Dressed up and nowhere to go

Attending pre season games can be something of a lottery. This is not just in the quality of football, anything from a squad complete from last year, to one hastily assembled a day or two before. The latter can still produce quality, the lad who looks too young to be there can be your favourite player by the end of the season.

The other lottery is whether there is a game. When I started watching, fixtures were copied by hand, omitting the crucial detail that the game was at Trub & Slattocks FC (real places, sadly no football club), and you did not always hear a game had been cancelled. With websites and Twitter, clubs can get information to those who might be interested. However, "can" does not always mean "do", as we were to find out.

I had promised Matt from the Lost Boyos that I would join one of his trips before he moves to Slovakia next month. He suggested Atherton Collieries opening their centenary season against Bolton Wanderers, which raised an historical question - how did they find time or personnel to found a football club in 1916? Having missed that, the next opportunity was at Styal, entertaining North West Counties new club Prestwich Heys. I forgot to say I was coming, so I planned to go straight to the village's public house, the excellent Ship Inn, but the weather meant talk of matches rained off, so I found Matt in the Piccadilly Tap, sporting an emergency replacement flat cap. We were joined by Gibbo and his travelling companions: Zach, also from Atherton, and Rob, studying in Sheffield. Having been assured the game was on, we took the train.

This looks like a running in board from the 1960 electrification

Walking the 200 yards from the Ship to the ground, we found not only a lack of football, but a marquee in construction on the pitch. A telephone call confirmed the fact neither club mentioned on Twitter: they were playing at Trub & Slattocks, or at least the other side of the airport. Finding this, and that it was an hour and a half to the next train, Gibbo pointed out a tea shop, but his desire for a cup of Lapsang souchong and a slice of lemon drizzle was outvoted by the rest of us returning to the Ship.

Back in Manchester, Gibbo and Zach went off to the wedding of Collieries manager Michael Clegg, which they gave as the reason for not having a game of their own. In this situation I recall Horace Whalley, Prescot Cables' goalkeeper in 1935, who was married one Saturday morning, and that afternoon kept a clean sheet in a 10-0 win against Harrowby in the FA Cup. O tempora, o mores!

The rest of the pictures ... er, actually it is just the one above!