Seeing the view

An attraction of Clitheroe Castle is the view of the Ribble Valley and surrounding hills. The Clitheroe Tourist Board may not like my pointing this out, but on my last few visits, the advertised views were unavailable due to inclement weather. I did not visit the Castle this time, but the view from around the town revealed hills I had not previously realised existed.

The Market Place sometimes feels like a Lowry painting, and some sources assume "A Street in Clitheroe" depicts Church Street, off the Market Place. Closer inspection reveals that the building in the painting is not the Library, and a quick trip with Mr Google's camera cars reveals that the scene is a quarter of a mile away at the foot of Castle Gate, just down the hill from Wool Craft.

Google Earth currently shows an estate agent in the Market Place opposite the Library. In good news for the discerning drinker, this is now The Ale House, described on its website as a micropub, although, as it has seats on two floors and more than one toilet, it is perhaps a minipub. Given that the common experience in other pubs was finding beer coming to the end of the barrel as they started to pull the first pint, a fair proportion of the travelling support eventually joined us. To be fair, the first pint in the Ale House met a similar fate, but they had enough other beers to make up for it.

I have never needed to consider the position of the sun at Clitheroe's ground, but the pitch is aligned north - south, so that was going to cause problems for one half. For the first, we played into the sun, and I took up position on the covered standing behind the goal.

Almost before I was ready to start taking pictures, the pristine playing surface acquired its first divot.

Rob Doran was making a welcome return, and quickly reminded us what we had been missing, with a goal after 11 minutes.

Rob Doran

The advantage was short lived, according to the timestamps on the pictures, it was precisely one and a half minutes later that we kicked off after conceding the hosts' first goal.

A league game means you can use the team sheet to name players with confidence.

Leon Williams

By half time I was ready for refreshments. The steak and kidney pies had run out, but the meat and potato was a more than acceptable substitute. Meanwhile Ben and his father wondered what the Train Crew were plotting.

For the second half, we were playing with the sun behind us, which puts the players in shadow even when you find a spot where you are not looking into it.

Mike Kennedy

A Clitheroe goal straight after half time probably killed off any chance we had of getting back into a winning position: whatever we did up front, it was apparent we were missing key players in defence. Although there was plenty of time on paper, a third goal from the hosts ten minutes later effectively put the game beyond reach.

James Edgar

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

Final score: Clitheroe 3 Prescot Cables 1 (Doran)