Sunshine after rain

A couple of weeks' steady rain meant Prescot Cables' game at home to Ramsbottom United was our first competitive fixture since Scarborough at the end of January. Skemersdale United have not been able to play on the pitch either, and it looked as though it had benefited from three weeks' rest and from the grass starting to grow again.

As well as the pitch having had chance to dry, I anticipated being dry too, as no rain was forecast. There was even sun, which at this time of the year means it is tricky to sit behind the goal line at the Safari Park End. The light is mainly from the side for pictures, but the sun is low enough to dazzle, and bright enough that I cannot see the camera screen. I therefore sat in the shade of the side perimeter. An issue I did not have a couple of years ago is boards on the Gasworks Side giving a strong backlight - a product of our success selling advertising. The D5300's sports mode automatically uses matrix metering,  so I experimented with shutter priority and spot and weighted metering. The latter had some advantages, although I am not sure it outweighed the disadvantage of having to manually adjust shutter speed as play went into the shade.

Reece Fishwick

We quickly imposed ourselves when Reece Fishwick was brought down for a penalty converted by Chris Almond.

One of  the more ominous sights in a game is a player going down with no-one near him, and this proved to be the case when Josef Faux landed awkwardly after jumping for the ball, injuring his knee. Sadly, early reports suggest he may be out for some time.

Josef Faux

The resulting substitution meant James Edgar returned from injury somewhat earlier than he expected.

James Edgar

A lot of sports photography involves techniques you can learn - looking at published photographs to see what works, mastering camera settings, cropping and lighting. However, there is something, that we can call 1/10s (probably less than that) that separates professionals from those of us in the amateur field. It is the difference in reaction time between getting the fingers making contact with the ball and getting it a foot away flying off to safety.

Ben Barnes

It is also the difference between getting the ball on the head of the player and ... well you see the pattern.

Chris Almond heads for his second goal ...

... joins Ernie in watching it go in ...

... and celebrates.

To access the pitch for the second half, I used the smart new gate installed by our sponsors Joseph's Joinery - the only snag being that with a bolt at the bottom as well as the top, I need someone to close it behind me. The cover at the Eaton Street end gave me some shadow to work in. Ben Barnes was sensibly wearing a cap, but I do not recall ever having seen a linesman wearing one, even though in this case he was looking straight into the sun for most of the 45 minutes.

The linesman watches Reece McNally

We had taken the opportunity presented by the weather to play friendlies against Southport and Chorley, and made a new signing, Junior Dos Santos, who has played with West Ham's youth setup and recently relocated to the north. Some tweets telling us he was enjoying training and looking forward to playing for the club went a long way to ensuring an enthusiastic welcome when he came on.

Junior Dos Santos

The visitors' goal came when Ben Barnes made one of those howlers that keep goalkeepers awake at night - an innocuous free kick came in his direction, he had the options of gathering it in his hands, stopping it with his feet or falling on it. A moment's hesitation meant he did none, and the ball trickled into the net. It is the goalkeeper's lot that talk after the game was of whether I had a picture of the miss rather than one of the acrobatic save I have published above.

For the last quarter of an hour, the shadow of the stand was long enough to let me take position by the side of the pitch.

Matthew Hamilton

We were joined for the afternoon by some friends from Larvik, Norway, the home town of the father and son Norwegian internationals Gunnar and Hallvar Thoresen. The Thoresens made their names with Larvik Turn, whereas our visitors support the town's older football team but younger sports club, IF Fram. They have sponsored some shirt numbers in the name of the town for a couple of seasons, and were making their first visit to Prescot.

Bjørn Nilsson from Larvik presents Baba Conteh with his Man of the Match award

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 (Almond 2 (1 pen)) Ramsbottom United 1.

A view of Westmorland

I have often heard that the town of Kendal has a picturesque setting. I had never seen it, my previous visits having been in the rain or at night. The forecast for our game at Kendal Town was for bright weather, so I took an early train and went to Windermere. Being unable to see a hill without wondering what is at the top, I walked up to Orrest Head, where the advertised views were most definitely available.

Returning to Kendal, the day was still bright and sunny, but the west of the ground has a stand and a number of trees, so there were plenty of shadows. I usually just need to use the automatic settings on Nikon ViewNX 2 to convert my files from raw to jpeg for processing. I sometimes wonder whether it would be easier to shoot in jpeg and let the camera do the work, but ViewNX 2 makes use of the computer's processing power and not having to deliver a result in a second or so. In some high contrast situations, I need to work on raw files manually, and this time I used the facility for 15 - 20 frames.

