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.