Value for money - 80p a goal

I did not plan to attend Prescot Cables' game at Kendal Town, as I found the 2211 train from Oxenholme gave a short connection to the last train from Wigan, with the risk of ending up there for the night. However, on the day, I noticed there was also a train at 2203 with a better connection and the option of returning via Warrington if it was delayed. On arrival, I adjourned to the excellent Station Inn. There is a sign outside the station informing passers-by that the pub is less than 3 minutes up the hill. This was fortunate: whilst WhatPub has the correct postcode, its map uses an incorrect latitude and longitude, which would have sent me in the opposite direction.

Only having travelled to the ground through Kendal before, I thought it would be uphill from Oxenholme, but it was the opposite, including a steep stretch just outside the station, meaning it would be uphill coming back.

Once there, I found the floodlights to be excellent. I also now understand the relationship between aperture and ISO in shutter priority mode - if I set the ISO to a lower value than I will encounter in the evening, it will always use the widest aperture attempting to reach it. I was quickly getting some of my crispest evening images of the season.

Joe Nicholson

We have not enjoyed much success at Kendal, and it looked as though this may be no exception when the hosts scored after five minutes. Somehow, the score stayed that way for the first half. The hosts increased their lead with two quick goals early in the second half. Antony Shinks pulled one back on the hour, but it seemed of little effect, as Kendal replied a couple of minutes later.

Antony Shinks

By this time, I was contemplating slipping off a few minutes early to be sure of getting the earlier train. At this point, the fun started. There was little point trying to stop a three goal lead getting any worse, as we have performed well enough not to have one eye to goal difference at the end of the season, so Andy Paxton made a triple substitution, or as close to triple as you can with the bright, shiny new electronic boards, replacing Antony Shinks, Joe Nicholson and Phil Bannister with Joe's brother Josh, Andy Scarisbrick and Charlie Duke.

This had an almost immediate effect, with goals in five minutes from ...

... Joe Evans ...

... Andy Scarisbrick ...

... and James Edgar levelling the scores, and having me checking National Rail Enquiries and Realtime Trains for the progress of the 2211. It is worth keeping an eye on both sites, the former gets its information from the train operators' Darwin system, and the latter from Network Rail's systems, and they do not always agree.

A fifth goal from Kendal seemed to have clinched it, but a final score from Lloyd Dean secured a point, and meant we got a very reasonable 10 goals for our £8 to get in, on a night when the four games in our division produced 32 goals between them.

Lloyd Dean shoots for goal

I think both sides had a player booked in injury time (we certainly did) for delaying the restart of play, a case of taking one for the team, running down the clock - having announced the added time, the referee did not extend it further - and preventing quick free kicks in dangerous positions.

By dint of a sharpish exit at the end of the game and a bit of power walking, I got Mr Google's estimate of 42 minutes to Oxenholme Station down to 24, and caught the 2203.

The rest of the pictures from the game can be seen on the club website here, and on Google Photos here.

Final score: Kendal Town 5 Prescot Cables 5 (Shinks, Evans, Scarisbrick, Edgar, Dean)