Phil Bannister

In some locations, the players cast strong shadows on themselves.

Ben Cartwright

Now that Brian Richardson had seen the squad for training we were expecting a few changes. The only new(ish) face was goalkeeper Phil Priestly, who played in the Liverpool Senior Cup semi final in July, but has been with Skelmersdale United in the meantime.

Phil Priestly

James McCulloch was in midfield, having played in defence so far this season. He has played there before, but has been accustomed to midfield in recent years, and looked particularly effective on this occasion.

James McCulloch

Dominic Marie was on the bench: having joined in pre season, he was making his first competitive appearance.

Dominic Marie

The hosts made the most of the terrain, as you expect the home side to do - I still remember with some bewilderment the Cables manager a few years ago who said our pitch made it difficult to play our preferred game. They got the ball downhill as quickly as possible, endangering our goal, and, even when we cleared, making us tire ourselves chasing it back uphill. It was effective, giving them two goals.

Garry Williams emerged at half time to brief the substitutes that we would attempt the same in the second half - he also briefed me, as he thought it might be good for a few photos. He was right on that, assisted by my taking up position in the bottom corner of the ground, and by the floodlights being switched on during half time.

Jacob Jones

It took longer to work in the footballing sense, with the hosts scoring another before we were able to break our own drought, with Lloyd Dean scoring on 67 minutes.

Lloyd Dean

Despite keeping up the pressure, we were unable to add to this.

It is sometimes said that in this country we do not take cold seriously. I remember a few years ago visiting Helsinki over the second weekend in September: when I arrived on Thursday there were plenty of short sleeves, by Monday everyone was in seriously warm looking coats. Following a mild October, I did not realise how quickly the temperature had dropped, so I was slow to adopt extra layers and gloves. I declined the offer of another lift from the Johnstones, having in mind a pint or two in the Ring O'Bells with their local ales and open fire. I needed it by the time I got there, I had lost feeling to the extent I needed to pick my first pint up from the bar with both hands.

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

Final score: Kendal Town 3 Prescot Cables 1 (Dean)

Climbing Mount Starbeck

An irate club official (not from the clubs involved in the match reported here) was once heard to say to a referee, "I marked you as 1 [out of 10]. I wanted to give you 0, but I could not, because you had the correct equipment." Having the correct equipment matters for the photographer too, and these pages often mention a forgotten item that makes life more difficult. For a visit to Harrogate Railway Athletic, there is a check list: ropes, crampons...

On arrival in a sunny Harrogate, Richie, our leader in beer and pub choices, led us to the Coach and Horses, at which point the party split, with some heading to Muckle's Sports Bar next door, which was offering a well kept Leeds Pale Ale, amongst other choices, and the chance to watch Everton v Liverpool on the large screen. I was also keeping an eye on Sheffield Wednesday v Huddersfield Town on the smaller screen to see if former Dulwich Hamlet striker Daniel Carr was playing.

The hill towards Harrogate and the houses behind the ground were already casting a full shadow over the pitch by the time of kick off, with just some reflected sunlight on the fencing where the old clubhouse used to stand.

Isaac Kusoloka

The absence of cloud probably gave us half an hour more of natural light than we had on the last couple of Saturdays, with the floodlights coming on towards the end of the first half. Here is James McCulloch in the last image I used from the half: Movember is coming along nicely!

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had a spot of bother with my computer - it turned out more than a spot, to the point the cost of repairs looked like it may not be much less than a new machine, so I replaced it. One welcome change from the last time I bought a computer was that I did not need to buy much software, there is now a good open source option for most of the tasks I use it to perform. The only exception was Photoshop Elements, and had I been making a planned change, or one out of the season, I would have looked around more to see what was available, but I needed to get pictures out without time to learn a new package.

I moved from version 8 on my old computer, to version 12. There are improvements, it is a bit quicker, and the lighting adjustments seem more powerful. The most useful addition is a grid in the crop window, making it easier to adjust where I have not been holding the camera straight. Take this photo of Enzo Benn - this is how it came off the camera, with just the lighting adjusted.

When we crop the picture, the grid is useful for lining up against the corrugated iron fence in the background, which we know is true and vertical.

The end result has the horizon correctly horizontal, and captures the slope that is a feature of the ground.

