An actual warm day

The day of Prescot Cables' game at home to Mossley at the weekend was one of those spring days when you choose your clothes in the morning, thinking you need a coat, to find by early afternoon that you could really do without it. Now all I need is a couple of properly warm days to re-wax it: it missed out last year as, by the time I realised it was warm enough for the wax to soak into the cloth, it no longer was.

The day's mascot was Alfie Lund, a regular attender at games across the league and beyond, and one of only about 120 children in the world with MECP2 duplication syndrome. My attempt to take a presentation picture with the starting lineup was thwarted by Alfie being literally the only person looking in the right direction.

Once you have a high vis and a big camera, you get random photo requests, which is all very well, but I wonder where to publish them. This week's request came from the Mossley bench.

At least when our own supporters are giving me a cheery wave, I know they want to be included in the collection.

With the bright light, for the first half I mainly stayed in shutter priority and managed my own speeds, keeping the aperture as open as possible, making for a nice soft focus background.

Lloyd Dean 1/1250s, f/4.3, ISO125

We have started well in the last few games I have seen, but it was not to be on this occasion, with a fairly disjointed performance.

Our secretary team were keeping a sharp eye out for anything untoward.

Matty Roberts (Assistant Secretary) & Dan Roberts (Club Secretary)

There was a rumour that the visitors were particularly affected by their fixture backlog and concerned they were likely to tire after 60 minutes. In this situation you can do worse than build a lead and hope to hang on to it. The tactic seemed to be working with Mossley 2-0 up at half time.

In the second half, the Gasworks Side was providing pictures for a few family albums.

Mr Graham Edgar watches James

We were playing much better in this half, although it started to look as though we would not find the net, until Harry Cain got through with a couple of minutes to go.

Harry Cain shoots for goal ...

Celebrations were brief: goal difference is all very well, but not much use without the points to get you in position to benefit from it.

... and gets back for the restart

Chris Almond secured the result with seconds to go.

Chris Almond

Scenes ensued.

These were scenes that involve beer being abandoned in an upwards direction. Fortunately I was nowhere near where it came back to earth.

Steve Pilling collects the empties from the goal celebrations

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 2 (Cain, Almond) Mossley 2

New Boots and Panties

The rain at Prescot Cables' game at home to Clitheroe last week rather tested my clothing. I still had to visit a waterproof trouser shop, and I also found my boots, after several years service, had sprung a leak. I went shopping during the week ready for our FA Trophy home game to Stalybridge Celtic.

I need not have worried, as the weather turned out to be fairly uneventful with only a few spots of rain. However it was quite windy, and the trousers sold themselves, with justification, as windproof too.

This turned out to be a fairly defensive game that can be a bit difficult to photograph and write about. We started playing, as usual when we win the toss, towards the Safari Park End so I divided my time between the two sides of the goal. We came close to scoring, hitting the post, and a solid defence kept the visitors at bay.

Louis Coyne, Man of the Match

I always keep an eye out for the sponsors - they are paying to be seen after all - and with the North West Roadshow banner back in place at the end they have sponsored, I took the opportunity of the better conditions this week to crop a few pictures to get it in.

Josef Faux

This was the last game before the clocks go back, and the pitch had a decidedly autumnal covering from the trees at the back of the ground.

Jordan Southworth prepares to take a corner

The second half started with a good save from Marcus Burgess denying the visitors, and our finding the woodwork again.

Low light started to push the ISO settings up.

Jordan Wynne

James Sloane made his first appearance from the bench.

James Sloane

One of the substitutes for the visitors came from famous footballing roots - Jake Charles is the grandson of the great Welsh international player John Charles.

Jake Charles

Neither side was able to break the stalemate, making for our first 0-0 draw of the season.

After this game there were presentations, with Louis Coyne being the Man of the Match, Harry Cain picking up a delayed Player of the Month award for September after a bit of a mix up closing the poll, and James McCulloch collecting his award for 300 appearances.

Harry Cain

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 0 Stalybridge Celtic 0

Sports jacket weather

On the way to the game last week I had some random thoughts about the utility of the sports jacket. Some will know that I am rarely seen out of such a garment, wearable with anything from jeans and t-shirt to collar and tie, and with plenty of pockets for programmes, golden goal tickets, lens caps, and the other paraphernalia of the match day photographer. I thought of finding a picture of a match official of the 1950s so attired, but I subsequently found they usually wore blazers, so I had to make do with yours truly, snapping a Dulwich Hamlet Supporters' game on a warm, sunny morning in ... er ... November.

