Flags, firkins and flat caps

There was plenty to entertain the visitor at Prescot Cables game against Warrington Town. Admittedly there was no Shaun Reid, and, wst former Cables defender Lee Smith has maintained their form on the field, he exhibits a much calmer match day demeanour.

Lee Smith (left) watches Phil Bannister

Still there was still a flag display and collection for the Alfie Lund Fund, raising awareness for MECP2 duplication syndrome; a dance display at half time, and the little matter of a beer festival.

Alfie Lund Fund flag display

The latter attracted a few ground hopping bloggers, and I met Matt from the Lost Boyos, whose site I only found a few weeks ago, and who, in the manner of our Train Crew, enjoys getting to the game almost as much as being there. He shows the same respect for the flat cap as appropriate headgear for football as these pages, although his is an all year round trademark, rather than just for keeping his head warm or visiting the borders of the known world. I posed for and took the obligatory #NoFlatCapNoParty" double thumbs up pictures. The all thumbs match day photographer may not be the best person to let loose on your compact camera: my first attempt started a movie by mistake.

Whilst this was going on, I just about saw the visitors' first goal, from Ged Kinsella. We had a decent amount of the play up to this point, but had been unable to convert it. Warrington went further ahead with a second from Ciaran Kilheeny in first half injury time.

I then had an unusual assignment for me, some pictures of the half time display from the Dancebeatz Academy. The dancers had a lot of space between them, which worked live, and may have made a good video panning along the line, but I did not have anything with me to keep the camera stable. It would not have made much of a picture if I had put everyone in one frame, so a presentation montage seemed the order of the day.

I also took the opportunity to capture our new mural on the end of the toilet block. We have been around for a while.

With sunset after 6pm, you would not expect much drop in light over an hour earlier with consistent light cloud cover throughout. However, the shutter speed dropped from a fairly consistent 1/1000s at ISO 800 at the beginning of the game ...

Joe Nicholson

... to 1/500s hovering around ISO 1000 at the end.

James McCulloch

I have worked out roughly how the sports mode manages exposure. In the conditions I have encountered (I have yet to use the equipment on summer day), if there is enough light for shutter speeds over 1/1000s, it uses the most open aperture, at ISO 400. In lower light, it maintains speed by increasing sensitivity up to ISO 800, when it reduces shutter speed until 1/500s, then increases the sensitivity again, until ISO 3200, when it drops the speed until it is too slow to be practical, and I need to switch mode.

Jonah O'Reilly

The visitors added their third goal, and continued their march towards the title with a penalty ten minutes from time.

After the game it was back to the festival beers, with a neat system for the transition between the afternoon session (included in the game, and therefore free for season ticket holders) and the evening session. Beers were served up to 6pm in a plastic glass, and then after this only in a glass included in the evening entry fee.

The rest of the pictures from the game can be seen on the club website here, and on Google Photos here. Matt's Lost Boyos blog on the game is available here.

Final score: Prescot Cables 0 Warrington Town 3.

Over dressed for the weather conditions

Easter Monday dawned cold and misty, and the forecast was for the temperature not to improve, so a jacket and coat was in order for Prescot Cables' trip to Warrington Town. Dr Phil was back in the country, and advised soon-to-be-Dr James and me that he would be in the Prince of Wales. It is no establishment for a CAMRA member, so I had no intention of joining him there. Richie, our leader in beer and pub choices, was already in the Lower Angel with his wife, Sharon, so we rescued Phil joined them, with the beer being up to the usual high standards.

A bus would have left us hanging around at the ground for a long time, so we took an eye wateringly expensive taxi (£12 for 1.7 miles, although there were five of us to share the cost). As we passed the Prince of Wales on the way to the rank, there seemed to be a fight going on outside.

The weather improved beyond the forecast, and those who left home later than me were dressed for the summer. How would we recognise Shaun Reid if he was not wearing a jumper?

Ah, there he is.

Car breakdown service from the Aaaaaay Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Mr Reid can be sensitive to the crowd, and he seemed quieter after his instructions were greeted with impersonations from the visiting supporters. That was not an unqualified success, as the hosts seemed to play better when left to their own devices.

The ground had a few reminders of the FA Cup game in November, the most visible being orange temporary fencing where the BBC needed to remove part of the wall to get equipment on the pitch.

