Feather behaviour

With Prescot Cables' game away to Ossett Albion at the weekend postponed, and heavy rain overnight taking out a few local games, I continued my practice over the last few weeks: if you cannot visit Yorkshire, the next best thing is for Yorkshire to visit you, with Burscough entertaining Farsley Celtic. As Prescot are due to play there next week, I could have conducted a scouting mission, but that would require a modicum of football knowledge, rather than just how to take pictures of it.

Burscough has a L40 postcode, the club are members of the Liverpool County FA, being just within the requisite 18 miles from Liverpool Town Hall, and many people have moved there from the city. However, on the bus from Ormskirk, the conversation between driver and passengers yielded the accents of deepest Lancashire. As I got on, discussion revolved around names for what I thought was a baby. The suggestion of Izzy, as in "is he male or female?" seemed an alarming way to refer to a child. My mind was put at rest when further details made it apparent the driver, by now talking to himself, was discussing a newly hatched budgerigar, and amused himself by settling on the not entirely original name of Budgie.

I lost a few pounds to a bug at the beginning of last month, and have kept a couple off, which came in handy at the unfeasibly narrow turnstiles. Once inside, I took up a fairly neutral position, slightly into the half Burscough were attacking. The sky was grey but not dark, so the light could best be described as flat, which sports were made for, as the action makes up for the lack of light and shadow effects.

I had not previously noticed a slight slope on the pitch away from the village end. In sports work, it is an advantage for still photography to have a low position in relation to the action, although it only seemed to have a particular effect along the touchline.

For the second half, I moved to the other side of the half way line staying with the hosts' attack (in a Lancashire v Yorkshire fixture, one has to take sides, however discreetly). I was nonetheless fairly neutral as to where I was pointing my lens, and in the pictures I selected to edit and show.

The game finished goalless. We all know there are 0-0 draws and 0-0 draws, and this was one between two sides strong in both attack and defence. The announcer at the end of the game said, to general agreement, that it was one of the best 0-0 draws we had seen in a while.

On the return, the bus looked not to be as handy as on the outward journey, leaving a couple of minutes before the end of the game. However, that view would ignore the excellent Hop Vine, and the opportunity for a pint of Peerless Knee Buckler IPA before catching the next one.

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

Final score: Burscough 0 Farsley Celtic 0.