German tourists

It is fair to say Prescot does not attract a large number of tourists. Being not far from Liverpool, we occasionally get visitors who have come to watch a professional game, and want to take in a game at a local club as well. We had a visitor from Germany at our home game against New Mills at the weekend, although Michael was not really a tourist, more a returning regular, having watched Cables whilst studying for a PhD at the University of Liverpool. He and a number of other supporters went for a night out in St Helens after the game. I elected not to join them, but I believe they had a good time. I was hoping they would come back with a story of an elderly person, prompted by a German visitor in their midst, regaling them with tales of Bert Trautmann playing for St Helens Town.

He picked the right weekend to travel, as this was the first game on the pitch since the Liverpool Senior Cup, played in very wet conditions in the middle of November. The team were keen to put in a good performance to bounce back from a heavy defeat away to Skelmersdale United in the Doodson Sport Cup in midweek. Being out of all the cup competitions has a silver lining, as it will reduce the use of the pitch (and the electricity consumed by the floodlights) over the winter, that so often makes league cup games a net loss for clubs.

Joe Evans returns from injury

The conditions were those of a proper December day. We started with gloomy light, much of the play being at the other end of the pitch, and two goals conceded. Things started to improve towards half time, with a goal from Jonathon Bathurst at 43 minutes. I have commented before that he often gets goals that are difficult to capture. At least this time I captured Jon with the ball heading for the goal.

Jonathon Bathurst scores Prescot's goal

However, this made it in to the collection on the "goal is a goal" principle - if we look closely, we can see it is a little out of focus, and it did not make into the Merseymart partly for that reason, and partly because there is too much space between player and ball for a print photo.

By this time it was raining, and getting on for sunset, so the grain on the pictures from the low light gave quite a good reflection of the weather.

Jack Webb

It looked as though the rain would continue for the second half, so I put the cover on the camera before taking up a position on the gasworks side (opposite the stand) for what turned out to be a much better second half performance. I do not like using the cover if I do not absolutely have to, as it restricts the movement of my fingers, and the part that fits over the eyepiece has a habit of slipping, meaning I lose sight of the action at the most inconvenient moment.

So, when the rain appeared to be easing off, the cover came off too. Unfortunately, it had not stopped, but turned to a mist, that did not settle on my clothing, but left a wet coating on any hard surfaces, including my glasses, so between cleaning I was having trouble seeing anything, and the wind was blowing a fine mist on the front of the lens. Throw in the floodlights, and some of the pictures took a bit of darkening to recover.

Callum Hoctor

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