the festival beers for £1.50 per pint, with eight or nine still available, so it would have been rude not to partake. As we approached the ground, we thought our visit might have been unwise if we had put on any weight.

We arrived to find a bright, sunny day, like the one, almost 12 years ago to the day, on which I first took a camera to a game. The sun can be a problem at Burscough, as there are a lot of light surfaces, which can cause glare. I did not have much time to ponder this, as we were quickly in the lead, with a goal from James Edgar, recorded in the 0th minute, which seemed to disrupt the space time continuum: I thought you started in the first minute. Either way, I got a picture, on the "a goal is a goal" principle.

In the last couple of games, we have scored early only to find ourselves unable to press home the advantage. This was not to be on this occasion. Next to score was Rob Doran, after nine minutes. I was doing well, having caught this goal too, although it needed some tweaks on the lighting.

This was to be a feature of the afternoon, the conversion in ViewNX seemed to be defeated on many images by the glare and associated deep shadows, so I found myself trying manual conversion for a quarter of the frames. The technically minded can see in Google Photos where I think this worked, as the file name contains a (2).

Prescot goals turned out to be a feature of the afternoon too. Next to score was Jack Phillips.

To complete the scoring for the first half, Joe Herbert was impeded in the area ...

... with Rob Doran converting the resulting penalty.

For the second half, the direction of the sun meant a bit less glare, but did not eliminate it completely. The substitutes had a chance to try out the league's new bibs, as they did not clash with anyone's kit.

Jacob Jones

The second half had an air of a job having been done. Rob Doran completed his hat trick with a long distance shot, but play was a lot more in our half, with our defence remaining solid. I was concerned the Tesco next to the ground meant the perimeter wall may give the impression it does not prevent viewing the game from outside the ground.

Sam Staunton Turner

Our convincing win left us in the unaccustomed heights of third in the league after four games, and the hosts as one of two teams that have yet to post any points. I suspect Burscough will pick up as the season progresses, Dave Powell did a good job for us a few years ago with limited resources.

Dave Powell (front)

After the game, I went back to the Hop Vine, where the entertainment was an oompah band whose repertoire seemed more Ormskirk than Oberbayern. Selling off the festival beers was going well, as they were down to two by the time I left for my train.

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

Final score: Burscough 0 Prescot Cables 5 (Edgar, Doran 3 (1 pen), Phillips)

What's that yellow thing?

I was unable to attend Prescot Cables' game at Radcliffe Borough, but I had enough time after Easter preparations to go to Marine for Grantham's visit. I found the rest of the afternoon was my own earlier than I expected, encountering my first weather related abandonment in 25 years, after a downpour in the first half left a dozen large pools of water on the pitch. How much water had been deposited in 15 minutes was illustrated at Prescot Cables after two days with no further rain, with the area around the tunnel still thick with mud, and sand applied in the goalmouths.

Easter games are associated with fine weather, and for the last few years we have been at Warrington Town. However, it was only three years ago we were playing Goole in front of cleared snow. With the clocks going forward, some leagues were putting away the yellow ball for the summer, although we manage without all year round. It's grim up north. The weather for the visit of Burscough was cool, but a yellow ball was starting to break through in the sky. Some of us were positively basking in it.

We made a few signings on the registration deadline day in midweek. I suspect most will be for cover for injury or absence. The first was called into service: with Marcus Burgess away, Zach Hibbert took his place in goal.

Zach Hibbert

Paul, our programme editor, likes to give everyone a fair number of appearances on the cover. I do the same in my collection over three or four games, but the programme aims for a balance over two or three months, longer than I track, so I occasionally have a request to look out for a player. If you try this in play, you are likely to miss some of the action, but it is usually easy enough to find some of the right frames afterwards.

Josh Nicholson

The first half had been fairly even, but the visitors, who are in the play off places, came out stronger in the second half, scoring after a couple of minutes. If we had not secured league safety, I would be worried about our run in, with a significant proportion of our games in March and April being against sides near the top of the table.

The sun was fully out by now.

Phil Bannister

I had gone back to shooting in raw again (it may be some time before I fully make up my mind on that question), which gives a better result when I need to even out the lighting on a player who is side on to the sun and therefore half in shadow.

