Rain, more rain, and terrible football

At the risk of this turning into a weather blog, it’s been reported that January was one of the wettest on record, which won’t come as a shock to many sport photographers. I’ve shot 8 games since my last blog post and I’ve been drenched at most of them! The football’s not been great either.

My first game saw me heading to The Den to photograph Millwall v Ipswich, Ian Holloway’s first home match as Millwall manager. I opted to shoot the managers beforehand on a short lens as the photographers can get quite close to the dugout and I thought Holloway might come out and greet the fans. This turned out to be a good call as he came out of the dugout to sign autographs and applaud each side of the ground.

Next up I shot my team West Ham in the Capital One Cup semi-final second leg against Manchester City. After travelling to Manchester for the first leg to watch us get thrashed 6-0 I wasn’t looking forward to it much and I feared another drubbing.

I decided to shoot Man City attack for the first half and put out a remote camera behind the West Ham goal. Remotes are very hit and miss for me (any tips, please let me know!) but for once I had a bit of luck and managed to not only get it firing, but actually capture something worth wiring too.

Next up was Southend v Hull in the FA Cup 4th Round. Southend beat Millwall in the previous round, they’re separated by three divisions and Southend sold out their ground for the first time in years; all the ingredients for a good cup tie.

I turned up and entered the press room which is normally home to the club photographer, myself and maybe one or two others. This time there were 25 photographers there and even more journalists, all crammed into a room not much bigger than a cupboard.

The majority of the work I do is on ‘spec’ which means I get paid depending on whether I get photos used. If I don’t get anything used I don’t get paid, so with the amount of competition and with the major subscription agencies such as Getty Images, Action Images, PA and AFP all present, I knew my chances were slim. In these instances the best thing to do is sit away from the big agencies and try to capture something different.

Unfortunately I didn’t get anything published and despite a gallant effort Southend lost 2-0 to their Premier League opposition. Sometimes things just don’t go your way.

A few days later I was shooting Southend again, this time away to Dagenham and Redbridge. Unsurprisingly only two other photographers joined me this time, and one of them was the Dagenham club photographer.

I was filling in for Southend’s club photographer for the evening, which means approaching a match a bit differently. There’s more focus (no pun intended) on shooting stock of players and fans, as well as the usual action and goals. The match finished 1-1 and I managed to get some nice photos despite the atrocious weather.

Next up was a trip to Stamford Bridge for Chelsea v West Ham. I joked before the match with a few other West Ham supporting snappers that anything less than 6-0 would be a good result and I certainly didn’t expect the goalless draw that happened.

Despite the lack of goals I managed to get a decent set for a 0-0 and I was certainly pleased with the score, even if we had to play “19th century” football.

Next I was back to Roots Hall for the League Two fixture between Southend and Newport County. Once again the rain fell for 90 minutes and the match finished 0-0. It was easily one of the worst football matches I’ve ever seen and unlike the Chelsea game I got very little in the way of decent photos. Not a single paper even ran a report on the match. Pointless.

The only thing of note was an awful missed penalty by Newport which I ran the length of the pitch to get. At least I got a workout, if nothing else.

Last Saturday I had a commission from the Daily Star (through Focus) to shoot Leyton Orient v Peterborough. Orient would go top with a win and were in 3rd place going into the match, so I went Orient attack. They scored after 70 minutes (the first goal I had witnessed for 250 minutes!) and despite not playing well, looked like they were going to win.

Peterborough had other ideas though and scored two goals in the last 2 minutes to win 2-1, and they celebrated straight in front of the photographers at the other end. I don’t want to complain and I believe you make your own luck, but it can be frustrating.

Lastly, I shot West Ham v Norwich at the Boleyn Ground on Tuesday. Another poor football match saw West Ham score two late goals to win 2-0. The win was probably undeserved but I was delighted with our 3rd win and 4th clean sheet in a row.

Next up is Canvey Island v Dulwich Hamlet tomorrow, before Arsenal v Bayern Munich on Wednesday. A slight difference in quality I imagine.