At least it's proper Yorkshire

Thus said our Church Treasurer, a Yorkshireperson, when I said I had been at Harrogate Railway Athletic the previous day. I am not sure what he counted as proper Yorkshire: he disdained places such as Halifax (we do that too), but he cannot have been casting aspersions on the whole West Riding, as Harrogate is in it - parts of the West Riding ended up in North, West, South and East Yorkshire for local government purposes.

The small but select group of independently travelling supporters took our pre match refreshment in the Montpellier Quarter of Harrogate. This hosted a number of establishments advertising themselves as a brasserie, which I thought is what they call a cash machine in Yorkshire. The first establishment we visited has a sporting link, Hales Bar having featured in Chariots of Fire. The bar has working gas jet cigar lighters, although they now just contribute to the heating, as it would be illegal to light a cigar, even to take outside before puffing away, as possession of lit tobacco comes within the definition of smoking for the smoke free legislation.

This being Lent, and my having given up meat for the duration, the selection at the tea bar can be somewhat limited - no horsey tastiness of a pie or burger for me. However, these days you more or less make up your own Lent regulations: I just avoid anything that is identifiably meat, so gravy on my chips was still in. Back when Lent regulations were more rigid, one odd exception in Germany was that beaver tails could be eaten, as they looked like fish. I am not sure whether Harrogate was ever well populated by beavers (Beverley in the East Riding derives its name from the semi aquatic rodents), but they seem to have found their way on to the club crest, and as the mascot.

I have mentioned in previous posts how sometimes we need to use the background to adjust the picture to get it straight. In this picture of Liam Hollett taking a header, we might look at the crossbar and think it is a candidate for adjustment.

It was: on the camera, there was not enough of a slope. Harrogate competes with Clitheroe for the steepest side to side slope in the division. The crossbar is 8' above the ground along its length, so sloping ground correctly means a sloping crossbar. We can just about see the breeze block wall in the background, which will usually be level (in the case of Leatherhead a bit too level). To get the angle right, I started with a wider crop, so I could line up against the houses behind the ground.

When we visited Harrogate last season, they were building a new clubhouse adjacent to both the main and training pitches, financed by selling their old clubhouse for development as a nursing home. As well as providing excellent facilities, the new developments have an unexpected bonus for the photographer, as they provide handy walls, windows and drainpipes against which to align a shot, at the end where it used to be quite difficult to get the angle right. Take this shot of Carl Furlong.

Having used the buildings, they have served our purpose, so we can crop them out.

Unusually, I had something to send to the Merseymart for each of Prescot's goals, although in each case the final shot before the goal went in did not capture the image I wanted. For the second goal from Jon Bathurst, it looks as though the defender is about to get the ball.

Although I correctly captioned this as goal no 2 on the slide show, I thought this one from a second or so before, showing Jon leaving the defenders in disarray, would be the better image for the paper, and it was indeed the one they used.

Similarly, I captured Sean Myler's debut goal for Prescot's third.

However, a shot of the featured player's back does not really work, so I again used one from a second before, not quite such clear action, but at least we can see the player's face.

Finally, Liam Dawson's first goal was scored from a few yards away from this picture, but it was close enough to go in with the caption "Liam Dawson avoids his marker for Prescot's first goal".

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