Nineteen

It was only some fortuitously placed roadworks on the way from Northwich Station to Witton Albion, where Northwich Victoria play, that made me think twice before confidently heading off down the wrong road. Once going in the right direction, the hiss from the outdoor steam pipe trunk distribution venue seemed louder than in November, although it is not yet emitting anything visible. For those who like football with industry in the background, Witton offers a suitable vista. I am not sure whether this is where they generate the steam, or if they pipe it in.

I usually look for a team sheet, but I do not make an exhaustive search, as someone usually puts it online, and I only need it after the game for captions. Had I seen one, I would have noticed something I had been anticipating for some weeks. With the proviso that I do not know the exact age of James Burke, standing in for Marcus Burgess, I was confident that, for the first time, I had been watching the club since before the starting lineup had been born. Not only that, but the average age of the outfield (and I think this applied to the whole XI, James Burke did not look that old) was 19, which I do not recall seeing before.

With four games in eight days, we needed to spread resources, so it made sense to put out some younger players, particularly those playing their first season at this level, for a full 90 minutes against strong opposition.

Andy Scarisbrick

Connor Grainger - returning from representing Knowsley in the Dallas Cup

After five minutes, Danny Flood was injured and replaced by James McCulloch - who was about 6 months old when I started watching, and just took the average back into the 20s.

The hosts scored twice in the first 20 minutes, and we were not without chances, with Rob Doran and James Edgar having the ball gathered from their feet, and Rob having a penalty turned down after being pushed over in mid air. We pulled one back shortly before half time. I am not sure what the sight of Rob Doran considering his options for a free kick does to the opposition but it scares me!

In this case, he elected to go directly for goal. The perimeter fence is some distance back from the goal line, which means I need to be near the corner flag to get a decent angle without the net in the way. The reward is being able to get a shot like this.

There was a presence from the landlords at half time, maintaining their playing surface.

In the second half, the hosts showed they had no intention of letting the game slip, with three goals in a ten minute spell. Despite the game being out of reach, we were still looking for goals with a second consolation coming from James Edgar.

James Edgar

When I reported back to my friend Roger, I managed to add another to the opposition tally. It may have been to do with not having had much to eat or drink due to a slight bug, being dehydrated, lacking carbs, and rustling up goals as a figment of my imagination. I did the same at Farsley at the beginning of the year. This time I did not even have a disallowed goal to explain it, the balance for that having been with us.

This was another in a run of games against teams challenging for the playoff positions, in which the hosts remain secure despite having had points deducted for fielding an ineligible player earlier in the season.

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

Final score: Northwich Victoria 5 Prescot Cables 2 (Doran, Edgar).

A visit from the leaders

Before Prescot Cables' game against Northwich Victoria it had rained heavily during the week, but been dry on Friday. Our Chairman was in correspondence on Twitter on Saturday morning with the visitors, advising that the pitch was playable, but its continuing to be so would depend on the weather. A referee was on standby to inspect, although it was not forecast to rain until around 1:30. It arrived a little later than anticipated, when I was at the bus stop following reports on Messenger from the club bar, local public houses and from those stuck with shopping, whilst trying to grasp why so many buses disappeared into thin air on travel apps (they have not invented one whose predictions cope with a sudden traffic jam).

Arriving at the ground a few minutes late, I was surprised to see the places that normally accumulate standing water had drained reasonably well. Low cloud as well as the rain meant lighting conditions were poor, with floodlights required from the outset.

Marcus Burgess was unwell so we saw Ben Morrow return to action for Cables.

Ben Morrow

Andy Paxton's policy is not to have a goalkeeper on the bench, which seems a sensible use of resources, as you rarely replace a goalkeeper unless he is injured or sent off. Ben has been at Widnes - for a young goalkeeper, being on loan a division below and gaining for first team experience is probably more productive than watching from the bench.

I took up position on the gasworks side, quickly realising this was not such a bright idea. After some time of my rain cover flapping in the "breeze", I joined everyone else taking shelter under the stand, which also provided some shelter from the wind. I am still working on a balance between showing rain in a picture and a decent amount of noise reduction.

Danny Flood

I was able to emerge again after a few minutes, to find some water in the goalmouth, but with the pitch otherwise bearing up. I have to admit to losing track of when in the weather related proceedings the visitors scored their first goal (the record says 20 minutes, which suggests in the downpour), but they scored again a minute from time in the first half.

