Pies to Wigan

I was sitting in the stand at Wigan Robin Park, whom Prescot Cables were visiting for their first midweek pre season game, munching the snack I had bought in Liverpool, when I realised the incongruity of my position. I had come to Wigan, and brought my own pie. Not that I would imagine many bakers would have been open at 7pm, and as the humidity meant a downhill walk from the station to the ground was unpleasant enough, I would not have been inclined to go looking for any. It was an evening, at least in the early part, where the conditions make you glad you are not playing.

The club play at the Robin Park Arena, part of a sports complex next to the DW Stadium, the home of Wigan Athletic FC and Wigan Warriors Rugby League Club. The arena is a full athletics stadium, with an 8 lane running track, the normal installations for field events, and a decent sized stand.

I have never worked out what the gates are for on the enclosure, as they do not seem to be at an angle that would catch any hammer or discus accidentally released in the wrong direction that would not have been caught by the fence. It was, however at a very convenient location to reduce the time needed to retrieve stray balls.

Brown is not a common colour for football kits, with the only clubs I can think of off the top of my head who use a significant amount of the colour being Corinthian-Casuals and FC St Pauli of Hamburg - even Sutton United seem to have reduced the amount of one of their traditional colours to trim on an otherwise yellow kit. So, a brown kit with a red front to go with the name would have been too much to hope for, but in line with many modern kits, they have a plain red back.

I fully agree with having a plain panel on the back of a striped shirt, as it makes it easier to read the numbers, but I have never been keen on the front and back of the shirt being a completely different pattern.

Having full athletics facilities makes it difficult to find a vantage point close to the pitch. By the stand, you are looking across a running track and a long jump pit. Behind the goal, the curve of the track takes you away from the action. So, I went for a position opposite the stand, by the hedge, where the midges live, and where I found ... another long jump pit.

The lights were designed to illuminate the track, with three pylons along each side and three on each curve, which, when it was time for them to come on, made for well illuminated wings, being fairly evenly lit  all along, with the darker patches in the middle of the pitch. I am not sure whether they use the stadium for field events at night, the light looked good enough for safety, but I am not convinced about measurement, particularly with a discus that bounces when it hits the ground.

I like to include the ball in an action shot (as distinct from a portrait), but I sometimes wonder how far away the ball can be from the players and still make for a good shot. When players are chasing a distant ball, we can get away with quite a distance.

I am not sure how much you can get away with when it is a header and still give the sense of what has happened - I put this picture in the published collection, so viewers can judge for themselves.

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

Is there honey still for tea?

Football's pre season games seem to start earlier every year. In part this seems to accommodate an earlier finish to the season to make way for international fixtures, which rarely trouble the sides I watch. Also, managers at all levels want to have a better preparation for the season than in days gone by, when the drill was a couple of warm up games against traditional opponents and letting players run off the summer in the first couple of games of the season.

The latter is not an option these days, there are important games in the first few weeks of the season with the FA Cup Preliminary Round on the August Bank Holiday weekend (with County League clubs starting 2 weeks earlier in the Extra Preliminary Round), and the FA Trophy in September. Clubs at our level are unlikely to win these competitions, but there is prize money for all rounds, so a successful couple of games can bring in the equivalent of about a month's gate receipts - valuable help paying the bills - so good preparation for the season can make all the difference.

It means that those of us who like to follow the pre season schedule are treated to the ambience usually associated with cricket, relaxing on the grass in the summer sunshine in the shadow of historic church towers peeping out from behind the trees.

Maghull FC, whom Prescot were visiting for their second pre season game, share a field with the local cricket club, who were also playing. So, the question was, to watch the game from the clubhouse side with the barrier a few yards from the touchline, from behind the goal looking into the sun, or from the far side avoiding both disadvantages at the risk of being felled by a well hit six. As it turned out, I think our ball was causing more hazard to the cricketers than theirs was to us.

Half a second later the score was 140-2

The grass was looking as healthy as one might expect with the watering it has had, and the ground looks well drained, as it was dry to sit on only a couple of days after we had to cancel a game elsewhere due to a waterlogged pitch.

Even though it was only the second game, we could see a team taking shape. The more I see of the players, the easier it is to anticipate their movements, and the way they play the ball, making a better chance of getting a good shot.

The better weather brought a few of our regular supporters along (to be fair, a majority of those pictured had been at the Stockport Sports game last week), and Dave Powell took the opportunity to introduce himself to some of those he had not met before.

The away support hanging on for the ride ahead

The results of these pre season games are not too significant, as they are more about preparing the team for the season ahead, but some well taken goals in a 5-0 win will have done no harm to the players' confidence.

After the game I headed back to the station with a vague sense I had forgotten something. When I sat back in my seat on the train I remembered - my friend Mice (his name is Mike, but Mice has become the usual greeting for Christmas and birthday cards from humorous e-mails lost in the mists of time) lives about 300 yards from the ground, and I was going to check if he was in and arrange to call round before or after the game. With the weather, I wanted wait and to see if I would be travelling before doing so ... so, er, sorry about that if you are reading!

