The colour of the shirt

Hyde United's supporters' coach to Prescot Cables had just dropped off its passengers as I arrived for our game. I was sporting my pink and blue striped rugby-style shirt - as I never get to London to watch Dulwich Hamlet these days, I have to get wear out of it somehow. To be fair, I should not wear it with my waxed jacket, the colours clash horribly. Two gentlemen in the queue took issue with my clothing choices, commenting that a man needs to be brave to wear pink. With some people around, you need to be brave to leave space between the ground and your knuckles, but we will let that pass.

The weather had been wet for a few days, with most of the matches in the area being postponed, and our VertiDraining again paying off, as we survived. The inspection is concerned with the bit the players use - the bit I use, where the substitutes warm up, was decidedly squishy.

A couple of visitors were familiar to us. Dominic Marie, who left us for Marine in October, was now settled at Hyde. I did not capture a very good shot of his return, as he was on the bench, and we were into the territory of pot luck catching specific players by the time he came on. David Brown has been popping up all over Yorkshire, usually scoring against us, for as long as I have been writing, and has now found his way to Cheshire (we observe traditional, and County FA, boundaries on these pages).

David Brown

After the last game, where the goal celebrations pictures featured those frequenting the Fence End, one of the Dugout Irregulars light heartedly expressed a little jealousy that they did not seem to feature, so I made sure I got them in.

The Dugout Irregulars watch Reece McNally

We enjoyed a competitive first half, with a couple of good chances, but without a goal. The match report from the visitors provided a fair record.

Harry Cain

A couple of minutes into the second half Lloyd Dean opened the scoring. I was in a good position to capture it.

Lloyd Dean shoots for goal

The League website has the next two scores in the wrong order, as it suggests Thomas Pratt levelled for the visitors before we went ahead again. However, we went two ahead with a goal from Jordan Wynne. I was on the side by this time, and caught the celebration.

As this was the earliest sunset of the year for a home game, I experimented with spot metering, which seemed to give reasonable results.

Baba Conteh

After our second goal, Hyde made some changes, including bringing off our traditional nemesis, David Brown, and replacing him with Dominic Marie.

Ben Barnes denies Dominic Marie

The almost inevitable happened when Dominic brought the visitors level with 15 minutes to go. We defended well for the remaining time to ensure we kept hold of a point.

After the game, I was speaking to Louis Coyne's father, who I had not realised played for Cables under Joe Gibiliru when I started watching in the 1990s. We agreed on the difficulty of getting a good picture of centre backs, as they can have a good game without getting much of the ball if they are closing down the opposition's ability to play, and there are often other players blocking the view anyway. As it happened I had a bit more luck with that than usual in this game.

Louis Coyne lines up a free kick

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 (Dean, Wynne) Hyde United 2.

It's polyester Jim, but not as we know it

I had commitments in the morning before Prescot Cables' game at Hyde United, so had to set out fairly late. The electric train to Manchester connected nicely with one to Newton for Hyde, which, according to Mr Google's maps is sixteen minutes walk from the ground. This, however, is the way to the main entrance, and there is a shorter route through what Google Earth has as a street, but which felt worryingly like someone's back garden, to a side entrance.

The ground has been upgraded to Conference standard, so has modern conveniences like regulation height metal pitch perimeter barriers, just right for resting my arms without getting concrete dust on my coat. A sense of community is retained by features such as a memorial wall, on which there are a number of plaques commemorating deceased supporters.

Many supporters enjoy the chance to meet the locals.

Richie, our leader in beer and pub choices, and friend

The main feature of the ground is a new 4G pitch. Our team train on such a surface, but this is the first time I have seen a game on one. At least, I think it is, as, when I looked up the difference between 3G and 4G, some sites suggested that the difference was a marketing name, and all the technology was 3G. The surface looked particularly smooth, in better condition than my living room carpet. It was an even green, without any visible black between the blades, and only threw up any rubber infill on sliding tackles, although other descriptions led me to expect no rubber crumb at all.

There seemed to be some spare turf.

We secured an early goal. The home goalkeeper was playing the ball with his feet, and did not see an advancing Lloyd Dean, who successfully dispossessed him. Celebrations started before the ball went in to the net.

This could be counting chickens before they are hatched, we have all seen players miss in that situation, but Lloyd did not err.

I decided to divide my time in this half into three locations, behind the goal on each side, then on the side, near the benches.

James McCulloch

The floodlights came on for the second half, up to which point I had not noticed the unusual combination of a corner arrangement on one side, and a side arrangement on the other, including distinctive pylons on top of the stand.

The quality of the light meant I could do as I did in the first half and move round behind the goal. There did not appear to be any particularly poorly illuminated spots.

Harry Cain, pictured just after half time

Valter Fernandes, near the end of the game

We held out until about 75 minutes, when the hosts scored from a goalmouth scramble. I am not in the habit of showing the opposition's goals in detail, but you have to hand it to their player for getting a leg to Jordan Wynne's clearance.

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

Final score: Hyde United 1 Prescot Cables 1 (Dean)