Who scored that one?

Don't you just hate it when your team scores 4 goals and you do not get a decent picture of any of them? Well, not really, 4 goals are 4 goals, especially when they are against the Yorkshirepersons, and the end result assures safety from relegation.

Last weekend's match at Prescot Cables against Wakefield took place on a typical April day, with the weather forecast, not to mention the weather, changing from hour to hour. After 2 games in sunshine, and the morning suggesting more of the same, it was well and truly raining by the time we got under way. I thought I had missed the first goal when Jonathon Bathurst found the net after 3 minutes, when I was still flapping in the breeze with my rain cover, but that was disallowed for offside.

I was better prepared for Carl Furlong going round the goalkeeper at 9 minutes, although if you click on the picture, the capture of the goalkeeper leaves something to be desired.

Carl Furlong scores Prescot's first goal

I am not sure whether the issue is focus or motion blur: Carl is in sharp focus, and the shutter speed is 1/400s. It made it into the slideshow on the "goal is a goal" principle, but I did not offer it to the Merseymart, as it would not have come out well in the unforgiving medium of print, offering an alternative picture of Carl as one of the goal scorers instead.

The next goal came from a shot from Sean Myler at 22 minutes.

Sean Myler scores Prescot's second goal

This picture has everything, Sean dispatching the ball, and the opposition player on the ground to show the defence being beaten. Everything that is, if the shot had gone straight in. It was on target, but Wakefield's Jack Fisher almost succeeded in putting it out for a corner, so when I edited the pictures, it was listed as an own goal. Unusually for this level, there is a video, by Mathew Martin. Although there are no universal rules on recording goal scorers, it is usually recorded as an own goal if it only went in the net because it was played by the defender. Standing behind the goal, I thought this was the case, but in the video, we can see the ball was going in anyway, so the record was updated to credit the goal to Sean.

I did not get anything approaching a picture of the next goal, from a Dave Dempsey corner.

Dave Dempsey. Yes, I know this is a throw in.

It was thought to have gone straight in, but it was played by Ryan Grattan and headed in by Carl Furlong. The confusion is understandable, the main question was whether the ball went over the line, as it bounced out again, and play continued for a couple of seconds before the referee gave the goal.

Whilst the Hawk-Eye system will be used in the Premier League next season for such an eventuality, we will not get it in the EvoStik League any time soon (one argument against technology is that the equipment used should be the same at all levels of the game). I wonder, however, whether there will be a trickle down effect on the rest of the game. This is only the third goal I have personally seen this season where the question has arisen whether the ball has crossed the line (that includes last week's "hole" in the net), usually that fact has been clear, with any controversy surrounding offside or a foul in the build up.

I understand Hawk-Eye is an aid to assess the path of the ball, rather than an automated indicator, so it may be several seconds before an answer emerges in the event of any question. If play has continued, the referee can then stop and give the goal. However, if he stops play, only to find analysis shows it has not crossed the line, presumably the restart will be a dropped ball on the edge of the goal area, not a goal kick or corner, as the ball had not left the field of play. I do not recall having seen such a restart live, and it sounds less than ideal: a goalmouth melee with the referee in the middle and unlikely to be able to see all infringements. So, in matches with Hawk-Eye there is likely to be a presumption in favour of continuing play. If that thinking trickles down to games where the system is not in use, we could see the benefit of any doubt shifting towards goals not being awarded where the ball has not ended up firmly in the back of the net.

The fourth goal was much clearer, with the ball ending up unequivocally in the net, courtesy of Jonathon Bathurst.

Jonathon Bathurst

I was able to get a picture of Jon, but after the ball had gone goal-ward and out of frame, so I sent in the picture above, again as a set of pictures of the goal scorers.

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