Ideal wear for photographing sport. Photo by Tony Squires, crop by me

On that occasion, I was talking to Mishi, a member of the Supporters' Team and Club Committee, and of the Grounds for Concern blog, which he has not had time to update for a while, but which has meticulously detailed views of an impressive range of grounds. The conversation went something like this:-

"Call me old fashioned ..."
"You're old fashioned Mish."
"Well, what about you - sports jackets and rugby shirts, how bloody old fashioned is that?"

Well, I never said I was not ...

Prescot Cables' were at home last weekend to Buxton in the First Qualifying Round of the FA Cup. The structure of the draw means it is unlikely that a club starting in the Preliminary Round will make it to a shot at glory in the First Round Proper where the Football League clubs come in, but the prize fund provides a welcome addition to club funds for the winners of each round.

Good weather in September means the sun is low in the sky, and at Prescot that means shadows from the side, particularly in the first half, when we were attacking the Safari Park End. A lot of tweaking of the light was required on the computer, although half in light, half in shadow can make for a good picture

Jonathon Lynch

Sometimes the players are not only half in light, half in shadow, but light is reflected off the grass, and the advertising boards are in shadow.

Mike Smith competes with Buxton's Neil Stevens, with James McCulloch ready to collect the stray ball ...

... but Mike is first back on his feet (and back in the light)

The lighting was much better in the second half, with most of the action front lit.

Ged Murphy goes for a header with Buxton's Jack Broadhead

This meant that, unusually, for the slideshow I used more pictures (by two) from the second half than the first. The selection is a mixture of pictures of competition for the ball, and individual shots that the players like for showing to friends and family and profile pictures on sites like Facebook and Twitter. Normally, for the latter I use the first decent shots I come to, so I get a lot of what I need from the first half.

Even the goal net caught the sun for a pronounced light effect.

Rob Doran and Buxton's Charlie Johnson

Buxton, being in the Premier Division, were the favourites, and the only goal of the game came for them in the 76th minute. My view was obstructed, but this was originally recorded as an own goal from Antony Shinks, although the record was subsequently updated to correctly credit the latter. It is quite clear on Buxton's video (at about 14 minutes) that Antony did not have contact with the ball, but I can see how it may have looked more uncertain from some angles.

Antony Shinks and Leon Osborne in the first half

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

Flat cap day

A few months ago, I was watching a programme about the musical duo Chas & Dave. Chas (or Dave) was telling a story about an interview with a journalist. "She said, 'Why do you wear braces?', and we answered in unison, 'To stop our trousers falling down'. She looked at us and said, 'You mean you wear them in real life?'." As someone who likes braces, at least with formal trousers, I understood their point, and was reminded of it when Phil of the Cables Pharmacologists suggested that, as Mossley is on the Lancashire / Yorkshire borders, we should wear flat caps in honour of this heritage.

The flat cap has to be one of the most useful garments for the photographer of a winter sport. It is light, easily folded and slipped in to a pocket or bag, warm (provided you get a proper woollen one) stops rain running down your face but without a wide brim against which to knock the top of the camera, and sits securely enough on the head not to blow off. That last is dependent on not having long hair: when I feel the cap starting to slip a bit, it is time for a haircut.

So, flat caps were purchased by those who did not own them, and the independently travelling supporters (or the Cables Train Crew as we have christened ourselves, despite only one of our number ever having actually crewed a train) assembled for a rather crowded 10.22. I am not sure why it was so full. With the Grand National, I can see why there were crowds on their way to Liverpool, but, although I am not particularly keen on horse racing, I have never seen the need to leave the city at all costs.

The Train Crew - photo by Richie Brown

The first stop was the Station Buffet in Stalybridge, where the stag parties seemed well under way, with one group doing their bit for flat cap sales dressed as farmers, and another impersonating clergymen, for which I think you could be excommunicated until 1963. Moving on to Mossley, we found the locals in the Commercial to be interested in their visitors and their football club, although not quite interested enough to make the ascent to watch a game.

