Before I start … here’s my summer

If you don’t know me, my name is John Middleton and I have been Prescot Cables FC club photographer since 2018. Prescot Cables are in the third tier of the English football leagues, situated in Prescot, Merseyside. My role is in a volunteer capacity. 

This season could have been so different for me. For some time during last season, I was having a crisis of faith in my ability and worth that I seriously considered packing it all in. Selling my gear, archiving all of my work away, and closing my social media accounts. Goodnight, Vienna.

I very nearly carried this forward; emails were prepared and sent, reconsidered, reconsidered again, and finally withdrawn. It’s the closest I have ever come in my 40 years of photography to doing this. In photography, I had done it all: portraits, weddings, christenings, babies, food, music, landscapes, and sport, plus a few others.

A lot of you may be aware that for a number of years, I have been fighting with my mental health problems. For someone who suffers from depression and social anxiety problems, I need to challenge myself in being about people, or I lose. Coming to the game and going on away games gives me this challenge.

Last season was tough; I was having a series of fights with publications and websites that felt it was their right to just lift my work from the internet and publish it, in most cases without any credit. Many of these were profit-making, and they didn’t seem to think I was owed anything. In all cases, I made them remove my work; I didn’t and don’t care about ‘exposure’, I have enough of it already, thanks. Many jokingly suggested that they didn’t have a budget for photography, not much of a book or magazine if you didn’t have photographs. You may have noticed I started to watermark my pictures on the club’s website at the latter end of the season; this was in response to what was happening. I had to do something, even if it’s not what I wanted to do.

Then there were people lifting them and editing them, in most cases badly, and posting them online. I don’t know what annoys me most: not being paid or watching your work being butchered. 

On top of all of this, this happened this summer. 

Some lovely person decided none of the Highway Code applied to his busy lifestyle and didn’t even care we were in the lane he wanted to drive on. 

The car was written off and I was left with whiplash, mild concussion and back pain. This will make it twice as difficult attending matches with carrying my equipment. I’m not sure how many I can attend while I am on the mend. 

Then the tragic news of the death of Diogo Jota followed soon after my accident and that made me think that could have been me as well and how lucky I was. RIP Diogo. 

So what will you expect from this blog over the coming month? Well, don't expect a regular weekly entry, I’m a very lazy writer, but I may blog on various games or have a subject in my head I will either want to talk or rant about. It all depends on whether anyone wants to read them. But in saying that, I don't think I will care, it's all a part of my mental health journey. So if you do read them, thank you, and feel free to comment or ask my opinion on something, I may write down my thoughts.

Be safe