Not a game for analogue television

One of those odd memories that have stuck in my mind is a short television item from 1982 on the retirement due to injury of the then England rugby union captain, Bill Beaumont. There was a very brief clip of his leaving the field in his last game, for Lancashire, with the traditional narrow red hoops somewhat disagreeing with the picture. The television picture is mostly different now, I was surprised to find digital had not reached Scarborough when I visited a couple of weeks ago. It also shows the change in status of the County Championship since 1982, when international players were on the field, and television and press in attendance.

In Lancashire's final game in the pool stages of the County Championship for the Bill Beaumont Cup at Broughton Park FC, their opponents, Cheshire, were also wearing their traditional kit, of narrower navy hoops.

Living in Liverpool, I find games in Manchester area far enough away not to be local, but familiar enough not be exploring somewhere new. Now I do not work there any more, I do not even have the compensation of having the fare covered by my season ticket. Misjudging the length of the bus journey meant I was a few minutes late for the game. The club combined the game with their Manchester 7s competition, and the wristband for my admission looked as though it would entitle me to watch the rest of the weekend's competition if I chose to do so.

I arrived to find an evenly matched game with Cheshire having a slight advantage.

The crowd will often appear in sports pictures, and in most locations they will blend in. However, when there are plenty of people watching, we may need to reject a picture from the far side of the pitch, as the spectators are in the same focus as the players, so the action does not stand out, as in the example below.

The "try is a try" principle came into play as well, with the slightly less than perfect focus of Lancashire's Chris Briers grounding the ball after an excellent run.

This illustrates (or maybe not) a small difference between rugby league and union - league has a specific requirement for "downward pressure" to be applied to the ball for a try, union does not. I am not sure how much of a distinction this is in practice. Both require that the player's hand, arm or torso be in contact with the ball, which must be in contact with the ground. As matches are not conducted under laboratory conditions, with precision springs and balances on hand, I am not sure under what circumstances you could comfortably say downward pressure had not been applied.

The unofficial motto of this blog has always been "food before photos". This is a variable at county games, ranging from "bring your own" to a veritable feast. Because there were people on site for the 7s tournament as well as the county game, there were 3 or 4 food stalls, from which I selected a more substantial portion of chili than I was expecting. So, having not snapped the first 15 minutes of the first half, I was a non photographing spectator for the first 15 minutes of the second half whilst I finished my dinner - I can manage a camera and a pie, but this was a more substantial meal.

As was the case in the other two games, Lancashire were stronger in the second half, especially once the replacements started to be used, as most were from Fylde, along with 5 or 6 of the starting XV, so a majority of the players were used to playing together, giving a decisive advantage.

The result saw Lancashire off to Twickenham for the Final for the 7th time in the last decade. Good news from across the Pennines was that Yorkshire had overcome Northumberland, avoiding relegation from the pool, and ensuring the traditional hostilities can be continued next year.

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