Warren Jones and Dave Powell watch Enzo Benn and Karl Bergqvist

Having encouraged the stragglers up the hill, the game got under way with Prescot playing towards the Yorkshire end (the end nearest to Yorkshire, whatever definition you choose to use). This end has a large area of white paint, with the sun shining towards it. However, there are relatively few problems of backlighting.

Jack Webb

We had hoped to encounter the Mossley Ultras, who have something of an internet presence, as it would have made for a good atmosphere, with both sets of supporters making a noise for their teams, but we seemed to have found their weekend off - something commented on by MossleySmiffy, a regular photographer of Tameside's football teams.

I do not often include pictures from the substitutes warming up at half time, not least as I am often getting some food at the time.

The warm up often takes the form of shooting practice, with a large proportion of shots missing their target. When the services of a stand in goalkeeper were offered and accepted (slightly irregular, and Mossley would have been within their rights to object), many more shots were on target when they had someone to concentrate on beating. Given that keepers from the 50s and before wore a woolly jumper and cloth cap, our stand in keeper chose to perform his function bare headed.

The second half presented more of a problem with backlighting, hence more of the final slideshow came from the first than normal (45 pictures from the first half, 14 from the second and one from half time).

Connor McCarthy makes his debut as a second half substitute

Some people ask the question why we need cameras any more when we all have them on our phones. The answer is that they are not very good (to be fair, the camera is at least of some use, unlike the actual phone, on which I rarely succeed in completing a call, like most people, I use it mainly as a mini computer). An action picture taken on a phone has never appeared in these pages, as I have never taken one, as the delay between pressing the button and the picture actually being taken means an attempt to do so is unlikely to be be particularly successful.

However, as we went down the hill, the pharmacologists wanted a picture in front of Mossley's rather fine scenery. As I had put the proper camera away, I thought my phone would suffice. Cue a LCD display that is hopeless in sunlight, and, with no viewfinder, failing to notice three of the party were in shadow from the sign at the entrance to the park. Still, a little tweak of the lighting on the computer helped a bit, and they seemed to like the result.

The pharmacologists on tour

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

Ee ba gum, it's a bit parky

Between Christmas and New Year, leagues tend to give clubs local fixtures - not like the fifties, when teams could just as easily have a long away trip on Christmas Day, with the return fixture on Boxing Day - I am sure I have read somewhere of Middlesbrough playing Plymouth in the Football League in these circumstances. The same cannot be said for the Saturday before Christmas, where there is often a chance to take a long trip and get well away from Christmas shopping.

This year, Prescot were away to Harrogate Railway Athletic. I like club names reflecting our industrial heritage. The Harrogate & District Railway Athletic Social Club was formed by employees of the London & North Eastern Railway works at Starbeck, between Harrogate and Knaresborough.

I set out from a snowy Liverpool, where we would definitely not have had a home game, with possible alternative entertainment in mind, as I was not completely convinced by messages emanating from Harrogate that the weather was lovely and the game was going ahead. Snow was still on the ground coming in to Yorkshire. This blog uses historic county boundaries for reference, so Yorkshire begins between the parishes of St George and St John the Baptist in Mossley, or for the secular minded, between Mossley FC and the Rising Sun.

Past Huddersfield, the weather reports proved to be accurate, and I got some snaps in Knaresborough, and a pint in Blind Jack's, then headed to the game. We started in good light for December, with the regulars being joined by a couple of new faces, and a returning Colin Flood.

This being Yorkshire, and the middle of December, it was still more than a little cold. I do not find too much problem keeping warm, and my feet do not matter as long as they still move at the end of the game. That just leaves fingers, which need function throughout, despite the body's inclination to cut down the blood supply. Full gloves are fine for the left hand, which only needs to control the zoom ring, but on the right hand lose too much control over the shutter button. Bare hands end up cold and less than responsive, and I have never found fingerless gloves to be very helpful. I have recently tried running gloves, which have been an improvement - they keep most of the wind off, and are thin enough to keep control of the camera.

Not that they are completely effective, by the end of the game (a picture from the last 10 minutes or so above), it was time for the coldest part of the day, when you start moving after standing still for 90 minutes, and all that blood that has been cooling in your feet starts moving to make the rest of you cold, so it was back to Knaresborough and Blind Jack's to warm up.

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