Sunshine after rain

A couple of weeks' steady rain meant Prescot Cables' game at home to Ramsbottom United was our first competitive fixture since Scarborough at the end of January. Skemersdale United have not been able to play on the pitch either, and it looked as though it had benefited from three weeks' rest and from the grass starting to grow again.

As well as the pitch having had chance to dry, I anticipated being dry too, as no rain was forecast. There was even sun, which at this time of the year means it is tricky to sit behind the goal line at the Safari Park End. The light is mainly from the side for pictures, but the sun is low enough to dazzle, and bright enough that I cannot see the camera screen. I therefore sat in the shade of the side perimeter. An issue I did not have a couple of years ago is boards on the Gasworks Side giving a strong backlight - a product of our success selling advertising. The D5300's sports mode automatically uses matrix metering,  so I experimented with shutter priority and spot and weighted metering. The latter had some advantages, although I am not sure it outweighed the disadvantage of having to manually adjust shutter speed as play went into the shade.

Reece Fishwick

We quickly imposed ourselves when Reece Fishwick was brought down for a penalty converted by Chris Almond.

One of  the more ominous sights in a game is a player going down with no-one near him, and this proved to be the case when Josef Faux landed awkwardly after jumping for the ball, injuring his knee. Sadly, early reports suggest he may be out for some time.

Josef Faux

The resulting substitution meant James Edgar returned from injury somewhat earlier than he expected.

James Edgar

A lot of sports photography involves techniques you can learn - looking at published photographs to see what works, mastering camera settings, cropping and lighting. However, there is something, that we can call 1/10s (probably less than that) that separates professionals from those of us in the amateur field. It is the difference in reaction time between getting the fingers making contact with the ball and getting it a foot away flying off to safety.

Ben Barnes

It is also the difference between getting the ball on the head of the player and ... well you see the pattern.

Chris Almond heads for his second goal ...

... joins Ernie in watching it go in ...

... and celebrates.

To access the pitch for the second half, I used the smart new gate installed by our sponsors Joseph's Joinery - the only snag being that with a bolt at the bottom as well as the top, I need someone to close it behind me. The cover at the Eaton Street end gave me some shadow to work in. Ben Barnes was sensibly wearing a cap, but I do not recall ever having seen a linesman wearing one, even though in this case he was looking straight into the sun for most of the 45 minutes.

The linesman watches Reece McNally

We had taken the opportunity presented by the weather to play friendlies against Southport and Chorley, and made a new signing, Junior Dos Santos, who has played with West Ham's youth setup and recently relocated to the north. Some tweets telling us he was enjoying training and looking forward to playing for the club went a long way to ensuring an enthusiastic welcome when he came on.

Junior Dos Santos

The visitors' goal came when Ben Barnes made one of those howlers that keep goalkeepers awake at night - an innocuous free kick came in his direction, he had the options of gathering it in his hands, stopping it with his feet or falling on it. A moment's hesitation meant he did none, and the ball trickled into the net. It is the goalkeeper's lot that talk after the game was of whether I had a picture of the miss rather than one of the acrobatic save I have published above.

For the last quarter of an hour, the shadow of the stand was long enough to let me take position by the side of the pitch.

Matthew Hamilton

We were joined for the afternoon by some friends from Larvik, Norway, the home town of the father and son Norwegian internationals Gunnar and Hallvar Thoresen. The Thoresens made their names with Larvik Turn, whereas our visitors support the town's older football team but younger sports club, IF Fram. They have sponsored some shirt numbers in the name of the town for a couple of seasons, and were making their first visit to Prescot.

Bjørn Nilsson from Larvik presents Baba Conteh with his Man of the Match award

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 (Almond 2 (1 pen)) Ramsbottom United 1.