Mystery Under Sevens 1 Rain & Wind 2

June 19, 2026 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

As much as I like football, when the football leagues of England, France and Wales in which I take an interest come to an end sometime in May each year, I tend to breathe a sigh of relief and prepare to enjoy a welcome period of rest and recovery. For the best part of two months, I revel in the opportunity not to be a hostage to hope every weekend or suffer the pain of seeing those hopes dashed by referees, assistant referees, video assistant referees, goal posts, cross bars and opposition centre forwards.

Of course, there is the World Cup this summer, but thanks to Gianni Infantino and Donald J Trump I shall be boycotting that; I never much liked circuses and no one in their right mind has any truck with fascists. But casual, no strings attached football always remains alluring and when my stepson’s wife says come on down to Hampshire for the weekend to see the grandchildren, and the boy will be playing in a football tournament, my wife Paulene is already packing a bag and charging the car and I’m too daft not to say I would love to, but I’ve already arranged to stay in and wash my hair.

The tournament is on Saturday and Friday is a bright, sunny day as we stop off on the way for a gentle wander around the Henry Moore sculpture park in Much Hadham near Harlow. We even enjoy a picnic at one of those Yogi Bear -style wooden tables, and rocking up in Basingstoke, we sit outside at the local shopping centre drinking coffee and watching the world go by as we wait for our planet saving Citroen e C4 to recover a more or less full battery at the EV charging points in the Tesco car park.

After curry, beer, wine and a late night, on Saturday morning we awake to sun streaming round the sides of the bedroom curtains but then at breakfast there’s a heavy shower, a pattern that repeats itself until gone noon when the sun, fed up with playing gooseberry takes off his sou’wester and retreats indoors for the rest of the day, leaving the rain and wind to get it on alone. Shortly after one o’clock, following a journey of recklessly broken speed limits through a smattering of picturesque, semi-rural Hampshire villages, my stepson (the guilty driver), grandson and I (Paulene has cried off because the damp atmosphere will inflame her asthma) arrive at a village social club where the car park is full and we have to walk back in the rain from the village school a few hundred yards up the road. Beside the social club there is a dripping canopy under which a slightly unhappy looking man is not doing a roaring trade in barbecued hot dogs and burgers, and where I along with a small community of parents take shelter from the weather amongst the acrid curls and smell of barbecue smoke. Beyond the canopy are three mini football pitches, set-up across a single full-size pitch

There were supposed to be six teams in the tournament today, but it seems likely that one had too many weak swimmers and decided that discretion being the better part of valour they would stay indoors and plot their return to action on a day when drowning would be less of a risk. As if in some sort of under 7’s Hampshire-based Champions League, each team will play each other twice with the top two sides eventually meeting in a play-off final.

The matches begin promptly at half past one, I think, with the grandson’s team being one of two representing his local club and wearing an all-blue kit with yellow trim. The first match is on the pitch at the top of the field against a team in purple shirts and black shorts who very quickly create the impression that several of their players know what they’re doing. ‘The Purples’ as I quickly come to think of them dominate the ten-minute match and deservedly win 2-0, with their number twelve impressively fulfilling a sort of roving wing back role and claiming both goals in similar fashion, ghosting in from the right-hand side like a miniature Achraf Hakimi.

So far, so disappointing and to continue with the theme the next game will be at the other end of the field with the spectating area facing into the teeth of the gale. Apparently, this next fixture will be akin to a local derby as the two local teams play one another and if we’re unlucky, we may even get to hear someone mention “bragging rights”. The grandson’s team’s poor showing in their opening fixture looks to be continuing as they soon fall behind to a long-range goal from a large boy in glasses who also happens to be the son of one of the coaches. But largely, if not entirely through the efforts of their two best players, a diminutive but tenacious dribbler who sports blond hair tied back if not in a man-bun, then in a boy-bun, and a solid, steam roller of a boy, they rally to win by two goals to one.

It’s slightly uphill back again to the top of the field but the trek helps keep our blood circulating usefully and when we get there the wind and rain will be at our backs and battering not us, but the mature trees and hedgerow that mark the boundary with the agriculture beyond. By the time I’ve struggled through the storm I find I have missed kick-off but a lady who I think is the mother of by far the biggest boy in the team, helpfully tells me that it’s still goalless. Sadly, it doesn’t stay goalless for long and even more sadly for the grandson, it is his turn to play in goal. What follows is his team’s heaviest defeat of the afternoon, a stonking 4-0 reverse to a green-shirted team from Reading. In another one-sided game I can’t even report that the boy made a string of fine saves, he didn’t, and mostly only seemed to notice the ball if it came straight at him.

With spirits now more than just dampened we trudge back to the other end of the field for the final game in the first set of fixtures, which is against a team who sport an all-royal blue kit with extremely natty white trim and a club badge which is a blatant Reading FC knock-off but with added silhouettes of a ruin and World War Two fighter planes. Because of the colour clash however, the other team wear orange tabards. After their pasting in the previous game the grandson’s team surprisingly fare much better, scraping a goalless draw, although much of this is down to the goal being filled by the impressively big boy mentioned above, who in terms of mass is like any two other boys rolled into one.

With the tournament now at ‘half-time’ I reflect on what I have learned so far, which is mainly that the grandson is unlikely to have a career in professional or even amateur football unless a quirky rule change decrees that every team must include a slightly dreamy player who needs to take a run-up whenever he kicks the ball. Otherwise, I am only reminded of what I already knew, that under sevens football mostly consists of a knot of children hounding the ball as those of greatest ability dribble with it; oh, and some kids have plainly watched Match of the Day whilst others haven’t. I am intrigued to think what adult football would be like if played in this style and wonder if this is actually what the game was like back in the days when the likes of the Royal Engineers and Old Carthusians contested FA Cup finals.

