Blind as Captain Cat

I have always had a spot of bother seeing in the dark. Before buses got LED destination displays, and relied on a canvas blind, I was almost being run over before I knew where the bus was going. It gets worse as you get older, at some point between 40 and 50, you notice that light perfectly suitable for reading a couple of years ago no longer works, no matter how much adjustment of glasses and holding the paper at arm's length you do. There are some grounds with a low, even light, close to the average lux value across the pitch, where I start to wonder how they can see to play football out there.

This week saw Prescot play away at Warrington Town, one of the more difficult photographic locations, as we saw last season. On this occasion, we were the team in the less camera friendly kit.

Warrington's goalkeeper saves from James McCulloch

I decided to stick with my 70-300mm f4.5-.6 lens instead of switching to the 50mm f1.4 - on the basis that what you gain on the swings of aperture, you lose on the roundabouts of range and the proportion of the image taken up by the action. I only changed to the shorter lens at the end of the game when I went behind the goal to make a quick getaway at the final whistle.

Ged Murphy goes for a header

This meant that, not only did I have a limited range of images from which to choose for the slide show, but only really featured those of our players on the left. Although I took a position on the right side of the pitch for the second half, I met with even less success capturing images there.

We also had some unwanted light during the first half, as an idiot was shining a laser pen on to the pitch from the Cantilever Bridge behind the ground. Fortunately it did not catch any of the players, officials or spectators in the eyes.

One thing had me reaching for the Laws of the Game. I remembered something about "the goalkeeper's clothing shall be distinguished from that of the other players and the referee"...

... and wondered if there was any guidance on whether a number on the back and an advert on the front was what they had in mind. The wording is more specific these days - "Each goalkeeper shall wear colours that distinguish him from the other players, the referee and the assistant referees".

A couple of quick opening goals from Warrington sealed the result, despite a battling Prescot performance for the rest of the game. The match report on their website referred to the result as sweet revenge for their manager, Shaun Reid. I am not sure how revenge comes into it, when Mr Reid left us of his own accord after 8 games for the opportunity to take Warrington into the Football League.

After the game, I was keen to catch a bus back to town. A group had come over on the train, and with our principal guide, Richie, on holiday, and therefore unable to keep us on the straight and narrow with our pub and beer choices, we ended up in a rather dodgy establishment on the way out, so I was keen to make it to the Lower Angel to have a quick one of something decent before it was time to catch the train back.

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