Watching Liverpool FC ... no, not that one

The Prescot Cables Train Crew were approaching our trip to Radcliffe Borough last weekend with some anticipation. This would be our first away trip, indeed our first game, since New Year's Day. We even had a new leader in beer and pub choices, Richie having delegated duties for the day to Luke, one of our pharmacologists, who is from Prestwich, and who could therefore use local knowledge. This was despite his mainly drinking cider with ice, although he does have the real stuff when it is available. As an aside, why did ice in cider take off? From being unheard of when I was Luke's age, 20 years ago, it became ubiquitous, to the point that a few years ago, my friend Roger had to stop the barman reaching to the ice bucket for his pint of the local real stuff in Worcester, where you might expect them to be more traditionally minded.

What is becoming a rather monotonous pattern of weather, with heavy rain on Friday night, put paid to that, with the game at Radcliffe having been called off after an early pitch inspection. So, with Birkenhead Park having made use of my photos from my last visit, I made my way back. Having commented that one of the constituents of Liverpool St Helens FC was the original club to hold the name of Liverpool FC, I found they were the opposition this weekend.

Before I set out, there was a downpour that worked its way across the country, reaching the Midlands, Yorkshire and London during the time for football, causing some matches to be abandoned as five minutes' rain deposited pools of standing water on pitches.

At Birkenhead, most of the water seemed to have soaked in. The game started with the kit looking pristine.

We can see the roof of the changing rooms in this picture - I assume the slipped tiles are from successful conversions, although a couple out of the picture to the left must have come from some very wayward attempts - or successful ones from a very tight angle.

The state of the ground meant nobody stayed spotless for long ...

... even the scrum halves, whose duties involve staying on their feet more than many other players, were starting to look a bit muddy.

It was clear quite quickly that the home side were going to dominate this game, having gained the bonus point for scoring four tries within the first half hour.

When I was selecting the photographs for the slide show, I very quickly switched into "club" mode. Although I tend to follow my local side even when I am visiting a club I do not usually support, when I am planning to use the photographs just for my own audience, I will pick some individual shots of the visiting players. Once I know I am working for a club audience, I concentrate heavily on the home side.

Eric the webmaster asked me light heartedly to look out for his son, who was playing in the second row. Fortunately he had a good game, scoring a try ...

... and then giving a (much needed in view of the wind) hand in converting it.

As well as the wind, we had a short hailstorm, which always makes for a good photo effect, although less good for the players, or for the person of the photographer for that matter.

The sun came out for the last few minutes of the game, although that did not mean conditions were any easier, the wind was still gusting strongly, mainly to the disadvantage of the visiting team. Here is one of their players taking a kick from his own in goal area.

After a gust of wind caught it as it was in mid air over the 22 metre line, it ended back more or less where it started.

Heavily one sided games in any sport are never really the best, apart from for bragging rights for the players and supporters, The rest of the pictures from the sort of game at which I am glad to have something to do can be seen here.

Final score: Birkenhead Park 73 Liverpool St Helens 7

Over the hills and far away

With the weather performing the same feat for a third week in a row, namely a dry start to the week with heavy rain on Friday night and Saturday morning, there was once again no game for Prescot Cables, and therefore another rugby game for me. My options were limited, with National League 3 and below taking a week's break. Rather than having a long winter break, this seems a sensible way to organise fixtures, as it gives clubs the opportunity to play games that have had to be postponed, but avoids a long lay off when pitches are playable followed by a string of further postponements.

National League 2 had a full programme, however, so it was off to Caldy, who were at home to Otley: this blog always enjoys a visit from Yorkshirepersons. I have been before, but I was trying a new route, getting off the bus at Frankby and walking over the hill towards Thurstaston. Given that getting lost on the way to the club once spawned a whole photo project, this might have been setting the afternoon's entertainment at risk. I indeed got the timings a bit wrong, arriving about 15 minutes in to the game. No-one was posted to collect admission fees from latecomers, so I got in for free.

I am not sure what the home side did to the opposition, but they looked scary enough to me.

Both sides were keen to give us a robust game.

Both sides, but particularly Otley, made extensive use of the maul. This is when the ball is in a group of players with the ball carrier on his feet, and in this case the side with the ball uses weight of numbers to push forwards. At least, I think that is what was going on. It is a good piece of action to watch, as there is a fair amount of sheer power involved, but less useful for the photographer, as the ball tends to be hidden by the players.

