Goals in the gloaming

After the difficulty with last season's quarter final of the Liverpool Senior Cup, it was a relief to play this year's corresponding fixture against AFC Liverpool at the first attempt. Not that we were sure it would go ahead: it had rained heavily at the weekend, the drizzle in the afternoon was heavier than forecast, and we were advised to keep our tickets in case a late downpour prevented our starting. We were concerned when one of the linesmen looked at the pitch and went to the referee as he was preparing to kick off, but his issue was with the state of his station at the side, which was resolved by the referee and linesmen swapping diagonals.

The drizzle was heavy enough to require me to cover the camera, which I have not had to do for a while, so I was all thumbs for the first few minutes.

Danny Flood

A competitive first half finished with no score, so we adjourned to the warm to discuss the proposals for an extra division at steps 3 and 4, which get a cautious welcome from these pages. I have not worked out whether the seven into four between steps 4 and 3 will continue the southward drift of the Northern Premier League. If implemented, it looks as though we will swap Yorkshire away trips for some decidedly rural journeys to Staffordshire.

In an evenly matched game, there are usually periods where one team has the most of play, the trick being to take full advantage. We did this in a ten minute spell, starting with a goal from James McCulloch on the hour. This coincided with my changing a battery, and was followed by a booking for celebrating with the crowd. Even the AFC Liverpool supporter next to me, who had a mainly partisan assessment of the referee's performance, felt compelled to denounce his jobsworthery. I had little more luck capturing the next two goals, from James Edgar and Dominic Reid, although I at least caught the celebration for the last.

Dominic Reid celebrates his goal

We were by now in weather best described as sideways drizzle (a northern thing, like fog, only wetter).

Bram Johnstone

Josh Dolling completed the scoring ten minutes from time.

Josh Dolling

With a good performance from the whole team, it was difficult to choose the Rogues and Rascals Barbershop man of the match (on which I always decline to offer an opinion), with the award going to Jordan Wynne.

Jordan Wynne

As a note to self - I must find a box to stand the Rogues and Rascals board on for the presentation, we have only a couple of players who are not too tall for it if we just stand it on a table. As a note to everyone else - Wynne does have an e, I asked him!

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 4 (McCulloch, Edgar, Reid, Dolling) AFC Liverpool 0.

The 63 derby

Due to Boxing Day's limited public transport, I was unable to attend Prescot Cables' game at Bamber Bridge, so I went to a local game instead. Bootle v AFC Liverpool looked easy enough to get to, with Merseyrail running a service.

It has become common to refer to derby games by a mode of transport that connects the clubs. There is a bus between today's opponents, which I discovered earlier in the season watching Bootle play Barnton. In a senior moment, thought AFC Liverpool were playing, and turned up to find College Road unexpectedly dark. Fortunately, Traveline suggested the 63, just as one hove into view, so I only missed the first few minutes. Not that it would have helped on this occasion, as it was participating in the Boxing Day transport obliteration, but I would have been able to watch Marine, in the M58 derby against Skelmersdale United.

I had not planned to take pictures, but as it was the first bright, clear match day for over a month, I decided to treat myself to some decent light.

Jack Leamey

I met Dr James getting off the train: as the walk was a couple of minutes longer than we needed to be on time, we missed AFC Liverpool's first goal. I noticed when it was 3pm, and heard a cheer about half a minute later. As the golden goal competition had 4 minutes, the referee had started early.

When names matter for captions, I like to get a quick picture to match boots and haircuts to numbers. I often say I have trouble recognising players when they have had their hair cut, and, positioning myself at the Dodge Kop end Bootle were attacking, I did not spot the hosts' goal was being kept by a friend of these pages, Ben Morrow.

Ben Morrow

The visitors kept up the pressure, scoring a few minutes before half time to add to the goal we had missed on the way.

Emini Adegbenro

The second half looked to be going the same way, but after AFC Liverpool's third goal, Bootle made two substitutions and changed formation. This was almost immediately effective, with two goals in the next ten minutes.

Although the sun had set, there was still some natural light to assist the floodlights.

Josh Hamilton

Time looked to be ebbing away for the hosts to claim a result until Jack McGowan made the scores level with five minutes of normal time to go. With the momentum now firmly with the home side, the visitors were keen to run down the clock, and the home bench keen to ensure that all stoppages were added. Ryan Cox finally secured the result near the end of injury time.

Ryan Cox

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

Final score: Bootle 4 AFC Liverpool 3

Disappearing pictures

I posted an unusually small collection of photos for Prescot Cables' game at home to AFC Liverpool in the Liverpool Senior Cup. Two thirds of the way through the game my two week old SD card stopped working, taking my photos up to that point with it.