Rob Doran

Since the camera does not do any sharpening of the background, it seems to give a better definition to the players in some of the images.

Lloyd Dean

The visitors sealed the result, and made it look a bit more decisive than it was, with a couple of quick goals in the last two minutes.

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

Final result: Prescot Cables 0 Burscough 3

A traditional damp evening

"CTC members a bit thin on the ground", mused Paul of our Train Crew, posting from the Hop Vine in Burscough. Dr James and I arrived from Burscough Junction shortly afterwards to find three present: Paul, his uncle, and Frank, who came from Huyton via Wigan.

We have not had many evening games this season, but there are plenty to come, with 18 League games in ten weeks, plus at least one in the Liverpool Senior Cup. It was my first night game in earnest since I replaced my camera body, apart from one at Marine I attended more for a technical test. I was at Burscough a couple weeks ago, and knew we would be in for a tough game. I would have been satisfied with a good performance whatever the result.

James nearly caused a multiple pile up at the unfeasibly narrow turnstiles, as he tried to go through forwards wearing a rucksack. Once inside, I took a position by the covered standing along the side. It was showery, so it was handy to to be able to dart for cover without the need to wrap the camera. The floodlights are good, so I was happy with my exposures, particularly when play came close to me, even if I am still working out how the camera handles the relationship between aperture and sensitivity in shutter priority mode.

Joe Evans

Bram Johnstone had rejoined us, having made a few appearances in pre season.

Bram Johnstone

At half time I walked around the ground, past the substitutes warming up, checking the light at various points. As I did so, Connor Grainger sent a ball over the wall into the adjacent field, and briefly tried to climb over to retrieve it. Abandoning the attempt, he told me he was not built for climbing, which was just as well, as the notice on the wall warned of anti climb paint, so he avoided coming on later covered in the stuff.

During the second half I tried a few pictures from behind the goal, which I do not normally do in a ground with floodlights arranged on the sides. I was able to get some reasonable exposures, although when play was towards the touchline, players were in shadow with the rest of their surroundings not, and exposure correction on the raw file was only partially successful addressing this.

Lloyd Dean

I became more confident we would get at least a draw as the second half went on, and things got even better with a goal from Joe Nicholson. The Train Crew may have been a bit thin on the ground, but the cheer that went up showed quite a few people had made the short trip by other means.

Joe Nicholson

After the game the Train Crew divided in the traditional railway manner, with the front portion (Paul, his uncle and Frank) heading for the Bridge, adjacent to the eponymous station, and the rear portion, (James and me) returning to the Hop Vine, a minute or so closer to Burscough Junction, and, more importantly, a known quantity for working heating and decent beer. The former was essential after a traditional damp-getting-into-your-bones evening game.

For the second set in a row, there was a change to how I upload pictures. Google are retiring the Picasa application, so I need to migrate to Google Photos. The advantage is that pictures are uploaded at a higher resolution (some significantly so), the disadvantage is the "public on the web" sharing option has gone, so I cannot enable a viewer to follow a link to one collection and then browse the others.

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

Final score: Burscough 0 Prescot Cables 1 (Joe Nicholson).

Feather behaviour

With Prescot Cables' game away to Ossett Albion at the weekend postponed, and heavy rain overnight taking out a few local games, I continued my practice over the last few weeks: if you cannot visit Yorkshire, the next best thing is for Yorkshire to visit you, with Burscough entertaining Farsley Celtic. As Prescot are due to play there next week, I could have conducted a scouting mission, but that would require a modicum of football knowledge, rather than just how to take pictures of it.

Burscough has a L40 postcode, the club are members of the Liverpool County FA, being just within the requisite 18 miles from Liverpool Town Hall, and many people have moved there from the city. However, on the bus from Ormskirk, the conversation between driver and passengers yielded the accents of deepest Lancashire. As I got on, discussion revolved around names for what I thought was a baby. The suggestion of Izzy, as in "is he male or female?" seemed an alarming way to refer to a child. My mind was put at rest when further details made it apparent the driver, by now talking to himself, was discussing a newly hatched budgerigar, and amused himself by settling on the not entirely original name of Budgie.