Something less than an improvement is the position of the tool options, such as the aspect ratio for cropping. In version 8, these were in a narrow bar along the top of the screen. In a time when most new computer screens are 16:9 widescreen, some clever person thought the best place for this was in a large frame at the bottom of the screen, shrinking the area available for the picture you are working on (and the application does not allow you to move it), when there is plenty of room at the side, so it is a lot of extra clicks to keep showing and hiding it.

As for the game, having conceded a penalty, we thought that if we were able to equalise, we could probably build on it and go ahead, but this was not to be, Rob Doran scoring the only Cables goal of the game, with Nathan Cartman putting Harrogate ahead.

Rob Doran

Most of the Train Crew headed home after the game, but I made my usual visit to a rather busy (but still with a corner for me to curl up with my post match refreshment and paper) Blind Jack's in Knaresborough.

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

Final score: Harrogate Railway Athletic 2 Prescot Cables 1 (Doran)

Sports jacket weather

On the way to the game last week I had some random thoughts about the utility of the sports jacket. Some will know that I am rarely seen out of such a garment, wearable with anything from jeans and t-shirt to collar and tie, and with plenty of pockets for programmes, golden goal tickets, lens caps, and the other paraphernalia of the match day photographer. I thought of finding a picture of a match official of the 1950s so attired, but I subsequently found they usually wore blazers, so I had to make do with yours truly, snapping a Dulwich Hamlet Supporters' game on a warm, sunny morning in ... er ... November.

Ideal wear for photographing sport. Photo by Tony Squires, crop by me

On that occasion, I was talking to Mishi, a member of the Supporters' Team and Club Committee, and of the Grounds for Concern blog, which he has not had time to update for a while, but which has meticulously detailed views of an impressive range of grounds. The conversation went something like this:-

"Call me old fashioned ..."
"You're old fashioned Mish."
"Well, what about you - sports jackets and rugby shirts, how bloody old fashioned is that?"

Well, I never said I was not ...

Prescot Cables' were at home last weekend to Buxton in the First Qualifying Round of the FA Cup. The structure of the draw means it is unlikely that a club starting in the Preliminary Round will make it to a shot at glory in the First Round Proper where the Football League clubs come in, but the prize fund provides a welcome addition to club funds for the winners of each round.

Good weather in September means the sun is low in the sky, and at Prescot that means shadows from the side, particularly in the first half, when we were attacking the Safari Park End. A lot of tweaking of the light was required on the computer, although half in light, half in shadow can make for a good picture

Jonathon Lynch

Sometimes the players are not only half in light, half in shadow, but light is reflected off the grass, and the advertising boards are in shadow.

Mike Smith competes with Buxton's Neil Stevens, with James McCulloch ready to collect the stray ball ...

... but Mike is first back on his feet (and back in the light)

The lighting was much better in the second half, with most of the action front lit.

Ged Murphy goes for a header with Buxton's Jack Broadhead

This meant that, unusually, for the slideshow I used more pictures (by two) from the second half than the first. The selection is a mixture of pictures of competition for the ball, and individual shots that the players like for showing to friends and family and profile pictures on sites like Facebook and Twitter. Normally, for the latter I use the first decent shots I come to, so I get a lot of what I need from the first half.

Even the goal net caught the sun for a pronounced light effect.

Rob Doran and Buxton's Charlie Johnson

Buxton, being in the Premier Division, were the favourites, and the only goal of the game came for them in the 76th minute. My view was obstructed, but this was originally recorded as an own goal from Antony Shinks, although the record was subsequently updated to correctly credit the latter. It is quite clear on Buxton's video (at about 14 minutes) that Antony did not have contact with the ball, but I can see how it may have looked more uncertain from some angles.

Antony Shinks and Leon Osborne in the first half

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

Flat cap day

A few months ago, I was watching a programme about the musical duo Chas & Dave. Chas (or Dave) was telling a story about an interview with a journalist. "She said, 'Why do you wear braces?', and we answered in unison, 'To stop our trousers falling down'. She looked at us and said, 'You mean you wear them in real life?'." As someone who likes braces, at least with formal trousers, I understood their point, and was reminded of it when Phil of the Cables Pharmacologists suggested that, as Mossley is on the Lancashire / Yorkshire borders, we should wear flat caps in honour of this heritage.