Ben Morrow

A rule of commentary observed by the late cricket commentator Richie Benaud was, "there are no teams called 'we' and 'they'". This blog does claim commentary or impartiality, so I am happy saying "we" started the first half with the sun behind us - good for the players, but the lighting is tricky with the players entirely backlit.

Danny Flood

Some shots worked quite well with partial shadow.

Andy Harper

The hosts were awarded a penalty after a quarter of an hour, with Ben Wharton sending Ben Morrow the wrong way.

Lighting was easier for the second half.

James McCulloch

The players made it easier with some good runs ...

Sam Corlett

... but we were unable to convert pressure to goals.

Liam Dodd makes an attempt on goal

Towards the end of the game, with all our substitutes used, Liam Hollett needed lengthy treatment for a recurrence of a stomach muscle injury picked up against Salford a couple of weeks previously. He reported afterwards that he thought it was probably the end of his season, so we look forward to seeing him back in action after the summer.

Liam Hollett

A second goal from Ben Wharton produced a result that was probably in line with current form.

After the game, we headed back to the town centre, where Richie led us to the Friar Penketh, one of the few places for decent beer in the town centre (I believe the Lower Angel is closed in the early evening on bank holidays). This led to an anti Wetherspoon  revolt from James and Phil, so I adjourned with them to the Blue Bell, with benches outside where we could observe a surprising number of people finding the adjacent water feature something of a bank holiday attraction.

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

Final score: Warrington Town 2 Prescot Cables 0.

The weather comes all at once

I was fortunate that Prescot Cables were at home again for our Boxing Day fixture against Warrington Town. It is one of the busiest days in the sporting and retail calendar, as long as you have your own transport, or live in a city where there might be a skeleton bus service. The 10A was full of people who had been to the sales: I was only able to get on because someone got off at my stop. I do not know whether Shaun Reid went shopping on the way, but his trademark V-neck wooly sweater, in a grey as dark as the sky, was covered by a coat, a garment I had not known until this occasion that he possessed.

Warrington of course have had a successful run in the FA Cup. This can have an adverse impact on league form, and it is by no means a foregone conclusion they will be successful in the games in hand they build up. Nonetheless, we were expecting this game to be a challenge, especially after a heavy defeat at the weekend.

Oscar Durnin

Through the season I deal with all sorts of weather conditions. Usually these come one by one, temperature dropping, cloud cover, rain and wind, so that, by this time of year, I have recent experience of keeping warm, watching the apertures, and using the rain cover. This year has been unusually mild, so my skills are rusty, so I had a spot of bother keeping the rain cover in place, not helped by the realisation that fitting it is another on the growing list of tasks I need to take my glasses off to be able to see.

It was possibly the worst natural light I have seen at an afternoon game, with the floodlights needed from the beginning. All bar the first few pictures of the collection look as though they were taken at an evening game.

Liam Dodd

Conditions like this make pictures a bit of a lottery, I do my best to get all the players in, but this is not always possible in low light. The wind was swirling the rain about, so it took a few minutes to get an idea which side of the ground would have the rain on my back rather than on the front of the lens. I was therefore in the wrong place to catch Sam Corlett's first goal. I was not too concerned, Sam is a gift for the photographer in position and playing style, so I would have one for the paper later, or so I thought.

Those who braved the weather were treated to an excellent performance, the defence looking stronger than for some time, and changes allowing James McCulloch to move to his stronger position in midfield.

James McCulloch

Warrington did not look to be coping well, with two players sent off in the second half for dangerous tackles.

Sam provided a second goal in the last 10 minutes, again on the wrong side of the pitch for me to capture it, even if I had not been dealing with my equipment, including losing the eyepiece when the rain cover detached it (a replacement was cheap and easy to obtain on eBay, once I ploughed through the sellers in China with 3 - 6 week postage times to find one in England who could send it by normal post).

The second goal proved its value in almost the last kick of the game, when Steven Tames, a product of the Cables youth team, broke through for a consolation goal for the visitors.

Steven Tames

Because of the conditions, the final collection was smaller than usual, even more than for the Clitheroe game. I was similarly constrained with what met the criteria for the Merseymart, not being able to send anything of our goal scorer, or not so you would recognise him anyway.

Sam Corlett passes to Jack Phillips

A win against our local rivals who have been on the telly was just what the doctor ordered after the weekend, and it will help many of us to quietly forget the previous result.

