The foothills of Mount Radcliffe

I may displease the Radcliffe Tourist Board if I suggest rains a lot when I visit their town. This time, however, it was a sunny evening, affording an excellent view from the 98 bus to the hills above Bury. On arrival at Radcliffe Borough, the sun was shining directly down the pitch, making my interests and the team's diverge, with mine served by our playing uphill with the sun in our faces. The position of the home team's photographer suggested they prefer to play downhill in the first half, as he was facing the sun at the bottom of the hill. If the home side always play one way if they win the toss, you will be probably in the right place three quarters of the time. As it was, we played downhill, and the sun disappears behind a tree after 10 minutes, leaving it a bit cold for August. There is a large area of white paint around the perimeter, which makes shots very backlit, but we can easily deal with that.

Mark McLaughlin takes a corner

Radcliffe have abandoned a traditional programme in favour of a monthly magazine, although I did not see anyone selling it. I did not need a team sheet for our own players, as I recognised all of them. This is rare enough in the middle of the season, the squad is always being augmented. As for the second game of the season...

Player Assistant Manager Neil Black

For the home side, there was a familiar face - Danny Lambert, late of this parish, at left back, a position I do not recall his playing for us.

Danny Lambert

The light was still good for most of the first half, although we could have done with the lights a few minutes before half time, and sunset, when they were turned on. We did not take advantage of the slope, going in 2-0 down.

Although I remember the floodlights have three pylons per side, with three heads per pylon, two heads on each pylon point uphill. This gives good light in my position just uphill from the dugouts.

Danny Graham

You might think this would leave one end less lit than the other, but this seemed not to be the case, as we get good lighting in our goal.

Ciaran Gibson

Prescot's goal came with a Russian linesman moment, with a shot from Sam Corlett hitting the crossbar and bouncing downwards, the referee initially allowing play to continue for a few seconds before consulting his assistant.

Sam Corlett

The goal elicited a reaction from the somewhat pessimistic home supporters behind me, "I told you we would need a third to make it safe". Unfortunately, that is what they did, sealing our first (and at the time of writing only) defeat of the season so far.

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

Final score: Radcliffe Borough 3, Prescot Cables 1 (Corlett)