Players Got Wet I Stayed Dry .........Mostly

Another evening staying away on business and another evening where the choice was Nice warm Hotel or Out In The wind And rain,well i am a Non League fan so as ever the answer was the latter.
Tjis time it was a Red Insure Cup match between Hungerford  and Burnham both of the Calor League Premier Division ,on arrival it was still mercifully dry and i received a warm welcome from the staff on the gate who I think with the forecast were grateful that anybody was going to turn up and watch

Hungerford is a pleasant little ground and thankfully on a night like this was going to turn out to be one with pleanty of covered areas to protect from the brewing storm

On a cold night you always judge a club on the quality of its coffee and Hungerford scored well with a good hot cup at a very reasonable price,you realised that you were in Royal Berkshire with the inclusion od sea salt amongst the condiments,don't get that posh in the Black Country

Anyhow the forecast said rain about 8.00 and sure enough just as the teams came out down came the rain,thankfully I was nice and dry under a covered standing area behind one of the goals but thats more than could be said for the players

From the start Hungerford were very much the dominant force and raced into a 3-0 lead,sadly all the goals were at the other end of the pitch and so I got no photos of them,however as Burnham stayed a spirited comeback and pulled the score back to 3-2 I was able to capture at least one of the goals that just crept in through what was now a very sticky goalmouth

Sadly for Burnham this was as close as they got and from then on Hungerford scored on a regular basis finally running out 7-3 winners,as the weather was testing not only my equipment but also my limited skills all i have to show for this goal fest is one rather muted celebration

By the end the pitch was in a pretty rough state and the players must have been looking forward to a nice warm shower

One thing I must say as at the Frome match last week is that the Ref and Linesmen deserve real credit firstly for letting the game go ahead,I have seen games called off in much better conditions,and secondly allowing for the conditions and some pretty fearsome sliding tackles that went in

Oh and the Mostly bit in the title,well I may have stayed nice and dry during the 90 minutes but by the end of the 100 yard walk back to the car I was like a drowned rat

A Night match in Somerset That Evaded The Floods

Working away on business in Somerset I must admit In was not hopeful in getting a match to watch and indeed the Tuesday night proved that with my 2 options of Gillingham and Bridgewater both falling foul of the awful weather.
Wednesday night however proved a glimmer of light as Frome Town were able to confirm that there game was on so I was off on my first visit to the Aldersmith stadium for the visit of Bideford in the calor League Premier division.

As usual I arrived early to get some shots of what is a very pleasant ground and as ever with non league it had at least one character giving all who would listen their views on the team

As I had been delayed at work and unable to get a meal on the way I was relying on getting refreshments at the ground and was pleased that the Burgers and Coffee served by very pleasant staff were excellent,I did hear others saying how good the chips were as well so thumbs up to Frome for that

 As ever at most Non League matches there were a smattering of groundhoppers including a guy I got chatting to who was an AFC Wimbledon  (A club I have long had a soft spot for) fan hailing now from Trowbridge where my company was based,we spent a very pleasant few minutes discussing the joys of Non League football.

Anyhow onto the game and from the start it was a hard fought open and very entertaining match with Frome having much the best of the opening half but unable to convert their territorial superiority into goals despite going close on a few occasions

The flashpoint of the half was a tackle on a Bideford player that had many on the pitch and in the crowd screaming for a red card,I didn't see the incident as I had ,wrongly, anticipated a shot on goal and was focussed on the keeper but taking to other neutrals later I thing the ref got it spot on with a yellow card especially in view of the very slippery conditions,it did however provoke quite a contretemps on the pitch

The second half started  very differently with Bideford very much the dominant force and as I was covering the Frome attack it was at least 10 minutes before I actually took a shot, the match changed though round about the hour as Bideford had a one on one with the keeper that was badly dragged wide and within minutes Frome broke swiftly to get a nailed on penalty that was calmly put away.The pedulum had swung and with Frome in the ascendancy a second goal was not long coming,I missed the goal but got some of the best celebration shots ever.

And so Frome ran out 2-0 winners on a rather damp but very pleasant evening that ended with me being asked to photograph the man of the match

Thanks Frome Town hopefully i will visit you again

Can The FA Cup Survive

Its been the weekend of having a go at the FA Cup again, it started with Paul Lambert and “Its not a priority” moved onto Michael Laudrup and the “Lets get rid of replays “ and ended with Sam Allardyce and his “I had no choice but to rest 9 players”

Add in the rather poor attendances at many games, who wants to pay full price in these austere times to watch the reserves or the youth team ,a and it looks yet again that the FA Cup will in time suffer "Death By A Thousand Cuts"

So for those of us who have always and will always love the old competition what can be done to save it, the EPL have no interest in it, managers at many levels seem to think survival in the league is more important and the supporters can’t be arsed because they have limited resources to spend on watching football.

To be honest I’m not really sure, maybe if a big sponsor threw more money at it because money seems to be the be all and end all of the game now, if the FA promoted it more and maybe even returned certain things to their traditional states, the draw on a Monday lunchtime rather than before some matches have even kicked off might make it stand out from all the televised periphery of the game now.

