In the pink

I remember a rumour at Dulwich Hamlet, back when shirts were stitched together from coloured cloth rather than colours printed on, that our pink and blue kit was delivered late one season because Corinthian Casuals had already used up the available pink cloth. An away game at Casuals was the only time I have seen the opposition in pink (and chocolate), and I have never seen the opposition in pink and blue - until this weekend.

Prescot Cables' visitors, Darlington 1883, adopted this kit as part of their charitable activities in support of the local St Teresa's Hospice.

At the beginning of the season many of us thought Darlington would pass quickly through our Division, bringing four figure crowds with them. Although they are firmly in the play off places, the title looks in Curzon Ashton's grip; and, whilst their visit is the largest gate of the season for most clubs, this has been in the order of 350 - 500.

It made sense once fixtures for the later weeks of the season were finalised (this game was originally scheduled for February) to have the annual Beer Festival this weekend. Good numbers of locals and CAMRA members attended the Friday evening session, and Darlington supporters, some of whom made an early trip, boosted numbers on the Saturday. I have not attended on Friday in previous years, but most of the pharmacologists turned out, so I joined them. Some took a scientific approach, with notes and scores; one of Luke's notes on the ciders simply read "Welsh", not necessarily a complement after a bad experience with the generally well reviewed Naughty Horsey last week.

With the gap in League position, Darlington had to be favourites, but our better form had been at home, and we took points off them in October. We knew we would need to be solid in defence.

James McCulloch blocks Darlington's Terry Galbraith

When I stand behind the goal we are attacking and the opposition spend a lot of time in our half, I take less pictures, although with the 70-300mm lens, I can cover most of the pitch and crop to a large at web quality.

Francis Foy defends our goal area

It does not make much difference to the final collection: I identified plenty of shots with which to work. In some ways it is easier and quicker, I am likely to only get one or two frames of a piece of action at the other end of the pitch, whereas when it is happening right in front of me, I will have a sequence through which to look and make a selection.

Man of the match for Prescot was our goalkeeper Richie Mottram, who kept us in the game with some fine saves, in particular a spectacular one in injury time (not this one) to ensure that we kept hold of another useful point.

After the game, it was time for more of the festival beers, and some of our visitors were staying for the weekend, so stayed on to enjoy some of them too.

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

Final score: Prescot Cables 0 Darlington 1883 0.