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

Final score: Prescot Cables 2 (Corlett 2), Warrington Town 1

It was nice weather, but I was still under it

"I would not mind if I had been doing anything", I greeted the assembled Train Crew, as I arrived feeling and, I am reliably informed, looking green around the gills. I had eaten something that disagreed with me, and started to feel unwell on the train to Warrington. Going to the game with the pharmacologists is not as much help as you might think, they conduct complex research at the cutting edge of medical science, but have long since forgotten how to knock up an effective remedy from commonly available ingredients.

As the bus service is limited on a Bank Holiday, I checked with Mr Google and his Maps how long it takes to walk from the town centre to Warrington Town (just over half an hour). That would be easier to find out if the address on the location tab of the website were that of the ground, rather than a PO Box at the sorting office. As I was not feeling up to the walk, I was glad there were enough of us to make a taxi worthwhile.

I had hardly taken up position when we went behind - the first proper picture I took was of Phil Bannister taking the kick off.

Phil Bannister

I did not feel up to staying behind the goal for very long. Fortunately, there is a nice shady stand on the side opposite the clubhouse, with seats providing a good low vantage point. I took up position alongside James McCulloch's father, who was looking after water supplies for our side of the pitch.

James McCulloch

End of season games can be an opportunity to try out promising players from the youth team, giving them experience of the first team with a view to assessing them more closely in pre season. I remember first seeing Steven Tames on a wet Tuesday at Skelmersdale and Connor McCarthy in rather better weather in Mossley. Taking his chance in a challenging game was Danny Brooks, who was probably expecting to come on as a second half substitute, but found himself stepping up when Lloyd Balazs was injured after about 10 minutes.

Lloyd Balazs

Danny Brooks

Prescot's goals were supplied by Rob Doran, making the scores level early in the second half, and again after Ben Wharton had again put Warrington ahead.

Rob Doran

Another young player making a substitute appearance was Dan Lowton, who has kept goal in previous games, but was making his first appearance in an outfield position.

Dan Lowton

We finally succumbed to a goal in the 90th minute - one the striker could not repeat if he tried, a shot from a tight angle into the top corner. There was a time when we fell to goals in the last few minutes with depressing regularity: a couple of seasons ago I calculated around Christmas that we would have had about 8 points more if games had been played over 80 minutes rather than 90. That has really improved under Dave Powell: I had to look up when we were last level going in to the last 10 minutes, and went on to lose - the answer was at Mossley in November.

Not that Shaun Reid looked any happier.

Get mobile phone and internet - from EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

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

As for the upset stomach, I finally got rid of it with some kaolin and calcium carbonate tablets, i,e, clay and chalk - so basically flavoured mud, then.

Final score: Warrington Town 3, Prescot Cables 2 (Doran 2).

Christmas jumpers

There was once a football club (now defunct) with a name that was almost made for Boxing Day, although I never watched them on the day, or any other day for that matter. Leftovers SC was the second team in East Grinstead when I started watching football, playing in the Sussex County League Division 3.

I have never been a great fan of the Boxing Day fixture - it often seems like an excuse to get out of the house after the enforced jollity of Christmas Day. This year, Prescot Cables were entertaining Warrington Town, which made sense, as they are among our nearest opponents. That assumes people can get there - there were fewer visiting supporters than I was expecting, the missing ones I suspect being those without their own transport. Many of our own supporters had a fairly frequent service on the main 10A Liverpool to St Helens bus route, but for those from further afield there was no public transport at all.

Both teams looked like they were preparing for serious business.

Although we escaped the worst of the storms that affected other parts of England, the weather was still not pleasant - a gloomy day, and one to wrap up warm.

Dave Powell

Warrington manager Shaun Reid seemed to have found a warmer jumper than usual, but sticking with trusty 100% Wool.

Shaun Reid and Lee Smith

There were first starts for two players who impressed in substitute appearances at Salford before Christmas, Robert Gilroy ...

... and Pavel Pinto-Vieira, who has most recently been playing in Portugal.

I have commented when playing Warrington on the section from the Laws of the Game that used to say "the goalkeeper's clothing shall be distinguished from that of the other players and the referee", and for which I cannot remember the current wording. As an aside, I know the Laws do not necessarily need to flow, but given that match officials do not have time to leaf through them in the middle of a game, they should at least be memorable. On that occasion, their goalkeeper was dressed from head to toe in black, with the only distinction I could see from the referee and assistants being a number on the back.

