The youth of today

So far this season, this blog has been fairly well tied to Prescot Cables: I have not even had a weekend in London to watch Dulwich Hamlet. So, for a change, I watched a different team, but not that different, Prescot Cables Youth, playing in the Third Qualifying Round of the FA Youth Cup against York City, having defeated Curzon Ashton and Stockport County along the way.

As a club based photographer, taking pictures of the same team every week, you get used to the way they play, so you can anticipate who is likely to hold the ball or run with it, and where players are likely to play the ball. So, a game between sides you do not normally watch is a welcome challenge.

The Youth team of course lacks the older players who have replaced youthful pace with guile and anticipation. Not only that, they do not see the point of hanging round at the restart of play. A goal kick is almost always a chance to check the last few pictures to make sure everything is still in focus while the players take a breather. Not so with the Youth team, their pace and keenness to attack, combined with the efficiency of the Juniors as ball boys, meant that with a moment's look at the monitor, I was missing the action.

With this being a significant event for all the players, I did my best to get everyone in the slide show, although, with its being an evening game, I may have missed a couple, which is a shame, as all the players contributed to the performance.

It was an entertaining game to watch and photograph. In recent years, the Youth team has been a good soource of players for the First team, so I am looking forward to seeing some of these players again in the future.

The full slide show from the game can be seen here.

Touch the stubble plains with rosy hue

A sunny autumn day is always good for pictures, with the sun low in the sky and creating a contrast of light and shadows. At Prescot Cables, the stand casts a particularly deep shadow, as does everything else - even the blades of grass seem to be casting shadows of their own.

It is the situation for which auto ISO was invented - quite possibly not exactly this situation, I have never received a visit from the clever people at the Nikon laboratories, but it is certainly useful. We have looked in previous posts at using ISO settings to get the best shutter speeds in various conditions. However, these have looked at constant conditions, in daylight or under floodlights.

Where players stay in one place for more than a few seconds, such as a golfer taking a shot, it is possible to prepare a setting in advance, as there is only one lighting condition to think about at a time. In football, the players move from light to dark without worrying about my exposures. Well, I hope they are not thinking about the photos...

When I first started taking football pictures, I did not find the auto ISO setting on my D50 to be very good, it went to far too low a shutter speed before it kicked in. So, I would either set for the lighter part of the pitch and accept that I would not get many in the shadow of the stand; or, later in the afternoon, when the shadow covered more of the pitch, set for the shadow and accept that pictures in the sun might be washed out. However, the D5000 is much better, so it can jump from ISO 360 (with 1/2000s at f/8) in bright sunlight ...

... to ISO 1600 (1/500s at f/5.6) in the shadow.

The autumn light also gives some striking contrasts, both in colour ...

... and some photos that would have too much contrast to be usable in colour, but where it can make a feature in black and white (I use the "Convert to black and white" function in Photoshop Elements for this).

As for the game, it was a much needed win for Prescot against the bottom club, Ossett Albion, the full set of pictures can be seen here.

The title of this post is one of the lesser known lines from Keats' To Autumn.

Emergency wet weather cover

In my previous post, I suggested three positions clubs have on paying players - those who can afford to and do, those who cannot afford to and do not, and those who cannot afford to and still do in defiance of financial sense. I should have mentioned a fourth category, those who can afford to because of a financial backer, and suddenly stop doing so when the backer loses interest or has to devote funds to his business.

Tuesday's Doodson Sport Cup game against Warrington Town saw the first game for Prescot Cables since the return to amateur status, so the supporters who braved the weather were somewhat apprehensive as to who would be playing. Not falling into the fourth category above, there were no eye watering pay packets suddenly disappearing, so only a couple of players were missing. There will undoubtedly be other departures as some players obtain places at teams who are able to pay, or decide they can no longer afford to travel to training, but hopefully many will remain.

That the match was completed is a testament to the work of the groundsman, Doug Lace, and those who assist him, as the pitch responded well to the downpour that started a couple of minutes after kick off.

Conditions were far from pleasant, and both sides were quickly playing in brown, but there were none of the pools of standing water that we would have expected even a season or two ago, and which would have entailed abandoning the match.

Having forgotten my camera cover, and its being only shower proof anyway, I spent the first half in an unaccustomed position under cover near the half way line. Due to the weather and the game being a League Cup tie, the area in front of the bar was quite sparsely populated, allowing freedom of movement when the action disappeared behind a floodlight pylon.

This was also one of the best locations to get advantage of the new floodlights. I combined this with the technique I tried at Trafford a couple of weeks ago of trying not to extend my 70-300mm lens beyond about 200mm, and was rewarded with some pictures with less grain than I am used to, despite the weather.

This applied even to some of the longer range shots towards goal.

For the second half, I tried going up to the stand. I was not expecting this to work, thinking it would be too far away from the pitch under the floodlights, but found it worked surprisingly well, not just on the near touchline, as here...

... but also in the goal area...

