Mr Maccle and his field

It can come as a surprise how many places in England are named after people. People lost in the mists of time in most cases, but people all the same. Near my childhood home (in a village named after the fifteenth century owner of the land), one Eadhelm, in Saxon times, built a bridge. His bridge gave its name to the settlement of Edenbridge that grew up around it, and, by backwards naming, to the River Eden, a tributary of the Medway. Meanwhile, in Cheshire, Knut (or Canute) found no such structure when he wanted to cross the River Lily, and therefore needed to find a ford to wade across. It's grim up north.

A few miles away at around the same time, one Maccle owned a field, probably a more substantial piece of land than would attract the designation today. On this grew the town of Macclesfield, where Cheshire were to play Lancashire in the final group game for the Rugby Union County Championship for the Bill Beaumont Cup.

Lancashire's Nicholas Royle gets free from a tackle

As part of my journey, I used Cross Country trains, who have introduced a new category to their seat reservation system, "Available, but may be reserved later". It is the less convenient side of their policy to allow reservations up to 10 minutes before your train: if you do not have one, you need to check at every stop whether your seat has been reserved under you.

Wikipedia tells us a Sport England survey in 2006 found Macclesfield had the third highest level of participation in sport and fitness activity in England. It seemed to show, with my unscientific observations disclosing a leaner population than many comparable towns. I should have entered into the spirit and walked the mile and a half to Macclesfield RUFC's ground on the edge of the town, but when the Arriva North West Day Rover that got me to the station in Liverpool worked here as well, it seemed rude not to take the bus.

The weather was changeable, so I needed to keep putting the cover on the camera and taking it off again. I  could have just left it on, but I find using it so inconvenient that I prefer to take it off when I do not need it. County games do not occupy the place in the calendar that they once did, but there is still a decent turn out from the professional photographers, ready to give you lens envy.

It is the thought of carrying kit like that around (as well as giving me something to write about) that keeps me working with consumer kit: a lens like that is as heavy as it looks, and the size of the bag to carry it would probably put an end to those days out with the Cables Train Crew.

As in football, there are positions in rugby that tend to attract the lens more than others. One is the scrum half, who is often on hand when the players are reasonably stationary, such as putting the ball in the scrum (he is holding the ball by the ends here, presumably to roll it in - when I was at school, admittedly 25 years ago, we were taught to put it in lengthways)...

Thomas Webb feeds the ball in

... passing it to the backs when it comes out again (they do not do those dive passes I remember from the seventies any more)...

... and getting the ball from the ruck or maul.

Replacement scrum half James Smith

They sometimes get to run with it as well.

Cheshire scrum half Joe Murray

This was a much more running game than that against Yorkshire, with even a few shots of players chasing the loose ball, with which I am more familiar in football. Numbers on the front of shirts would be just as useful too.

Going in to the game, Cheshire needed to win, and do so by 13 points or score 4 tries to win the Division and go to the Final. With the final score of 20-13 to the home side, they had not done enough, so Lancashire made another journey to Twickenham, where they regained the Bill Beaumont Cup, defeating Cornwall, returning to the top tier of the competition after some years' absence, 35-26.

Across the Pennines, Yorkshire beat Durham, retaining their Division 1 place. I think it is their turn to host next year, so I am hoping for a picturesque location - I mean Huddersfield is all very convenient, but ...

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

Coming up Roses

There are usually two or three occasions during the season when my local football is postponed, but pitches are still playable for rugby union. That has not been the case this season, Prescot Cables have been fortunate that, on a few occasions when weather was bad to the west of the Pennines, we were away collecting points in Yorkshire. On other occasions, pitches were frozen or under a couple of feet of melting snow, which made them unplayable for any game.

The extension of the EvoStik League season meant that I also missed the first game of the County Championship for the Bill Beaumont Cup, although as Lancashire played Durham at Hartlepool, I may have missed it anyway: I do not have the commitment to the Lancashire cause that takes me on long distance trips with Prescot. Granted, last year's trip to Scarborough was long distance, but that included a couple of days in a seaside resort.