Contrast where the ball is being fed back to be passed to the backs.

 It was an overcast day, the automatic white balance on the camera left the original photos looking a washed out. This can be corrected to a certain extent on the computer, but this left the players' faces with a somewhat pinkish hue, more than was actually the case despite the wind giving everyone a weathered appearance.

We saw in our last game how the law that the ball be put in straight at the scrum is to be strictly enforced - both the referee and the opposing scrum half were looking closely to see this was being done.

With Otley having had the lead for most of the game, Caldy came back with a late try and this conversion to clinch the result.

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

Final score: Caldy 26 Otley 25.

Padding the timetable

One hazards of travelling by train to fixtures you may attend often enough to remember the time of the train, but not often enough to keep fully on top of small changes, is finding that the timetable has undergone a bit of padding. Last week was the first time I had been to watch Firwood Waterloo for a couple of seasons, last season had too many weekends with no sport at all. So, the 15 minute journey that, with a seven minute walk from the station, meant the right train could get me there as the game kicked off, had now changed to 20 minutes, so at kick off time I was trailing along the road in the wake of a sprightly elderly gent, with the unmistakable sound of a game coming from the ground.

I arrived to find the game against Sale FC in full progress in bright coastal sunshine.

When I was at school, there was a chap a couple of years above me, known to all as Wilf, who had an optical prescription heading into double figures, and whose talents were most definitely in the academic direction. A mutual friend told me of a PE lesson where he received the ball, sprinted for the line, deposited it in the appropriate manner, wondering why he had encountered no opposition, only to find he had placed the ball over the touch line. I am sure Waterloo's Freeman Payne was unlikely to do the same, but the coach seemed keen to make sure.

It had the desired effect, resulting in a superb individual try.

The scrum is something of a mixed blessing for the photographer - players are in one place and not moving too quickly, but there is a limit to how many scrum photos you want from one game. The sequence of engagement has been revised - the "crouch, pause, touch, engage" sequence, where, if the referee was a bit slow, the last step could be a statement of fact rather than an instruction, has been replaced by "crouch, bind, set".

This is to ensure the packs are in contact before they start pushing, with the aim of reducing the risk of neck injury. Referees are instructed to ensure the law that the ball is to be put in straight is strictly enforced.

This has the result that the opposing hookers compete in hooking for the ball with their feet. When the changes were introduced, there were complaints from Premiership coaches that their hookers had long since lost the skill of hooking, which was met with a typically forthright observation from Daily Telegraph correspondent and former England hooker Brian Moore that the clue to the function of the position was in the name, and that they should find it again. From my somewhat inexpert observations, this seems to have made the scrum a more genuine contest, albeit with a strong advantage to the side putting in. In this game I noticed the ball being won by the side not putting in twice in as many minutes (once for each side), which I would not have expected in the past

One aspect that leaves me confused is what a player who has been tackled is allowed to do with the ball on the ground. I thought the player simply had to release it, but these days you seem to be allowed to hold it in a convenient position for your team mates.

I wondered whether this was just my memory, but I was not alone: I was standing in front of a group of former players who looked to be in their forties, as I am, and they were reminiscing about how it was better in the days when you just let go of the ball.

The game was a bit one sided in places, as you might expect with Sale chasing the title and Waterloo competing to avoid relegation, although Waterloo still managed a couple of good tries.

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

Final score: Firwood Waterloo 13 Sale 45

A trip to the park

A few years ago, I was visiting a friend from school and his young son. He was an intelligent chap (and still is, I hasten to add), and I was soon on my hands and knees showing him how to shunt the carriages on his train set. I was regaled with how, after I left they went to the local park and played football for a few hours, attracting a large group to join in by the end. Then, one visit, he had a video game. Everything seemed to have changed: "Morning Luke" "Mm", "How are you?" "Ug". I thought all was lost, until, half an hour later, he looked up and asked brightly, "When are we going to the park Daddy?".

Last weekend took me to a local park, or at least a ground in one, with the weather making finding a place to watch sport a fluid situation. The report from New Mills, where Prescot Cables had been due to play, was that much work had been put in to the pitch on Friday, but it was likely to be in vain if the forecast rain fell overnight.

