Cup final

Following Prescot Cables' win in their Liverpool Senior Cup semi-final against Litherland REMYCA last weekend, the County FA were keen to complete the competition before it got in the way of the new season. For the final against Everton (the Under 23 side, a description applying to a fair number of our team too), they chose the next available date, five days later. Marketing got under way, with posters in the town and on social media, which worked, attracting a crowd of 865. People even returned to Prescot from abroad (well, Scotland anyway).

This was the club's first cup final since the North West Counties League Cup in 2002, so the first I would photograph. I watched the former from the blazers' enclosure at Bury FC, having wandered past a steward helpfully holding a gate open without checking who was going through it.

This time it would fall to me to provide the club's photographic output. In a big game, this leaves you feeling like Jonah (in Nineveh, not in the fish), plugging away at a collection whilst those who only need one or two frames are tweeting their results. I read an interview in the paper with a photographer for Getty Images at the Olympics - they can get an image from camera to editor's laptop to market in 180 seconds. Try that on a wet Tuesday night in November against Ossett Albion.

James Edgar

I try to capture all the players , but if I miss one in a  league game, it will even itself out over two or three weeks. For a game like this, everyone wants to be able to show they were there, playing against a Premiership club, in front of a large crowd, That means ideally pictures including an Everton player, and the crowd in the background. Missing someone out was not going to go down well. I made sure I was there early and got a few pictures of warming up.

Andy Paxton briefs the team

The next challenge came with the mascots, from the Junior section / All Star Coaching, 22 of them, one with each of the players. I snapped them lining up and shaking hands, an activity at which people were not hanging about, with the first players moving down the line before the last had taken their place. I produced a set of pictures with a heading so the boys and their parents can have a souvenir. Identifying that everyone is in is just the same for the adults - check for boots and haircuts.

Once we were under way, I snapped away furiously, making a mental note of who I had not seen for a bit. The new pitch perimeter that volunteers had worked on over the summer was looking tidy, and, most importantly, giving full support to the new advertising boards.

Nathan Quirk

Over the last few games, I have cropped many more pictures to the ratio the camera uses, rather than those like 10 x 8, unless there is a distraction I want to crop out. This is partly technical, the original ratio has more pixels, and partly changing taste on my part. It was handy for a few shots on this occasion.

Josh Nicholson

At the Safari Park End, evidence remained of Stuart Pearce's having been in the ground earlier, filming an advert.

Jonah O'Reilly

For the second half I took up position on the Gasworks Side, where I had more company than usual. With most of the advertising facing the same way as me, I concentrated on getting players in front of the crowd.

Rob Doran

The visitors were taking the competition seriously (not always the case with professional sides in county cups), and took a firm grip on the game with two goals in the first half and one in the second. Even with the game out of reach, our players were still looking for the consolation goal, but it was not to come.

I usually limit a collection to about 60 pictures, about the maximum number most people want to scroll through, but I allowed slightly for this game. The rest of the pictures can be seen on the club website here, and on Google Photos here.

Final score: Prescot Cables 0 Everton 3.

Close cropping

During the first half of the Wales v England rugby union game a couple of weeks ago, my friend Dr Phil posted on Facebook that he thought the England players were all lads from Buckinghamshire, coerced into playing rugby at Eton, and they needed to strengthen the squad with some door staff from nightspots my student and postdoctoral friends go to long after my bedtime. There was one flaw in this analysis - none of the squad are from Buckinghamshire, and none went to Eton.

The sociological aspect of rugby union merits a few reams of academic literature, but the perception (never more than partly true) that the game in England was a public school preserve was a source of derision to our neighbours, particularly in Wales. In the professional era, whilst the majority of the starting XV against Wales (eight players to seven) was educated privately, this was mainly Millfield (on sports scholarships) and local independent grammar schools.