... although we start to lose clarity towards the opposite side of the pitch, which becomes more apparent if you click on the picture below to see it in full size.

Of course, none of these pictures came out of the camera looking like this - how I enhance them still needs to be covered in another post.

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

Amateur status

I was speaking to a friend from University, and mentioned that one of his lecturers was now a Pro-Vice-Chancellor. Not having been involved with University affairs for nearly 20 years, he asked what one of those was - I suggested it was a Vice-Chancellor who had lost his amateur status.

The big news of the weekend for supporters of Prescot Cables (bigger than losing at Bamber Bridge - we have done that before) was that the club had decided to revert to amateur status. As a Community Interest Company, the club is not able to take on debt, and with sponsorship difficult to come by in the current economic climate, it would be far from prudent to do so if this were allowed. This is of course adjusting expenditure in line with income rather than a change of status. Some clubs can afford to pay players and do, some cannot afford to and do not. Some cannot afford to and do - and eventually come a cropper.

In the past, things were different: until 1974, clubs were classified as Amateur or Professional, with the FA Amateur Cup for the amateur clubs. In some areas, clubs competed in amateur leagues, like the Isthmian League in and around London, and the Northern League in Northumberland and County Durham. In other areas, Amateur and Professional clubs competed together in leagues like the Lancashire Combination. The distinction between Amateur and Professional clubs ended mainly because, by the late 1960s, it was increasingly difficult to identify which were really amateur.

The distinction in football was not as rigid as in sports like athletics and rugby union. Speaking to, or in one case even sharing a railway compartment with, a representative from a professional rugby league club would attract a life ban from rugby union. By the 1990s, the distinction in these sports too had been removed: in rugby union for the same reasons as in football; and after a few years in athletics where the rules of "amateur" athletics entailed paying tens of thousands of pounds in prizes and appearance fees into trust funds, whilst professional athletes, whose amateur status was permanently lost, would win prizes of a couple of hundred pounds in events like Highland Games.

It remains to be seen what effect this will have on performances, as some players will undoubtedly move on, but amateur sport has a long and proud history to the highest level, and it is a step a number of other clubs may (or should) be considering as a response to the current financial situation.

Now, this is supposed to be a photo blog, and there was a game at the weekend. I like visiting Bamber Bridge, they are easy to get to, with a good tea bar and a couple of well kept real ales in the clubhouse. The weather was unusually warm and bright for the middle of October.

I was getting 1/2000s shutter speeds at ISO 400, which I usually think of as a thing of the past by the end of September.

It was the first outing for this season's away kit - the same PaxSport design as the home kit, and a photo friendly shade of blue in the sun, here worn by Leon Clowes, on loan from Wrexham.

We will see in the next few weeks how well the colour shows up in the gloomier light of November and December.

The game got off to a promising start, with a goal for Cables from Liam Pearson - here watching the ball head to the net after beating Bridge's goalkeeper.

The second half was less happy, with Cables proving unable to hold on to a lead for the third league game in succession.

After the straightforward lighting in the first half, the sun was shining along the pitch by the second half, and the rise in temperature was giving a light haze. This is easy to get rid of in Photoshop Elements using the Levels tool, in the same way we can for misty rain, leaving some striking backlit shots.

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

Always good for a photo

This weekend saw Prescot Cables playing at home to Durham City for the second time this season, in the Preliminary Round of the FA Trophy.

We bill these games as the "Road to Wembley", although, as Prescot are in the lowest tier of clubs eligible to enter the competition, the likelihood of getting there is extremely slim - Wembley's local club have a better chance of getting there in the FA Vase. That is not to say they are meaningless games: like the FA Cup, there is prize money for each round - in the preliminary rounds equivalent to two or three weeks' gate receipts for most teams entering at this stage. Sadly, a defeat for Prescot meant no prize, and as the away team's travel costs are paid out of gate receipts, the distance Durham had to travel will have taken up most of those. Hopefully the unpleasant weather encouraged people to want something warm from the tea bar, or to stay in the bar and buy a drink.

Prescot's first half performance was particularly poor, and ultimately cost us the game. However, our second half was considerably improved, not least for the mood of the supporters, by the return of Phil Cooney.

Phil has been a popular player over the last few years, for his pace on the ball and eye for goal. He decided to retire a year or so ago, but has been persuaded to return.

He is an example of a type of player who is a gift for the photographer, what I think of as "always good for a photo". When I started taking pictures, I was not quite so quick with the shutter, and I had less lenses to cover the field. So, the players who were best for a beginner to get a good photo were mobile (an expansive running style was a definite advantage), playing in midfield or forward positions, and commanding a regular place in the team, so I could become familiar with the way he played. Here is an example of an earlier photo, away to Hednesford Town in 2008.

Other examples of players who could almost guarantee a good photo (and an excuse to have a look through my photo album) were Eamon Price, Karl Connolly and Steve Williams, all here in action against Nantwich Town in 2008.