My reverie is interrupted by the start of the grandson’s team’s return encounter with ‘The Purples’, whose real name I now know, courtesy of the daughter-in-law. Oddly for a youth football team from Berkshire, this team’s badge looks uncannily like that of Plymouth Argyle, and I worry that some dislocated ‘Janner’ is subverting young minds into becoming ‘Pilgrims’. Happily, the grandson seems immune to anything much to do with football, although his team goes on to perform much better in their latest encounter, losing by just a single goal to nil, and that was only from a long range shot when no one was paying attention.

Back down the field, it’s now time again to play the grandson’s club’s other team, the only side so far incapable of avoiding defeat to the grandson’s team. Slightly surprisingly the boy’s team proceed to win for a second time and by a barely believable four goals to nil. Flushed with success, the victors head back up the field to renew their acquaintance with the team in green and with the grandson again in goal. After going a goal down, we all think this version of the village team have claimed a creditable one-all draw when the boy who resembles a steamroller scores a late ‘equaliser’. But checking the scores at the end of the match the result has been recorded as a 2-1 win for the greens. Rumour has it that the greens’ coach had said to the teenage referee “so we won that one 2-1 then?” and not really knowing what the score was the callow youth agreed. But hey, what’s the occasional misreported result between soggy seven-year-olds? And in these conditions qualifying to play another game would be a mixed blessing.

For the grandson’s team the tournament ends with a three-nil defeat to the still nattily dressed team in all blue, with all the goals being scored by a blond lad who appears to me to have a prematurely receding hairline. With the game over, we head for the welcome shelter of the canopy where the smell of barbecued, reclaimed meat products still lingers. Although it would be nice to go straight home to dry out, we wait for the end of the play-off final after which all the players of all five teams will receive a medal for their participation. Perhaps unsurprisingly the final is between the Purples and the Greens, the two teams whose coaches, to my stepson’s amusement seem most eager for their teams to do well.

With medals having been presented, I venture out from under the canopy to meet and congratulate the grandson and take his photograph with his medal. I am however quickly warned off by the daughter-in-law who advises me that he is not in a good frame of mind being unhappily wet and tired. The grandson returns home with his mum whilst I bring the afternoon to a more satisfactory conclusion by heading off with my stepson to buy beer and this evening’s dinner.

The following day as my wife Paulene and I bid farewell, the daughter-in-law says she hopes I enjoyed the football. Seeing the blank expression on my face she adds with a laugh my anticipated response “What football?”. Ho hum, I think I will now wait patiently until August.

Ipswich Town 3 Queens Park Rangers 0

May 3, 2026May 4, 2026 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

I was awake before my alarm went off this morning, which was a good thing because being awoken by an alarm clock on a Saturday morning is plainly wrong. What was not a good thing however was that I had thought it necessary to set my alarm because the evil media moguls of Sky tv had decreed that Ipswich Town will begin their last match of the season, against Queens Park Rangers at just half an hour past noon and I am therefore having to catch a train to Ipswich before the clocks have struck ten o’clock. Having noted that the weather forecast from the met office predicted temperatures of almost 20 degrees centigrade today I decided to wear a lighter pair of trousers. Feeling in the pocket of these “cargo pants”, which I probably hadn’t warn since late last summer, I discover the receipt for a cheap bottle of champagne. I take it as a portent of celebrations yet to come.

At the railway station I wait with a man called Gareth who introduces me to Sally who is also going to the match. “How do you feel about the match?” asks Gareth. “Relaxed” I reply. Gareth and Sally laugh as if that can’t possibly be so. But it is. I always want Town to win, but if they don’t, then they don’t. I don’t want to get ill over it. I have no idea if the train arrives on time but I’m soon talking to Gary as we speed towards the promised land, Ipswich. Our only disappointment is that as we descend the hill through Wherstead a train passes in the opposite direction obscuring our potential view of the polar bears, but I still manage to see one. In Ipswich, the sun is shining as we walk to the Arb stopping only to purchase a programme from one of the kiosks that look like they should also sell ice creams. I explain to Gary that I am exceptionally buying a programme (£4.00) today because it will potentially be an auspicious occasion, although if Town don’t win I will likely be left with a programme I don’t really want, although the front cover does feature a picture in profile of Darnell Furlong staring moodily off into the distance.

Inside the Arb there is a queue for the bar and not wishing to cause a scene I reluctantly join it. Queues at the bar in pubs? The world has gone mad. Happily, the queue moves quickly, and I am soon looking for Gary in the beer garden whilst holding a tray on which sit a pint of Estrella Galicia for Gary and two pints of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride, one for me and one for Mick, who has texted me to say he will be arriving late. Our conversation today soon establishes that our lives are currently quite boring and uneventful although Mick is considering going to Venice by rail and is exploring the possibility of getting a ferry to Bilbao and then a train across southern France into Italy, perhaps stopping in Marseille to take in a match at the Velodrome. Two more pints of Suffolk Pride, a pint and half of Estrella and two whiskies later we are alone in the beer garden because all the other drinkers left a good ten minutes ago or more and we are ready to depart for Portman Road too.

There are no queues at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand when I arrive and I even manage to use the side access normally reserved for people with disabilities, before accessing the stand through the illustrious turnstile sixty-two. I am venting spent Suffolk Pride when the excitable young stadium announcer announces the team and imagining I am in a pissoir, like a Frenchman at the Stade Jean Bouin or Stade Abbe des Champs I bawl the surnames of the few players whose squad numbers I can remember, or whose first names are long enough for me to work out which surname they belong to before the announcer finishes saying them. Up in the stand Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood are of course already here.