I lost a few pounds to a bug at the beginning of last month, and have kept a couple off, which came in handy at the unfeasibly narrow turnstiles. Once inside, I took up a fairly neutral position, slightly into the half Burscough were attacking. The sky was grey but not dark, so the light could best be described as flat, which sports were made for, as the action makes up for the lack of light and shadow effects.

I had not previously noticed a slight slope on the pitch away from the village end. In sports work, it is an advantage for still photography to have a low position in relation to the action, although it only seemed to have a particular effect along the touchline.

For the second half, I moved to the other side of the half way line staying with the hosts' attack (in a Lancashire v Yorkshire fixture, one has to take sides, however discreetly). I was nonetheless fairly neutral as to where I was pointing my lens, and in the pictures I selected to edit and show.

The game finished goalless. We all know there are 0-0 draws and 0-0 draws, and this was one between two sides strong in both attack and defence. The announcer at the end of the game said, to general agreement, that it was one of the best 0-0 draws we had seen in a while.

On the return, the bus looked not to be as handy as on the outward journey, leaving a couple of minutes before the end of the game. However, that view would ignore the excellent Hop Vine, and the opportunity for a pint of Peerless Knee Buckler IPA before catching the next one.

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

Final score: Burscough 0 Farsley Celtic 0.

Handy for the railway

Travel to Prescot Cables' game at Burscough on New Year's Day was almost as complicated as Boxing Day, with a limited bus service, Merseyrail operating a Sunday service, and Northern operating a weekday service, apart from local routes in the north east.

The combination allowed us to travel to Burscough Junction, a shorter journey than Burscough Bridge, but a longer walk at the end. My friend Luke observed that the station and the village seemed some distance apart: I replied, not entirely facetiously, that the station was built to be handy for the railway. There are many places where a town or village is some distance from its station, with a story that it was because residents did not want the railway - almost all are incorrect, and easily explained by a map showing that the railway follows the most logical route. The line from Ormskirk to Preston, built mainly for express services, follows a straight line across flat and open land, and has stations where it happens to pass near a settlement.

Team captain James McCulloch gave us a cheery wave as he drove past.

James McCulloch

The players need to be at the ground an hour and a half before the game to change, warm up, hear the manager's team talk etc. The supporters can be more relaxed, so we adjourned to the Hop Vine, which has a dress code - "No urban sportswear please". I was wearing a Cornwall rugby union shirt, but had no trouble being served, so my sportswear was presumably sufficiently rural.

Burscough's current club was founded in 1946. The infeasibly narrow turnstiles may have been erected at the same time: with spectators kept thin by wartime rationing, the builders could hardly have imagined just how large people would become in later years.

We had a couple of not-quite-new faces - Daniel Flood, who had played in the previous two games ...

Daniel Flood

... and Andy Harper, a product of our youth team, making his first competitive start, having been on the bench in the previous game.

Andy Harper

Ciaran Gibson was back in goal, which made my life easier, his playing style and confident demeanour makes him easier to capture than many goalkeepers.

Ciaran Gibson

The Met Office had predicted heavy rain for about 4pm, which would have been the second half had the game not kicked off early because of storm damage to the floodlights. In the event the damage appeared to have been repaired, as the lights were turned on for most of the game, but, having brought the game forward, it was sensible to stick to the rearranged time.

The rain fell quite heavily with a side wind in the first half, when we were attacking the Mart Lane end, which does not have any cover. The rain cover for the camera was blowing about, and at one point I ended up with it over my head in the manner of the user of a large format camera. I was happy with the performance of Mr Barbour's wax topping up the coating of my jacket, and with the rain effects on the photos.

James Edgar

The scores remained level until about 5 minutes into the second half, when Jack Phillips was brought down for a penalty, converted by Neil Prince. We had our best chance for the elusive second goal a few minutes later when Neil took a free kick on the edge of the area, which hit the upright - a knot or two less wind and it would probably have gone in.

Neil Prince

The hosts equalised 10 minutes from the end, but stout defence ensured we still went away with a point.

