First and repeat visits

I was joined at Prescot Cables' game at home to Tadcaster Albion by my friend Roger, who recruited me to the Cables interest in the Augustus John pub on the University of Liverpool Precinct one winter evening in 1991. The name of the Precinct went the way of the life membership of Convocation (bag for life as it turned out) promised as part of our Graduation Fee. The Augustus John, however, survived the University's stratagems, and continues to serve real ales and ciders, under the guidance of, amongst others, our latest Cables PhD, Dr Tony, who combines bar work with teaching in the Politics Department.

There had been plenty of rain in the previous 36 hours, but the 60 tons of sand procured with the Supporters on the Pitch money over the summer seemed to work, as a 10am pitch inspection confirmed the game was on. As well as Tadcaster's first visit, there was a mini beer festival, with Melwood Beer Company, who supply our hand pump in the bar, offering six brews and a selection of ciders and gins. We had wisely not staked sales on the game, as there was a Friday evening session, and a live band for Saturday evening.

After a successful evening at Ashton, Brian Richardson had to consider whether to go with that team, or use players from last week's draw against Clitheroe. He mainly stuck with the team from last weekend, with Jordan Wynne having successfully made a claim for a league start, and Dominic Marie wearing the number 9 shirt sponsored by the 10:22 crew (even if none of us have actually caught the 10:22 since the start of the season).

Jordan Wynne

Dr James spotted the absence of any manufacturer's branding on the visitors' kit, for the last time at it turned out, as Tadcaster announced Admiral as their new kit sponsor a few days later. I did not know manufacturers sponsor kit at this level, I thought clubs went for the best deal (or, like us, take payment in kind for hosting an advertising shoot), and branding came as standard. Unsurprisingly, I spotted the numbers on the front of the shirts - you know they make sense.

James Edgar, and the visitors' kit front and back

We had some attacking opportunities, with Tadcaster's report mentioning a run the full length of the pitch from Ben Cartwright.

Ben Cartwright

Having warmed up at half time, I emerged from the bar in time to see the only goal. Dominic Marie followed the ball from the kick off, and was therefore perfectly placed to take advantage of a fortunate bounce.

Dominic Marie

Tadcaster had the better of the play for the second half, but a solid defence ensured they were unable to capitalise. It was no surprise that the Rogues & Rascals Barbershop Man of the Match award went to Bram Johnstone.

Bram Johnstone

After processing the photos I had the dubious pleasure of using the new Pitchero uploader to put them on the club website. There is a new feature to upload from Google Drive, which might be useful as I also upload to Google Photos. It is speedy, but copies and displays in what appears to be a random order - definitely not file name, date or time, or even size. I suspect most people want to look at pictures in order of play, and the only remedy is to compare against a contact print and drag everything manually into order. So, I was back to uploading from the computer, which lets you do a random number (between 7 and 63) at a time, and reverses the order. For readers who also upload to Pitchero, the remedy was simple once I had found it by trial and error: select your last photo, and use Shift + Click to select the rest, rather than starting with the first.

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

Final score: Prescot Cables 1 (Marie) Tadcaster Albion 0