Of the comprehensive educated players, three came from a few miles away from where I grew up. My school offered football and rugby: the latter's players seemed more (but definitely not exclusively) drawn from those whose parents attended a state grammar school. Such schools when they existed in our area mainly played rugby. I avoided the conundrum by being hopeless at controlling a ball, but having a half way decent turn of speed up and down a 1 in 9 hill (for those in the know, Mossley is a mere bagatelle at 1 in 13). On the other side of the hill was Warlingham RFC, where a number of our school team played their club rugby, and current England captain Chris Robshaw played as a boy.

One group largely absent from the England squad, and I am not sure whether it was a significant group in the amateur era, was from the farming areas of the South West and East Midlands, where the game attracts support across the community, possibly because local games are a good excuse for a scrap with the next village.

The following morning, I found Prescot Cables' football game at home to Salford City was postponed due to a frozen pitch. It had been sunny the previous day, and not freezing overnight; however, there is an area in permanent shadow, which was still frozen from Thursday night. So, I headed off to table topping Birkenhead Park, who used my photos last season. I am not sure about the social makeup of the club, but being next to Birkenhead School and with a grammar school system in part of the Wirral, I suspect it is similar to that back home. The visitors, second placed  Kirkby Lonsdale, are from the solidly farming area of Westmorland.

I could have gone to a game a couple of weeks previously if Darlington had not been gung-ho about the state of their pitch, giving a wasted journey to County Durham. I would then have been able to join in their commemoration of Park and England captain Percy Kendall, killed in action in France 100 years ago.

One of my photos from the corresponding fixture last year was on the programme cover...

... a more closely cropped version of this one.

I generally regard including the ball as a minimum requirement, but the closer crop works quite well in the context of the cover.

The away side's colours always look bright on a grey day.

The away supporters seemed dissatisfied with some of the refereeing decisions, although not always being on top of the laws meant I was not able to offer an opinion. Here the ball carrier seems intent on letting everyone get on with their maul without him.

The hosts looked to be at a disadvantage with a man sent off just before half time, but maintained their lead with solid defence...

...driving forward when they had the ball...

...and a conversion accompanied by what sounded like a tile slipping on the changing room roof, the landing point for a fair few successful efforts.

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

Final score: Birkenhead Park 20, Kirkby Lonsdale 17.

The possum is flying solo

Last season, a group of Prescot Cables supporters enjoyed a day out at Garforth Town. A trip on the train, cans of nasty lager for those preferring quantity to quality, and Yorkshire real ales for the more discerning of us.

Unfortunately, the tourist attractions of Garforth are limited, to the degree that many people will be tempted to visit just once, and so it proved on this occasion. Alternative destinations for last year's party included New York and Macclesfield (for Marine's unsuccessful attempt to reach the First Round Proper of the FA Cup), leaving just me travelling by train. Not that I spent much time in Garforth, taking a detour on the way to Kirkstall Abbey, where they had a party in mediaeval costumes wandering round posing for wedding pictures - I did not ascertain whether they had married in the costumes, or indeed in the Abbey ruins.

Given my comments on Samson in my last post, I was a little alarmed when I arrived at the ground, and spotted Liam Hollett sporting a rather severe haircut.

Liam Hollett assesses the options for a free kick

I need not have worried, as this was to be one of our more successful afternoons. Garforth appear to be in somewhat reduced circumstances since our last visit, having gained only two points from the first 11 games of the season. After a few barren games, it is good to have the chance to be talking about the best way to take pictures of goals. The first of the afternoon was from Glyn Barker.

Here is how I thought the photo of Glyn shooting for goal should look when I was cropping pictures for the slide show, showing pressure from Garforth's Craig Maynard approaching from the side.

Glyn Barker scores goal no 1

A couple of hours later, when I cropped the pictures to send in to the Echo for the Merseymart (for which I start from scratch with the original photo from the camera), I had clearly decided that this was a better crop, concentrating on Glyn alone.

An alternative view of goal no 1

The cropping for the second goal, from Jack Webb, was more clear cut, with Jack beating Craig Maynard again.