Eventually, with huddles having huddled, bursts of flame having died down and plumes of smoke having settled, the game begins with the Park Rangers of the Queen getting first go with the ball in their strikingly metrosexual livery of black and pinked halved shirts and black shorts. The Rangers try to point the ball in the direction of Norwich Road and local twentieth century public housing landmark Cumberland Towers. The Town are as ever in our signature blue shirts and white shorts and the teams wear Halos on their shirt fronts, instead of above their heads.

Inside two minutes Leif Davis is bearing down on Joe Walsh in the Rangers goal, but his low shot is saved by the former Eagles guitarist at the expense of a corner and an early rendition from me and as many as half a dozen others of ‘Come on You Blues’. As usual our shouts fall on stoney ground and the ball is cleared. But the Town are relentless, assaulting the Rangers goal with wave after wave of running at them with the ball down both flanks and through the middle. Within another two minutes Town lead, George Hirst kicking the ball over the goal line from improbably close range after slick passing finds Leif Davis crossing the ball low into the deepest recesses of the goal mouth. “E-I, E-I, E-I, O, Up the Football League we go!” fills the void, although in truth we can’t actually go any further up the Football league because Coventry have already bagged first position.

Behind me a bloke sings loudly and out of tune, like an international footballer rendering his national anthem as a tv camera looks up his nostrils. “Ipswich Town, Ipswich Town FC, the finest football team the world has ever seen” we bellow with tearful sincerity to the tune of The Wild Rover. This is how the match was meant to begin; it was how it began in Town supporters’ dreams and those dreams are becoming a reality. The onslaught continues with what seems like a season’s worth of attacking intent and desire rolled into one as if making up for lost time. It’s the tenth minute when more joyful running and passing leaves Jaden Philogene in front of goal and a jink and a twist later to avoid a Park Ranger he’s rolling the ball into the Rangers’ goal from about six metres away. Two-nil to Ipswich Town and that’s it; I reckon we’ve won.

With the game won, the excitement subsides a little and Town allow the Rangers a little more of the ball. Up in the Cobbold Stand, the Rangers’ supporters make the attacks that their team is unable to conjure by chanting “Football in a library, do-do-do”. I cope with the insult by thinking of tv’s Crossroads and inwardly laughing to myself that their number twenty-three is called Bennie, even if the spelling is wrong. The Rangers fans respond with “Two-nil and you still don’t sing”. The first half is half over and the bloke next to me says “It’s all about game management now”. I think to myself that our game management in the first ten minutes was pretty flippin’ good. Back on the pitch George Hirst goes to stamp on a balloon but it escapes from beneath his boot and he stamps on fresh air, which looks decidedly uncool. To escape further embarrassment and to punish the balloon George proceeds to pick it up and crushes it with his bare hands.

Town are managing the game well enough now that with six minutes to go until half-time the blokes behind me and a few from further along the row feel confident enough to repair to the bar for an early half-time beer. Within two minutes the Rangers win their first corner, but the ball is easily gathered by Christian Walton because generally, as Fiona remarks, corners are equally ineffectual for all teams. The words “Hot Sausage Company” scroll across the face of the Sir Bobby Robson stand in yellow on a vivid red background and we learn that five minutes of time are to be taken from our futures to make up for players lying prone on the turf during the previous forty-five minutes.

Unusually, the stolen five minutes provide some excitement as Town are awarded a free-kick just outside the Rangers’ penalty area and referee Mr Gavin Ward gets carried away marking out a line ten yards from the ball, applying his white spray with aplomb like a cross between Banksy and Jackson Pollock. From the free-kick a corner ensues, presenting the last time this season in which the Churchman’s ultras will chant “Come on You Blues” and share the disappointment of not scoring again.

With the half-time whistle I go for the final time, until August that is, to the front of the stand to speak with Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison and in passing to Dave the steward before venting more spent Suffolk Pride and returning to my seat in time for the re-start of the football at twenty-three minutes to two.

The second half is not unexpectedly different to the first, football mostly being a game of two halves. Rangers have made two substitutions, one having the unusual first name of Tylon to rhyme with Skylon and Nylon, and the players have evidently received a reminder from their French coach Monsieur Stephan about the need to try and score les buts. As a result, an early Town shot at Walsh becomes an isolated incident as Rangers proceed to soon win a corner and a free-kick and their supporters become optimistic enough to chant “Come on you R’s” with genuine enthusiasm. It seems that Monsieur Stephan has successfully injected a bit of va-va-voom and even “Je ne sais quoi” into his players. I am particularly impressed by Ranger’s number ten Ilias Chair, although he is quite small, more of a footstool or a pouffe than a chair really.

Despite the Rangers’ improved showing I don’t get the impression anyone is getting over-anxious. “Another goal would knock the stuffing out of them” says Fiona, and I agree with her, my only quibble with her analysis being that it makes QPR sound a bit too much like cuddly toys and I wouldn’t want to see the Portman Road pitch festooned with kapok.

With an hour gone the Rangers’ fans launch a final attempt to goad the home supporters with a chant of “Football in a library”. But their efforts fall on deaf ears, which is hardly surprising given the age of some of us in the Sir Alf Ramsey stand. Two minutes later and the traditional ‘half an hour left’ substitutions are made by a thoughtful looking Keiran McKenna as Philogene and Burns are replaced by Clarke and McAteer. Almost instantly, Town win a couple of predictably disappointing corners but it’s enough to re- invigorate the home crowd, who are soon back to chanting “E-I, E-I, E-I, O, Up the Football League we go” in the simple style of a class of primary school children. Twenty-one minutes of normal time remain when Jack Clarke shoots wide of the goal. A minute later and Nunez and Hirst depart for the bench to be replaced by Azon and Mehmeti in the well-rehearsed fashion. Across the illuminated centre of the Sir Bobby Robson stand the spirit of optimism is echoed in the words “The future of flat roofing today”.