After the game, it was back to the Hop Vine to discuss important matters, namely trying to persuade Luke that his family home in Radcliffe is in historic Lancashire, of which the southern boundary is the River Mersey. He was not convinced, even by Lancashire playing cricket at Old Trafford (even if not doing so might mean less games when a winning position is lost due to rain). Things are different elsewhere, despite London having had administration across historic boundaries since 1888, the cricket followers at Dulwich Hamlet have no difficulty knowing whether they are from Surrey's broad sunlit uplands or Kent's Slough of Despond.

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

Final score: Burscough 1, Prescot Cables 1 (Prince pen)

Bank holiday weather

We have a number of rather unusual Bank Holidays in the United Kingdom (along with the Republic of Ireland, who derive them from the same Victorian legislation), in that they celebrate nothing more than that the banks are closed, rather than being tied to a religious or national festival as in most of Europe. The time at which they occur has some significance, with a holiday in August coming from Lammas, the baking of the first loaf from the new harvest. This is at the beginning of the month, and Scotland and Ireland still have a holiday at this time. England and Northern Ireland moved it to the end of August in an attempt to extend the season in holiday resorts. This could not, however, extend the good weather or stop the nights drawing in, so it is quite often cold and wet. This year was no exception.

At our level, our bank holiday games are usually against local opposition, and with the FA Cup Preliminary Round not being until the following week, there was no danger of postponements due to replays. Prescot Cables hosted Burscough.

Our visitors had the same kit as last year. I could not capture the colour very well in the sun at the end of last season, although oddly it looks a bit better in the grey light of this fixture.

James McCulloch

Burscough goalkeeper Tim Horn is well known to us, both for liking to wander, and for being quite vociferous. With injury particularly affecting our potential scorers, although there was good news that Rob Doran had been able to play for the Reserves at the weekend, we were likely to find goals hard to come by. However, we were able to keep Tim on his toes.

Yunus Giwa

One good aspect of our start to the season is our clean sheets, something we have often found difficult in the past, with goalkeeper Ciaran Gibson growing in confidence and working well with his defence.

Jack Phillips, Liam Dodd, Ciaran Gibson

With this combination, and the intermittently wet and blustery conditions, a goalless draw came as not much surprise - with a positive point being a third clean sheet in four games. and of course a point is a point, and they all add up at the end of the season.

The Management watch Joe Evans

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

Final result: Prescot Cables 0 Burscough 0

Making it safe

There is something to be said for enjoying the last week of the season without worrying about results. Occasions like avoiding relegation at Lincoln United in the last game of the 2007-8 season are not good for us if they come around too often.

Prescot Cables approached our penultimate home game of the season against Burscough knowing events off the field had probably ensured our safety. Since our game at Wakefield, the League had accepted the resignations of Wakefield, dropping one step due to ground issues, and Cammell Laird, dropping two steps due to ownership issues. That should fill the two places, but there was a rumour that the club finishing bottom would be relegated, presumably making three clubs if Wakefield were not in that position. Results last week made us safe from that, with our win at Wakefield and Ossett Albion's loss at home meaning only those clubs could finish in the bottom position. It is still better to secure safety by finishing out of the last two places, and we needed points to make that sure.

Max Pouncey

Outside football, I look after the servers in a traditional High Church parish, so Holy Saturday (not Easter Saturday, that is the Saturday after Easter) is a busy day, helping put everything back into church that we took out on Good Friday, in time for the Vigil service in the evening. Away games are out of the question, so I was quite fortunate that, for the fourth time in five years, we were playing at home.

Burscough's green kit is one of those to which the camera never seems to do justice, certainly not in daylight, reproduction under floodlights seems better, but it is a more vivid shade than appears here.

Richie Mottram

This is a day where my primary weather concern is not the light, but the absence of wind and rain in the evening - back at church we have a candle to light, from a wood fire, outdoors, in the encircling gloom. However, for the record, there was a decent amount of sun, which presented the usual challenges with backlighting from the white parts of the perimeter fences at the Safari Park End.

Antony Shinks

For some reason, the Fire Service used the Hope Street end to park an appliance for most of the second half. I am not sure why, there did not seem to be any flames, no water needing to be pumped out, and not even any trees from which a cat may need to be rescued.

