Once in every lifetime

There was a surprise at Prescot Cables' game at home to Harrogate Railway Athletic, not least for supporter Chris Hayden, who has been watching for a few years, having worked with former player Enzo Benn. Being the mascot, usually performed by our younger supporters, can also provide amusing embarrassment for a stag do, and is the sort of human interest story that gets you in the paper. Here is Chris shaking hands with Harrogate captain Dan Thirkell, who always cuts a somewhat smaller figure than my expectation of a large Viking, like his near namesake Thorkell the Tall.

We had not been sure the game would go ahead, as snow had fallen on Friday, which Chris had volunteered his party to help clear. A rising temperature did the job instead, and, fortunately, the resulting water drained away rather than pooled.

The game got off at a quick tempo, but it was 20 minutes before we saw the first goal, from Rob Doran.

I had taken up position on the Gasworks Side for a few minutes, but the resulting photo only made it into the collection on the "goal is a goal" principle. Rob followed this with a goal from a header about 5 minutes later for which I got the picture I sent in to the paper.

This was followed up with an almost identical goal five minutes later, before the visitors pulled one back a couple of minutes after that. The scoring for the first half was completed with a fourth goal from Rob a couple of minutes from time.

It was then time for the half-time entertainment, provided by the stag party's penalty shoot out competition, with Danny Flood, taking the opportunity for some light stretching whilst recovering from injury, going in goal.

The second half seemed almost tame in comparison with the first, although the pace showed no sign of slackening. The only goal was scored in injury time by a Harrogate substitute, Dan Barrett. The stag party came to the loudly expressed conclusion he had a haircut which resembled a pineapple. I am not sure how they decided this, even if the default instruction of a number of hairdressers in the Harrogate area seems to be "not too much off the top".

Marcus Burgess gathers from Dan Barrett

Dan reacted to his goal by giving the supporters a cheery wave, which kept everybody happy.

After the game there was a presentation for the website's first player of the month award, which for February went to Jonah O'Reilly who has been solid in defence.

Jonah O'Reilly

There was some discussion as to when one of our players last scored four goals in a game, and nobody could think of anything more recent than Harry Grisedale scoring what From Slacky Brow to Hope Street records as a double hat trick in a Liverpool Non League Senior Cup game in 1959. It also tells us Harry was a full back, so presumably there were happy, as we are, getting goals from any part of the pitch.

One hopes that a marriage and its associated festivities is a once in a lifetime event; however, whilst one does not wish to be greedy, I hope this will not be the only time I see one of our players scoring this many goals in a game.

The rest of the pictures from the game can be seen on the club website here, and on Google photos (with a couple of extra pictures from the stag do) here.

Final score: Prescot Cables 4 (Doran 4) Harrogate Railway Athletic 2.