Another goal would be good, and I sense some frustration that it hasn’t been scored yet as everyone yearns to see the game ‘put to bed’, perhaps with a milky cup of Horlicks or Cocoa. Leif Davis getting booked barely registers in the scheme of things now and the longed-for goal almost comes as Jack Clarke is fouled and from the free-kick the ball is headed across the face of the Rangers’ goal. Eleven minutes of normal time remain, and Rangers’ Smyth makes his mark on the game by having his name taken by Mr Ward for a foul on Darnell Furlong. Eight minutes of normal time remain, and the Sir Bobby Robson standers are now confident enough to test out a chant of “We are going up, We are going up”, which almost seems to be the signal for a parade of stewards and police in what look like uniforms that can easily be wiped clean to surround the pitch.

Seven minutes remain, and Christian Walton is forced into a flying save to keep out a shot from one or other of the Park Rangers and it’s as if the surrounding of the pitch by people dressed in black and day-glo orange might have been distracting. But three minutes later play is at the desired end of the ground again as Jack Taylor storms towards goal, the ball is blocked but runs to Kasey McAteer who guides it into the net and Town lead three-nil.

Now the game is truly over and promotion is secured, again. It doesn’t really matter that Dan Neil replaces Jack Taylor, that we number 29,636 today or that four minutes of added on time will be added on. With the final whistle, within seconds a swarm of supporters cover the pitch and Town are definitively promoted to what is called the Premier League. The last time I saw this many people on the pitch at a match versus QPR they were fighting each other.

Very few people leave to catch trains or buses today. I was going to, but against my better judgement I hang about pointlessly looking on at people milling about the pitch whilst the excitable young stadium announcer tells them that there will be no presentation of the runners-up trophy until the pitch is completely cleared. I am wasting my life away here. The game ended at twenty past two and its three o’clock by the time the presentation of the trophy is made but there are too many other people on the pitch to see that and then the team don’t parade it around the pitch, they just hang about near the halfway line enduring very loud music. A blast of Status Quo at getting on for two-thirty is the final straw and I head for the railway station and home to find that I must have already drunk that bottle of champagne for which I found the receipt.

Ipswich Town 2 Middlesbrough 2

April 20, 2026May 4, 2026 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s been a difficult week of a shingles vaccination, which made me feel so ill I was only capable of falling asleep watching the telly, a televised away defeat at Portsmouth, through much of which I wish I had slept, and a Saturday in which I was tasked with wrestling artificial stone paving slabs into some sort of path around a recently refurbished garden pond. Now, to cap it all the Town are having to perform at midday on the Sunday at the behest of some evil, global media empire, and I am having to forego every person’s human right to a lie-in on their actual or nominal sabbath before enjoying a leisurely breakfast.

More cheerfully, it is a bright sunny morning, albeit tempered by a chilly breeze, as I make my way to the railway station where, arriving on the ‘Ipswich bound’ platform I engage in conversation with the man who very often stands here with me on match days. Today, we continue our conversation on the train and not only does he meet Gary, who as ever boards at the next station stop, but he reveals that his name is Gareth, his grandfather was chairman of Braintree Town Football Club back in the 1970’s and 1980’s when they were in the Eastern Counties League, and one of his earliest football related memories is of his grandmother running the players’ baths at Cressing Road just as the game was about to end, because presumably at that time in Braintree the brand names Mira, Triton and Aqualisa were still unknown.

Being Sunday, the train is busy with faithful pilgrims, all bound for Portman Road, who regrettably seem largely unable to talk quietly, making it difficult for considerate people like Gary, Gareth and me to hold a conversation without raising our voices too. In Wherstead we lean towards the train window, searching the landscape beyond for polar bears; a grubby looking one close to the tracks glances up trying to spot any Middlesbrough fans who she might recognise from the frozen wastelands of the North or from episodes of Noggin the Nog.

Arriving in Ipswich, Gary and I bid adieu to Gareth and make for the Arb as fast as Gary’s dawdling gait will allow. Impatient for beer, despite it not yet being eleven o’clock, I am first through the door, but Gary offers to buy the drinks and I let him. The pub is pleasingly not as heaving as it usually is before a match, although a man tries to form a queue behind us at the bar and I have to tell him that queuing is not required in pubs, it’s why they have bars and not hatches, and bar staff not tellers.

Pint glasses of Lager and Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride in our respective hands Gary and I proceed to the beer garden where Mick is already ensconced with a pint of Blackberry Porter and a packet of cheese and onion crisps. Our conversation begins like an episode of Rumpole at the Bailey; but it’s Gary at Crown Court, as he proceeds to tell us a story of every day criminal folk beating each other up on the mean streets of an Essex town beneath the gaze of CCTV cameras. Gary’s stint as a juror ended this week but the denouement is that all the accused were found guilty of a range of offences and await sentencing.

Another pint of lager, a pint of porter and a double-whisky later Gary, Mick and I are victoriously the last drinkers in the pub when we head downhill to Portman Road where there are queues for the Cobbold Stand. We go our separate ways somewhere close to the statue of Sir Alf Ramsey uncertain whether the final home match of the season is on a Saturday or a Sunday but relatively confident that it will again be stupidly early in the day.

