Tell her to find me an acre of land

In their second long away trip in as many weeks, Prescot Cables visited Scarborough Athletic, who currently play at Bridlington Town. The pharmacologists were disappointed to miss the trip, but they were at a conference, presenting papers on cutting edge developments in medicine and sampling traditional developments in fermented and spirituous beverages. I stayed overnight in Scarborough, seeing a play at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, and negotiating the lethal crossing outside the station, where the green man is timed to appear with traffic still coming round the corner.

Scarborough have a chartered Boro Bus, for a very reasonable £3, from the town and places on the way that do not have a service to Bridlington. I have yet to take my flat cap out of the cupboard and check for moth, whereas in Yorkshire the season for wearing them is well under way, so I may not have entirely blended in.

On entry to the ground, you need to be stamped like in an eighties nightclub (they may still do so, but the eighties was the last time I frequented one) to access the bar. Unfortunately, I put my hand in my pocket and wiped the stamp off, so I did not bother to be re-stamped, but watched the players warming up. The League have a sponsorship deal for some smart red training tops. This can provide initial confusion when everyone is training in the same colour. Given that the management wear them, I can see scenes like the Belgian manager having to put his jacket on in the World Cup when his white shirt, even with a tie, was blending in with the opposition. I hope they have something more substantial too, if the tops are all you wear on the bench at Harrogate Railway Athletic on a Tuesday night in January, you are going to catch your death of cold.

Mark McLaughlin warms up

The weather was not the best for a couple of days at the seaside, but the ground had cover on three sides, including the side backing on to the Rugby Club stand. Unfortunately I missed a shot of the home goalkeeper hoofing a rugby ball back over the wall.

Harry Molyneux from the Supporters' Club pointed out that they had centre flags, which you do not see much these days.

They could have redeployed them to the corners. It is not immediately apparent who or what is being supported here, but I think the flag is frayed, so the assistant referee is holding the end so it does not distract the player taking a corner.

There was a welcome return for Jon Bathurst, who re-signed a couple of weeks ago, and now has received international clearance after playing for Rhyl last season.

Jon Bathurst takes a free kick

I finally caught a goal - complete with a look on the defender's face more usually found immediately prior to a rugby tackle. I was not sure if it would be the picture the Merseymart chose, as the background is a bit cluttered, but it came out reasonably well in print.

Sam Corlett heads our goal

I got a decent picture at the other end too. The home side were awarded a dubious penalty, with a yellow card to James McCulloch, which we have applied to have rescinded. With Ciaran Gibson suspended, Adam Reid was keeping goal, and had a good game - and became the third of our goalkeepers this season to save a penalty. Of the three, this is the picture that most looks like a save, without having to take my word for it.

The yellow card was to play a further part a few minutes later, when James McCulloch was given a second yellow card for handball (hence the appeal against the first card). Whilst we were able to hold the home side off up to this point, they proved too strong for 10 men, so we came away without the points.

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

Final score: Scarborough Athletic 2, Prescot Cables 1 (Corlett)

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.

Natural Light Day

Around this time, there occurs an event which always brings a sense of cheer - the first football game of the year (3pm kick off) to be completed without the floodlights. We can call it Natural Light Day. Never mind there will probably be a couple more dark afternoons, and evening games to come, proof is here that the days are getting longer. It is good for the club too, they do not need to add a couple of hundred pounds to the electricity bill.

Natural Light Day this year saw Prescot Cables' first game for four weeks, hosting Bamber Bridge, who have also switched to amateur status. Shortly after the last game at Durham City, Cables' new manager Shaun Reid took up his duties, so this was his first opportunity to see his new team in a competitive game.

The Management - Lee Smith, Shaun Reid and Tony Carroll

Lee Smith has been appointed as Assistant Manager, matching Shaun's UEFA A licence with Lee's experience of the local game as a player, including 181 appearances for Prescot. I think Dave Ridler's coaching was an attraction for players, and helped the club retain players through the switch to amateur status, so I hope similar professional level coaching will be an attractive option for good local players.

In a game in bright winter light, Prescot went ahead early in the first half with a goal from Ashley Ruane, who has been looking promising for some time, but just missing the net. So the score looked like staying, until the last 10 minutes struck again (our league position would be better if games were played over 80 minutes), with Bamber Bridge equalising with a penalty, then going ahead. The game was still not over, with Ashley Ruane equalising with a second goal.

I have started to supply some pictures for the Merseymart, a supplement to the Liverpool Echo, about which I will say more in the next post. From this game, I sent 4 pictures. There was this one, that I thought was the best action shot.

John Couch tangles with his marker

This one shows Ashley Ruane shooting for his second goal - one that would normally miss the final cut, as Michael Grogan in the background is in slightly better focus than Ashley, but a goal is a goal.

Ashley Ruane shoots for goal number 2

Then there were a couple of images to build up their stock library, so they can illustrate a mention of a player in a match report.

Jack Booth

Joe Gibiliru

Readers in Prescot will know which one they used, but I will be talking more about that in the next post.

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