When the game was called off before I needed to set out, the options were rugby at Caldy or Birkenhead Park. Caldy were advertising a 3pm kick off, which seemed odd, as I do not recall their having floodlights. So, I decided to get off the bus (it is the same route to both grounds for me) at Birkenhead Park for their 2.15 kick off against Kirkby Lonsdale, with its guarantee that we would still be able to see what was going on by the end.

Birkenhead Park are one of the oldest clubs in the area, with their socks proclaiming they were founded in 1871.

Note the initials over the clubhouse door.

Rugby was the first football code to take hold in the Liverpool area, with many older clubs in the area carrying the suffix "FC". Liverpool FC were less than amused when the exponents of the non handling game helped themselves to their name without so much as a by your leave, and the merged Liverpool St Helens club maintains the "FC" tradition.

The ground is on the edge of the park from which the club takes its name. The park side terrace has become covered with grass.

In football, FA requirements would insist this be fenced off, but rugby is more inclined to trust their spectators to make their own assessment of the state of the ground. I made my way round, as it was less populated than the street side, and gave me freedom to move up and down with the flow of the game.

As it was a cold, damp day, everyone could see their breath, which, when 16 blokes have been running and gather for a scrum, that means a certain amount of steam, all good for a photo.

The ground had floodlights. Although we could probably have managed without, they were turned on for the second half, which made the camera work easier, such as in this shot about half an hour in, so at about 3.30.

The sun made an appearance in the last few minutes of the game, so after the final whistle, I hopped on the bus to West Kirby to catch the sunset.

When I had uploaded the pictures, I sent a link to the club webmaster, who sent a nice note back saying he had enjoyed the photos, particularly as his son was playing, and that he would put them on the website. He also put the programme editor in touch - I am always pleased when a club has a use for my photos. The club have a Pitchero website, which used to be easy for photo sharing, you uploaded them yourself, and the webmaster then approved them for publication. I do not know if they were getting inundated with images, including spam, but you now need to declare yourself a player, parent or official club member (which of course I am not) in order to request permission to upload.

The rest of the pictures from an end to end game, with the teams never more than one score apart, can be seen here.

Final score: Birkenhead Park 17 Kirkby Lonsdale 15.

Not getting the bus to the bus garage

These pages remain scrupulously neutral between the red and blue sides of Merseyside. However, I found myself wearing an Everton scarf on New Year's Eve - along with a woolly hat and thick gloves, attempting to open and eat a bar of chocolate with a knife and fork. I do not usually do anything for New Year, but my friend Philip and his family invited me to join them for the evening. As an Everton supporting household, they supplied the obvious garment for the game. They also support Marine, but with everyone throwing dice to get their turn with the clothing and the chocolate, there was no time to quibble over football allegiances.

Having been in a family environment, I was, alone amongst the Train Crew gathered at lunchtime on New Year's Day, in a fit state to operate precision electronic equipment for Prescot Cables' game away to Cammell Laird. We took the train to Rock Ferry: although the bus garage is behind the ground, experience with the bank holiday service suggests it is better to let the train take the strain. At least our local game was a short journey, Crawley Down Gatwick, with their name suggesting to the fixture computer that they are near an airport, found themselves with an away fixture at Guernsey FC.

The weather seems to be alternating between light and dark, so this time it was the turn for low cloud that had blown in after a bright start to the day.

We have not always had the best of results visiting Cammell Laird, indeed I cannot remember winning there, but things were looking up early in the first half. Former Cables defender Liam Hollett seemed to have won a tussle with Isaac Kusoloka for the ball ...

... but Isaac was able to slip past and take the ball away from former Cables goalkeeper Michael Langley, who had come a bit too far off his line.

The gloomy weather meant the floodlights were required throughout, but the installation at Kirklands is only a couple of years old, so results were still good in the first half.

Robert Gilroy

Things got worse in the second half, both for pictures and play. It started to rain, with the wind blowing in the direction of the goal we were attacking, making it difficult to keep rain off the lens. On the field, Nick Culkin went off injured at half time, which seemed to unsettle the defence as a whole. They were further unsettled when a clearance deflected off former Cables player John Couch and into the net, and, whilst the team kept up their efforts to the end, it seemed inevitable that our poor form away to Lairds would continue.

