Motoring through the traffic

Some feel that urban design is geared towards the car, to the extent it is difficult to navigate some towns on foot. However, places where roads long pre date the motor car can be equally difficult to traverse. Vauxhall Motors, Prescot Cables' hosts in our pre season game last weekend sounds like an urban industrial destination, but the club is in a rural location, separated from the eponymous car factory by the M53. The walk from the frequent Liverpool to Chester bus service is along a country lane without lighting (not a problem in the afternoon) or a pavement. I come from a village, so I am used to this, but there are a couple of stretches with right hand blind bends, requiring use of the generally avoided left side of the road, with your back to the traffic. The noise from the motorway makes it more difficult to hear whether there is a car approaching behind you.

I arrived, so I thought, a few minutes late, to find the players emerging from the changing rooms to warm up. I had been expecting a 2.30 kick off, but our kit was having its own motorway related travel problem, being stuck in traffic on the M56. Vauxhall lent us a spare kit.

Joe Evans & Jonah O'Reilly

I joined our Chairman to watch the players warming up, and we reminisced about the days one just emerged from the changing rooms and started to play. One exercise involved jumping up and starting to run from flat on your face, which might be useful playing one or two of our more robust opponents.

Once we were inside the ground, the pitch was in good condition, save for a need for some rain. It is aligned more or less east - west, so the sun was shining from one side. In the first half, the sun was hazy, with intermittent cloud cover, enough not to cause too many problems with shadows.

Paul Cliff

We have not got to the stage in the pre season programme of issuing team sheets, so if I want to add captions, I need to stick to players who are with us from last year or from previous seasons. I might be able to identify some from newly acquired Twitter followers, but I would not be sure enough to use them in a published post. The list of players returning continues to grow as people come back from holidays.

Ben Morrow

In the second half, I even got a goal sequence, from Danny Flood.

Once again we were able to secure the result league position might have suggested, with our scoring four goals in the second half to go with one in the first.

The return walk from the ground is slightly more hazardous than the journey out, as one of the right hand blind bends is alongside the motorway. I made it safely to the bus stop just in time for ... Ben Morrow and his father to pull up and offer me a lift.

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

Final score Vauxhall Motors 1 Prescot Cables 5.

The metal working derby

Prescot Cables' game in midweek against Vauxhall Motors was between two clubs with a metal working heritage. Car making still happens in Ellesmere Port, whereas cable manufacturing has been absent from Prescot for some years.

We had to cancel our previous game, a visit from Coalville Town of our league's Division 1 South, due to a heavy downpour a couple of hours before kick off leaving standing water on the pitch, which unfortunately, occurred when Coalville were on their way.

The North West Counties League started their season on the same day: Bootle's game at home to Squires Gate looked a bit wet. The start of the season has got gradually earlier: I remember reading that early in the last century, I think it was Dulwich Hamlet's Isthmian League and FA Amateur Cup winning season of 1919-20, the start of the season, in the last week of August, was delayed by a week due to extreme heat. The North West Counties League now starts in the first week of August, which makes it more difficult to find appropriate opponents for these games.

I did not notice the 7.30 kick off, so arrived a few minutes late. There was a team sheet, so the process of matching numbers and faces could continue - assuming I could see either.

Sean Miller - identified by the boots

The rain at the weekend had refreshed those parts of the pitch that had looked a little scorched the previous week, even after some good growing weather.

Stephen Milne

This blog adheres to the principle of pies before pictures if I have not finished my half time refreshments before play restarts. Some of my best shots have been taken with three fingers controlling the zoom, and the other two holding the last of my pie. However, I do not recommend trying this with a Danish pastry, unless you want to spend the half removing icing from the barrel of the lens.

Vauxhall looked a strong side, which should do well as they look to rebuild their position after resigning from the Conference North last year. With the visitors two goals ahead at half time, Charlie Stoker came on and scored twice to restore the balance.

Charlie Stoker scores his second goal

I believe that technically the game was abandoned with a couple of minutes to go when Neil Prince sustained a dislocated shoulder. This will put him out of playing for a few weeks: whilst a player-manager is primarily a manager, it is always handy if he can include himself in his playing options, and he has already scored some good goals.

Neil Prince

With the pictures from Saturday games, I have a deadline for the Merseymart, and free time in which to meet it, and the online pictures follow from there. For the midweek games, there is no specific deadline, and other things can crop up to delay processing. There is one, however that I try to meet, but did not do so this week - Friday lunchtime, so the players can show their exploits to their colleagues before the weekend.

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

Final score: Prescot Cables 2 (Stoker 2), Vauxhall Motors 2

Motoring

The name of Vauxhall has spread far and wide in transport circles. The first reason is not entirely verified, but a group of Russian engineers building a new railway inspected the London & South Western Railway in the 1840s. Vauxhall seemed an important station, so the name became the Russian word for a large railway station. More verifiably, an iron works in the area became the Vauxhall Motor Company, now the UK operation of General Motors. Prescot Cables' visitors this week, Vauxhall Motors, started life as a works team for the company's plant at Ellesmere Port.

Having missed last week's game, this was the first time I saw the pitch since last week's rain, and the improvement achieved by the Supporters on the Pitch scheme was much more apparent.

Antony Shinks takes a free kick on the much improved playing surface

As we get closer to the start of the season, conditions are closer to a league game, with less substitutions. This was also the first game of the pre season programme where the team sheet was posted in the clubhouse, so the process of learning the names of new players can begin in earnest.

Mike Smith

Starting with a new team can mean the players need to head to the shops: whilst the club supplies the kit, the laws of the game provide that undershorts have to be the same main colour as shorts, and undershirts have to be the same main colour as the sleeves of the shirt, so those undergarments that were perfectly fine with a different club last season are heading for the cupboard. Referees can and do send players to change any clothing that does not comply, and they often notice at the most inconvenient moment.

Kyle Riley

At the game, we learnt of a departure and a return to the team. Jon Bathurst has joined Rhyl, where we played a couple of weeks ago. I can see why the Welsh Premier League is an attractive option. The standard is higher than our Division, one I am sure Jon will have no trouble meeting. For a player with heavy time commitments for work and who had to take time out last season to rest an injury, there is an additional attraction, no midweek games, and five of the twelve clubs in the league are along the north coast.

Jon Bathurst - enjoyed Rhyl so much he decided to stay

Returning to us was Nick Culkin in goal, after his involvement last season was ended by an injury at work.

Nick Culkin

When I posted my photos from the game on the club Facebook page, the system decided people needed the link in Swedish: strangely, I have also had a larger than usual number of hits on these pages from Sweden in the last week.

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