What's that yellow thing?

I was unable to attend Prescot Cables' game at Radcliffe Borough, but I had enough time after Easter preparations to go to Marine for Grantham's visit. I found the rest of the afternoon was my own earlier than I expected, encountering my first weather related abandonment in 25 years, after a downpour in the first half left a dozen large pools of water on the pitch. How much water had been deposited in 15 minutes was illustrated at Prescot Cables after two days with no further rain, with the area around the tunnel still thick with mud, and sand applied in the goalmouths.

Easter games are associated with fine weather, and for the last few years we have been at Warrington Town. However, it was only three years ago we were playing Goole in front of cleared snow. With the clocks going forward, some leagues were putting away the yellow ball for the summer, although we manage without all year round. It's grim up north. The weather for the visit of Burscough was cool, but a yellow ball was starting to break through in the sky. Some of us were positively basking in it.

We made a few signings on the registration deadline day in midweek. I suspect most will be for cover for injury or absence. The first was called into service: with Marcus Burgess away, Zach Hibbert took his place in goal.

Zach Hibbert

Paul, our programme editor, likes to give everyone a fair number of appearances on the cover. I do the same in my collection over three or four games, but the programme aims for a balance over two or three months, longer than I track, so I occasionally have a request to look out for a player. If you try this in play, you are likely to miss some of the action, but it is usually easy enough to find some of the right frames afterwards.

Josh Nicholson

The first half had been fairly even, but the visitors, who are in the play off places, came out stronger in the second half, scoring after a couple of minutes. If we had not secured league safety, I would be worried about our run in, with a significant proportion of our games in March and April being against sides near the top of the table.

The sun was fully out by now.

Phil Bannister

I had gone back to shooting in raw again (it may be some time before I fully make up my mind on that question), which gives a better result when I need to even out the lighting on a player who is side on to the sun and therefore half in shadow.

Rob Doran

Since the camera does not do any sharpening of the background, it seems to give a better definition to the players in some of the images.

Lloyd Dean

The visitors sealed the result, and made it look a bit more decisive than it was, with a couple of quick goals in the last two minutes.

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 Burscough 3