There is no easy answer all I know is that if that if the old trophy is allowed to die without at least putting up a fight  the future when football is all about survival in order to rake in more money rather than glory as it was in my youth will be a very sad and dour place

Mangotsfield Utd 2 Fleet Town 0 Calor League South And West Div 1 (28.12.2013)

A family trip down to Devon over Christmas meant that I was never going to get back in time for AFC Wulfrunians match on the Saturday, so a post on the Non League Of Extraordinary Photographers Facebook group asking for reccommendations let to Peter Coddington inviting me to watch his Mangotsfield Utd side in the Calor League 9Step 4 in the Non League Pyramid)


Mangotsfield is easily reached being only a few minutes off the M4/M32 so despite a couple of delays due to accidents on the way up I was at the rather unromantically named Glass Consultants UK Stadium in plenty of time.Despite the name its a very pleasant well laid out stadium well maintained and with none of the signs of neglect you find at a number of grounds in the pyramid

My usual plan and a bit of an NLOEP group tradition of getting a shot of those unsung heroines of the the game,the tea ladies,was abandons as Peter advised that they are camera shy to the nth degree so all I got was a quick shot of the tea bar.

Mangotsfield are lucky to have in one section of the ground a small but extremely vociferous group of fans that helps (In a similar way to Gornal Athletics Shed Enders) give a different atmosphere to the ground and they maintained their vocal support for the entire 90 minutes.

Oh yes almost forgot the reason I was there,Peter Coddington club photographer and seriously nice bloke so here he is,in one shot taking the instruction "Strike the Pose" to a new level

And so to the match well despite the fact that we were talking top 3 v bottom 3 the match was very even throughout with Fleet putting up an excellent performance against their much higher ranked hosts and having more than 1 chance of taking the lead .
Mangotsfuield took the lead on the stroke of half time but sadly I was at the other end of the pitch looking for some artistic wide angle shots at the time so this was all i got just before the goal,I did get the hard core supporters celebrating though

The second half continued in much the same way as the first with Fleet still keeping the home team on their toes and it was well into the second half  before Mangotsfield made the game safe with an excellent individual goal that this time I got a piece of

So a very pleasant day with a friendly club and as Mangotsfield play a couple of Midlands teams hopefully I will meet up with them again

AFC Liverpool 2 West Didsbury 2 North West Counties League (06.11.2013)

So still staying over in Liverpool and the night after photographing Albert Docks I was back on the more familiar ground of Non League football with a trip to watch AFC Liverpool host West Didsbury,AFC were founded not as a protest club like FC United of Manchester but as a home for Liverpool fans who were finding the price of modern football to much,footy for a fiver was how press officer Alan Harrison described it as.
So AFC don't have their own ground but share with their landlords Prescott Cables,the ground is one one of those faded but homely places that is one of the reasons so many of us follow non league

The downside of the night was the weather the incessant rain that lasted until about 10 minutes from the end of the match but to the great credit of the players it didn't stop them putting on a highly entertaining match

 From the start of the game AFC as per their higher league position were the more dominant side but it took a while before their dominance paid off and they took a 1-0 lead,by some miracle your photographer actually got a shot of the goal and the celebrations

I was actually not the only visual media there as AFC sport like my own club AFC Wulfrunians a photographer and videographer,quite a rarity in non league football from my experience,both guys like everybody else at the club extremely friendly.

So  half time arrived with AFC only 1-0 up and I was invited into the board room for refreshments,told you these guys were friendly, and a very nice spread it was as well.

And so to the second half and AFC continued their dominance and doubled their lead with a quite superb strike from some 20 yards,I think at this point most of the crowd thought that was game set and match,it was actually the start of an amazing turnaround as within minutes West Didsbury had pulled a goal  back  with an even better strike from at least 30yards.This inspired the visitors who took almost total control and it was no surprise when they drew level from the penalty spot

After that although Didsbury posed the greater threat both sides could have claimed all three points but with honours even after 90 minutes West Didsbury were obviously the happier side

So despite the weather a very enjoyable evening and another fine example of the friendly family that is non league football

A Stroll Around Liverpool Docks with Graham

Staying up in Liverpool on business I was not far from my colleague Graham Seaman  and the initial plan was just to have a pint,however as it was a nice evening and Graham knows I never go anywhere without my camera so he suggested a night photography session.
The night didn't get off to a good start as the Anglican cathedral usually floodlit was in darkness as there was a film crew inside.so off down to the docks area.

Well I'm not a great night photographer but you really cant go wrong here because there were images demanding to be captured right from the start

Liverpool has a wheel as well as London

You also get attractive young Irish ladies who

forgot their cameras wanting you to take photographs of them,annoyingly so did their Partners.Brothers.fathers and Uncles

  Also by the wheel is a sculpture musically inspired and dedicated to John Lennon and it was crying out to be photographed

Moving around to the Albert docks you get more mundane objects that you would ignore from a photographic point of view in daylight but they take on a completely new identity in the artificial light of the night

Before ending the evening with the pint that was the original plan Graham insisted that photograph the 3 Graces ,that is The Royal Liver Building, The Cunard Building and the Port of Liverpool Building, hopefully I have done credit to these beautiful structures that dominate the Liverpool waterfront

So a pint at the Pump House and the evening was over,well not quite,I still had to prove what every tourist knows only to well.there's always a bloody photographer getting in the way of what you want to photograph