Let it snow

As I walked from the tram to Droylsden's ground for Prescot Cables fixture, I spotted a notice on the wall of the neighbouring King's Head, announcing it as Joseph Holt's best wet pub last year. I am confused as to what this entails, as I thought all the brewery's pubs serve alcoholic refreshments and are wet in that sense, and their houses are generally well maintained and not springing a leak.

The weather forecast predicted snow showers with a strong wind. When I arrived, it was bright and sunny but, as the players went in from warming up, the first snow shower arrived. The tunnel steward kindly told me where I could obtain free tea and coffee. Everything and everyone had a light dusting.

I had some trouble stopping the wind blowing my polyethylene seat pad away before I had chance to sit on it, and this was not the weather to sit on cold ground, especially as there was a shallow drainage ditch in front of the perimeter fence. I realised this was going to be particularly cold day when I started to lose sensation in my fingers after about 10 minutes. I had sorted myself out in time to catch Chris Almond opening the scoring in bright sunshine.

Chris Almond shoots for goal

It then started to snow. A still photograph cannot show the sideways nature of it.

Valter Fernandes

The sun was soon back out.

Ben Barnes

An own goal just before the end of the half made the scores level. I spent half time with my hands in my pockets (not just an in joke, but a description of how I was staving off frostbite).

I have never seen someone brushing the snow off the lines before.

The weather kept me moving. Keeping warm was an incidental benefit, but the sun was from the south, so from behind the goal I was looking in to it, and the wind was from the east, so by the side it was blowing on to the front of the lens. Naturally, there came a point when it was doing both.

Jordan Wynne prepares for a free kick

Some on the stand side attributed the next goal to James McCulloch, and the hosts reported it to the league website as an own goal. However, those behind the goal, who had the best view immediately started chanting for Harry Cain, who retained a coating of snow on his head.

Celebrating Harry Cain's goal

Josh Klein-Davies had less clement weather to make the result secure a couple of minutes from time.

Josh Klein-Davies gets past Richie Branagan

After the game I retired to the King's Head, which appeared, in the light of its award, to be weather tight. I had intended to go straight home, but it is always enjoyable to stay around for a while after a win, and more to the point I wanted the toilet, and literally had to spend 15 minutes in the warm before I had enough feeling to grip my clothing.

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

Final score: Droylsden 1 Prescot Cables 3 (Almond, Cain, Klein-Davies).

Changeable weather

There was a relaxed air amongst our pharmacologists for Prescot Cables' game away to Salford City: theses had been submitted, vivas booked and new jobs started. James and Jon joined me for the train to Manchester, with Luke joining us there. There is a lack of pubs near the ground, so we could have gone anywhere in Manchester, but we honoured Salford's city status, by visiting the excellent New Oxford, next to the former Salford Town Hall. The company developing the Town Hall for flats describe it as an idyllic location, but I would not go that far.

Our party ready for the game - photo by Richie Brown

The pub is a few minutes' walk from the stop for buses to Moor Lane. The first to come was the 93, so it was handy to have Luke, who caught the 93 to college about 10 years ago, with us to reassure the driver of our local connection.

We arrived as the game was starting, with the team's transport having successfully avoided emus in the Warrington area (the last telling of the collision with the pheasant in October had escalated to a swan, so I thought I would up the ante further). I did not see any of Salford's owners, and assumed they had punditry commitments for Manchester United's game at Swansea, although I subsequently learned Paul Scholes and Phil Neville were watching the game from the Moor Lane side.

The sun was shining, and we were attacking the car park end, so I took up position in the corner where I would be looking across the sun rather than into it.

Danny Flood

It  was a first appearance for James Jenkins, on loan from Accrington Stanley.

James Jenkins

The weather changed a few minutes later, with a sleet shower. This was all very well for photographic effects...

... but I have been continuing my practice of not attaching a filter to the lens except to avoid getting water on the front. This is fine when I know it is going to rain, but, not expecting a shower, I found myself cleaning the lens somewhat gingerly to avoid scratching it.

There was a comment after the game that we treated the hosts with too much respect in the first half, a fair assessment, with the half time score standing at 4-0.

The sun was back before half time, so for the second half, when we were playing into the sun, the lighting conditions were perfect. Looking at the photos, you might think it was a summer day, although the wind demonstrated it definitely was not.

Oscar Durnin

Our play seemed better too: whilst we conceded two more goals, we seemed more coordinated, and took away the hosts' clean sheet with a penalty from Jack Phillips.

Jack Phillips takes a penalty

We saw the return of Liam Hollett (he had also played at Ossett Town in midweek) wearing number 6, with James McCulloch at 4, a combination we are used to seeing the other way round.

