A murky day and a clean sheet

"Can you hold this for a second", I said to Jack Phillips' brother Anthony, as I passed him my lens hood at the beginning of Prescot Cables' game at home to Spennymoor Town. He looked a bit nervous, as people often do when I hand them a random piece of camera equipment, so I reassured him he was holding a £10 piece of plastic, rather than a £400 piece of kit.

It was a relief to have a game at home, the last one having been four weeks ago, with four away games and a postponement (I am sure there is a film in there somewhere) in the intervening period.

Spennymoor are third in the table, suggesting they made a good decision not to apply for promotion from the Northern League until they were confident they were in a position to manage at this level. Reports suggested some of the visiting supporters regarded the game as a foregone conclusion. Not that we did : we do well at picking up points where we are not expecting them (having dropped a few we were expecting as well).

The Met Office app predicted expect rain, which fortunately did not start until near the end of the game, although an overcast sky meant the light left something to be desired. I started with the sports mode on the camera, and got some shots at 1/400s.

James Jenkins

However, the cloud got heavier, so I switched to shutter priority at 1/320s.

Oscar Durnin

In goal was Ben Morrow, who ensured his place in the stories supporters will be telling when we are in our dotage by making his first touch in senior football a penalty save in the corresponding away fixture, and today making his first start for the first team.

Ben Morrow

Ben is the latest product of our youth team to make a first team start, with Andy Harper having established himself in a regular place since making his first start over the Christmas period.

Andy Harper

This was a game for solid defence, which does not always give the best pictures, but was a good game to watch.

One of the difficulties for a player manager is knowing when to use himself on the field, and I think Neil Prince exercises good judgement, this time increasing our threat going forward and bringing his experience and fresh legs into play at 75 minutes, often a dangerous point of the game for us.

Neil Prince

Although a winning goal looked possible, from about 80 minutes on I was feeling we most needed a clean sheet, for Ben Morrow on his first full game, but also for team confidence, as they have been hard to come by for the last few games.

Elsewhere, New Mills had been, unlike us in midweek, unable to overcome Harrogate Railway Athletic, and Padiham suffered the same fate as us at the hands of Salford City, which opened the gap below us, and with Radcliffe Borough also losing, took us up one place in the table.

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

Final score: Prescot Cables 0 Spennymoor Town 0.