Foreign parts

Prescot Cables' Boxing Day fixture against Skelmersdale United had all the elements for a surprise result.
- Boxing Day - tick;
- high flying local rivals, managed by our former manager Tommy Lawson - tick;
- visiting supporters expecting us to roll over - tick;
- last game in charge for our manager, Dave Ridler, with the lads wanting to give him a good send off - tick.

Dave is taking up an appointment overseas with the expanding Liverpool International Football Academy network. He started his playing career with Prescot, before going on to a League career with Wrexham and Macclesfield. He returned to Prescot as Assistant Manager in 2009, and took up the reins when Joe Gibiliru stepped down in 2010. Whilst results have not been as good as we would have hoped, and reflect the financial resources available, performances have improved, and Dave has uncovered some good local players.

The biggest improvement has been in discipline on the field. This has been a problem for some time, with frequent bookings, particularly for dissent, with the club near the bottom of last season's disciplinary table for senior football in England. An improvement was noticeable towards the end of last season, and has really taken hold this season. There have been hardly any bookings for dissent, and those picked up in play have dropped too, with teamwork and individual performances improving as a result. Discipline alone will not get results, but we will not get them without it, so I hope this is something a new manager can continue.

Dave's departure will take an interest in Prescot to pastures new. This blog is unintentionally doing its bit, once you put something out on the internet, it can be read anywhere. I get 4 or 5 hits a week from Russia, so I am not sure if someone is looking for tips on managing condensation on the lens whilst watching bandy (basically hockey played outside on ice). I will not have been much help dealing with extreme cold, it is a few seasons since we last visited the East Coast.

A mention of a player can start traffic. Fraser Ablett attracted a number of searches for images from Australia.

That made sense, as he shares a name with a well known Australian Rules player. I am, however, unable to explain the 4 image searches from Norway, prompted by last week's mention of the return of Colin Flood.

The game lived up to the tradition, with a long range goal from Cables' John Couch

cancelling out Skelmersdale's goal (the picture is not of the goal by the way). The Skelmersdale match report suggested the game was "not for the purist". Granted, the scramble for Prescot's winning goal from James McCulloch was not pretty,

... but a goal is a goal, and their goalkeeper looked a bit surprised when it went in.

Prescot had chances to make the lead secure that were not taken, but held on with a sound display in defence.

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.

From Caldy's woods and fields

Prescot Cables' home game against Ossett Town a couple of weekends ago fell victim to another wet weekend (or more accurately a full week of wetness), so it was off to watch rugby union again, this time at Caldy, who were playing Preston Grasshoppers.

I have not been to Caldy before, although not for want of trying. The club play near Thurstaston on the Wirral, a pleasant walk from West Kirby through the village from which the club takes its name. Unfortunately, on that occasion, what I thought was a short cut turned out not to be, so I ended up using my long lens to take some pictures of the local woods, which started my Walk in the Woods series.

The club play at the foot of the sandstone outcrop of Thurstaston Hill. The soil looks to have good natural drainage, which will allow them to play when others are likely to have problems with excess water. To illustrate how dry the pitch was, this picture is from the end of the game - remember I was not watching football 10 miles away due to a waterlogged pitch.

The hill adds to some of the pictures...

The club attracts crowds a bit larger than Prescot Cables, and a club of this size in football would be subject to a whole series of ground requirements, such as a wall round the ground, to prevent the game being viewed from outside. If anyone wants to watch the game across half a cricket field standing in a busy main road, I suppose they could do so, but I am glad they are not required to spoil their setting when it is not necessary.

The main pitch was missing the equipment that has most effect on my activities, floodlights (although there were lights for the training pitch). With rugby union mainly played once a week, with midweek games only used to clear fixture congestion at the end of the season, it makes sense not to have lights, and move the kick off to 2pm or 2.15 to allow the game to finish in daylight.

I was surprised at this level (National League 2 North, the third level of the club game in England) that the only cover in the clubhouse: a football club with a similar crowd and admission price (£8 including a programme), for example, in the EvoStik League First Division, is required by the FA Ground Grading Rules to have cover for 300 spectators, with at least 150 being seated.

Having said that, the seats are often sparsely occupied, and it needs to be raining quite hard to drive me under the cover if I can get a better vantage point in the open. However, if the forecast is for heavy rain, I might cross Caldy off my list of venues for the day - I have never been a fan of umbrellas at the best of times, and I have never tried to combine holding one with photography. Or, I could just wear a hat with a brim.

There is a balance to be struck for all community sports clubs between spectator comfort and the cost of facilities. I sometimes wonder whether the FA's approach may be a little too prescriptive, and it may be better allowing the clubs more leeway in this area, and make their own balance between the cost of cover, and any lost revenue from those who may stay away because of its absence. I think clubs can trust their supporters to have some idea how to wrap up on a cold day.

Picking up the ball and running with it

Prescot Cables' game at home to Mossley at the weekend was postponed due to a waterlogged pitch, caused by torrential rain falling on already wet ground. So, it was time to find a sport with a relaxed attitude to mud (or where a safe and meaningful game can be played in wetter conditions than football).

I therefore made my first trip for some time to Waterloo FC, who were playing Sandal. I have been an occasional visitor to Blundellsands if Prescot Cables have not been playing or I have not wanted to go to an away game. Since I have been taking pictures for Prescot, I have been more inclined to travel away, so my visits to Waterloo have been even less frequent.

P.G.Wodehouse had Bertie Wooster describe rugby (union) thus, "Rugby football is a game I can't claim absolutely to understand in all its niceties, if you know what I mean. I can follow the broad, general principles, of course. I mean to say, the main scheme is to work the ball down the field somehow and deposit it over the line at the other end. In order to squelch this programme, each side is allowed to put in a certain amount of assault and battery and do things to its fellow man which, if done elsewhere, would result in 14 days without the option, coupled with some strong remarks from the Bench." Fortunately, we will be staying on the sidelines with a camera.

Both codes of rugby present a different photographic challenge to football: players are usually holding the ball when running with it, passing is by hand, and offside is simply being in front of the ball, which makes for a more structured flow of action. I usually watch from the side of the pitch rather than my normal football location behind the goal. I have never tried watching rugby union from the end of the pitch - I have with league, and got some good pictures of players running, but missed out on a lot of tackles.

Running and tackling are of course common to both union and league. Union, however, has its own photo opportunities: contested scrums (observe the nice straight feed in the example below),

and line outs, which seem to take a bit of time to organise, but are worth it from the photographer's point of view.

Another photogenic part of both codes of rugby is passing the ball - in union the best shots often come after the ball emerges from a scrum, ruck or maul.

For once at this time of year, I have not been talking about floodlights, as, in common with many rugby clubs, Waterloo kick off at 2.15 in the winter, allowing the game to be completed without adding to the electricity bill.

The rest of the 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.