Handy for the railway

Travel to Prescot Cables' game at Burscough on New Year's Day was almost as complicated as Boxing Day, with a limited bus service, Merseyrail operating a Sunday service, and Northern operating a weekday service, apart from local routes in the north east.

The combination allowed us to travel to Burscough Junction, a shorter journey than Burscough Bridge, but a longer walk at the end. My friend Luke observed that the station and the village seemed some distance apart: I replied, not entirely facetiously, that the station was built to be handy for the railway. There are many places where a town or village is some distance from its station, with a story that it was because residents did not want the railway - almost all are incorrect, and easily explained by a map showing that the railway follows the most logical route. The line from Ormskirk to Preston, built mainly for express services, follows a straight line across flat and open land, and has stations where it happens to pass near a settlement.

Team captain James McCulloch gave us a cheery wave as he drove past.

James McCulloch

The players need to be at the ground an hour and a half before the game to change, warm up, hear the manager's team talk etc. The supporters can be more relaxed, so we adjourned to the Hop Vine, which has a dress code - "No urban sportswear please". I was wearing a Cornwall rugby union shirt, but had no trouble being served, so my sportswear was presumably sufficiently rural.

Burscough's current club was founded in 1946. The infeasibly narrow turnstiles may have been erected at the same time: with spectators kept thin by wartime rationing, the builders could hardly have imagined just how large people would become in later years.

We had a couple of not-quite-new faces - Daniel Flood, who had played in the previous two games ...

Daniel Flood

... and Andy Harper, a product of our youth team, making his first competitive start, having been on the bench in the previous game.

Andy Harper

Ciaran Gibson was back in goal, which made my life easier, his playing style and confident demeanour makes him easier to capture than many goalkeepers.

Ciaran Gibson

The Met Office had predicted heavy rain for about 4pm, which would have been the second half had the game not kicked off early because of storm damage to the floodlights. In the event the damage appeared to have been repaired, as the lights were turned on for most of the game, but, having brought the game forward, it was sensible to stick to the rearranged time.

The rain fell quite heavily with a side wind in the first half, when we were attacking the Mart Lane end, which does not have any cover. The rain cover for the camera was blowing about, and at one point I ended up with it over my head in the manner of the user of a large format camera. I was happy with the performance of Mr Barbour's wax topping up the coating of my jacket, and with the rain effects on the photos.

James Edgar

The scores remained level until about 5 minutes into the second half, when Jack Phillips was brought down for a penalty, converted by Neil Prince. We had our best chance for the elusive second goal a few minutes later when Neil took a free kick on the edge of the area, which hit the upright - a knot or two less wind and it would probably have gone in.

Neil Prince

The hosts equalised 10 minutes from the end, but stout defence ensured we still went away with a point.

After the game, it was back to the Hop Vine to discuss important matters, namely trying to persuade Luke that his family home in Radcliffe is in historic Lancashire, of which the southern boundary is the River Mersey. He was not convinced, even by Lancashire playing cricket at Old Trafford (even if not doing so might mean less games when a winning position is lost due to rain). Things are different elsewhere, despite London having had administration across historic boundaries since 1888, the cricket followers at Dulwich Hamlet have no difficulty knowing whether they are from Surrey's broad sunlit uplands or Kent's Slough of Despond.

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

Final score: Burscough 1, Prescot Cables 1 (Prince pen)