James McCulloch & George Mannion

The second half was drier, so I just had the wind to contend with. We had the chance to score when Rob Doran was fouled just inside the penalty area, but put the resultant kick over the bar. I do not think it made any difference to the outcome: whilst we had a good performance, Northwich are top of the table for a reason, and we did not look like denting their armour.

James Edgar

With the poor lighting conditions, I had a limited range of pictures that came out at print quality. Although the Echo no longer produce the Merseymart supplement, so the shape is not as important as it was, landscape format is still better for their website, where they report on the club most weeks. I try to keep the player libraries at the Echo and TheNonLeague magazine up to date, which is not helped when the most suitable images are of exactly the same four players I sent in from the last game.

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

Final score: Prescot Cables 0 Northwich Victoria 2.

Low batteries

I had a function to attend at lunchtime before Prescot Cables' game at home to Northwich Victoria. The recently revamped Traveline website came up with a couple of bus routes I would not have thought of even from the map, so I was able to arrive, suited and booted, only 10 minutes late. I have never understood that phrase, as I have never thought of wearing boots with a suit, but a tie goes a long way to keeping your neck warm.

I was captured on film by the We all stand together blog. Its author also spoke to our announcer, David Williams, who recounted his responsibility for his fellow actor David Walliams' name, his being already registered with Equity under their shared real name. I once recounted this to one of the children at church, a bright boy, aged seven, who asked, "So, when David Williams retires, will David Walliams become David Williams?".

I arrived in time to see Jack Phillips opening the scoring. I was not in time for a picture, but I was not too worried, I know I can get usually get a decent picture of Jack if I need one for the paper, and it was a sunny day, so there would be few problems with the light.

Jack Phillips

Just before I left home, I transferred my camera to a smaller bag to cut down the amount I carried to lunch, forgetting to do the same for the spare battery. As soon as I started taking pictures the low battery indicator started to show, so I knew I had a limited number of frames. To cover as much of the game as possible, I thought back to the days of film, when exposures cost money, taking less of those pictures that are not likely to work, but are worth a try if they are free. I first tried photography 20 years ago, but the ratio of decent pictures to exposures proved costly, and I was never keen on dark rooms and chemicals to do my own cropping.

Restricting myself meant I was mainly concentrating on the half we were attacking. although I still got some in our own half.

Liam Dodd

I also did not snap away as vigorously as usual when a player was running with the ball, taking two or three shots, rather than the normal seven or eight. Whilst this limited the frames from which I could choose to display, I was generally happy with the results.

Jonah O'Reilly

With Ciaran Gibson suspended, Tom Quinn was back in goal. He seemed a bit indecisive in previous games, but this time he was making much more confident interventions, with some good saves, particularly in the first half, which makes a goalkeeper much easier to capture.

Tom Quinn

Talking of goalkeepers, Northwich seemed to have been experimenting with squad numbers.

James Edgar challenges Northwich's Dane Smith

The visitors' pressure was repaid with an equaliser early in the second half. James Edgar, after his heroics in goal against New Mills, returned to his more accustomed role by restoring our lead after about 20 minutes.

My battery ran out 10 minutes from the end, just as as the visitors' strength started to tell, with an equaliser, and then a winning goal in injury time, somewhat controversial, for what many thought had been a foul in the build up, and for the amount of time the referee had added on in the first place.

Elsewhere, Padiham won, which reduces the gap between us, but it was against Radcliffe Borough, so meant they remain only a point ahead of us.

Finally, double congratulations are due to my friend Jon, one of our pharmacologists, who has passed his viva and been awarded his PhD. He is often unable to attend Saturday games due to attending weddings (according to our mutual friend Luke), and will be adding his own to the list, becoming engaged over Christmas: this blog extends best wishes to Jon and his fiancée Sophie.

The rest of the pictures from the game, a slightly smaller collection than usual, can be seen here.

Final score: Prescot Cables 2 (Phillips, Edgar), Northwich Victoria 3.

Victoria victorious

Last Tuesday saw Prescot Cables travel to Northwich Victoria, who play at Flixton, a common destination in our days in the North West Counties League. The nearest station is Irlam, but that has the problem of a large ship canal in the way (which can lead the ground to feel a bit damp) and no convenient bridge. It is, however, easy enough to get to if you do not mind a bit of exercise, being 35 minutes' walk from Urmston and 20 from Flixton: there are buses, but not conveniently timed for evening games.

