New Mills, old hills

I was unusually gung-ho this weekend about the prospects of Prescot Cables' game away at New Mills going ahead: with not much rain having fallen during the week, I had no inkling there would be a pitch inspection shortly before midday, by which time I was on a train climbing towards the Derbyshire hills.

I decided to make the best of the scenery, so I got off at Strines, and walked to a pub I had found on the CAMRA WhatPub site, the Fox Inn in the hamlet of Brookbottom.

The Fox Inn - 50 yards outside Greater Manchester

The entry suggests the pub is close to a railway station, which is true, it is about half a mile, although one needs a modicum of fitness to make the trip, up a steep bridleway. Once inside its foot thick walls, I enjoyed an immaculately kept pint of Robinsons' Dizzy Blonde, in what I might also describe as immaculately kept surroundings. I may have been sitting in one of the regulars' seats, as an elderly couple came in, and the gentleman was casting rather confused looks in my direction until his wife chose a table.

Had the weather been less pleasant, I would have stayed for a while, but I decided exercise was in order, and walked to the Pack Horse, a mile away up and down another hill, then on to the ground, another mile or so, involving descending to the level of the River Sett, and up another hill. I was glad to reach the town and its pavements: whilst I am used to walking country roads, I am used to a hedge in which to shelter from any passing cars that get a bit close, whereas dry stone walls look a bit less yielding.

I arrived five minutes before the scheduled kick off to find warming up still in progress. The match referee had not been happy with some areas of the pitch, and was minded to call the game off, but was prepared to accept sand being spread on the affected areas. Unfortunately, there was no sand on the premises, and a trip to the nearest builders' merchants in this part of the world is not as quick as you might at first think. Still, at least I got pictures of Manager Dave Powell and Assistant Manager Carl Furlong taking training.

Dave Powell

Carl Furlong

The original date for this fixture was the first of January's postponements. Quite a few of our Train Crew planned to travel on that occasion, but our numbers were depleted this time by some of our regulars jetting off on foreign holidays, and some taking the train to what might be a foreign holiday next season - in Scotland.

Not that we were short of supporters who travel on the coach or by car.

Dave, Cliff, Ken and Peter keep a close watch on Dave Dempsey

Players move between clubs all the time, so it is no surprise to encounter former players in the opposition line up. Mike Smith moved to New Mills earlier in the season, and was as energetic, and appeared as much in the frame, as he did when playing for us.

Connor McCarthy gets away from Mike Smith

With so few games over the last few weeks, we have not experienced the gradual extension of daylight, instead jumping from a dark second half to full daylight in a couple of jumps. Even with the delay for purchasing sand (kick off eventually occurring at 3.25), there was a decent amount of daylight right to the end.

The floodlights were on on one side for the first half, and both sides for the second. As is often the case, this gave some pictures a blue cast, which in the more extreme cases I tried to remove, you can judge for yourself how natural the end result looks.

Robert Gilroy - colour not adjusted

Phil Bannister - colour adjusted

We were disappointed not to come away with the first away win of the season, although, when we had not been able to score downhill in the first half, I thought we might find it even more difficult to do so uphill in the second. Still, all points are useful, and we kept a clean sheet and therefore avoided a defeat that would have improved the hosts' position at our expense.

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

Final score: New Mills 0 Prescot Cables 0

Frozen shoulder, but fortunately not a frozen pitch

Prescot Cables' game at home to Northwich Victoria last week came after a weekend with no sport for me. Cables had no fixture, and all the rugby and football clubs I like to watch if Cables are not playing were away, with the nearest being Birkenhead Park at Broughton Park in Manchester.

With little rain on Monday and Tuesday, there was a successful pitch inspection at 4.30pm, with only light rain forecast before the match. This fell as snow, leaving a light covering on the pitch. Some were hoping for an orange ball, but our league does not even have a yellow ball. It's grim up north.

Connor McCarthy

I picked up a frozen shoulder over the weekend, a general problem I have had for years, and a cause of merely minor inconvenience. Purely for photography, it is fortunately the right: when holding the camera, the left, which just crunches, takes most of the weight, and I hold my arms close to my chest, for stability, and so the weight of the camera goes through my legs and feet, rather than the arms and shoulders. Had the problem been with the left arm, I might have been heading to the shop for a monopod, or, as my friend Jon the Pharmacologist succinctly described it when I was explaining why a tripod does not give enough freedom of movement for zooming in with still photography, "so, basically a stick, then".

He thought a tripod might be useful to counteract shivering on a cold evening, but I do not shiver at games as much as I used to. That may have something to do with being old enough to follow your grandmother's advice, and wear a coat... and a jacket... and a jumper... and a shirt... and a t-shirt... and a scarf... and a hat - advice not followed by a Northwich supporter behind the goal.

Adam Reid with Danny Jarrett

Our resident photography student thought the reflected light from the snow was worth about half a stop (half an exposure value), which makes all the difference using consumer kit, making the results that bit less grainy ...

