Cup preliminaries

Everything was ready as I arrived for Prescot Cables' FA Cup Preliminary Round game against Trafford. The teams were arriving, the bar was stocked, and our Chairman's lucky FA Cup suit (which is only intermittently lucky) was pressed and ready. As the visiting coaching staff arrived, Andy Paxton lent them a couple of poles for their goalkeeping warm up to save their going back to the car to get theirs ... just as one, not observing this transaction, went back to the car to get theirs.

I was early as I had been commissioned to take the team photo. Last year's was a rushed affair, but I made a careful note of how we came to have a rather lopsided lineup, and had plans to avoid similar pitfalls. The only obstacle was rain, and that held off for a while longer than forecast, so there was no problem. Unfortunately, communication had gone wrong, Andy Paxton only found out in the morning, so had not been able to brief the players, so we postponed it for a week. All was not lost, as coach Roy Grundy knew he would be away next week, so posed for his individual picture.

Roy Grundy

Having arrived before the turnstile opened, I had not had to pay to get in. I therefore headed to the bar.

There were a couple of changes from the last two games, with Jack Phillips and Phil Bannister making their first starts of the season, and Neil Weaver making his first competitive start for the club.

Neil Weaver

The weather was changeable, as was my camera position. I went out into the open into a few spots of rain...

Nathan Quirk

... then put the cover on as the rain got heavier, retreated to the Gasworks side to avoid the wind blowing rain on to the front of the lens...

Lloyd Dean

... only to find the gusts were coming from more than one direction, once again retreated to the Safari Park End when the sun came out and I was looking into it...

Jacob Jones

... then went back under the stand when it started to rain again.

Trafford had a strong side, with reports suggesting they had recruited a number of those of last season's Warrington side who did not want to commit to the travelling in the higher division. They scored what would prove to be the only goal of the game just before half time.

For the second half, it looked as though it had stopped raining, so I went outside to cover the same side of the pitch as for most of the first half (and therefore the opposite side of our team).

Josh Nicholson

However, the rain drove me back under the cover.

The Management watch Jack Phillips. The visitors have recruited Mr Baxter from Grange Hill.

I was happy with the ViewNX software, minimising grain, but not noise reducing out the rain.

Phil Bannister

The Rogues & Rascals Barbershop Man of the Match award was won by Bram Johnstone. I am making progress on the quick processing for this, converting to jpeg on the camera (much better quality than on the phone), uploading with the Nikon WMU at full size, and then a quick crop with the phone's built in editor.

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

Final score: Prescot Cables 0 Trafford 1