I nearly missed Lancashire's home game against Yorkshire at Fylde RUFC too. My train was delayed by the failure of a track circuit in the Huyton area. I was delayed for an hour on the first day after the engineering works that put it in about 4 years ago, and it has been causing bother when I go that way ever since. A gentleman sitting opposite me wearing a rugby shirt and bearing a ticket to the same destination decided to call it a day and headed to the ticket office for a refund. I decided to stay put, as, even if I was on the next train from Preston, and therefore an hour late, I would still catch the last 10 minutes of the first half, and it was only £5 to get in.

I arrived to find a scrum being reset, which was to be something of a theme for the afternoon. Both sides seemed to be infringing, with a number of scrums ending up going round in a circle.

The referee inspects the forming scrum

As the gentleman in the entrance booth looked like he had just counted his takings, and I only had the right change for admission, not for a programme, I did not get a team list. There are substantial changes in the teams from one season to the next, complicated by a couple of leagues having extended their seasons, meaning some players missed the first game being still needed by their clubs. I recognised about half the players, at least by sight, and in some cases by name, from last year.

Ryan de la Harpe

The weather was drier than I was expecting, although the wind was coming off the sea, so I was having bother seeing at times, as it was making my eyes water, a problem I encounter less than one might suppose.

Watching the game felt as though it was one scrum after another, which I am sure makes for a good game for those participating, and for former players with an in depth knowledge of the game, but less of a spectacle for the less trained eye. However, looking at the photos later, there was plenty of flowing action to capture.

When I see a good individual try in either code of rugby, I always get an ear worm of the rugby league commentator (and former union and league international) Ray French MBE announcing "a magNIficent try". We were treated to one such from Christopher Johnson. Here, he is starting his run (the line in the background is the Lancashire 22)...

... on the way ...

... and avoiding the last of the opposition.

He converted it too.

As someone more used to football, I never get used to what happens in rugby when time is up. In football, the referee ends the game regardless of what is happening, most referees are not unwise enough to blow the whistle when the ball is in mid air heading towards goal. In rugby, play continues until the ball next goes out of play. This was the first year the County Championship league stage has used bonus points (4 points for a win, 2 for a draw, with bonus points for scoring 4 tries and for losing by less than 7 points). With the score at 40 minutes at 35-25 to Lancashire, Yorkshire continued to press forward for the try that would secure a losing bonus point, so play continued for three and a half minutes until Lancashire gained possession and put the ball out of play.

The sides prepare for another scrum

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

Counting the cars on the Rock Ferry bypass

About 20 years ago, when I went to visit a friend who was working in the United States, I took the overnight coach from Liverpool to London to catch my flight. It took a rather circuitous route, including via Chester. A few minutes in, an ear worm planted itself, substituting the Rock Ferry bypass for the New Jersey Turnpike in Simon & Garfunkel's America, and has remained there ever since.

On May Bank Holiday this year, I went to the EvoStik League Division 1 North Playoff Semi Final at Cammell Laird (as I found out when I visited for an evening game, if you cross the Rock Ferry bypass, you have missed the turning for the ground). Mossley were the visitors, and on the basis of both sides' performances when Prescot Cables played them earlier in the season, I was not surprised to see either in the playoffs.

Cammell Laird's Steve Ferrigan challenges Mossley's Adam Mathers

Mossley were unhappy with the extension of the League season, as they felt it gave a disadvantage to clubs (like themselves) who had been able to keep their pitches playable through the winter. That may have missed the point of the extension, that unforeseen snow wiped out of almost a full week's programme at the end of March, leaving little room to rearrange fixtures without pushing clubs into three or more games per week. It delivered one advantage to the clubs, as the game was on a sunny bank holiday, rather than a Tuesday night, with a crowd of 336, considerably more than Cammell Laird's average home gate for the season of 56.

Observing the playoffs when your team is not in them can lead to conflicting feelings: a wish to see a team you like doing well, against the desire to be rid of a disliked away trip. In this case, I have been happy with both trips, and I have no particular feelings for either club, so I went with the local interest, the team that finished second and therefore would have gone up in the old days, and the side containing a few former Prescot Cables players, and started photographing at the end Cammell Laird were attacking.