The flat cap has to be one of the most useful garments for the photographer of a winter sport. It is light, easily folded and slipped in to a pocket or bag, warm (provided you get a proper woollen one) stops rain running down your face but without a wide brim against which to knock the top of the camera, and sits securely enough on the head not to blow off. That last is dependent on not having long hair: when I feel the cap starting to slip a bit, it is time for a haircut.

So, flat caps were purchased by those who did not own them, and the independently travelling supporters (or the Cables Train Crew as we have christened ourselves, despite only one of our number ever having actually crewed a train) assembled for a rather crowded 10.22. I am not sure why it was so full. With the Grand National, I can see why there were crowds on their way to Liverpool, but, although I am not particularly keen on horse racing, I have never seen the need to leave the city at all costs.

The Train Crew - photo by Richie Brown

The first stop was the Station Buffet in Stalybridge, where the stag parties seemed well under way, with one group doing their bit for flat cap sales dressed as farmers, and another impersonating clergymen, for which I think you could be excommunicated until 1963. Moving on to Mossley, we found the locals in the Commercial to be interested in their visitors and their football club, although not quite interested enough to make the ascent to watch a game.

Warren Jones and Dave Powell watch Enzo Benn and Karl Bergqvist

Having encouraged the stragglers up the hill, the game got under way with Prescot playing towards the Yorkshire end (the end nearest to Yorkshire, whatever definition you choose to use). This end has a large area of white paint, with the sun shining towards it. However, there are relatively few problems of backlighting.

Jack Webb

We had hoped to encounter the Mossley Ultras, who have something of an internet presence, as it would have made for a good atmosphere, with both sets of supporters making a noise for their teams, but we seemed to have found their weekend off - something commented on by MossleySmiffy, a regular photographer of Tameside's football teams.

I do not often include pictures from the substitutes warming up at half time, not least as I am often getting some food at the time.

The warm up often takes the form of shooting practice, with a large proportion of shots missing their target. When the services of a stand in goalkeeper were offered and accepted (slightly irregular, and Mossley would have been within their rights to object), many more shots were on target when they had someone to concentrate on beating. Given that keepers from the 50s and before wore a woolly jumper and cloth cap, our stand in keeper chose to perform his function bare headed.

The second half presented more of a problem with backlighting, hence more of the final slideshow came from the first than normal (45 pictures from the first half, 14 from the second and one from half time).

Connor McCarthy makes his debut as a second half substitute

Some people ask the question why we need cameras any more when we all have them on our phones. The answer is that they are not very good (to be fair, the camera is at least of some use, unlike the actual phone, on which I rarely succeed in completing a call, like most people, I use it mainly as a mini computer). An action picture taken on a phone has never appeared in these pages, as I have never taken one, as the delay between pressing the button and the picture actually being taken means an attempt to do so is unlikely to be be particularly successful.

However, as we went down the hill, the pharmacologists wanted a picture in front of Mossley's rather fine scenery. As I had put the proper camera away, I thought my phone would suffice. Cue a LCD display that is hopeless in sunlight, and, with no viewfinder, failing to notice three of the party were in shadow from the sign at the entrance to the park. Still, a little tweak of the lighting on the computer helped a bit, and they seemed to like the result.

The pharmacologists on tour

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

Last of the summer light

This weekend saw the last of the afternoon games before the clocks go back, not a guarantee of good light, but we know from next week it will be dark towards the end of the game. Prescot Cables' game at home to Harrogate Railway Athletic saw a welcome, if chilly, clear day, which gave a strong light from the side across the pitch with some deep shadows.

Callum Hoctor shields his eyes from the sun

For about three quarters of our home games, we play towards the Safari Park End (i.e. away from the entrance to the ground) in the first half, as we almost always choose that direction, and about half the visiting teams choose to play towards the Hope Street end. This is better for me because of the way the sun moves round the ground during the game, particularly at this time of year when it is low in the sky.

The game started promisingly for Prescot, with a goal after 2 minutes from Jonathon Bathurst. This is the second week in a row Jon has scored a goal, and I have not got a picture. The most difficult type of goal to capture is when a player gets on the end of a cross and whips it in before the goalkeeper has chance to react. Professionals at the top level will often have an unattended camera on a tripod behind the goal, continuously shooting when anyone is near. I do not have the spare equipment for that, and placing it on the terraces would present a tripping hazard for fellow spectators, and indeed they would present a tripping hazard to the kit.

Jonathon Bathurst

I sometimes wonder whether the quality of the play on offer affects the quality of the pictures that result.

