Travelling hopefully and arriving

To the passenger who is lucky enough to get in and out in a few minutes, Manchester Piccadilly station can seem a model of light and efficiency. However, spending any longer soon brings to light its deficiencies. A small delay in the incoming service, a cancellation, and non interchangeable fares between Manchester and the two New Mills stations, meant that hour earmarked for a pub terrace looking at the Derbyshire scenery was instead spent waiting by an open sewer. Up north, there is still a high proportion of trains with toilets that decant on to the track. The toilets on the concourse charge, so passengers use those on trains waiting in the station. Using Piccadilly late in the evening on a hot day is not an edifying experience.

Fortunately, you do not need to go far out of Manchester to get to the scenery - and fresh air. Even around places like Romiley, which a friend who lives there had assured me was fairly urban, the hills looked only a short walk away. New Mills claim the most picturesque ground in the League, a claim with some justification.

The game was on a Monday night, which is quite unusual, Tuesday has become an almost universal midweek match night. Although it is only 43 miles from Prescot, it takes longer than you might expect to get there, so we were missing some players from Saturday due to work commitments. This is inevitable with an amateur squad, Dave Powell is keen to have options for all positions. Some players who impressed in pre season therefore made their first appearance of the League campaign.

Joel Igenoza

Davison Banda

The pitch had a distinct slope, which I think players are less used to dealing with than 20 years ago. FA regulations and modern earth moving machinery make a new ground with a slope unthinkable. New Mills demonstrated how to make use of it in the first half, keeping possession and making the ball do the work going uphill, and making us do the work following it.

They also did something I have never seen in a game before, but which worked well. About 20 minutes into the game, they turned the floodlights on, but for the first 20 minutes only on one side. This was the south westerly side, where the remaining sun was blocked by the stand and a row of trees, and the result was an even light over the whole pitch, with the sun still reaching the north easterly side. This picture of Cables' Jack Webb was taken at 1/320s, and needed very little adjustment to the lighting.

For the second half the lights gave a wide band of light down the middle of the pitch, so, unusually for a night game, I was taking pictures behind the goal. I was therefore able to catch a few well lit goalmouth shots, like this one of Luke Edwards getting his head to the ball for Prescot's goal before New Mills' goalkeeper could get a hand to it.

I was particularly pleased to capture the next moment, when they (especially the goalkeeper) appear to hover in the air to watch it go in.

It was a disappointing night, with what looked as though it would be a point falling to a late new Mills goal. The disappointment was tempered for me, however, as I won the half time raffle.

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