This was Ged Murphy's last game with us, as a couple of days later he accepted the position of Assistant Manager at Droylsden, where he played for a number of years. With a new baby imminent, he felt it was time to move to a club nearer to his home and business. We have certainly seen in the time that Ged has been with us that he relishes a challenge, and he will have one at Droylsden. With two points from 29 games, relegation is surely inevitable, but there is still the opportunity to stop the slide, attract local players who are keen to impress, get them playing as a team, pick up a few points and build a team that can compete in the First Division North next season. If anyone can do it, Ged can.

Ged Murphy gets everyone in position for a free kick

We also said farewell in December to Enzo Benn, who has been solid in defence for the last year or so, as well as scoring a couple of good goals, and is moving to London. I think we were hoping he would be able to play over the New Year but it was not to be.

Enzo Benn

This blog wishes both Ged and Enzo best wishes for the future.

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

Final score: Cammell Laird 2 Prescot Cables 1 (Kusoloka)

No hat, no picture

The phrase "hat trick" to denote a sporting achievement occurring three times comes from cricket. When one H.H. Stevenson took three wickets in consecutive balls in 1858, his team mates bought him a hat. This seems more practical than the traditional match ball in football: the principle of "bring your own ball" does not apply much above the public park, and you cannot have too many hats, especially if you leave them on public transport at the rate I do.

For the weekend after Christmas, Prescot Cables were entertaining Padiham, whose original incarnation was one of the most successful clubs in Lancashire before they were overshadowed by the teams from the larger towns of Burnley, Blackburn and Preston. They, like us, were members of the Lancashire Combination and founder members of the North West Counties League, but had to drop out of the latter in 1990. Over the last few years have successfully rebuilt, and are playing their first season in the EvoStik League.

The weather was much more pleasant than on Boxing Day, and although the stand blocks out quite a lot of sun by 3pm, some still gets through on to the pitch.

Lewis Coyle goes for a header

The primary purpose of these pictures is to highlight our players at their best. Conceding a free kick does not fit in with that objective, so you do not see many of those minor offences everyone gets up to from time to time. However, when the light is just right and the referee is not looking...

Sean Breen gets to grips with his opponent

The justified man of the match for Prescot was Phil Bannister, with all three goals.

Phil Bannister

The first was announced as an own goal, but the attribution was corrected after Dave Powell gave his opinion that, whilst the defender changed the direction of the ball, it was from heading to the bottom corner of the net to going in to the top. The other two came in the second half, the first when I was not quite in position, and the second I when thought I had time to change a battery. The scorer of a hat trick is a natural subject for a picture for the Merseymart, preferably when scoring one of the goals, but I had to make do with the picture above. So, not only no hat, but not the best of pictures either.

With the sun, there was plenty of natural light well in to the second half, and I delayed my move to the gasworks side. I was rewarded with probably one of the best resolution shots of our own goalkeeper I will probably get all season.

Nick Culkin

I was speaking to Dave Powell after the game - he mentioned that there is a flurry of activity on Twitter when I publish the link to my pictures. That is the idea - if players are tweeting pictures of themselves playing for the club, it builds team spirit, and helps to promote the club amongst their families and friends.

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

Final score: Prescot Cables 3 (Bannister 3) Padiham 0

Christmas jumpers

There was once a football club (now defunct) with a name that was almost made for Boxing Day, although I never watched them on the day, or any other day for that matter. Leftovers SC was the second team in East Grinstead when I started watching football, playing in the Sussex County League Division 3.

I have never been a great fan of the Boxing Day fixture - it often seems like an excuse to get out of the house after the enforced jollity of Christmas Day. This year, Prescot Cables were entertaining Warrington Town, which made sense, as they are among our nearest opponents. That assumes people can get there - there were fewer visiting supporters than I was expecting, the missing ones I suspect being those without their own transport. Many of our own supporters had a fairly frequent service on the main 10A Liverpool to St Helens bus route, but for those from further afield there was no public transport at all.

Both teams looked like they were preparing for serious business.

Although we escaped the worst of the storms that affected other parts of England, the weather was still not pleasant - a gloomy day, and one to wrap up warm.

Dave Powell

Warrington manager Shaun Reid seemed to have found a warmer jumper than usual, but sticking with trusty 100% Wool.

Shaun Reid and Lee Smith

There were first starts for two players who impressed in substitute appearances at Salford before Christmas, Robert Gilroy ...