Jack Webb shoots for goal no 2

I did not get a decent shot of the third goal, also from Glyn Barker, or the fourth, from Jonathon Bathurst, although in both cases I captured the cross from Max Fargin that led to the goal, here avoiding the attentions of the rather busy Craig Maynard.

Max Fargin crosses for Jonathon Bathurst to score goal no 4

As Jonathon was a late substitution, at about 75 minutes, although I got a couple of action shots for the slide show, I was not particularly happy with them, and as a goal scorer deserves a picture, here is one from the half time warm up.

Jonathon Bathurst

This was a good win, which will have boosted confidence - realistically Garforth  are one of the clubs with whom we are competing to avoid relegation, so it was good to see them confidently dispatched, 4-1, which, coincidentally, is the average number of goals against and for Garforth so far this season.

After that, I took the bus to Leeds, as the route goes past the Fox & Newt, close enough to the centre to be convenient, but far enough out to avoid a hectic city centre Saturday evening. However, I did not examine the timetable closely enough, and caught one that only ran as far as the centre, so I tried the Grove, to the south of Leeds station, tucked away behind Yorkshire's tallest building. Their concert room at the back has bands most nights, but earlier in the evening, before the band arrives, provides the ideal oasis for a quiet post match pint.

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

Over 'ere son, on me 'ead

I take ONE weekend away ...

Since my last Prescot Cables post, we have had a change of manager, with the previous incumbent departing for the snouting velvet dingles of Cantilever Park to take charge of Warrington Town, and bring League football to the town.Warrington acted with considerable speed: having announced the dismissal of Joey Dunn on Monday 20th March, they received over 40 applications, sifted them and announced an appointment shortly after the post arrived on the closing day the following Monday.

Stepping in to the caretaker role at Prescot is someone who needs no introduction, Joe Gibiliru Senior, who my friend Roger pointed out as one of our best players when I first started watching the club in 1991. Shortly afterwards, Joe was appointed for his first spell as Manager.

Club President George Hayward welcomes Joe Gibiliru Snr back to the dugout

Prescot were entertaining Lancaster City, having captured a point at Witton Albion, in the first game of Joe's stewardship, in midweek.

I was once watching a game at North Ferriby, where the home manager was loudly instructing his team, "Head the BALL, head the BALL". The emphasis on the word "ball" was such that I thought he may have been concerned a stout Yorkshire cranium was about to be applied to downing a passing pigeon. From the photographer's point of view, this is welcome advice, as getting a head to the ball is good for a photo when it works, although using the head for freelance pest control in mid game may provide an interesting image as well.

Prescot very rarely outrank their opposition for height, so we sometimes come off second best in the air. We have some exceptions, such as Stuart McMullen, who joined us before Christmas.

Stuart McMullen

This is one of the classic shots of a header, the player making a big jump to get to the ball. Sometimes of course, the player hardly needs to leave the ground, as here.

Chris Rowntree

Another classic header shot is of the player rising above the players around, such as here.

Michael Grogan

Having the player taking the header with other playes in close proximity is very handy, as the feet of the players on the ground give a natural lower edge for the picture to show how high the player is jumping, with the ball forming the natural upper edge. I was looking for an example of a header without other players to prodvide a point of reference, and realised that they hardly ever make it in to the collection.

Better still are two players are in the air, going for the ball, as here.

John Couch

You will see that in many cases, the ball is not particularly close the the player's head. I do not always have the best of reflexes, and, unlike a player making a run, the header is a single contact, so if I catch the player's head making contact with the ball, it is sometimes more by luck than judgment. The SLR, with its mirror that rises to allow the light through to the sensor provides instant feedback - if you see the moment of contact, then you have not captured it.

The momentary nature of the header means that a lot of pictures end up in the bin.

James McCulloch

This one has everything - James McCulloch rising above his marker to head the ball, Ashley Ruane getting into position to receive the ball, and even a dark background for contrast. The fatal flaw of course is that the ball is just out of frame.

