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.