Andy Griffiths

They have lighting I have not seen anywhere else, with pylons a third of the way along the goal line, which produces a squashed, sideways version of my little diagrams. I can therefore take up my normal daytime position behind the goal we are attacking, although I cannot expect the camera to capture clearly much further than the half way line, a bit like when I started taking pictures with a 18-55mm lens.

Phil Bannister at the outer end of the camera's range

We have seen on our previous visit that the lights are good, with remarkably little leakage to surrounding properties, complaints about which are a major objection to planning permission for new installations.

Sam Corlett

We had the better of the game in the first half, and had a couple close shots, but sent them over the bar, dispatching the stewards into the overgrown waste land behind the ground. The substitutes warming up at half time fared no better - there is now a ball in a tree that is probably staying there until the ground is hard enough for someone to get up a seppblatter, er, sorry, a stepladder, with a broom handle to dislodge it.

Joe Evans, Callam Gardner and Yunus Giwa warm up

Having missed our best chances in the first half, despite remaining, in the words of the hosts' report on their website, determined and spirited, we succumbed to their physical strength and organisation, going down by two goals without reply.

Not that we were left without entertainment, James McCulloch's father made an innocuous observation about the speed with which a home player got up after play had been stopped for his injury. This upset a gentleman on the balcony, who asked three or four times, at a volume audible to most of the ground, "Are you a doctor?". He then offered the opinion, "Manchester's loads better than Liverpool - where do you do your shopping?", and finished up with, "And what happened to Brookside, eh? Coronation Street's still going".

One of the last pictures of Jack Phillips at 20

Finally, this blog would like to extend belated birthday wishes to Jack Phillips, who turned 21 the day after the game, which surprised a few of us, we thought he was younger. 21 was once the age at which you could vote, own property, etc., but that was reduced to 18 a couple of years after I was born. In the intervening period, even the age for things like standing for elected office has been reduced. Still, it remains a reason for a celebration, although not too wild, it is in the season after all.

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

Final score: Northwich Victoria 2, Prescot Cables 0

Frozen shoulder, but fortunately not a frozen pitch

Prescot Cables' game at home to Northwich Victoria last week came after a weekend with no sport for me. Cables had no fixture, and all the rugby and football clubs I like to watch if Cables are not playing were away, with the nearest being Birkenhead Park at Broughton Park in Manchester.

With little rain on Monday and Tuesday, there was a successful pitch inspection at 4.30pm, with only light rain forecast before the match. This fell as snow, leaving a light covering on the pitch. Some were hoping for an orange ball, but our league does not even have a yellow ball. It's grim up north.

Connor McCarthy

I picked up a frozen shoulder over the weekend, a general problem I have had for years, and a cause of merely minor inconvenience. Purely for photography, it is fortunately the right: when holding the camera, the left, which just crunches, takes most of the weight, and I hold my arms close to my chest, for stability, and so the weight of the camera goes through my legs and feet, rather than the arms and shoulders. Had the problem been with the left arm, I might have been heading to the shop for a monopod, or, as my friend Jon the Pharmacologist succinctly described it when I was explaining why a tripod does not give enough freedom of movement for zooming in with still photography, "so, basically a stick, then".

He thought a tripod might be useful to counteract shivering on a cold evening, but I do not shiver at games as much as I used to. That may have something to do with being old enough to follow your grandmother's advice, and wear a coat... and a jacket... and a jumper... and a shirt... and a t-shirt... and a scarf... and a hat - advice not followed by a Northwich supporter behind the goal.

Adam Reid with Danny Jarrett

Our resident photography student thought the reflected light from the snow was worth about half a stop (half an exposure value), which makes all the difference using consumer kit, making the results that bit less grainy ...

Robert Gilroy

... and getting results from places like near the touchlines.

James Cairns

He reported that his batteries were suffering in the cold, with three having run out of charge. I had no problem, although I shoot in jpg, whereas I assume he was using raw, which uses more read/write capacity and therefore power. As his primary interest was pictures rather than play, he headed off at half time, with my parting comment being that anyone who thought the evening was cold had clearly never been to North Ferriby.