Prescot were unable to repeat their result from midweek, and lost 1-0. Meanwhile, numbers were coming in from Durham - 5, 6, and finally the end result. Durham City 7 Warrington Town 1.

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

Only here for the beer - or staying vertical

Don't you hate it when you remember on Monday evening that you used the rain cover for the camera on Saturday, and it has been sitting in the bag ever since? Excuse the niff.

This blog enjoys adjourning to a local Good Beer Guide pub after an afternoon's snapping. On Saturday, I did not need to, as the home game against AFC Fylde coincided with the Prescot Cables Beer Festival. I got along early to start on the beers, from an excellent selection, with just the right balance across the strength range. Not that I had any concern about the pictures being at a jaunty angle, as that is easy to correct when cropping. It is a familiar task without a beer festival, I have a chronic inability to hold the camera in a completely horizontal position.

Take this example:

We can see in the background that I have been holding the camera at an angle, especially in the uprights of the windows. We can see it more clearly if we put a grid over the picture.

It is best to use part of a building for a guide: a perimeter fence may slope because of the slope of the pitch or the terrace behind it. The tops of these windows are of limited use as a guide too, because of the shape of the roller shutters.

I wanted to crop the picture just to show the players, with the ball in the top corner - we can also take the chance to rotate the selected area. In Photoshop Elements this can be done by clicking outside the crop tool and dragging it to the desired angle.

Here is the final result after adjusting the lighting.

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

Gentlemen of the Press

Last Tuesday saw Prescot Cables entertain Woodley Sports, leaving their pristine polyester to play on our rather more weather affected surface. They were playing in red, which I suspect takes about half an increment off the best aperture for the desired shutter speed compared to having one team playing in white.

James Thomas returns to Prescot

Tuesday is also the publication day for the Merseymart, of which more in a moment.

Last time I was in London, I was talking to my friend John from the Southwark News. As I mentioned at the time, most local papers, even those owned by the larger groups, only have one or two staff photographers, and will use those mainly for news and events, with sport taking a back seat. So, the amateur photographer can help the club, although some requirements for print are a bit more exacting than for the web, particularly in terms of pixels, of which more in a future post.

Just before the Durham game, I had a call from the sports desk at the Liverpool Echo. They have relaunched the Merseymart supplement, covering south and east Liverpool, Huyton and Prescot. As Cables are the highest placed football club in the area, we get a fair chunk of the back page, and our Chairman, Tony Zeverona, put the Echo in touch with me to see if I could supply some photos. Before anyone sees crisp currency, if local papers could afford to pay for photos, they would employ someone to take them, so the main glory is your name in the paper. I even buy my own paper!

When I have supplied photos before, it has been a one off for the Southwark News, or the opposition's local paper, so I sent a link to my online collection, and let the paper's sports writer choose the images. However, the Merseymart deadline is on Monday, so to speed things up, I pick the photos.

I mentioned in the last post the pictures I sent after the game against Bamber Bridge. They chose the picture I was expecting, of Ashley Ruane shooting for his second goal. Generally, they will not be looking for the best standalone picture, but the one that best illustrates the match report. Where a player has scored two goals, he is likely to be in the picture, preferably scoring.

Here is the picture as it came off the camera.

For the web collection, I cropped it like this.

If it had not been a goal, it would probably not have made the collection - at full screen size, we can see that Michael Grogan in the background is in slightly better focus than Ashley Ruane. When I submitted it to the paper, I cropped it slightly differently to draw attention away from this.

This was a bit wider than the space the paper wanted to use, so they cropped it more tightly - I try to avoid cropping through players, but this can be done whilst still showing that the shot was taken under pressure from the opposition.

That is is not exactly as the image appeared in the paper, it is my crop to show the effect - the original and any variations I make of it belong to me. By sending the photo to the paper, I allow them to use the image, and any variations to cropping and lighting they make belong to them.