This time, the possible clash was with our kit. Here is Dave Dempsey taking a free kick.

In this picture, the goalkeeper's kit looks very similar to ours, just a different shade of yellow. There is a bit more contrast close up, it looked better to the naked eye than it does to the camera, and the match officials accepted it as enough of a contrast. Here is Isaac Kusoloka finding the net, but unfortunately being denied for offside.

That was in many ways the story of the game, our players put in a good performance, but the result went very much according to form and current league position.

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

Final score: Prescot Cables 0 Warrington Town 2.

Is there a Doctor in the house?

The match sponsorship for Prescot Cables' game at home to Warrington Town at the weekend was paid for by staff and students from the University of Liverpool Pharmacology Department in the name of regular supporter Phil, an energetic recruiter of new spectators, who has successfully completed his PhD. These pages are a stickler for etiquette, so we can only start calling him Dr Phil when he has donned the robes and shaken hands with the Chancellor. For the same reason, I shall refrain until then from asking him to take a look at my dodgy knee.

In these times, people are a bit concerned about mentioning pharmacology and sport in the same sentence, but we need not be worried. Phil has shown synopses of a couple of his papers online, and they seem to be, as far as I understood a word, about pharmacological markers for alcohol induced liver damage, not so much performance enhancing, as coping with the end of season party.

Our match sponsor (in bar scarf) watches Jack Webb

A match against Warrington Town is always a good one to sponsor, with a keen local rivalry, especially as it was their first visit to Hope Street since our former manager, Shaun Reid, left after 8 games in charge to take Warrington into the Football League.

Shaun Reid in characteristic pose

Shaun Reid's brother, Peter Reid was also in the crowd. Richie, our leader on pub and beer choices for away games, asked Peter to tweet that he was going to be at Prescot Cables in the way he does when he visits better known locations. He kindly did so, resulting in at least one enquiry from a family about admission prices.

Also in the crowd was the star of last season's Liverpool Senior Cup heroics, and scorer of some useful league goals, Steven Tames, playing in the same colours, but now with Southport, whose game away to Braintree Town had been postponed.

Steven Tames (in grey) and Dave Powell watch Jon Bathurst in action

This was always going to be a competitive game with honour at stake, Warrington wanting a win to keep their play off challenge on track, Prescot wanting to take at least a point from our former manager, and all points are useful to keep us ahead of Goole, Garforth and Ossett Albion.

As this post has a study theme, I can record that I arrived in Liverpool for that purpose many years ago, and have remained ever since. One of our new players, Enzo Benn, has followed at least the first part of that path, having come from Brighton, where he played along the coast for Worthing, initially playing for Cammell Laird before joining us.

Enzo Benn

The first half was played in sunlight, with the usual challenges that the low winter sun provides. The cloud came over for the second half, making for a much more even light. As I was able to take my usual position behind the goal, so when the Prescot goal came, I was in a good position to capture Liam Dawson scoring it. I had a choice of two images to send in to the Merseymart.

I chose the first one, as it shows better that Liam scored the goal under pressure from the Warrington defender, and there is less open space, which does not look good on the printed page.

As it was, they had a space to fill that would not have taken the portrait format, so they used this one of Luke Edwards instead.

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

Blind as Captain Cat

I have always had a spot of bother seeing in the dark. Before buses got LED destination displays, and relied on a canvas blind, I was almost being run over before I knew where the bus was going. It gets worse as you get older, at some point between 40 and 50, you notice that light perfectly suitable for reading a couple of years ago no longer works, no matter how much adjustment of glasses and holding the paper at arm's length you do. There are some grounds with a low, even light, close to the average lux value across the pitch, where I start to wonder how they can see to play football out there.

This week saw Prescot play away at Warrington Town, one of the more difficult photographic locations, as we saw last season. On this occasion, we were the team in the less camera friendly kit.

Warrington's goalkeeper saves from James McCulloch

I decided to stick with my 70-300mm f4.5-.6 lens instead of switching to the 50mm f1.4 - on the basis that what you gain on the swings of aperture, you lose on the roundabouts of range and the proportion of the image taken up by the action. I only changed to the shorter lens at the end of the game when I went behind the goal to make a quick getaway at the final whistle.