When I started watching football, I remember different disciplinary suspensions applied at our level from the full time professional game. In the Football and Premier League, a player receiving a red card would receive a three match suspension, similar to today. In the semi professional game a player would be suspended for 28 or 35 days, usually a lot longer than three matches. These were brought into line a few years later, but the effect at this time of year can be more severe than the old system. Suspension is from all football until the team for which the player incurred the sanction have completed three matches. Dave Dempsey was returning from a suspension that began between Christmas and New Year, and Antony Shinks still has one game to go of a suspension that started on 4th January, following a red card at Salford City two weeks previously. At the time of writing, if the game away to New Mills goes ahead at the weekend, the weather will have extended it to 49 days.

Dave Dempsey returns to action

An early goal from the visitors before I had had got round to the gasworks side did not bode well, but Prescot exerted some good pressure to be level at half time with a penalty from Connor McCarthy. A second half substitution bringing on James McCulloch (who had been unable to start due to work commitments, and was mercilessly ribbed by his father when he arrived to join the bench) and Rob Doran paid off with a goal from Rob to collect all three points.

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

Final score: Prescot Cables 2 (McCarthy, Doran) Northwich Victoria 1

Northwich lights

Football in Northwich is currently in a state of flux. Our opponents on Tuesday evening, Northwich Victoria, play at Flixton, sharing with Northwich Flixton Villa, whose name suggests they may regard Flixton as a home, unlike Victoria, who aspire to return to Northwich. Meanwhile, in Winsford, 1874 Northwich have broken away, and also aim to play in the town.

The home kit was three quarters white, which helps with lighting

Arriving at Lime Street, the conversation with the woman in the ticket office went like this: -

Me - Day return to Urmston please.
Booking clerk - Single?
Me - No, day return.
BC - Coming back today?
Me - Yes, this evening.
(A price twice what I was expecting appeared on the display)
Me - Is that right?
(The display was turned towards me without a word)
Me - Can you check that, it seems a bit high.
BC - It's right: two day returns to Urmston.
Me - I only want one.
BC - You said two.
Me - No I did not.
BC - (Aggressively) Yes you did.

At this point, I decided I would get more sense out of the self service machine.

I can only describe the pitch as pristine, and floodlights were the best I have seen in a while. They were in an unusual arrangement, two pylons behind each goal line level with the edge of the penalty area. This makes behind the goal a good vantage point. The pitch perimeter wall is only mid thigh height at this point: fortunately our team were not sending shots wide of target: a low flying ball could have played havoc with my exposures.

The quality of the lights gave me the option of a 1/200s shutter speed for the best lighting, or a faster speed for a better freeze of the action. This time I stuck with the slower speed. I was happy with the lighting in front of me.

Enzo Benn, pursued by Northwich's Joe Garvin

You would think it was easy to identify the opposition player here, even without the number: look for the forearm tattoo in other pictures with the number visible. It was not that simple, three or four players had something similar.

I was also happy with results in the middle of the pitch.

James McCulloch

Even the touchlines were well lit enough to produce usable frames.

John Beattie

This was the first outing for the new away kit, sponsored by Britannia Fleet. The socks appear to answer a recent change to the Laws of the Game, which now stipulate that where tape is used (to keep the shin pads in place), it must be the same colour as the part of the sock to which it is applied. Our home socks are black, so there are handy black hoops where the tape goes on the away socks, so we only need one colour of tape.

During the second half, I decided, as I did at Lancaster, to follow the action from the side in our half for a few minutes to catch some shots of our defenders.

Jonathon Lynch and Antony Shinks prepare for a free kick

Back behind the goal, I was buttonholed by Northwich's programme editor, who wanted to use some photos. I was happy to agree, not everyone has a photographer, especially for evening games. Unfortunately, he picked the moment Ged Murphy took a free kick for Isaac Kusoloka to put in the net and cancel out Northwich's earlier goal. I turned towards the action and snapped more in hope than expectation.

"I take it you will not be wanting that one", I said, as I showed him the result. Fortunately Isaac described the goal to the football52 website.

Isaac Kusoloka

The rest of the pictures can be seen here.

Off the field, it was confirmed that Sean Myler has joined Conwy Borough of the Huws Gray Alliance, to fit with personal commitments. Sean is excellent player, conducts himself impeccably, and his style of play is a gift for the photographer. We will miss him more than most, but players moving on is a fact of life, and Dave Powell is proving adept at picking up quality players (including Sean himself). We wish him well, and hope he will eventually make a well earned return to the professional game, where his career was interrupted by illness.

Sean Myler, pursued by a Bear (against Congleton)