Robert Gilroy

... and getting results from places like near the touchlines.

James Cairns

He reported that his batteries were suffering in the cold, with three having run out of charge. I had no problem, although I shoot in jpg, whereas I assume he was using raw, which uses more read/write capacity and therefore power. As his primary interest was pictures rather than play, he headed off at half time, with my parting comment being that anyone who thought the evening was cold had clearly never been to North Ferriby.

When I started watching football, I remember different disciplinary suspensions applied at our level from the full time professional game. In the Football and Premier League, a player receiving a red card would receive a three match suspension, similar to today. In the semi professional game a player would be suspended for 28 or 35 days, usually a lot longer than three matches. These were brought into line a few years later, but the effect at this time of year can be more severe than the old system. Suspension is from all football until the team for which the player incurred the sanction have completed three matches. Dave Dempsey was returning from a suspension that began between Christmas and New Year, and Antony Shinks still has one game to go of a suspension that started on 4th January, following a red card at Salford City two weeks previously. At the time of writing, if the game away to New Mills goes ahead at the weekend, the weather will have extended it to 49 days.

Dave Dempsey returns to action

An early goal from the visitors before I had had got round to the gasworks side did not bode well, but Prescot exerted some good pressure to be level at half time with a penalty from Connor McCarthy. A second half substitution bringing on James McCulloch (who had been unable to start due to work commitments, and was mercilessly ribbed by his father when he arrived to join the bench) and Rob Doran paid off with a goal from Rob to collect all three points.

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

Final score: Prescot Cables 2 (McCarthy, Doran) Northwich Victoria 1

More mud than last week's rugby

I have detailed before how planning to watch a game at this time of year involves almost constant monitoring of the weather. For Prescot Cables' visit from Mossley at the weekend, the rain on Friday night and Saturday morning (for the fifth week in a row) was less heavy than forecast, so the pitch passed an inspection at 10.30. Showers at lunchtime were lighter than expected, so everything was looking good when I arrived in Prescot a few minutes before kick off.

However, in the time it took me to get off the bus, buy a paper and go to the ground, the heavy rain forecast for 3 - 6pm well and truly arrived. The game got under way, with the pitch looking as though it had benefited from a rest, with only two AFC Liverpool games and none of ours on it during January.

There were a few changes since we last played a month ago. Rob Doran made a welcome return to the starting lineup, having returned from injury with a substitute appearance on New Year's Day.

A couple of familiar faces from previous seasons joined us on loan - Richie Mottram in goal, on loan from Runcorn Linnets ...

... and Danny Jarrett in defence, on loan from Rhyl.

I am not sure how easily that works: Danny will have needed international clearance (confirmation from the FA under whose jurisdiction the player has most recently played that he is not suspended) when he joined us, and will need it before he can play for Rhyl again. With half of the population of Wales living within 25 miles of England, and a similar number of people living in the same distance of Wales, the level of movement probably makes it it quite efficient. The same is not the case for true international moves, we had to wait a couple of weeks before Pavel Pinto-Vieira could play for us after playing in Portugal.

The rain continued steadily for the whole of the half.

Jordan Shirley & James McCulloch

It is difficult for players to judge a tackle in these conditions, the slightest misjudgement could give away a free kick in an advantageous position, but hesitation can allow the bold attacker to get past. Mossley's Lewis Nightingale took advantage of the difficulty to get past a number of our players (Mossley's website said at least six, which is a bit of an exaggeration) and supply the ball to Tom Pratt for the only goal of the game.

I had taken up position under the cover at the Hope Street end, from where I could watch a pool of standing water by the corner flag increasing in size. Keith was busy with the fork and the broom at half time to clear the water.

The referee made a further inspection at the end of half time, and decided to proceed. Whilst it meant Keith's efforts were not in vain, I am not sure about the wisdom of the decision: although it had stopped raining briefly, the pitch was by now soft. The home team has an advantage in this situation, there will often be a spare kit available, allowing the players to change in to dry kit at half time.

Lloyd Balazs

We used a kit from a couple of seasons ago that had to be replaced as it was too heavy, the players were becoming overheated, particularly on a warm day. As this was anything but a warm day, it seemed a good occasion to use it. I wondered how reflective it would be in the middle of the winter: despite the cloud having lifted for a while, I found my exposures were not as good as with the current kit.

I took up position behind the goal at the Safari Park End, but soon scuttled back under the stand when it started raining again. Everyone was liberally covered in mud by the end.

Phil Bannister

I have to hand it to the players of both sides for giving us a competitive match  in difficult conditions, but completing the game will have made the pitch more prone to waterlogging for the next few weeks. Fortunately the weather was kinder than usual up to Christmas, so we do not currently have a large fixture backlog.

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

Final score: Prescot Cables 0 Mossley 1.