The visiting goalkeeper was once again Tim Horn, who had been vociferous in our meeting in the Liverpool Senior Cup back in November, especially in the penalty shootout, where he successfully encouraged our penalty takers to aim the ball in his direction, with Isaac Kusoloka being one such. What goes around comes around, and our guest has lost none of his willingness to come off his line, which brought Isaac the opportunity to score his second goal.

Isaac Kusoloka dispossesses Tim Horn near the changing rooms...

... and puts the ball in the goal

The third goal came from Luke Robinson, putting away a loose ball at close range. I got some sort of picture, but even with the "goal is a goal" principle, I include enough of the player for him to be identifiable, just from the knees down is not enough to make it into the collection.

Luke Robinson

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

Final score: Prescot Cables 3 (Kusoloka 2, Robinson), Burscough 0

Mr John's shilling

The Augustus John (known to all as the AJ), a Good Beer Guide establishment on the University of Liverpool Precinct (sorry, Campus, people can no longer cope with local variation in these matters), has at times been a fertile recruiting ground for Prescot Cables supporters. Unsuspecting students and graduates have been for a quiet drink on Friday evening, and found themselves on the terraces at Hope Street on Saturday afternoon with only a vague recollection of how they got there. When I first attended in such circumstances, we had to get to Prescot for 1pm, for a kick off that I think turned out to be 2pm, as this was before floodlights were installed at the end of the 1990-91 season, and there were no mobile phones and internet to confirm the time. At least Prescot still had a museum then.

With this in mind, it was appropriate that our group of pharmacologists, photographer and phork lift truck driver travelling to our Liverpool Senior Cup tie at Burscough was joined by Tony, one of the bar staff from the AJ, who had been to a number of home games, and was dipping his toe in the waters of away travel. The Liverpool Senior Cup is probably the one piece of silverware we have a chance of winning: last year's Final was contested between Bootle and AFC Liverpool, both of the North West Counties League.

Having squeezed through the turnstiles, I found a traditional floodlight arrangement with four pylons along each side. In addition to two heads at the top of each pylon, there was a third head, two thirds of the way up, pointing directly down to illuminate the touchline. This made for an even light, which took some time to get used to, as it did not have the pools of light of which I usually make use.

Once I got to grips with the light, the results were quite acceptable.

Ryan Dunn

Results were good and clear near the touchline, where there is often the lowest levels of light.

Jonathon Lynch

Prescot were down to 10 men after about 25 minutes, when Jonathon Lynch was dismissed for a handball in front of our goal. He was probably unfortunate: the ball immediately fell to an attacking player, who put it across the line. By this time the referee had blown the whistle, so a penalty had to be awarded. I only heard the whistle after the ball had crossed the line, but I was more than half the length of the pitch away. Had the referee been half a second slower, the goal would have stood, and, although reaction time is not exactly the same as playing an advantage, the principle from the Guidance for Referees about not dismissing a player for denying a goalscoring opportunity where a goal is scored directly from the advantage would presumably apply.

The game also saw a return for Jamie Menagh, back on loan after signing for Chester a couple of weeks ago.

Jamie Menagh

Note the "I have just committed a minor foul and hope no-one notices, so I shall put my arms in the air to draw attention to it" posture from Jamie's opponent.

In the second half, the Burscough goalkeeper was keen to engage in dialogue with the assistant referee with a stream of complaints about offside and queries about how much time was left. A complaining player is often best dealt with by humour, and the fourth enquiry as to time in as many minutes, with 20 minutes still to go, drew the retort, "If you stop moaning to yourself, you will find the time goes faster".

A Rob Doran goal brought the scores level, with neither side able to secure further advantage in normal play. In common with a number of other cup competitions, the Liverpool Senior Cup no longer has extra time, and goes straight to penalties if scores are level at full time.

There are many advantages to an enthusiastic young team, and their energy and will to win has gained us points in the League, but I believe experience counts in a penalty shoot out, with Tim Horn saving three of our penalties to put the home team through.

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

Final score: Burscough 1 Prescot Cables 1 (Doran), Burscough win 3-1 on penalties