The disappearing photos included our match ball sponsor enjoying his hospitality. We do not usually take pictures of the sponsors, but this was a bright chap aged about 10 called David. As he was prepared to spend what I assume was his birthday cash or something similar, and bring four paying adults with him, he got a few more goodies than usual, including a pair of gloves from Marcus Burgess. I wondered whether I would have been able to pay for a sponsorship when I was 10, but the equivalent of the current £50 was only £8.99 in 1978.

I took my usual position on the gasworks side, and started snapping away. The visitors were playing in purple, a kit colour I do not encounter very often, and which turns out blue on photos.

Despite losing the pictures up to about half way through the second half, I was able to to try what I wanted with the remaining images, mainly trying to get the AFC Liverpool kit to come out in its natural purple. I tried different combinations of lighting temperature (blue / yellow) and tint (green / magenta), and found the combination that made the visitors' shirts come out in the right colour made the players close to the orange of our shirts.

A purple AFC Liverpool kit - and orange everything else

Rob Doran in more natural colours, and the AFC Liverpool kit looking blue

There was a gentleman also taking photographs with a decent looking kit, who I thought was with the visitors, as he was behind the goal they were attacking in the first half, and was more towards their end in the second. This may not have been the case: when I posted my collection online, AFC Liverpool asked to use a picture to illustrate the match report on their website.

Joe Nicholson

Both sides had their chances, but the game looked to be heading to penalties, until Lloyd Dean was brought on, and almost immediately made an impact with two goals in as many minutes putting us through to the quarter finals. It is the advantage of this competition, the small size of the County FA makes for a small number of rounds.

Connor Grainger, stepping up from the youth team, made a first start, having come on from the bench in a previous game.

Connor Grainger

We also saw five minutes from Josh Donnelly, who showed promise in pre season, but who has not been able to play in the season so far.

Josh Donnelly

After the game, I was able to catch David and replace the missing picture with one by the pitch and one with Andy Paxton for him and his family.

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

Final score: Prescot Cables 2 (Dean 2) AFC Liverpool 0

Away in the Cup

For many of us, the FA competitions provide a chance to visit clubs that we might not otherwise see. An away draw will have us poring over maps, timetables and the Good Beer Guide. Come the day, off we go, all tin hat and Dunkirk spirit, to some settlement clinging to a hill the other side of Huddersfield. It is all good fun, with the only disadvantage being that the Good Beer Guide is published in September, so we can be out of the Cup before the new Guide comes out.

So, it was with a certain sense of anticipation that Prescot Cables approached the Preliminary Round of the FA Cup. We were drawn away to the winner of the tie between AFC Blackpool, familiar from our time in the North West Counties League as Blackpool Mechanics, and AFC Liverpool. With AFC Liverpool winning, that meant a trip to, er, Hope Street, our home. So, off to the match on the number 10 bus it was.

AFC Liverpool's flags and banners on display

Playing away at your own ground is a rare, and potentially dislocating experience, with different people on the turnstiles, different stewards and different announcements over the tannoy, although we provide the bar and catering facilities. The match officials joined in - about 99% of referees take the diagonal from right back to right back, with the assistants on the opposite diagonal. However, it is up to the referee, and the officials today decided to work the other way round.

With two local games over the weekend, there would be a few of our former players playing for the opposition. In this game, the one that caught my eye was Steve Williams, one of my favourite players from when I started to take pictures, as his running style and willingness to challenge for the ball always guaranteed a good image.

Steve Williams

As a landlord v tenant local derby, this was never going to be a game for the purist, with the game being settled by a single goal from James Thomas, who we found out later had already picked up an injury by the time he scored. The term "up and under" is more familiar in rugby league, but this goal probably qualified as such. James gets a foot to the ball - the goalkeeper is outside the penalty area, so if he uses his hands, the rest of the afternoon will be his own ... 

 ... up ...

 ... and under - and in the goal. You can see the pitch markings in this shot.

If you look closely at the picture, you can see that the focus is on the goalkeeper, which was not entirely intentional. This was the picture I sent in to the Liverpool Echo for the Merseymart - they put it on the back page, and cropped it so the outfield player was mostly cut out and the goalkeeper was in the top left corner of the picture.

Our record at holding on to a 1-0 lead has not been good over the last few seasons, so we were in for a nervous second half. The effect of seeing the game through a small rectangular window, and operating precision electronic equipment, can be a certain sense of detachment. However, by the end I was finding it difficult to remain calm, and was pointing the big round thing on the front of the camera in the direction of the action and fairly indiscriminately pressing the button on the top, which makes for a lot of shots finding their way to the bin, but some made it through.

The results can be seen here.