Entertaining the Googlies

Easter weekend this year saw Prescot Cables entertain Goole AFC. The game was scheduled for Good Friday, which meant I could catch the second half after finishing in church. However, due to snow earlier in the week, it was switched to Holy Saturday (not Easter Saturday, that is the Saturday after Easter). I was therefore able to see the whole game, having spent the morning helping to set up for the Easter ceremonies.

When I got to the ground, I could see why the game had been switched. There were large piles of snow, or, more to the point, ice around the pitch. Prescot seemed to have had more snow than the surrounding area, which rapidly turned to ice. But for the work put in by Keith, one of our volunteers, clearing the pitch on Good Friday, it would probably have taken another few days to melt. Not that everyone was happy, AFC Liverpool did not seem too pleased Keith had not been available to assist them attempting to clear the pitch for their Liverpool Senior Cup game on Tuesday. Having seen the picture from Tuesday on the Liverpool County FA Facebook page, with a third of the snow cleared and at least 5 people working, I am not sure an extra person would have made a lot of difference.

Adam Reid in front of the cleared snow

At least we had our game away to Goole in the early part of the season, as the independently travelling supporters would have trouble getting there at the moment: the railway line between Doncaster and Goole is blocked by something a bit more substantial than snow - a landslip from an adjoining colliery.

Our match day announcer, David Williams, was in a certain amount of demand for photographs, as he appeared in Coronation Street during the week. If you watch drama on television you will probably have seen David, as he plays many of the incidental characters that give an ongoing drama its variety - this was his eighth character in the Street. The last time I saw the programme was when First World War veteran Albert Tatlock (Jack Howarth) was refusing to travel in the Volkswagen Ken Barlow (William Roache) had just bought, but I believe David was playing a gentleman called Stan Whitmore, who was selling cakes containing dodgy substances to his fellow pensioners.

David Williams (in dark glasses) watches Cables away to Garforth last season

A photographic effect particular to football is to capture the action through the goal net. This is easier said than done, and you need a small focus point on the camera to be able to do it. I was unable to do it at all with my D50, the focus point was too large, so it always focused on the net, but with the D5000, it works about half the time. The more recent Nikon models have the central focus point as a cross hair, which should increase the success rate of this type of shot.

Jonathon Bathurst

The advancing goalkeeper in this picture offers the suggestion that Jon Bathurst's shot was indeed saved.

However, Prescot's two goals indicated the contrast between the ease of capturing two different types of goal. The first, from Sean Myler, was the easy sort, the player running up, with plenty of time to focus, plenty of frames (just keep pressing the button on the top - it's digital), so we capture the ball being dispatched towards the net.

Sean Myler shoots from the edge of the area

The second was more difficult - players in the box, the ball is heading to their goalkeeper, who drops it. Fortunately, Karl Bergqvuist's reactions were sharper than mine, whilst I am still focused on the floundering keeper, Karl has taken the ball round him and dispatched it. Not the best of pictures, but a good goal.

Karl Bergqvist takes advantage of the keeper's error

The 2-1 win means that moving up a further place in the table is not out of reach following a good run of results over the last couple of months. It will not have done any favours to Goole in putting space between themselves and Garforth Town, although form suggests that, with only one team to be relegated as a result of league expansion, Goole are likely to retain their league status. With a route I do not usually use (which should be open again next season), historic ground and interesting insects, Goole was one of the more enjoyable trips this season.

With the League having to extend its season by a week (initially taking the fixtures from last weekend, where all bar two games were lost to the snow and putting them on the first Saturday in May), I am not convinced about league expansion. Although snow at the end of March was unexpected, having four more games for every club cannot be good for resilience. Also, when Chester FC were admitted to the league after appealing to the FA a couple of seasons ago, we had a still manageable 23 teams in the division: if you start with 24, a similar situation will take us to 25.

As for the title of the post, I am not sure whether people from Goole refer to themselves as Goolies, or if it is a name given by inhabitants of other towns in the area. However, when webmaster Geoff was advertising the game and advising of the rearrangement on Twitter, his auto correct kept changing it to Google AFC.

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