Coming in to land

Prescot Cables' first game of pre season was at Runcorn Town, who play at the Pavilions, although there seemed to be just the one pavilion, an impressive structure.

I consulted Mr Google's maps to plan a route, about 20 minutes from the station. Looking at the Ordnance Survey map later, I realised that navigation apps identify the shortest horizontal route, but have nothing about vertical distance, something that may be of interest on foot. The recommended route was also the best in that regard, had I taken the second route on offer, I would have walked up one side of a hill and down the other. Passing a car park on the way, a group of bikers were relaxing around a trailer advertising itself as a mobile tattoo and piercing studio, but which seemed to be moonlighting by serving light refreshments in the evening.

Seeing the first evidence of a football pitch from the road, I wondered whether they would finish marking the pitch before the players had finished warming up.

I am not sure why this pitch had been abandoned, but there is a new ground behind the pavilion.

On arrival, I joined Jack Phillips and his brother Anthony (who Jack had persuaded to come along with the promise there are always loads of goals in pre season). Jack is currently training with Accrington Stanley, a well deserved opportunity, whether in the shape of a professional contract now, or keeping his name in the minds of professional clubs to keep watching him as he continues to develop.

In the meantime, there were other distractions. The ground is four or five miles from Liverpool Airport under the main easterly flight path. Having grown up three or four miles further from Gatwick, and had the famously noisy BAC 1-11 flying overhead since I was in my pram, I found it amusing when friends from not under the flight path would look up with an air of concern every five minutes as an aircraft thundered overhead. These happy times were recalled when it transpired Jack does exactly the same thing.

The main attraction of these games is to see who has returned from last season's team (non contract players are free agents until they sign registration forms) and to see if we recognise anyone trying out. For a midweek game at this time of year, we had a decent turnout, with about half the starting lineup having been with us at the end of last season.

James McCulloch

A few were trying out from the Reserves.

Sam Gifford

Also from last year's Reserves (and a couple of first team appearances), stepping up a league with the hosts, was Jack Hont.

Jack Hont

Pre season games enable us to get back into our physical routines. Even for lighter activities like photography, coordination becomes rusty when you have not done it for a few weeks. In your forties, the lens in the eye become less flexible. I am not sure whether, using a SLR camera, the eye is focusing at distance on the subject or close up on the prism on which it is projected. Either way, my eye muscles seemed to be out of practice, as I was not completely sure I was in focus for the first five minutes or so, after which everything felt normal, i.e. I could see perfectly through the viewfinder, but I did not stand a chance with the screen without taking my glasses off.

Representing the Train Crew, I was distracted by unloading operations at the chemical works next door. It was not until half time I could identify whether they had a mobile crane, or if the train was moving slowly forwards.

For the second half, I sat in the stand along one side of the pitch. The sun was out by now, with plenty of shadows cast by the stand and the trees behind it.

Joe Evans

Both teams seemed keen to play a game based on keeping possession, which meant I had more individual pictures of players than usual - the sort that have "profile picture" written all over them. Having said that, I tend to crop these pictures closely in portrait format, when I should probably be making them square.

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

Final score: Runcorn Town 2 Prescot Cables 0.