Salamanders in the dark

This week saw the third of Prescot Cables' more difficult games in a row. Having played away at second placed Spennymoor Town, then entertained the League leaders, Warrington Town, it was now the turn for Spenymoor's return visit. One of our regular supporters described a long midweek trip a few years ago (which I believe ended with a  late postponement) as "Bloody Blyth Bloody Spartans on a Bloody Tuesday night". Someone in Spennymoor may well have been saying something similar about the distance they would be travelling for this game, which did not stop them bringing two coaches. I was not sure whether that was down to numbers, or to the team and officials travelling separately from the supporters.

Despite having procured a new camera body before Christmas, this was the first time I was able to use it for an evening game at home. During the bad weather most of our Saturday home games went ahead, and most of our midweek programme now is the result of postponed away games.

At home, the visitors play in black and white. On the road, they are in a more muted deep red. As well as not being particularly reflective, it is not easy to reproduce on screen without making the rest of the colours (our shirts, players' faces etc.) look decidedly odd, so the end result is a sort of burgundy.

Marcus Burgess

I took a few shots from in front of the clubhouse, where there the light coming from the stand slightly augments that from the floodlights, but this is balanced out by less ease of movement, and the dugouts being in the way of a good view at the narrower angles.

Bram Johnstone

I therefore headed round to the Gasworks Side. As I was speaking to Dr James, I invited him to join me, which he did, after showing an initial look of concern. As we went round, I snapped a couple of pictures from behind the goal, something that would not have produced anything usable on my old equipment, although the colour can bleed a bit an the higher sensitivity, giving the players a bit of a Ready Brek style hue.

Phil Bannister

Once in position under a floodlight, I had the option of keeping the shutter speed at 1/250s and making maximum use of the sensitivity range...

Danny Flood

... or drop to 1/200s and minimise noise.

Joe Nicholson

During the course of the evening I moved towards the latter approach, although the amount of the frame I need to crop out probably has more impact on the quality of the image.

The game was decided by a goal from the visitors towards the end of the first half, tightening their grip on second place with its associated home advantage in the playoffs.

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

Final result: Prescot Cables 0 Spennymoor Town 1