We have looked before in these pages about how to convey the impression of players rising up to take a header. I commented on that occasion that few photos of a header without anyone round them make it in to the collection, possibly as there is no reference point, in the shape of other players' feet on the ground, to show how far the players involved have jumped. That post was written on a cloudy day: on a sunny day, we can use the players' shadow as a reference to indicate the ground.

Cammell Laird's Craig Cairns and Mossley's Jason Gorton challenge for the ball in the air

For the second half, I was unsure whether to stay in the same position to see the Mossley attack, or to change ends and stay with Cammell Laird. As the sun was shining across the pitch, and the weather people tell us the sun at this time of year is as strong as in August, I decided to change ends, and toast the other side. This gave a better view of some of Cammell Laird's ex-Prescot players.

John Couch

Michael Grogan

With both sides seemingly unable to find the net, extra time was beckoning, when Joe Holt scored for Cammell Laird in the 3rd minute of injury time.

Joe Holt scores the only goal of the game

Mossley seemed very unhappy with the referee. I thought at the time this was because of the amount of time added on, although there had been a lengthy stoppage near the beginning of the half for treatment for 2 players after an accidental collision. However, reading the report on the Mossley website later, their dissatisfaction arose from a throw in awarded to Cammell Laird, which led to the goal, and which they thought should have been a free kick to Mossley.

Mossley then rather strangely made a substitution, which I would have thought was more likely from Cammell Laird, to run the clock down, unless they thought they could gain some seconds by completing it more quickly than the 30 seconds normally added by the referee.

I had not expected there to be a presentation of medals to the Cammell Laird players after the game, this was after all a semi final, although they may have been for finishing as runners up in the regular season. I missed the presentation, as I went to catch my bus. Not that I need have rushed, the bank holiday struck again. Having contended with no Arriva timetables having been uploaded to the Traveline database on the way out; a member of staff from the Stagecoach garage reported there were delays on their route to Liverpool, with one driver having returned 2 hours late due to traffic in the vicinity of Chester Zoo, so I let the train take the strain.

My initial supposition about the likely attendance at an evening game may have been incorrect, 622 people attended the Final on Friday evening. This was won by Trafford on penalties, so the Cables Train Crew will have our opportunity to visit Gallagher's Pub and Barbers again next season. I had thought the reason for holding the Final on a Friday evening was to avoid a clash with the FA Cup, but it may have been that the League were (rightly) expecting a large attendance at the Premier Division Final on Saturday, where a Hednesford Town side including former Prescot Cables striker Aaron Rey beat FC United of Manchester in front of 4412 spectators.

Aaron Rey plays for Prescot Cables in the 2009-10 season

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

It is a team game and all have played their part

I remember reading a reminiscence from a colleague of the late FIFA President, Sir Stanley Rous from when he was a school teacher in Watford. The writer was refereeing in a games lesson when a boy congratulated a team mate who had just scored. "Caution that boy," Rous ordered, "it is a team game, and all have played their part". That could be a fair summation of Prescot Cables' season, which we completed at home to Ossett Town at the weekend.

Not having a playing budget means that players may be tempted by clubs who can afford to pay, or may find they cannot afford to maintain training and travel commitments without any expenses. We have used 69 players this season, the highest for some years, although not as high as you may think, the average for the last few seasons has been in the fifties.

Team game or no, the records tell us who scored the goals, so the first mention should go to Jon Bathurst, the top scorer for the season with 11 goals, which includes having to take a break of some weeks in the middle of the season to rest a recurring injury.

Jon Bathurst

Good strikers are hard to come by, as they are often snapped up by teams that can afford to pay high wages. To illustrate the point that it is a team game, Jon was one of 21 of our players to find the net this season.

Like most clubs, we have awards at the end of the season. I missed this year's presentation, as I was in London - as Dulwich Hamlet manager Gavin Rose rightly pointed out to his players, championships do not come round very often, so you should enjoy them when they do. That weekend could have been the nightmare scenario, having to choose between watching Dulwich needing a result to clinch the championship and Prescot needing a result to avoid relegation. It became apparent during March that the latter was unlikely, and the theoretical possibility was removed with the emergency extension of the EvoStik League season.

Our players of the year, all playing on Saturday, were James McCulloch (Players' and Supporters)...

James McCulloch

... Ged Murphy (Manager's), also the player with the most appearances for the season ...