At the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand the queues to be checked for weapons, explosives and scrap metal are blissfully short and although the sacred turnstile 62 is temporarily afflicted by a man trying to gain entry using petrol coupons and a Tesco club card, I am soon stood next to Pat from Clacton waiting for her to finish photographing the flames leaping into the midday air in front of the Cobbold Stand so that I can sit down next to Fiona, next but one to the man from Stowmarket (Paul) and two rows behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood. I think to myself that it’s nice that everyone is present after a few absences for the previous match. Today, I have mysteriously arrived in time to hear the excitable young stadium announcer (EYSA) announce the whole team and I do my best to be like a Frenchman at Le Stadium in Toulouse or the Stade Raymond Kopa in Angers by bawling out the players surnames as EYSA reads them out , but with variable success because he is a beat or two ahead of the scoreboard

Eventually, through an atmosphere of dissipating smoke and fumes the game begins, with today’s guests Middlesbrough, known as The Boro’ to their friends getting first go with the ball, which they are mostly kicking in the direction of the Sir Bobby Robson stand and the Smokehouse live music venue in South Street. Very agreeably, both teams sport their proper kits, with the Town of course in their signature blue and white and The Boro’ in all red with a white band across their chests making them look unmistakeably like Middlesbrough. The only pity is that The Boro’s white band is besmirched with the name of an on-line betting company when it should read ‘Geordie Jeans’.

Early exchanges are fast and erratic as if the game was being played by startled spiders. Waiting for the game to ‘settle down’ I ask Pat from Clacton how her knee is and she tells me it still hurts but nothing like it did and of course she can now walk on it and didn’t, as I suggest therefore, need to be lowered into her seat from a helicopter. “I wouldn’t mind, but I was only getting in my car to go and play whist” moans Pat.

Back on the pitch, the first seven minutes have evaporated like the paraffin fumes, and Town are already starting to dominate to the extent that the smog monsters up in the Cobbold Stand (for that is what people from Teesside are called), are plaintively chanting “Come on Boro, Come on Boro”. The atmosphere is tense. “Shall we sing, shall we sing, shall we sing a song for you?” enquire the Smoggies (short for Smog-monsters) through the medium of song, but happily the half-expected medley of works by Chris Rea doesn’t materialise. Looking up into the gap between the roofs of the stands billowing white clouds tower above us in an otherwise clear blue sky. The seventeenth minute heralds Town’s first corner, as the result of a shot from Ivan Azon, but it is all too easily dealt with by the Boro players despite mine, Fionas and ever-present Phil’s chants of “Come on you Blues”. Four minutes on and again our chants are as ineffectual as Nunez’s next corner kick.

With a quarter of the game having faded away into our pasts Town almost score as a low McAteer cross is sent wide of the goal by an unexpectedly far forward Darnell Furlong, who I don’t think I had ever seen have a shot before. Somewhat typically, within a minute Middlesbrough take the lead, predictably perhaps from the Town left where the improbably plainly monikered Alan Browne appears unmarked to cross low for David Strelec to tap the ball in from close range. “Tingly Teds hot sauce by Ed Sheeran” read the neon lights of the Sir Bobby Robson stand not making matters any better.

A deathly silent pall of gloom, which the home crowd always keeps close at hand for such occasions hangs over the stands and consumes all hope for a full five minutes. But then, a bit of space in front of the Boro back four, a pass, a dinky back heel from Ivan Azon, and the re-born Kasey McAteer is drilling the ball into the corner of the Boro net from outside the penalty area and twenty-seven thousand odd people believe again. “By far the greatest team the world has ever seen” sing the Sir Bobby Robson standers. “Well may be not the World, perhaps Suffolk” says Fiona, and Norfolk of course. Town win a third corner and again at least three of us bellow “Come on you Blues”. As the ball is again cleared, I wonder to Fiona whether our chants put the players off rather than encourage them. Meanwhile up in the Cobbold Stand the Smoggies are chanting “You don’t know what you’re doing” to referee Mr Jarred Gillett, who has made or not made some or other decision to annoy them, even though he appears to have also awarded their team a free kick; you just can’t please some people. Boro’ goalkeeper Sol Brynn takes the free-kick and I momentarily think of Uncle Bryn in tv’s Gavin and Stacey.

Half-time is only about seven minutes away and Jaden Philogene has a rare shot on goal which gives Town a fourth corner and a handful of us another opportunity to encourage the team vocally. Town have been the better team this first half, but the Smoggies are blaming Mr Gillett. “You’re not fit to referee” they sing, like chapel-going Welshman and then more experimentally, and as Brynn takes the inevitable goal-kick following Town’s corner, “Shit referee, Ole, Ole, Ole”. The goal-kick skews out into touch and I tell Fiona “I don’t know about the referee, but the goalkeeper’s not that good either”.

After Middlesbrough win their only corner of the half, which they don’t seem very keen to take, a minute of added on time is added on and then it’s time to applaud the team off before going to the front of the stand to chat to Dave the steward, Ray and his grandson Harrison and son Michael. Today Ray tells me how he used to get free tickets for both home and away games when his father drove the team bus in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. On my way back to my seat ever-present Phil who never misses a game tells me how yesterday he went to watch Kings Park Rangers at Cornard and how this very blog came in useful, fore warning him that Cornard United’s Backhouse Lane ground is a real ale desert, so he drank elsewhere.

The football resumes at two minutes past one and soon it becomes evident that this is going to be a ‘game of two halves’ and it seems that it is Middlesbrough’s turn to dominate. Like some meteorological portent of doom, the sky has clouded over, and the breeze seems even cooler than before. Middlesbrough win a corner. Three minutes later a state of confusion in the Town box has the ball rebounding off a post and Christian Walton saving the ball from crossing the goal line. Things are looking a bit grim and as a diversion I look for poetry in the Boro team names, but Ayling, Browne, Fry, Gilbert and Morris can’t compare to Boam, Brine, Craggs, Spraggon and Woof from the Boro team of the 1970’s.