Ged Murphy goes for a header

This meant that, not only did I have a limited range of images from which to choose for the slide show, but only really featured those of our players on the left. Although I took a position on the right side of the pitch for the second half, I met with even less success capturing images there.

We also had some unwanted light during the first half, as an idiot was shining a laser pen on to the pitch from the Cantilever Bridge behind the ground. Fortunately it did not catch any of the players, officials or spectators in the eyes.

One thing had me reaching for the Laws of the Game. I remembered something about "the goalkeeper's clothing shall be distinguished from that of the other players and the referee"...

... and wondered if there was any guidance on whether a number on the back and an advert on the front was what they had in mind. The wording is more specific these days - "Each goalkeeper shall wear colours that distinguish him from the other players, the referee and the assistant referees".

A couple of quick opening goals from Warrington sealed the result, despite a battling Prescot performance for the rest of the game. The match report on their website referred to the result as sweet revenge for their manager, Shaun Reid. I am not sure how revenge comes into it, when Mr Reid left us of his own accord after 8 games for the opportunity to take Warrington into the Football League.

After the game, I was keen to catch a bus back to town. A group had come over on the train, and with our principal guide, Richie, on holiday, and therefore unable to keep us on the straight and narrow with our pub and beer choices, we ended up in a rather dodgy establishment on the way out, so I was keen to make it to the Lower Angel to have a quick one of something decent before it was time to catch the train back.

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

Moles see fine tonight

This blog is about taking sports photos using consumer kit, working from the terraces of clubs at step 4 of the National League System. So, no Nikon D3S with its ISO range extendable to 102,400, or 200mm f/2 Nikkor lens with its combination of wide aperture and long view. Nor do I frequent Anfield, with its international standard floodlights (1400 lux minimum, 2000 lux recommended for high definition television). So, we have to improvise sometimes.

Tuesday saw Prescot Cables visiting Warrington Town, to play them for the fourth, and, as we have lost all four, thankfully last, time this season. Prescot had seven players normally in consideration for a start missing due to injury or work commitments, so it was unlikely to be a good evening. So it proved with Warrington scoring three goals in the first 13 minutes, with two more in the second half. The only consolation was Steven Tames taking the opportunity of a place in the starting XI to end a barren patch in front of goal.

Well, it is not the best of pictures, but a goal is a goal.

The photo above shows the pattern of the light on the pitch. More to the point, there is not one, the spread is fairly even. The spread of light depends on the siting of the lights - a column at each corner, or three or four columns along the sides - and how many lights are on each column. In my experience (relatively limited, as I have only been taking pictures at night games for a couple of years), there are dark patches where you cannot capture anything, and light patches that are very helpful. At Warrington, I suspect the lights passed their test with few values much above or below the average.

It quickly became apparent that I was not going to get very far with my 70-300mm lens, even at the lower focal length, the resulting pictures were very dark. Here is Cables' Lee Roberts at 125mm, f/4.8, 1/200s.

We can improve the lighting ...

... but it is still quite grainy.

So, it was time for emergency measures. I have a 50mm f/1.4 lens. The much better aperture (f/1.4 takes in 8 times as much light as f/4, and 16 times as much as f/5.6) gives a clear, light image when the action is immediately in front of the camera, for example Cables' Phil Cooney taking a throw in.

There are, however a coupe of disadvantages.

Firstly, action further than a few yards away will be small in the middle of the image. In practice, the lens can only really be used over the quarter of the pitch nearest to the camera. Take the original of the picture above of Steven Tames' goal.

Of course, we can crop out the unwanted part, but if the part we want to keep is too small, there may be issues with the quality of the resulting picture. Take this example, with Cables' Ashley Ruane.

This looks like a promising image to crop. However, when we do so, we find the players are quite blurred (which will be more apparent if you click on the image and view it at full size).

This picture also illustrates the second problem with the shorter lens. The auto focus point is a constant size in relation to the frame. Using the longer lens, and a camera with a small focus point like the D5000, it is easy with some practice to position the focus point wholly on the player. With the shorter lens, the focus point is far more likely to be partly on the player and partly on the background, so the camera may focus on either - you can see in the picture above that the advertising hoarding is in better focus than the players.

This means that more of the pictures will have to be rejected. The rest of the pictures from the game, in a somewhat smaller album than usual can be seen here.