Rush goalie

When I was at junior school, we would often agree, or the teacher would tell us, that the goalkeeper in a game of football was to be "rush", allowed to roam outfield to play, or "stick", remaining in a settled position between the posts or jumpers. Such a distinction is unknown in the Laws of Association Football, any goalkeeper may have a Jimmy Glass moment. Most remain firmly in place, and their clothing has reflected this by being warmer than that of the other players, from the woollen jerseys and flat caps of an earlier era to today's modern fabrics.

I suspect that when Garforth Town's goalkeeper Chris Senior had an age in single figures, he had a preference for rush, which he seems to have sustained into adult life, as he took a number of forays some distance outside his area. He was cutting it fine releasing the ball at the edge of the area as well, with some encouragement from the crowd to the assistant referee to keep an eye in case he overstepped.

Garforth's Chris Senior gets involved in the outfield with Ryan Grattan and Marlin Piana

Having had games postponed due to the weather, having missed a game due to what I thought the weather would be, and games mainly under overcast skies, it was welcome to have some sunshine. Low winter sun makes it almost impossible to take pictures behind the goal at the Safari Park End. The hood takes care of surplus light falling on the lens, but even wearing a cap, the glare means I cannot see much that is going on through the viewfinder. So, I beat a retreat to the sidelines.

Ryan Grattan approaches Chris Senior in a more conventional position

Even the photo on the back page of the Merseymart looked brighter than for a few weeks - they used this one of Cables' goal scorer, Luke Edwards, although the text went over the Garforth player on the right (numbers on the front of shirts, you know it makes sense).

Luke Edwards

Not many clubs have ball boys at this level, so we do not have the contretemps seen at Swansea a couple of weeks ago, although I was watching Dulwich Hamlet in a cup game at the then Lymington & New Milton a few years ago when the home goalkeeper came flying across the pitch perimeter fence and pushed one of our supporters to the ground in his rush to retrieve the ball for a goal kick. Sometimes people can be a bit too helpful returning the ball to the pitch without noticing play has restarted with another one.

Ged Murphy deals with the unwanted ball whilst Dave Dempsey plays the proper one

The clear sky and sunset about 5 minutes after the end of the game meant that, to my surprise, we completed the game in natural light, 2 weeks earlier than the first game to do so last season. Some referees would have asked for the lights to be switched on for the last few minutes, but by the time they warmed up to full intensity, the game would have finished. Also, the light was better than an evening game under lights, I was getting good results at 1/250s right to the end, which is not usually the case in the evening.

Jon Bathurst returns from injury

With a much needed 3 points from the game, the only disappointment was the crowd. At 97, this was the first crowd below 100 we have had at home both this season and last.

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