Off colour

Chatting to our programme editor, Gareth Coates, after Prescot Cables' game at home to Goole AFC, I discovered I had committed a faux pas. Ashford Town (Middlesex) play in tangerine, most definitely not orange: in the same way our satsuma shaded shirts are a manifestation of amber. Thinking about it, apart from the Dutch national team, does anyone officially designate this range of colours as orange?

My reaction to the "service" Arriva provided on the way to the game was, on the other hand, turning the air as blue, or perhaps turquoise, as their vehicles. They were keeping buses to time by simply not carrying passengers. There was no bus in service for over half an hour past my stop in either direction, where I would expect one about every three minutes. Those showing on the Arriva Bus app coincided suspiciously closely with empty buses trundling by. Once one turned up, it was delayed further, so I arrived after kick off, without getting the mascots their souvenir picture. Fortunately they had their own photographer, who took a team photo at half time.

James McCulloch

Two weeks ago we had a comfortable eight point cushion ahead of the relegation position occupied by the visitors - by the start of the game it was down to one without our having kicked a ball. Goole's win against Farsley when we did not have a game, and a draw against Mossley when our game against Burscough was postponed (our volunteers got the pitch playable, but it started to rain again) gave them four points. We lost three, having played Lloyd Dean in the Boxing Day win against Bamber Bridge, when he was still suspended after a red card against Scarborough at the beginning of December.

Both sides approached the first half as though the most important thing was not to lose, which, given the league table, seemed reasonable. This, combined with the unaccustomed sun, made it that bit trickier to get a decent picture.

Chris Almond & Jordan Wynne

We took a grip on the game almost immediately in the second half with a goal from Dominic Reid, who is turning out to be something of a find. I was not quite in position to catch the shot, although it would have been more luck than judgment if I had, as I was not expecting it to go in from that far out. I did, however, catch the celebration.

We secured our advantage, or so we thought, when Josh Dolling put away an attempted clearance.

The players celebrate Josh Dolling's goal - Josh remains careful to avoid a card for excessive celebration

I still thought we were still being profligate in front of goal, with plenty of shots going astray or finding Thomas Beaurepaire without requiring him to stretch what appeared to be an injury, as he was not taking his own goal kicks.

What I was fearing happened with seven minutes to go, with Goole exploiting a moment's inattention to score. From then, we were very much on the back foot, as the visitors, with their last minute goal against Mossley in mind, looked to take a point, and deprive us of two. They succeeded with two minutes to go, leaving us very much regretting points lost rather than one gained.

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 2 (Reid, Dolling) Goole AFC 2

Shine a light in the corners

Feeling like a game in the absence of a Prescot Cables fixture , I attended Marine's game against Corby Town. The hosts are in a  similar position to us, just above the relegation positions in the Premier Division, and the visitors were one point below them. I hoped to catch Jack Phillips once he had his international clearance after playing in Wales (for a club playing all its away games in England) but he was injured in his first appearance, and will be out for quite some time. Former Cables interest would be represented by Jamie Menagh, who had also been awaiting international clearance after joining from Airbus UK Broughton of the Welsh Premier League, so I took my camera.

Jamie Menagh

Marine have a corner arrangement of floodlights: I used their application for planning permission as the basis for my diagrams illustrating lighter and darker parts of the pitch. Unfortunately, there were some bulbs out. Fixing them involves more than just getting a seppblatter, and will probably need to wait until the close season. So, the corners had respectively six, five, four and three bulbs illuminated, with the six and five at one end, and the four and three at the other.

The hosts were playing towards this end in the first half, so I would be better placed just into the visitors' half, rather than going all the way to the terraces.

Adam Hughes

Any moves out from Marine's half looked a bit backlit.

James Short

The visitors had the best of the first half, going in a goal ahead.

For the second half, I took up position in the most illuminated part of the ground, where I was joined by Dr James, who had encountered a spot of bother with the train service. I would say it is much less fuss when you go by bus, but unfortunately it often isn't, so I won't.

Marine drew level with a goal from captain Daniel Mitchley, and took the lead from the same player, for which I managed a double, capturing both the foul ...

... and the successful penalty.

It looked as though Marine would have to settle for a draw to maintain their one point advantage when the visitors equalised in the last ten minutes. However, the hosts took all three points with a goal from Alfons Fosu-Mensah three minutes from time.

Alfons Fosu-Mensah

Regular observers of the game in these parts will know that Marine's Assistant Manager, Tony Sullivan, is not a man to let a goal go uncelebrated.

Tony Sullivan

The rest of the pictures from the game can be seen here.

Final score: Marine 3 Corby Town 2.

Wot, no goals?

For the last few weeks, Prescot Cables have had a new design for the match day programme. The new editor, Gareth Coates, mentions on Twitter that he is a Vice President of Ashford Town (Middlesex) - he attends games wearing an orange and white bar scarf - and lives in Kirkby, so I must remember to ask how that combination came about. One change has been to put a photograph across the whole cover. Gareth is artier than me - I come from a line of technicians, or at least my mother was one - so is more willing to zoom in.

James Doyle joins in celebrating Dale Wright's goal

The weekend's opponents, Droyslden, usually present a robust challenge, and today was no exception.

Dominic Reid gets away from Droylsden's Clayton McDonald (who is as big as he looks)

It was another grey day, although the referee was happy without lights, unlike the previous week, when I thought the natural light was better. This sends the white balance all over the place: if I was creating one photograph, I would spend ages tweaking it and still not be satisfied, but making a collection and getting eleven players in, you make do with what comes out. The white of most of the advertising boards helps a bit.