Richie and Frank watch Ged Murphy take a free kick. James considers the implications of Pontefract Collieries' 10th goal at Askern Villa

... and a new award this year, Young Player - looking at the ages of the players in the programme, chosen from quite a large pool - Jack Webb.

Jack Webb

These players have all made more than 30 appearances over the season, but those who have only appeared a small number of times played their part: those who helped us get a team together to start competing back in August ...

Alejandro Barba San Felipe and Gary Williams playing at Goole

... those who played a few games in mid season ...

Max Fargin in action at Ramsbottom

... and those who have recently joined us, such as Lee Novak, replacing Adam Reid in goal for the last two games, as Adam's contract with Altrincham, and therefore his loan, only ran to the original end of the season.

Lee Novak

The final score of 2-1 to Ossett Town meant we finished 17th, one place below last year, but with more points. After a steady start to the season, being 3 points off point per game form at the end of November, we had a disappointing December and January, where some good performances did not yield results. A run of good results in March and April, with a couple of upsets for those challenging for playoff places, made safety assured with 3 or 4 weeks to go.

This year's team has been one of those I have most enjoyed watching over the years. The defining ethos that Dave Powell has instilled in the team this year has been always to maintain concentration to the final whistle. For a few seasons we have often succumbed to late goals: this season we have been scoring them, from the last minute equaliser at home to Harrogate Railway Athletic, or the last minute grab of all three points at Wakefield, through to the two against Ossett Albion last week. I cannot recall a game this season where the team has lacked energy and commitment.

It has also been a good season to be watching Cables away too: the Train Crew, which started last season when a couple of people going to a game by train arranged to meet, has produced a stream of hardy travellers, mainly people who have not previously been to away games, with good turnouts for Clitheroe and Mossley.

Some of the Train Crew at Trafford

Those who have been following the troubles we have had with the pitch will not be surprised that the areas where we had an issue with mud are, after some dry weather, now somewhat dusty, as you can see in the picture of James McCulloch above. The club have launched "Supporters on the Pitch", where supporters and local companies can pay £20 to "purchase" a square of the pitch to raise money towards sanding, vertidraining, levelling and seeding the over the summer. Dave Powell has purchased the home dugout, and coach Warren Jones has purchased a spot in front of goal at the Safari Park End. We of course also need something that money cannot buy, the right combination of sun and rain to make sure the new seed beds in and grows.

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

Sit down Shepherdson, I can't see

Thus said the famously taciturn Sir Alf Ramsey as his assistant jumped up to celebrate England's 4th goal in the 1966 World Cup Final.

Cup finals and league championship deciders are not really there for people to see. In years to come, we will probably not remember much of the play, just that we were there. My activities involve tracking the game, although with Dulwich Hamlet, this is less of a responsibility than with Prescot Cables. I am something of an occasional attender (even more so this season), so if I come up with pictures the club or my friend John from the Southwark News can use, then that is a bonus.

Crowds at Dulwich have been increasing steadily over the last couple of seasons, brought in largely by the attractive football played under the manager Gavin Rose. My friend Richard commented on the forum recently that a couple of seasons ago, if he saw someone in pink and blue, he would probably know them, at least by sight; now he sees colours being worn by people he does not recognise, often some distance from the ground. I first noticed how the support base was widening about a year ago, when I went into a pub 5 minutes' walk from the ground, and found 5 or 6 tables occupied, every one by people wearing items of pink and blue clothing, or with club scarves across the back of chairs.

The crowd for this game was 1137, a majority of whom were wearing scarves and other colours, which suggests people who have come to Champion Hill before and been interested enough to buy something, rather than being people who wandered in because there was a big game. Flags were much in evidence.

The home support was distributed around the ground, as some people like to stand at the end they came in, so I had no trouble finding a bit of railing on which to lean. Playing this way means the light is right for the photographer: even when operating slightly on auto pilot.

Danny Carr plays his last game for Dulwich before joining Huddersfield Town

I do not generally go for many crowd shots, apart from a few people I know, or on a day out with the Cables Train Crew. However, on an occasion like this, the crowd become part of the event, much more than at a "normal" game, so I stood back a few times and snapped a few of the crowd too.

