Out of the cups

Of 21 Doodson Sport Cup games last Tuesday, 11 had an attendance of less than 100, so, unless you are playing the club next door (and losing five times to Skelmersdale United in a season is not fun), the match officials' fees and away team's travel will wipe out the gate receipts, and the bar and tea bar will not do much business either. It would have been easy to stay at home for our game against Buxton, but the team did not have the choice, and I knew they would take the competition as seriously as any other, so the least I could do was turn up.

With no points at stake, and as far as I am aware no prize money, it was another opportunity to try new players.

James Edgar, Jack Golding

I am not a tactical expert, but I think we were trying a new formation, Jack Phillips was wearing a number to which we are not accustomed.

Jack Phillips

When I have grounds to show interest in league cups, as with Prescot Cables in the North West Counties League in 2002, or Dulwich Hamlet in 2013, teams competing for promotion (from any division) seem often to do well. With Buxton second in the Premier Division, they were the favourites, and confirmed this with a goal after about half an hour, adding a second at the beginning of the second half. However, we did not regard the game as lost, and seemed to be stronger in attack as the half went on.

Phil Bannister, Joe Evans

I had been a bit concerned at Farsley when we lost the game to two goals in the last 5 minutes - this used to be a big problem, which was addressed under Dave Powell, and seems largely to have been held at bay under the present management. It was therefore good to see we kept up the pressure and scored from James Edgar in the 90th minute. We could not manage a second to take the game to penalties, but it was what we need to see.

We currently have some journalism students from the University of Chester working creating a WordPress site, Wallopers Way, with content to augment the club website. They tried a poll for Man of the Match for this game, with Jack Phillips the winner.

I aim in my pictures to show our own players, for them and for our supporters. However, when I tweet a link (not too many, I am mindful of the Prime Minister's advice on overuse of Twitter), I include the opposition, so they can retweet if they wish, especially if they have not had anyone taking pictures for them. This time I had a message on Google+ from the mother of one of the Buxton substitutes thanking me for capturing her son's first team debut, which she had not been able to attend.

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

Final score: Prescot Cables 1 (Edgar), Buxton 2