Glory hunting

Most of the games I shoot are in the Championship or lower but over the past couple of months I’ve had the chance to shoot PSG v Chelsea, Man City v Barcelona and the Capital One Cup final – a refreshing change from Bolton, Rochdale and Oldham!

PSG v Chelsea

First up was a trip across to Paris for the 1st leg of Chelsea’s last 16 Champions League match against PSG. I opted to drive to France and after a horror 10 hour journey – including a 2 and a half hour delay at Eurotunnel – I arrived at the ground with just 30 minutes to spare – stressed is an understatement!

Despite my late arrival I managed to get the first position along the side of the pitch, in front of the Chelsea fans. I was at the wrong end for both goals, but managed to come away with a few decent photos.

Upon arriving home in the UK at 7am I found out I’d got the back page of the Daily Mail; a long trip made worthwhile.

See the full gallery on phcimages.com.

Manchester City v Barcelona

After a quick commission at Bury v Hartlepool (see, it’s not normally this glamorous), I took a much less stressful 20 minute trip to the Etihad for the arrival of Messi and co. as Barcelona took on Manchester City.

I opted for a spot to the left behind the goal Barcelona would be attacking first half. I sat as close to the goal as possible to avoid the pointless extra official blocking my view of the goal and thankfully Suarez scored both of Barcelona’s goals early on up my end.

Hard luck for the photographers who had been queuing since 2pm(!) to get in front of the Barcelona fans only to be at the wrong end for all the goals and then see Messi miss a last minute penalty at that end.

See the full gallery and training on phcimages.com.

Capital One Cup Final

The first day of March saw me take a trip down the M1 to Wembley for the Capital One Cup final between Spurs and Chelsea. As a West Ham fan, my contempt for both clubs is pretty equal, I just wanted to see a decent game, preferably with some goals up my end.

Opting again for the first spot along the side, I watched as Spurs repeatedly threatened the Chelsea goal to no avail, before Terry headed Chelsea in front late in the first half.

I had very little worth sending at half time but thankfully, 10 minutes into the half, Diego Costa – with a little help from Kyle Walker’s left leg – put Chelsea 2-0 up.

I got a nice sequence of the shot and then Costa then ran into my corner to celebrate. Finally, I had something worth sending.

The goal effectively ended the match and Chelsea went on to lift the cup.

The Sun kindly ran the Costa goal across two pages the next day. Sitting away from everyone else had paid off.

See the full gallery on phcimages.com.

Barcelona v Manchester City

Next was a trip over to sunny Barcelona for the home leg of their Champions League tie against Manchester City.

I opted to fly out a little bit early to shoot the Barcelona press conference and training, as well as spend some time exploring Barcelona as I’d never visited before.

On the day before the match, I negotiated a bus journey using my pigeon Spanish and went off to shoot the Barcelona training session.

As so often happens, the players spent most of the 15 minutes training on the other side of the pitch, and not doing anything interesting, until, after a game of ‘piggy in the middle’, Neymar playfully kicked Suarez in the back providing the only decent photo from a very dull session.

The next day was the actual match. With a 2-1 lead from the first leg, an early Barcelona goal would kill the tie so I opted to shoot Barcelona attack first half and then see how the match was going at half time.

As it turned out, an early goal from Rakitić did kill the game, and if it wasn’t for Hart’s heroics in the City goal, it would have been a cricket score.

See the full gallery and training on phcimages.com.