Shaun Dooley, joint organiser of the 12th Man scheme, gets some pictures

Dulwich needed one point to secure the Championship ahead of Maidstone United. A clean sheet would guarantee success, like in 1992, my first season watching Dulwich, when we needed one point from our final game at Hitchin Town to secure a promotion place (no playoffs back then) ahead of Boreham Wood. On that occasion, we created a buffer on 3 minutes, when Jon Egan found the net.

Nerves were not so soothed on this occasion, with Burgess Hill scoring after 29 minutes. Supporters' mood was dampened further at half time when "the Highest gave his thunder: hail stones and coals of fire". Well perhaps not coals of fire, but it was an impressive hailstorm for April. There was talk of how a team losing a commanding position on the final day almost always go on to lose in the playoffs.

From the reports I have been getting, however, Gavin is good at motivating the team to come back from a poor first half performance. I was therefore still optimistic when I squeezed into a place at the Champion Hill end, where most of the standing supporters had gathered. We were rewarded with a goal from Xavier Vidal at 65 minutes.

Xavier Vidal shoots for goal

It is not the best of photos, but the most important goal of the season is the most important goal of the season. There was an ice cream van in the ground, doing a good trade as, apart from the half time storm, the weather was quite sunny. The proprietor was clearly a supporter too, and sometimes ice cream has to take a back seat.

The ice cream vendor pauses mid-cornet to celebrate the goal

Now we were back in control, and "just" needed to prevent Burgess Hill scoring again (still keeping up pressure for an extra goal). Nerves meant attention in the crowd was starting to wander.

Attention seems elsewhere as Ethan Pinnock takes a throw in ...

... but people are looking again when the ball is back in play

The final score of 1-1 meant that Dulwich had secured our first championship since 1978. Winning the Championship at your own ground means the celebrations can get into full swing without an audience of bored home stewards wondering when you will go away.

Lifelong supporter Malcolm Bateman, looking relieved

The League official with the trophy, whose duty we assume was to spend the afternoon following the scores in a layby in the Swanley area, must have set his satnav for Dulwich once Xavier Vidal scored, as the trophy was ready to be presented a few minutes after the final whistle.

Regular goalkeeper Phil Wilson celebrates with Chico Ramos, signed with 12th Man funds when injury ended Phil's season

After that, it was some noisy celebrations in the club bar, the Cherry Tree, back to the club bar, then Goose Green roundabout (for the more fleet of foot). I left at this point, but I understand the East Dulwich Tavern was followed by more dancing on the roundabout, in some cases with less clothes.

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

Rambananas

This blog likes a good old fashioned double entendre as much as the next man, although a mildly diverting sports blog does not offer many opportunities to slip one in. Indeed, I was pleased to see that the expression "fnarr fnarr" has, according to Wikipedia, recently been added to the Oxford English Dictionary, even though I thought the Dictionary was for words, rather than phrases, and I last read Viz a good few years ago, when the comic was new, and I was in the young adult / overgrown teenager age group at which it is aimed. Finbarr Saunders seems alive and well in Ramsbottom.

Whilst, like many clubs these days, Ramsbottom United's supporters had an ultras flag, they did not seem to have any ultras attending it.

Over the last couple of months, we have made a bit of a habit of taking unexpected points off teams looking at finishing in the playoff positions. This game was another, with Prescot scoring from Karl Bergqvist and Jack Webb. I managed to get a full sequence of pictures leading up to the second goal.

Jack Webb sends goalkeeper Grant Shenton the wrong way...

...he then avoids Mark Ayers ...

... gets clear (the defender accidentally collided with the goalkeeper at this point, he needed some treatment on the field and a bag of ice from the bar at half time) ...

... steadies for a shot ...

... and puts it away before Ramsbottom's Jordan Hulme can get to him.

This raised the question of which picture to send in to the Merseymart. My choice would have been the second one, when Jack has decisively beaten the keeper, but before the keeper has (unseen by Jack) been clattered by his own defender. However, a quick enlargement will illustrate the deficiencies of this picture, the light was beginning to fade, so it is rather grainy. I therefore went for the final photo (which they used), cropping it with just Jack and the goalkeeper.

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