Brief respite and enjoyment arrive on fifty-three minutes as the afternoon’s first booking goes to Boro’s Matt Targett who has fouled Jack Taylor. I speculate that a matt target is easier to hit than a glossy one which might produce awkward reflections and that he perhaps has a sister who is formally known as Miss Targett. As the game descends into its final half an hour the first substitutions see former Town loanee Jeremy Sarmiento applauded by the home supporters who may never forget his last-minute goal versus Southampton in 2024, before Ivan Azon hurriedly shoots over the Boro cross bar.

As in the first half, Town’s spurning of an opportunity is soon punished and two minutes later the Town defence is as ever penetrated on its left hand side and again a low cross is pulled back allowing little Tommy Conway to score from close range with the Town defence well and truly dissected and pinned out like a frog in a school biology lab. Boro lead 2-1 and substitutions for Town are immediate but not necessarily related, with Mehmeti and Clarke usurping Nunez and Philogene. But Town’s defence doesn’t improve much as Sarmiento’s shot is saved and then another three are blocked in quick succession before Middlesbrough have a corner.

Eighteen minutes of normal time remain when Eggy replaces McAteer, fourteen when Mehmeti shoots straight at Brynn, and Town begin to claw their way back into the contest with a corner seven minutes later and then two more substitutions with George Hirst and Dan Neil saying ‘hello’ and Ivan Azon and Azor Matusiwa saying ‘goodbye’. Six minutes of normal time remain when the excitable young stadium announcer thanks us for our ‘incredible’ support, which numerically speaking today amounts to 29,684. Incredible. Two more minutes have elapsed when a low cross from the right looks to be too far ahead of George Hirst for him to threaten the Boro goal but Adilson Malanda doesn’t make the same judgement and with the sort of slightly violent, gung-ho spirit he might have been infected with whilst playing in the USA, he pulls Hirst back and gifts Jack Clarke a shot at goal from the penalty spot. Clarke scores the penalty and despite another eight minutes of added on time being added on, and two more players for each team being booked, the game is drawn.

The final whistle sees Pat from Clacton departing as quickly as she can and Fiona leaves too for her train. My train leaves in not much more than ten minutes time too, so I don’t linger either. But this has been a good match, not very much use as a result to either team really, but not a disaster either and worth the entry money as a spectator. The Smoggies up in Cobbold stand seem bitter however, and Mr Gillett is the target of their ire as they advise him that he is not fit to referee nor perform other tasks requiring snap decisions and good eyesight presumably, like racing driver and fighter-pilot. It makes a welcome change though for opposition supporters to be singing this particular song, long may it continue.

Ipswich Town 2 Birmingham City 1

April 7, 2026April 7, 2026 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It feels like it’s been a while since I last trekked into Ipswich to see the Town play. In fact, it was only just over a fortnight ago, but so little has happened in my life since then that it feels like eons ago, I think I need to get out more. But at least I don’t live in Gaza, Iran, or the United States of America and this morning the sun is shining brightly as I make my way to the railway station, and the only clouds in the sky seem to be there merely for decoration, although there is a stingy breeze. A message from Greater Anglia tells me that the train is on time, and indeed it’s been a busy morning for messages on my mobile phone, with Mick disturbing my sleep as early as 6:15 to confirm our rendez-vous at the Arb in what was then seven and a half hours-time, and Pat from Clacton telling me that she won’t be at the match today because she twisted her knee last Monday getting in to her car to go to a whist drive.

Having boarded the punctual train, I am soon talking with Gary who continues to remain impressively discreet about his continuing jury service, which is now entering its fourth week. Our journey is again illuminated by the sight of two polar bears in Wherstead, and we briefly speculate as to whether polar bears notice that the clocks have changed given that they are used to winters and summers of almost perpetual darkness or light. Alighting from the train in Ipswich, it feels like that stingy breeze is even stingier here, probably because we’re nearer the coast. Princes Street is well populated with police officers today and I seem to recall this is always the case when today’s visitors Birmingham City come to town. I hadn’t realised that Brummies were such a recalcitrant lot, but then my experience of Birmingham City supporters is limited to a history teacher from when I was at school in the 1970’s, and like most history teachers he never struck me as being much of a threat to public order.

Arriving at the Arb, getting through the door is unexpectedly difficult due to people queuing at the bar, but it’s not long before I’m ordering a pint of Lager 43 for Gary and because there is no Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride available, pints of Mighty Oak Brown Hare for Mick and me. I have no idea of the cost but bravely wave my bank card in the direction of the card reader before we retire to the beer garden and sit at a table at one end of the shelter backing onto High Street. Today is Mick’s birthday and once we have sat down, I present him with a card that I have made especially for him, which features Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch in the guise of a burlesque dancer, a theme which I had correctly guessed he would find very exciting.

Our conversation veers from Gary’s jury service to Mick’s recent visit to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, to today’s team, before Gary buys another pint of Lager 43 for himself, another of Brown Hare for me and a double whisky for Mick. Gary then spills most of his lager down his leg and over his jacket as he finds himself guilty of waving his hands around too much when he talks. It is gone twenty to three when we head for Portman Road and like the bons viveurs that we are, we are of course the last to leave the pub.

Pleasingly, at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand there are no queues to be checked for weapons and scrap metal and the attractive young woman in the hijab soon waves me through once I’ve shown her that my mobile phone is not a ballistic missile or a nunchuk. There is a short queue at the feted turnstile 62, but I’m happy to wait my turn to pass through it and after dispensing some spent Brown Hare I arrive at my seat behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood, and next to Fiona, just as the excitable young stadium announcer reads out the names of the last four players in the Town team today, the ones with the highest squad numbers. Like a Frenchman at the Stade Marie-Marvingt in Le Mans or Stade Velodrome in Marseille I bawl out the players surnames as the excitable young announcer announces them.

