No ticket required

Prescot Cables' game for the penultimate weekend of the season was away to Warrington Town. This would normally be easy to attend, but, with the hosts likely to win the Division, they were anticipating a capacity crowd, and made the game all ticket. I thought that was a bit over the top, but that they would easily double their average home gate. I was unsure, due to other commitments, whether I would be able to attend. I was not prepared to buy a ticket I might not use, so it changed a 50-50 chance of attending into definitely not.

Finding myself free after all, I looked for a game somewhere I do not regularly go. Within the travelling time available, the most attractive option was Atherton Collieries, entertaining West Didsbury & Chorlton, third versus fourth in the North West Counties League. I last visited the club with Prescot Cables on the final day of the 2002-3 season.

If there is a more eerily quiet place at 2.30 on a Saturday afternoon than Atherton town centre, I have yet to find it. It was not just that there were few people about (the smoking ban at least means a couple of people outside pubs, on my last visit the place was completely deserted), there was hardly any traffic either. It was only near the ground that there seemed to be any activity.

The ground was much as I remembered it, apart from the tea bar being to the side rather than behind the goal, where it had been perfectly placed for a "tea bar massacre" (when a stray ball goes through the hatch, one hopes without any more serious consequences than some scattered stock).

The pitch has a significant slope, which I also remembered from 2003. In the first half of that game, the hosts had a penalty, which their taker would have placed perfectly if the ground between the spot and goal had been flat. As it was, it went six inches over the bar. In the second half, our taker had been observing carefully, as he put the kick we were awarded into the roof of the net to secure the North West Counties League title.

I took up position towards the bottom of the slope, so the visitors were attacking towards me.

I finished my pie before giving pictures my full and undivided attention - if I apply the maxim of food before photos for our games, I will certainly do so visiting the neighbours. The lighting conditions were close to ideal, with bright, but not glaring, light, allowing plenty of frames with shutter speeds at 1/1600 or 1/2000s, and very little processing required.

There are usually a couple of throw ins in a collection, they are easy to capture, but you wonder how some positions are physically possible.

I approached the game as a neutral observer, but I got more frames in the second half, when Atherton were playing towards me, so they got the balance of the final collection. There was intermittent cloud cover, so shutter speeds dropped in many cases to 1/1000s.

I do not look out for our canine chums, but I often snap one if I see one. I generally find them fine looking creatures, although I am not that confident around them, being more of a cat person.

After the game, I adjourned to the Jolly Nailors, advertised in the programme, for a quick pint before my train. I am not sure if the locals I encountered at the bar were nailors (they either make nails, or maintain the teeth in a carding machine), but they seemed jolly enough as they knocked on the bar and called out "service" to attract the barman's attention.

Back in Warrington, there was a pay gate after all, which I found out on the way to Atherton. I did not miss much, with the champions putting six past Prescot with one in reply (I am told that was a superb Rob Doran free kick). The declared attendance, i.e. the number of people who paid, not necessarily the number who actually used their tickets, was 1411, more than I expected, but substantially less than capacity.

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

Final score: Atherton Collieries 2 West Didsbury & Chorlton 0.