... and Pavel Pinto-Vieira, who has most recently been playing in Portugal.

I have commented when playing Warrington on the section from the Laws of the Game that used to say "the goalkeeper's clothing shall be distinguished from that of the other players and the referee", and for which I cannot remember the current wording. As an aside, I know the Laws do not necessarily need to flow, but given that match officials do not have time to leaf through them in the middle of a game, they should at least be memorable. On that occasion, their goalkeeper was dressed from head to toe in black, with the only distinction I could see from the referee and assistants being a number on the back.

This time, the possible clash was with our kit. Here is Dave Dempsey taking a free kick.

In this picture, the goalkeeper's kit looks very similar to ours, just a different shade of yellow. There is a bit more contrast close up, it looked better to the naked eye than it does to the camera, and the match officials accepted it as enough of a contrast. Here is Isaac Kusoloka finding the net, but unfortunately being denied for offside.

That was in many ways the story of the game, our players put in a good performance, but the result went very much according to form and current league position.

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

Final score: Prescot Cables 0 Warrington Town 2.

An apple, a tangerine and a bag of nuts

I do not have children of my own, but if I did, I suspect they may not like my ideas about a traditional Christmas present. Not for me the delights of Xboxes and Play Stations, whatever they are, I would be dispensing the fruit and healthy comestibles of the title. Tangerine is also probably the most popular description of the colour orange when applied to a football kit.

Prescot Cables' visit to Salford City was our last pre Christmas trip of the year. I was expecting the trains to be packed with shoppers, there were warnings two weeks previously of queues to get in to the station, but there were fewer people around, and therefore a more pleasant journey, than I anticipated. There are no decent pubs (or, as far as we can tell, any pubs) near the ground, so Richie, our leader in beer and pub choices, guided us to the New Oxford in central Salford, which has an excellent range of real ales and Belgian beers. Sometimes I think it might be fun to order one of the latter with the correct pronunciation, complete with short wave radio effects on the gs, but the landlady seemed so knowledgeable I think she would have been correcting me.

We were in our red away kit, and Salford were in their usual tangerine.

Connor McCarthy

On first sight, we were a bit concerned that the colours were a bit close together. On the whole, I think they were sufficiently distinguished, although there might have been a problem if there had been thick cloud - in which case they would probably have been a bit close if we had been wearing amber too.

Being a week after our earliest sunset, it was two minutes later this week, with the difference in longitude between Prescot and Salford taking a minute off. That minute made all the difference - well, not quite all, the absence of thick cloud may have more to do with it. The ground is in a natural dip, but there there was still some sunlight for the start of the game.

Paul Cliff makes his first start

The sun soon dropped below the surrounding houses, leaving an even light, supplemented by the floodlights.

Dave Dempsey explains how to get happier and healthier. A goal usually does the trick for me.

Salford have a larger than usual gap between the pitch perimeter fence and the touchline. A few years ago, some clubs with this arrangement would change the width of the marked out pitch from game to game to play to the weaknesses of the opposition, cramping a team with good wide players, or giving a team with fitness issues more ground to cover. Such shenanigans are not allowed these days at our level, with leagues imposing tighter restrictions on the permitted size of the pitch, and requiring clubs to stick to the dimensions they have registered.

It was nearly two years since I was last at Salford, with last season's fixture having been in midweek and inconvenient for travel due to engineering works. Looking back, I made the observation on that occasion that the pitch was in one corner of the available surface, but it seemed more centrally placed this season. One effect of this is that the dark patch that usually occurs at the base of the floodlight pylons in the side arrangement is not on the touchline.

Robert Gilroy progresses near the touchline

The gap also avoids one of the pitfalls of taking pictures from the side with a 70-300mm lens, namely that a player running along the touchline can come too close to be able to capture from head to toe in a landscape frame. I have not developed the manual dexterity to flip the camera to get the frame in portrait orientation with sufficient speed to continue to capture the action.

The best illuminated spots remained on the edge of the penalty area.

We can get an idea of the illumination at the touchline from the player taking the throw in - usually in this sort of situation, he would be shrouded in gloom.

Despite the good photographic opportunities, the game was not one of our best performances - the rest of the pictures from the afternoon can be seen here.

Final score: Salford City 2 Prescot Cables 0.