Liam Hollett

James McCulloch

After the game, we needed some more refreshment, and I needed to thaw my fingers, so we adjourned to the Northern Quarter (or It's Grim up North Manchester), where even door staff had hipster beards. It was handy for the station, to allow married or soon to be married members of the party to head home at an appropriate hour. After this, Luke recommended the Angel, with an excellent beer range, good (if a little pricey) food, and Farmer Jim's Dry Cider, which Luke declared to be delicious. The pump clip featured a drawing of the eponymous farmer with a pig that looked as though it would be equally delicious cooked in the product.

When we finally left for our train, Luke was sceptical about the estimate from Mr Google's Maps that Piccadilly Station was 20 minutes' walk away, airily indicating, "It's just down there on the left". He was right about the time, but the maps had the advantage on the direction, as we actually needed to turn right, going left would have led us to Oldham.

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

Final score: Salford City 6, Prescot Cables 1 (Phillips pen)

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

Entertaining the Googlies

Easter weekend this year saw Prescot Cables entertain Goole AFC. The game was scheduled for Good Friday, which meant I could catch the second half after finishing in church. However, due to snow earlier in the week, it was switched to Holy Saturday (not Easter Saturday, that is the Saturday after Easter). I was therefore able to see the whole game, having spent the morning helping to set up for the Easter ceremonies.

When I got to the ground, I could see why the game had been switched. There were large piles of snow, or, more to the point, ice around the pitch. Prescot seemed to have had more snow than the surrounding area, which rapidly turned to ice. But for the work put in by Keith, one of our volunteers, clearing the pitch on Good Friday, it would probably have taken another few days to melt. Not that everyone was happy, AFC Liverpool did not seem too pleased Keith had not been available to assist them attempting to clear the pitch for their Liverpool Senior Cup game on Tuesday. Having seen the picture from Tuesday on the Liverpool County FA Facebook page, with a third of the snow cleared and at least 5 people working, I am not sure an extra person would have made a lot of difference.

Adam Reid in front of the cleared snow

At least we had our game away to Goole in the early part of the season, as the independently travelling supporters would have trouble getting there at the moment: the railway line between Doncaster and Goole is blocked by something a bit more substantial than snow - a landslip from an adjoining colliery.

Our match day announcer, David Williams, was in a certain amount of demand for photographs, as he appeared in Coronation Street during the week. If you watch drama on television you will probably have seen David, as he plays many of the incidental characters that give an ongoing drama its variety - this was his eighth character in the Street. The last time I saw the programme was when First World War veteran Albert Tatlock (Jack Howarth) was refusing to travel in the Volkswagen Ken Barlow (William Roache) had just bought, but I believe David was playing a gentleman called Stan Whitmore, who was selling cakes containing dodgy substances to his fellow pensioners.

David Williams (in dark glasses) watches Cables away to Garforth last season

A photographic effect particular to football is to capture the action through the goal net. This is easier said than done, and you need a small focus point on the camera to be able to do it. I was unable to do it at all with my D50, the focus point was too large, so it always focused on the net, but with the D5000, it works about half the time. The more recent Nikon models have the central focus point as a cross hair, which should increase the success rate of this type of shot.

Jonathon Bathurst

The advancing goalkeeper in this picture offers the suggestion that Jon Bathurst's shot was indeed saved.

However, Prescot's two goals indicated the contrast between the ease of capturing two different types of goal. The first, from Sean Myler, was the easy sort, the player running up, with plenty of time to focus, plenty of frames (just keep pressing the button on the top - it's digital), so we capture the ball being dispatched towards the net.

Sean Myler shoots from the edge of the area

The second was more difficult - players in the box, the ball is heading to their goalkeeper, who drops it. Fortunately, Karl Bergqvuist's reactions were sharper than mine, whilst I am still focused on the floundering keeper, Karl has taken the ball round him and dispatched it. Not the best of pictures, but a good goal.

Karl Bergqvist takes advantage of the keeper's error

The 2-1 win means that moving up a further place in the table is not out of reach following a good run of results over the last couple of months. It will not have done any favours to Goole in putting space between themselves and Garforth Town, although form suggests that, with only one team to be relegated as a result of league expansion, Goole are likely to retain their league status. With a route I do not usually use (which should be open again next season), historic ground and interesting insects, Goole was one of the more enjoyable trips this season.

With the League having to extend its season by a week (initially taking the fixtures from last weekend, where all bar two games were lost to the snow and putting them on the first Saturday in May), I am not convinced about league expansion. Although snow at the end of March was unexpected, having four more games for every club cannot be good for resilience. Also, when Chester FC were admitted to the league after appealing to the FA a couple of seasons ago, we had a still manageable 23 teams in the division: if you start with 24, a similar situation will take us to 25.

As for the title of the post, I am not sure whether people from Goole refer to themselves as Goolies, or if it is a name given by inhabitants of other towns in the area. However, when webmaster Geoff was advertising the game and advising of the rearrangement on Twitter, his auto correct kept changing it to Google AFC.

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