Chris Almond f/4.8 1/500s ISO800

Danny Flood was warming up with the substitutes at half time, so hopefully a return to action is not too far off.

I usually use more frames from the first half in the final collection, but there have been a few games recently where I have used more from the second as the light has been a bit better. This may have something to do with playing towards the Hope Street End, although I am not sure why, as the light is coming from the side at this time of year.

Andy Scarisbrick

Both sides came out with redoubled determination. This made for plenty of runs that make for good photos.

James Edgar

Marcus Burgess was kept busy in goal.

With the pressure both sides kept up, the biggest surprise to most people was that the game ended without a goal.

Rogues & Rascals Barbershop Man of the Match Josh Dolling

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 Droylsden 0

The rainfall map

At this time of year, online weather forecasts become as familiar as feeds on social networks, which themselves are filled with pitch inspections. Weather forecasts are complex: observations are fed into about 50 models, and the resulting forecast is what they suggest as the most likely outcome. Local forecasts, such as on the Met Office app, generally give a probability there will be rain, and an indication of how heavy and sustained it is likely to be. There is also a rainfall map, showing how the rain is predicted to progress across the country. The fun starts when the two do not agree. On Friday evening before Prescot Cables' game at home to Kendal Town, the summary suggested the probability of rain would fall to <5% after 10pm, but the rainfall map was suggesting a band of heavyish rain moving slowly over the area until 6am. I am not sure what that juxtaposition means - perhaps that it is not likely to rain, but if it does you will know about it.

There had been a call for volunteers to help prepare the pitch, but an absence of tweets suggested the rain had held off, and there was no need for an inspection. Clubs usually call in a referee to inspect if there is any doubt: if they do not, and the game is subsequently called off, they may be liable for the visitors' wasted coach travel. The going seemed good to soft (oops, wrong sport) when I went on to the pitch to take the pictures of the mascots.

The day started brightly, but the cloud was advancing quickly, with the floodlights being needed after about 20 minutes.

Jordan Wynne - two minutes in, f/4.8, 135mm 1/800s ISO800

Dominic Reid, on the half hour, f/4.8 1/500s 140mm ISO2200

I spent some time on the Gasworks Side to keep up with our defence, who were performing well.

James Doyle keeps a close eye on the ball

We took our chance early in the second half when Dale Wright headed in a Harry Cain corner.

Harry Cain takes the corner ...

... Dale Wright heads for goal ...

... and hovers in mid air to watch it go in.

Celebrating

This was cancelled out a few minutes later when the visitors scored with a quick move from a goal kick. We made strenuous efforts to restore our advantage, with a number of saves and near misses, a declined appeal for a penalty and a goal disallowed for offside.

After the game, it was time to catch up on presentations after most of the last month on the road, with the Rogues & Rascals Barbershop Man of the Match going to Dominic Reid, the Warrington Motors Player of the Month for January to Valter Fernandes, and for February to Dominic Marie.

Dominic Marie

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 1 (Wright) Kendal Town 1

It's Saturday, it must be Yorkshire

Prescot Cables' game at Farsley Celtic was our third visit of the month to Yorkshire, and another experiment in seeing how late I could leave home and get to the game. I arrived in plenty of time with the assistance of some nifty footwork to catch an unadvertised connection at Manchester Victoria. My footwork may one day not need to be so nifty if they fix the 10mph "temporary" speed restriction on the approach to the station from Liverpool, which has been there since two departments of British Rail could not agree who was responsible for paying to rectify it in 1987.

Walking down a side street on the way to the ground, I passed houses with the northern feature of the front looking exactly like the back, some having front doors opening to one street, and the back to another (a proper street, not an alley*). I would have said I was walking past fronts, were it not for the washing lines across the street just above head height. It was as well it was not a drying day, or I would have been navigating past the residents' thermals. On arrival, I fortified myself with a hot pork pie with peas and gravy, which, given the wind, I had to eat quickly to stop it becoming a cold pork pie (pleasant enough) with cold peas and gravy (not pleasant at all).

When we kicked off, I was alongside our own half, so I moved at a leisurely pace behind our goal and down the open side. We continued the experiment of having Chris Almond and James Edgar at full back. There was also a start for Josef Faux.

Josef Faux

The hosts had the wind behind them for the first half, and they looked intent on making the most of it, so we did well to only be a goal behind at half time.

We thought we might not make the most of the wind in the second half when Farsley scored a few minutes in. However, a couple of minutes later, Dominic Marie beat the keeper with a shot from the corner of the penalty area. At this point it had started to rain, so I had moved to the side of the pitch to keep it behind me, so I was in just the wrong place for a decent picture. I recommend, however, watching the video here, it is well worth it!

Dominic Marie

You can see at the end of the clip that we were keen to retrieve the ball for a quick restart, knowing our best hope for a result was to keep up the tempo, use the wind, and allow the hosts as little time on the ball as they allowed us. The wind was the one constant part of the weather, the rest was changeable, never raining heavily, but enough to blow drizzle on the front of the lens, interspersed with the sun breaking through the clouds.

Lloyd Dean

I read a film review once which described the lighting, "as if the only time the director had to speak to the lighting engineer was to utter three words, 'smoky blue grey'". The hosts' colour dominates the visual environment, and their chairman's cigar provides the smoke.

Harry Cain

The second half saw a decent performance against a team nine points behind Lancaster City at the top of the table with three games in hand, but it was not enough for more than one goal, despite hitting the post two or three times in the last five minutes.

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

Final score: Farsley Celtic 2 Prescot Cables 1 (Marie)

* or an entry, ginnel, twitten, back passage etc.