These days I tend to snap away furiously, which generates a lot of images to look through and choose from, but means I get something usable to for the slide show for most, if not all, of our players in a game. The pictures from the weekend's game can be seen here.

Not Old, just Trafford

When English local government was reorganised in 1974, it gave rise to knotty questions about what to call some of the new areas, with two or three previously independent towns grouped into one district. In some places small villages, like Tandridge or Tendring, that gave their names to Saxon hundreds, were rescued from obscurity to become the names of the new districts. In others, geographical descriptions were used, like Calderdale, or Tameside.

Trafford brings together Stretford, Urmston, Sale and Altrincham, and crosses an historic county boundary. Its name comes from a ford across River Mersey on the Roman Road between Deva Victrix (Chester) and Mancunium (Manchester), a route largely used by the A56. The name was already well known, from Old Trafford cricket and football grounds, and from Trafford Park, Europe's largest purpose built industrial estate. These in turn were named after the de Trafford family, who owned land in the area, and took their name from the location. The rest of the borough seemed content to ignore the fact that the name is Norman French for Stretford.

Trafford FC (founded as North Trafford - the part of the borough historically in Lancashire) play in Flixton at Shawe View, a compact ground surrounded by trees, which, whilst they are in leaf, provide a good windbreak. A couple of branches could have done with being lopped near one of the floodlight pylons, as they seemed to be casting a shadow on the pitch. A couple of darker patches were closer to the middle of the pitch than I would normally expect, and one team was playing in white, with the other with a kit including black. So, all in all, a lighting challenge.

Getting a decent picture in these circumstances needs a certain amount of trial and error. A position behind the goal is not much use, there are too few of the better lit parts of the pitch in range. I stuck with the 1/200s speed I usually use under floodlights, and tried not to extend the zoom lens beyond 200mm, which increases the maximum aperture. It is not a large increase, f/5.3 instead of f/5.6, but it seems to make a difference, producing a result that, after enhancing the lighting, is a bit grainy, but useable, such as this one of Cables' Chris Rowntree.

As is often the case, when the action is close enough, and in a good patch of light, we can get a result that is quite clear after an appropriate lighting enhancement, such as this one featuring Cables' Ashley Ruane.

Apologies to the Trafford player who does not get a mention, I am terrible with names - it takes me about 3 weeks of their playing for us to start to recognise our own players!

How much grain can be tolerated in the picture will depend to a certain extent on the size at which is is to be shown.

This example of Cables' goalkeeper Michael Langley looks reasonably crisp at a small size on this page, but I left it out of the selection for the slide show, as it was far too grainy when viewed at full screen size - if you click on the picture, you should see a larger image to demonstrate what I mean. There are factors I use selecting pictures to show, such as trying to show all our players, looking out for the better images, etc., but often in an evening game, these take second place to finding pictures with enough light.

The photos that made it through to the slide show can be seen here.

Head for the hills

I went to school at the foot of the North Downs, so I would often enjoy running up Pitchfont Lane, a rather steep route to the top of Botley Hill in Limpsfield (incorrectly referred to by all as Titsey Hill). Well, our PE teachers, who included a Major-General, would enjoy thinking of us running up to collect some piece of information from the telephone box at the top of the hill to prove we had completed the route. For the sake of clarity, the gentleman was not a Major-General at the time, but subsequently switched from teaching to a successful Army career.

To be fair, the teachers would often join us, and when we had a choice of activities in our senior years, it was a good way of letting the runners take care of ourselves whilst they took a football, rugby or gym session. I enjoyed running when I found I was reasonably good at it: I certainly was not good at football or rugby, and anyone who remembers me playing will understand my preference for taking pictures rather than being on the field.

This heritage has left me with a tendency to look at hills, mutter "a mere bagatelle" and start charging up, before getting about half way and remembering that these days I am built rather more for comfort than speed.

Prescot's game this weekend was at Mossley AFC. The directions from the station are quite simple - if it looks like the steepest of the available hills, then go up it: after about 600 yards (and 50 yards up), you should be there. The view from the top is worth it, the hills have to make one of the most impressive entrances of any ground at our level.

Saturday was one of the hottest October days for a few years, with the sun shining diagonally across the pitch, so shade from both light and heat was a necessity (as well as climbing up the side of the valley, I had warmed up by enjoying a walk from Stalybridge along the towpath of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal). A vantage point at the side of the pitch was therefore a better bet than my usual position behind the goal Prescot were attacking. Not that it helped me getting a shot of Prescot's goal, as I was retrieving a ball at the time. I have taken pictures one handed with my half time pie in the other hand, but I have yet to perfect the art with a football. I did, however, get a few goalmouth shots I would not normally expect from behind the goal.

From a vantage point at the side of the pitch, there is also more action flowing across the frame ...

... whereas the vantage point behind the goal (which I took in the second half) has more action running in to the frame.

There is more to say about vantage points in future posts, but in the meantime the rest of the pictures from the game can be seen here.