Eventually, after an abridged rendition of Edward Ebenezer Jeremiah Brown and a few bars of the Beatles’ Hey Jude the game begins, and it is Town who get first go with the ball, which they are directing towards me and my fellow ultras. Fiona and I share the thought that we wish we could just be told now that we’re going to win, or not. It would spare us the pain. Town wear their signature blue and white kit whilst Birmingham are in an unfamiliar all red ensemble and look like a knock-off Swindon Town or Workington. Mysteriously, Birmingham’s shirts feature a white ‘five bar gate’ on the front as if they are keeping a tally of something like games without a win or consecutive years of crushing disappointment; “Keep right on to the end of the road” sing the Brummies in the Cobbold stand miserably, suggesting it might be the latter.

Within a minute, Kasey McAteer is set up at the edge of the penalty area by Nunez and shoots hard, but over the Birmingham cross bar. It looked like a good opportunity to score but Town are continuing to have the ball most of the time, although after five minutes Birmingham are the first of the two teams to raise and then dash their supporters hopes with a fruitless corner kick. The name RJ Dean follows that of Edison in the illuminations that cross the front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand and in spite of myself I think of Pearl and Dean, and one hit wonder soft rockers Edison Lighthouse (Love Grows (where my Rosemary goes)), although I’ve never had a Rosemary.

Despite Town having the better of the game so far, the Birmingham goalkeeper James Beadle isn’t exactly being forced to pull off a string of fine saves and I sense that the people around me aren’t giving the game their full attention. “Watch out Beadle’s about” laughs a man a couple of seats away from me in what could be a pitiful attempt at humour or more likely a cry for help. I ask Fiona what she’s having for her tea and given that she’s sitting where Pat from Clacton usually sits, I shouldn’t be surprised when she says “A baked potato”. But Fiona is quick to point out that unlike Pat from Clacton she won’t be having any fancy toppings from Marks & Spencer such as prawns, she’ll be having baked beans.

“Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, the Norwich ran away” sing the Sir Bobby Robson standers realising that this is the weekend of a Christian festival, but evidently unsure which one. George Hirst wins a corner for Town and along with ever-present Phil I chant “Come On You Blues”. The half is half over and Birmingham win another pointless corner too. Nearly a third of the match has been lost to the ages and I think to myself that I can only remember one shot on goal. Hope springs eternal however and Town earn two more corner kicks in quick succession but as Fiona and I joke, they might as well have turned them down and said to Birmingham, “No, really, it’s ok, you have a goal kick, it’ll save time and all that pushing and shoving”.

Open play seems Town’s best bet for a goal and within sixty seconds a short pass from George Hirst has Kasey McAteer bearing down on Beadle only for his decent looking shot to be saved. Somewhat typically, Birmingham immediately take the ball to the other end of the pitch and a limp, aimless cross later, the ball is swept into the Town goal net by an unhappy looking Spaniard called Carlos Vicente. “How shit must you be? we’re winning away” chant the Brummies, thoughtfully demeaning both teams at once in the spirit of equal opportunities.

The Birmingham supporters are now in good voice with their team’s goal seemingly having lifted the pall of gloom that their Black Country accent usually conveys. “I can’t read and I can’t write but that don’t really matter, I’m a supporter of Ipswich Town and I can drive a tractor” they chant as they strangely feign a west country burr worthy of the Wurzels. It’s not a chant I’ve heard from away supporters in sometime and it suggests that they might get lost on the way home as they look for the signs to the A45 rather than the A14.

Barring the unknown amount of time to be stolen from our futures and added on, there are seven minutes of the first half remaining as Azore Matusiwa is substituted for Anis Mehemeti and I remark to Fiona that they both have the same initials, like Nigel Farage and National Front. “Is this a library” ask the Brummies up in the Cobbold Stand and the obviously well-read and studious man two seats along from me who likes Jeremy Beadle shouts back “You’ve never seen a fucking a library”.

With the forty-first minute comes the confirmation needed that this isn’t a library at all as Ben Johnson cleverly bounces a cross from Furlong into the Birmingham goal, from where it is quickly cleared but not before it has crossed the goal line. Town are level. Four minutes later, and the last library cards are melted down and “Quiet Please” signs burnt as an incisive passing move cuts through the heart of the Birmingham defence putting the constantly running Kasey McAteer through to slip the ball beneath Beadle, and Town are winning. Six minutes of added on time are added on in which Town win another corner from which George Hirst heads over the Birmingham cross bar; but in the circumstances everyone seems happy for now with the one goal lead.

After a slow start the half has ended very well indeed, and Town are deserving of their interval lead as I head down to the front of the stand to talk to Ray, his grandson Harrison and son Michael, stopping only to speak with Dave the steward before later decanting the dregs of the Brown Hare and getting back to my seat by nine minutes past four, when the football resumes.

It is soon apparent that the second half is not living up to the excitement of the first as Ipswich are incapable of retaining the ball. They try to play out from the back as usual, and manage it to the point where Clarke or McAteer are outnumbered and squashed against the touchline and concede throw-ins. Meanwhile, if the ball strays in-field the Birmingham players are falling over like they’ve heard that the ghost of Mack Sennett is in the stand looking for candidates to star in a re-make of the Keystone Cops movies; referee Mr Adam Herczeg is predictably unpredictable but is generally a sucker for anyone falling over.

Birmingham are the first to make substitutions but with just under a half an hour left to play the Town support is beginning to plead with their team. “Come on Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” they implore before moving onto a current favourite, “When the Town go marching in”, which is delivered at a pace that suggests Town will be limping in and we’ll be “in that number” because well, we ‘re here now and we can’t be arsed to move elsewhere. I try to make myself feel better by looking up at the almost clear, blue, afternoon sky and thinking that the stars are still there, I just can’t see them at the moment.

