Man City v Chelsea

This post is a little late due to a short holiday, but the Sunday before last saw me heading over to the Etihad Stadium to photograph Man City v Chelsea – a huge match which was being billed as a potential title decider, despite it being September.

The first half was largely uneventful except for a penalty shout for City, but I had some nice action down my side, particularly from James Milner who played fantastically.

At half time I moved to the other end to get on the stadium Wi-Fi and to continue shooting Man City attack, knowing that if Chelsea were to score they’d celebrate in front of their fans anyway, and not the corner I had been sitting in.

The match finally came to life midway through the second half as Zabeleta was sent off for an incident with Diego Costa on the other side of the pitch. Too far away for me to get anything much of the incident, but I got a few decent shots of him coming off and getting comforted by Mourinho.

With a man advantage, Chelsea went on the attack and Schürrle put them 1-0 up and duly celebrated right in front of the Chelsea fans, and the photographers in that pit.

With City down to 10 men it seemed as if Chelsea would see out the win, and all the newsworthy photos would be from the other end.

Frank Lampard was soon introduced to try and find an equaliser for Man City. It was one of his first appearances in a City shirt so I focused on getting some stock for a while, but couldn’t have hoped he’d go on to score.

With about 5 minutes to go, a great run and cross by Milner – who was fantastic throughout – saw Lampard equalise against his former club. A club he made over 400 appearances for. Perfect. From that point on, the headlines would only be about one man.

I couldn’t get a clear shot of the goal and Lampard refused to celebrate – understandable, but frustrating – but I knew I had the photos of what would become the main talking point.

Moving ‘oop north

Last month saw me moving up from sunny Essex to Manchester. This has meant I’ve experienced the, erm, delights, of grounds such as Oldham, Sheffield Wednesday and Bolton. Below are a few highlights from my time up here so far.

A commission from Southend United saw me heading back down to Essex for one weekend to cover their match against Portsmouth.

Music

There’s a lot of music venues up here – especially compared to Essex – so I’m hopefully going to be shooting a lot more music in the coming weeks and months. Here’s a couple from Foxes supporting Pharrell at Manchester Arena earlier this month.