We also had a good match report. The club recently appointed a new Press Officer, after some time without anyone filling this role. This has really improved the coverage, as he has a knack of writing match reports that can be used by the press with minimal editing, which makes the reporter's job easier. With a print deadline approaching, a match report or press release that can form the bulk of a story, accompanied by a picture, can really increase the chance of getting coverage.

The pictures from the game against Woodley can be seen here.

The cutting room floor

At Prescot Cables' home game against Radcliffe Borough at the weekend, one of our supporters, Steve Nolan, brought along some old programmes for Webmaster Geoff to scan in for the match programmes section on the website. An advertisement caught my eye in one for a local "Turf Accountant" - it is years since I saw a bookmaker advertising as that.

Those were the days of photography on film. I tried taking photos on film at a game once, although I quickly realised this was likely to be expensive - each frame cost about 35p in film and processing - and not particularly productive. There was the question of where to show them, short of wandering round with envelopes full of prints, like those dreaded evenings when you went to your neighbours' to view their holiday snaps.

I am a bit cautious when using a zoom lens about getting the action in shot, so I tend to use a shorter focal length than may be necessary. With modern sensors, it is also easy to take pictures from one end of the pitch to the other with a 200 - 300mm lens. In both cases, there will be a lot of space in the frame around the action: the same will be true with many shots taken on a compact camera.

In some cases, the background will be an interesting part of the photo, and these will come up in later posts, but in most cases it is of no particular interest, and takes the eye away from the action. Take this fairly standard shot of Cables' Fraser Ablett.

The background does not add much, so let us get rid of it. I do this in Photoshop Elements, but there are plenty of free utilities, like the Picasa uploader, that offer a crop function as well.

Sometimes, cropping makes the image. Take this example of Cables' Tony Sayer going for a header.

The background here is quite cluttered, and the header is almost lost in the rest of the picture. However, if we take out most of the background, we get a much better image.

This is a topic that will come up again in future posts, but in the meantime, the pictures from the weekend's game can be found here.

Relaxing rule 1

There is one time I will relax my rule 1, and show a picture that would normally find its way swiftly to the bin. Take this one: I have only caught the goalkeeper, a principal participant in the action, from the chest down, but ...

... a goal is a goal - this one scored by Prescot Cables' Billy Flynn, after a fine run round 2 Vauxhall Motors defenders.

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

Rule no 1 - or how not to do it

I promised some tips that I follow when producing my photos, so here is the first one - make sure anything with which you are not completely satisfied never sees the light of day. If you have only taken a small number, and that leaves you with just one or two photos, that is not a problem, one photo is useful to illustrate a match report or go in the programme.

It is always easy enough with a bit of practice to take some decent photos at a football or rugby game. The sort of camera being used will affect what it is possible to do, but it is generally possible on a reasonably bright day to get a few pictures showing some action, which can then be cropped to create a good, professional looking shot.

However, one thing is even easier - to take a dud one. In a fast moving game, players or match officials will get in the way of the shot you want, the action will move more quickly than you can keep up with it, or the camera will decide to focus on something you did not want.

I shall break my rule about showing the bad shots just this once, and show a couple from Prescot Cables' pre season game against a Wrexham XI to show what I mean. Here is an extreme example, with the assistant referee getting in the way of what may have been a reasonable shot, an occupational hazard of taking photos from the sidelines:

To be fair, I do not see many of these in football photos: although its equivalent from parties and social occasions appears often enough.

This one is a bit less clear cut, and crops up more often - the sign on the terraces is in perfect focus, which cannot be said for the players.

Its place is the bin, and it needs to go there without a second thought.

That is not to say that when a picture does not turn out as intended, it is always a bad thing - for this one, I was trying to catch the goalkeeper, but I like the effect with the focus on Wrexham's No 4.

The pictures that made it into the final selection from the Prescot v Wrexham game can be seen here.