Frozen shoulder, but fortunately not a frozen pitch

Prescot Cables' game at home to Northwich Victoria last week came after a weekend with no sport for me. Cables had no fixture, and all the rugby and football clubs I like to watch if Cables are not playing were away, with the nearest being Birkenhead Park at Broughton Park in Manchester.

With little rain on Monday and Tuesday, there was a successful pitch inspection at 4.30pm, with only light rain forecast before the match. This fell as snow, leaving a light covering on the pitch. Some were hoping for an orange ball, but our league does not even have a yellow ball. It's grim up north.

Connor McCarthy

I picked up a frozen shoulder over the weekend, a general problem I have had for years, and a cause of merely minor inconvenience. Purely for photography, it is fortunately the right: when holding the camera, the left, which just crunches, takes most of the weight, and I hold my arms close to my chest, for stability, and so the weight of the camera goes through my legs and feet, rather than the arms and shoulders. Had the problem been with the left arm, I might have been heading to the shop for a monopod, or, as my friend Jon the Pharmacologist succinctly described it when I was explaining why a tripod does not give enough freedom of movement for zooming in with still photography, "so, basically a stick, then".

He thought a tripod might be useful to counteract shivering on a cold evening, but I do not shiver at games as much as I used to. That may have something to do with being old enough to follow your grandmother's advice, and wear a coat... and a jacket... and a jumper... and a shirt... and a t-shirt... and a scarf... and a hat - advice not followed by a Northwich supporter behind the goal.

Adam Reid with Danny Jarrett

Our resident photography student thought the reflected light from the snow was worth about half a stop (half an exposure value), which makes all the difference using consumer kit, making the results that bit less grainy ...

Robert Gilroy

... and getting results from places like near the touchlines.

James Cairns

He reported that his batteries were suffering in the cold, with three having run out of charge. I had no problem, although I shoot in jpg, whereas I assume he was using raw, which uses more read/write capacity and therefore power. As his primary interest was pictures rather than play, he headed off at half time, with my parting comment being that anyone who thought the evening was cold had clearly never been to North Ferriby.

When I started watching football, I remember different disciplinary suspensions applied at our level from the full time professional game. In the Football and Premier League, a player receiving a red card would receive a three match suspension, similar to today. In the semi professional game a player would be suspended for 28 or 35 days, usually a lot longer than three matches. These were brought into line a few years later, but the effect at this time of year can be more severe than the old system. Suspension is from all football until the team for which the player incurred the sanction have completed three matches. Dave Dempsey was returning from a suspension that began between Christmas and New Year, and Antony Shinks still has one game to go of a suspension that started on 4th January, following a red card at Salford City two weeks previously. At the time of writing, if the game away to New Mills goes ahead at the weekend, the weather will have extended it to 49 days.

Dave Dempsey returns to action

An early goal from the visitors before I had had got round to the gasworks side did not bode well, but Prescot exerted some good pressure to be level at half time with a penalty from Connor McCarthy. A second half substitution bringing on James McCulloch (who had been unable to start due to work commitments, and was mercilessly ribbed by his father when he arrived to join the bench) and Rob Doran paid off with a goal from Rob to collect all three points.

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

Final score: Prescot Cables 2 (McCarthy, Doran) Northwich Victoria 1

All white on the night

A good trivia question is by what name the New Zealand football team are usually known. The answer is the All Whites, the traditional black of the referee precluding their matching the country's other sports teams in their colours. A similar kit was worn by Trafford in their visit to Prescot Cables this week.

Enzo Benn challenges an unnamed Trafford player (numbers on the front of shirts - you know it makes sense)

At evening games I am pushing my consumer kit to the limit of what it will capture, and beyond what the system recommends. Not that this is the risk presented by using it in extremes of temperature or humidity, the worst that will happen in lower light than recommended is a very dark photo.

Under Prescot's floodlights, installed to give an average value of 180 lux, I am usually using a shutter speed of 1/200s in shutter priority, as slow as I can get away with to capture the action. Under these conditions, the camera chooses the maximum aperture the lens will allow: with my 70-300mm lens, this will be between f/4.5 and f/5.6. At ISO 6400 equivalent, I am usually under exposing by between 1 and 2EV. This is about the highest level of under exposure we can rescue on the computer, at the cost of some loss of detail in the darker areas, although the darker area is the sky or the trees or houses around the ground, this is not a cause for concern.

Dave Dempsey takes a throw in with the houses in Hope Street disappearing into the dark

With a player in white in the picture, the exposure indicator suggested the level of under exposure was lower, around 1/3 to 1EV. This is to be expected: white kit will reflect all the available light, and we get the full benefit of it.

Sean Myler

I noticed too, that there is some improvement in the results for our players, who were in the normal amber and black kit. I was getting an indication that the picture was likely to be under exposed by about 1/3 or 2/3EV less than I was expecting, and I got a couple of shots a bit more towards the wings than I am used to.

Joe Evans

Again, that is to be expected, even when a player in white is not in the picture, one is likely to be nearby, apart perhaps from when the goalkeeper is releasing the ball up the field, which we solve in our case by putting him in lime green.

Adam Reid

We had had no rain for about 3 weeks, which considerably improved the state of the pitch (and ensured that white kit stayed nice and reflective). This is due to the grass not being wet and slippery, and the ground being firm enough for Doug and Harry to get the tractor and its attachments on it to make some repairs to the surface.

The game was one of those that make me out of breath just following it, Trafford immediately set up a fast pace. Prescot were the first to score with a goal from Jonathon Bathurst. I was in the wrong place to get a decent picture, even with the assistance of the white kit, although it made it in to the slide show on the "goal is a goal" principle.

Jonathon Bathurst (no 10) watches his goal go in

By the second half, the main objective was to defend our lead, in which we were ultimately unsuccessful, succumbing to a goal in the 3rd minute of injury time. However, this was another point we were not expecting at the start of the game.

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