After the goal, the performance was described in the report by our Press Officer, Richard Quinn, as "error strewn", which applied to both teams, but probably more to us. I tend to be snapping away when players are making runs or competing for the ball in the opposition's half, so when the game is mainly in our half, and dominated by errors, I found myself with about a quarter less exposures than normal by the end of the game, although, as that is still in the hundreds, I was still able to produce a slide show of the normal size of about 60 pictures.

The players' profiles were updated in the programme for this game, to include those who had joined since the start of the season. I had not realised how young the team is, with most being between 19 and 22. Having a group of young players keen to see how far they are able to go in the game has given us a team that is the best I have seen for some time for playing to the final whistle.

This game was a case in point - Harrogate scored at 75 and 81 minutes, and it would have been easy to accept the points had been lost. Not so with this team, with an equaliser coming from Jack Webb in the last minute of injury time. I captured this one, thus ensuring Jack a second week on the back page of the Merseymart.

Jack Webb controls the ball ...

... and shoots for goal

I have never been a fan of Haloween, it had not reached the church going countryside when I was growing up, and I have never seen the point of it since, but some decided to join in the fun.

Actually, the skeletons appeared not long before our equaliser, so they may have had the effect of scaring play into the Harrogate half!

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

The valley of the rams

Last Friday, England played San Marino at Wembley. I have been to San Marino, when Dulwich Hamlet Supporters played in a tournament in Rimini, the nearest town in Italy. I bought a shirt as a souvenir, and was planning to wear it to Prescot's game away to Ramsbottom United if San Marino had scored a goal. As they did not, it stayed in the cupboard.

The town of Ramsbottom is about half the size of the Republic of San Marino. The town is in the valley rather than on the hill, and they only have one tower on top of their hill, rather than San Marino's three.

Peel Monument, Ramsbottom

The three fortress towers of San Marino represented on their shirt

Ramsbottom also has a church that started life in the Church of Scotland, but was removed from that denomination following a dispute, and is now part of the Church of England. The tower has pinnacles straight out of Gotham - if they do not have bats in their belfry, I want to know why.

St Andrew's Church

Ramsbottom United's ground is next to the East Lancashire Railway, so a few supporters were looking forward to going to the game by steam train. I had been there when we were in the North West Counties League, so I was looking forward to getting some pictures of the action with a train puffing away behind. We were thwarted, as it was the weekend of the railway's Diesel gala. Fortunately the Railway's Trackside bar at their Bury Bolton Street Station operates regardless of the traction, so we obtained suitable refreshment there, and at the Irwell Works Brewery Tap in Ramsbottom.

I would not have got my photos anyway, as the trees at the railway end had grown in the last 10 years, and now blocked the view of the trains. Whether they now suffer from wet leaves on the line is not recorded.

Stephen Longrigg

In the first half, the sky was fairly overcast, giving an even light, but the trees were to cause more than a little bother when the sun came out in the second half.

They cast a shadow up to about the half way line, so most of the action in Ramsbottom's half was in shadow. This is not a problem in itself, unless the background provided by the other half is in bright sunlight, not dissimilar to the problem when Prescot played a post season friendly at Goodison Park. Take this example, with Anthony Shinks. This is how the shot came off the camera.

I was a surprised this was in focus, as most of the action is in the left of the frame, but I think the focus point is just about over Anthony's arm. With a static subject we could sort out the framing and lighting before shooting, but that luxury is not available, we have to rely on the camera to do it for us. We can crop the image, which if anything makes the underexposure of the players more pronounced.

Of course, we can adjust the lighting, but even then, there is only so much we can do - I decided I had better pictures of the player, so it did not make the final collection.

As the shadow was cast by trees, the edges were of course not straight, which gave some better lighting effects when the players were partly in shade.

Jack Booth

I have joked that I do not recognise players when they have had a haircut, and regular followers of Prescot Cables will agree that Jack Booth has had a rather drastic one. Taking a picture of the team sheet, rather than copying it out on to paper makes it more difficult to consult during the game, and I was wondering who was playing at number 15, not recognising Jack until I got the pictures home.

For some, it is more than a matter of recognition. After a game last season, when Liam Hollett had not had one of his best afternoons, and was also sporting a particularly severe haircut, match day announcer David Williams (who has been supporting the club since 1945) approached him with the words, "Liam, you're like Samson, you've had your hair cut and all your strength has gone".

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