The coach crew

Our planned trip to Prescot Cables' game away at Lancaster City was disrupted by engineering works, with replacement bus services between Preston and Lancaster. There were still a lot of trains north from Lancaster, with Virgin in particular trapping at least two 11 coach Pendolinos (or Pendolini?) where they will be lucky to carry 100 people per trip, leaving people from Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham to squeeze into the 9 coach version. For those who like trains, the Giant Axe is a good location from which to spot them.

There's one

A few of us who would normally travel by train decided on this occasion to use the team coach. This takes away some flexibility, but once we had arrived, the town centre was a short, if steep, walk away (1 in 11, as we have been discussing gradients), so we adjourned to the Sun, a Lancaster Brewery house also offering a range of guest beers, with the choice of a tankard or straight glass.

This game would be a challenge: Lancaster are strong at home, and this was our first competitive game for three weeks. This has been a problem ever since I have been attending a majority of games rather than about a third - regardless of the manager or players, we struggle after a layoff. We tried a friendly game against AFC Liverpool in midweek, so it remained to be seen if it had helped.

We were playing with intermittent sun behind us in the first half, so I considered my best position over a portion of chips and rather decent curry sauce from the tea bar (food before photos, you know it makes sense). The cloud was mostly covering the sun by the time I started snapping in earnest, so I took up position behind the goal we were attacking.

James McCulloch

Taking photographs, you are concentrating on a small area of detail, and miss some of the wider aspects. One thing that does not escape you is which end of the pitch the action is taking place. We had a few good runs into Lancaster's half, which I captured...

James Edgar

... but we were spending most of the time in our own. It was a mark of the hosts' success keeping us contained that, when a player hit the corner flag in frustration after about 20 minutes, it stayed hit for the rest of the half.

Actually, it stayed that way until some time into the second half when Lancaster took a corner, which backs up a few grumbles about the observation skills of the match officials.

Back in the Cold War, at a United States Presidential Inauguration, you could tell when noon, the prescribed time for the transfer of power, arrived, because a gentleman of military bearing, carrying a small briefcase and sitting behind the outgoing President, got up and sat behind the new President. That briefcase contained the nuclear codes: I am not sure what was in the one substitute Sam Corlett fetched from the dressing room.

Sam controls Prescot's independent nuclear deterrent

This blog observes the occurrence of Natural Light Day, the first game of the year we are able to complete without floodlights. Technically, the game I watched last week was under natural light, but a 2.15 kick off and 80 minutes' play meant the rest of the day was my own an hour and a half before the sun went down - this was the first with conventional football timings. Ben Greenop was playing his first game for us in daylight.

Ben Greenop

With 10 minutes to go, my travelling companions decided to draw stumps (excuse the mixed sporting metaphor). I remained at my post, not least as I try to get everyone in the photos, and I knew I did not have anything of Mark McLaughlin, who has been on loan at, I think, Widnes, since the Senior Cup game, and came on as a late substitute.

Mark McLaughlin

Duty done, it was back over the hill (a location some may say I have been in for some time) to rejoin my travelling companions in The Pub (the name of the establishment, not a generic description).

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

Final score; Lancaster City 3 Prescot Cables 0.

Close cropping

During the first half of the Wales v England rugby union game a couple of weeks ago, my friend Dr Phil posted on Facebook that he thought the England players were all lads from Buckinghamshire, coerced into playing rugby at Eton, and they needed to strengthen the squad with some door staff from nightspots my student and postdoctoral friends go to long after my bedtime. There was one flaw in this analysis - none of the squad are from Buckinghamshire, and none went to Eton.

The sociological aspect of rugby union merits a few reams of academic literature, but the perception (never more than partly true) that the game in England was a public school preserve was a source of derision to our neighbours, particularly in Wales. In the professional era, whilst the majority of the starting XV against Wales (eight players to seven) was educated privately, this was mainly Millfield (on sports scholarships) and local independent grammar schools.

Of the comprehensive educated players, three came from a few miles away from where I grew up. My school offered football and rugby: the latter's players seemed more (but definitely not exclusively) drawn from those whose parents attended a state grammar school. Such schools when they existed in our area mainly played rugby. I avoided the conundrum by being hopeless at controlling a ball, but having a half way decent turn of speed up and down a 1 in 9 hill (for those in the know, Mossley is a mere bagatelle at 1 in 13). On the other side of the hill was Warlingham RFC, where a number of our school team played their club rugby, and current England captain Chris Robshaw played as a boy.

One group largely absent from the England squad, and I am not sure whether it was a significant group in the amateur era, was from the farming areas of the South West and East Midlands, where the game attracts support across the community, possibly because local games are a good excuse for a scrap with the next village.

The following morning, I found Prescot Cables' football game at home to Salford City was postponed due to a frozen pitch. It had been sunny the previous day, and not freezing overnight; however, there is an area in permanent shadow, which was still frozen from Thursday night. So, I headed off to table topping Birkenhead Park, who used my photos last season. I am not sure about the social makeup of the club, but being next to Birkenhead School and with a grammar school system in part of the Wirral, I suspect it is similar to that back home. The visitors, second placed  Kirkby Lonsdale, are from the solidly farming area of Westmorland.

I could have gone to a game a couple of weeks previously if Darlington had not been gung-ho about the state of their pitch, giving a wasted journey to County Durham. I would then have been able to join in their commemoration of Park and England captain Percy Kendall, killed in action in France 100 years ago.

One of my photos from the corresponding fixture last year was on the programme cover...

... a more closely cropped version of this one.

I generally regard including the ball as a minimum requirement, but the closer crop works quite well in the context of the cover.

The away side's colours always look bright on a grey day.

The away supporters seemed dissatisfied with some of the refereeing decisions, although not always being on top of the laws meant I was not able to offer an opinion. Here the ball carrier seems intent on letting everyone get on with their maul without him.

The hosts looked to be at a disadvantage with a man sent off just before half time, but maintained their lead with solid defence...

...driving forward when they had the ball...

...and a conversion accompanied by what sounded like a tile slipping on the changing room roof, the landing point for a fair few successful efforts.

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

Final score: Birkenhead Park 20, Kirkby Lonsdale 17.