Nosing round the neighbours

Back in the seventies, when the neighbours bought a new piece of electrical equipment, it was the done thing to find an excuse to pop round to have a good nose. We have so many gadgets and replace them so often these days that if we were to do the same, life would become one constant round of inspections. However, clubs do not get new floodlights every day, so with a game at Marine that did not clash with one for Prescot Cables, I thought I would take a look.

Marine needed to replace their floodlight system over the summer (rather than the bulb and head replacement Prescot undertook last year), as the electrics were showing their age, causing a couple of fires, fortunately without injury or extensive property damage. The new system has corner pylons, replacing an arrangement with 4 pylons along each side. The new pylons have 7 lamps each, which means the lightest area is at the corner of the pitch and along the wings, with the darker spots being in the goalmouth and centre circle. The modern heads are designed to reflect light that would have gone upwards or in unwanted directions, such as on to the windows of neighbouring houses.

Looking at the documentation supplied to Sefton Council with the planning application, the luminance for the first 100 hours is 438 lux, with the long term value (for 4000 hours) of 350 lux, assuming appropriate cleaning and maintenance. I had not realised the light deteriorates after the first 100 hours and remains reasonably constant after that, I thought the rate was more even over time.

The lights were on for the start of the game, which I was not expecting, although the weather was quite changeable, so having them on from the start meant they would be fully warmed up if the cloud cover increased.

A shot from the beginning of the game

They proved very effective, I was getting shutter speeds of 1/320s right up to the end of the game at 9.15 with ISO mostly between 1600 and 3200 using the shutter priority mode, with the best results being from near the touchline, and from the edge of the penalty area.

Of course, the real test is not on an evening in July when the lights are new, it is on a wet Tuesday night in November, after the first 100 hours, with the opposition in dark red with black shorts. As this is the only local ground with lights to the 350 lux standard, I shall be back when Prescot do not have a game to check them under the conditions for which they were designed.

The rest of the pictures from the game can be seen here, in a slightly odd order, as the date and time on the camera decided to reset itself (I think it may have got to 100,000 shutter cycles) - they can also been seen in the correct order on the club website.

From touchline to shining touchline

"I would not know where to buy suits that shiny", mused the Vicar, observing a particularly fashionably turned out congregation for a baptism. For me, a suit shinier than shoes is on the list of people your grandmother would warn you about, up there with more rings than fingers. These wonders are achieved by the judicious addition of modern synthetic fibres, so I should not have been surprised at the degree of shine imparted by a polyester pitch on a sunny day.

Rich Moran

As the shine is only from the level of the pitch, it is not as troublesome as other kinds of backlighting - as we can see above, the lighting has taken its cue from the more matt finish of the wall and natural grass bank behind. Given the weather we have had recently, I should have been surprised at a sunny day, although it was only sunny for part of it. Also, playing on an artificial pitch at least guaranteed that the game would go ahead.

This was Prescot Cables' first pre season game, against Stockport Sports, previously Woodley Sports. Our 4-0 defeat there on the opening day of last season suggested we may be in for a long campaign. Whilst they had a good season on the field, they were relegated due to ground grading and security of tenure issues. They seem keen to bounce back, adopting the Stockport Sports name to increase sponsorship opportunities, as few from outside Stockport are familiar with Woodley. This may be true: last year most of our independently travelling supporters went directly to Woodley and pronounced themselves unimpressed with the choice of pubs, whereas I realised it was a short bus ride from Stockport, and accessed the selection of Good Beer Guide establishments there. Their ambition extends on the field too, as they have attracted the European Cup winning player and former Thailand and Indonesia manager Peter Withe as their manager.

Building work was ongoing at their home at Stockport Sports Village, so the game was played at the JMO Sports Park, a small complex of pitches in Skelmersdale, and handy for the main bus route, which stopped a couple of hundred yards away, near a roundabout. This, on inspection if its sign, appeared to be called "The Roundabout", a strange choice of name in a town that has one every few hundred yards.

Stockport had already played a couple of pre season games (the North West Counties season starts a couple of weeks before ours, at about the time pre season games used to start), so they fielded the same team for both halves, whereas Cables' new manager Dave Powell took the opportunity to try two different combinations of players in a match situation, with only James Thomas playing in both halves.

Dave Powell

James Thomas

At this time of year, there is always speculation as to who will be back, as non contract players' registrations expire on 1st June, so players are free agents until they register for the new season. The first couple of pre season games are an opportunity to see who is pulling on a shirt, and of course word spreads around about who has appeared elsewhere. Even other managers take an interest, I spotted in the background of one of my pictures that Tommy Lawson, the manager of Skelmersdale United had stopped off for a few minutes to take a look.

Steven Longrigg gathers the ball with James McCulloch in defence

Steven Kelly

Returning players appearing in this game included Stephen Longrigg in goal, James McCulloch and Steven Kelly. Also present was Liam Hollett, who will not be playing for a month or so, as he is recovering from a knee operation - I am trying to remember a game since Liam started playing regularly for the first team when he has not been present, even when injured or suspended, he has been there, supporting the team.

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