On seventy minutes Birmingham’s Ibrahim Osman gets to the by-line and his cross strikes the chest of Dara O’Shea and drops into the Ipswich goal. From where I’m sat it looks like a perfectly good own goal but happily and perhaps fortunately it’s not. According to the referee’s assistant the ball had gone over the line before it was crossed. The close shave is enough to stir Keiran McKenna into action and he embarks on a mass substitution the like of which has usually occurred about a quarter of an hour before now. Off go Clarke and Nunez, on comes Jaden Philogene and from the excitable young stadium announcer’s announcement it sounds like George Hirst is replaced by both Jack Taylor and Chuba Akpom. Jack Taylor is almost immediately booked for throwing the ball into the crowd, suggesting that his role will be to “manage the game” by just mucking about as much as possible.

From the low point of the near own goal, Town are now improving, looking more resilient. Luckily, although Birmingham are big and strong, with the possible exception of Osman they seem to lack skill and guile. A chant of ”Ole, Ole Ole” , albeit a brief one, suggests some Town fans are confident Town will hang on and I am surprised by how quickly the time passes as we lurch into the final ten minutes. Eighty-four minutes are gone and the excitable young stadium announcer thanks us for our “incredible support” before announcing that we number 29,381 and I cringe as people applaud their own existence. A minute later I gasp as Osman shoots low and Christian Walton dives to tip the ball onto the right-hand post before it is booted clear. But that’s as bad as it gets and four minutes and another four minutes of added-on time slip away into the past without further undue pain, and Ipswich win.

With the final whistle, Fiona is quickly away, but with twenty minutes until my train is due to depart, I linger to applaud the Town and sing another verse or two of Edward Ebenezer Jeremiah Brown. It has been a mostly uncomfortable second half for Town supporters, but Town have won, we have reasons to be cheerful.

Ipswich Town 1 Millwall 1

March 22, 2026March 22, 2026 / martinpbrooks / 1 Comment

Yesterday was the Spring equinox, when the tilt of the Earth is neither towards or away from the Sun and the northern and southern hemispheres receive equal sunlight; it was also the start of astronomical Spring. With balance and optimism agogo, it is a shame therefore that the stupid EFL and stupid Sky tv decree that today’s game versus Millwall is a 12:30 kick off and the day will therefore have no worthwhile morning or afternoon that isn’t occupied by being at the pub or by football.

After a hearty breakfast that includes two hot cross buns but is otherwise a secular affair, the condemned man (that’s me) takes to the train beneath a clear blue sky. The train has only five carriages today and I text Gary so that he is not stranded expectantly at the wrong end of the platform when the train pulls in at the next station stop, where he will board. The train is quite full because the previous train, which was bound for Norwich never appeared, lost in a pagan ritual to welcome Spring somewhere near Witham, but our journey is pleasant enough and we get to see a polar bear without having to pay the entrance money for Jimmy’s Farm.

Today, we elect to take the seemingly convoluted and arguably less scenic route to ‘the Arb’ via Portman Road, across Civic Drive and past the fantastical spiral underground car park, sadly one of only a few elements of Ipswich’s Greyfriars to St Matthews psychedelic, 1960’s wonderland to remain intact. Arriving at our destination I am back to being first through the door at the Arb as Gary trails behind me, and we are soon transporting a pint of Lager 43 for Gary and pints of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me and Mick (£14 something with Camra discount) out into the beer garden, where we decide unanimously to sit at a table in the full sun. We have barely sat down before Mick arrives. Gary has ordered a sausage sandwich which soon arrives too, but without any sauces, and he has to return indoors to ask for his preferred brown sauce, which is then brought to him in a stainless-steel dish; not a plastic sachet in sight. Later, Gary will have a sesame seed left on his bottom lip, but he will wipe it off just as I am about to tell him so.

Our conversation today soon establishes that our lives are currently quite dull, Gary having the wildest times of the three of us, being on jury service, but like the good citizen that he is he won’t talk about it, although being from Essex and not having had the benefit of a classical education courtesy of Suffolk County Council like Mick and me, he never once uses the term sub judice. Time travels on and Mick buys more Suffolk Pride for me, a pint of Estrella Galicia for Gary and a whisky for himself before Gary buys Mick a half of Suffolk Pride and another pint of Suffolk Pride for me.

I have no real clue what time it is when we get up to leave for Portman Road, but I imagine it to be gone twenty to three, which would be rather late for a twelve-thirty kick-off. As one we visit the gents before departing, and it is just about possible there are a couple of people following on, meaning that somewhat exceptionally we are not the last to leave. As we cross Civic Drive on our way to the ground Mick reveals how when walking down a supermarket aisle the other day he was struck by how much processed ‘crap’ was sold to people under the auspices of ‘food’, and how pretty much no one cares as long as it makes a profit. Once in Portman Road, Mick and Gary head for what I still think of as the Pioneer Stand and I head for ‘Churchmans’ as we bid one another adieu until Easter Monday somewhere near Sir Alf’s statue.

Passage into the Sir Alf Ramsey stand is quick and painless today and I stand very briefly behind one other person before being checked for weaponry, explosives and scrap metal. Entry to the stadium is through the commemorative turnstile number sixty-two, and after tripping William the Conqueror-like up the steps into the lower tier of the stand I soon find myself shuffling past Pat from Clacton and Fiona, a couple of rows behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game. Absent today are Phil’s son Elwood and the man from Stowmarket (Paul), who I think really comes from Stowupland. I have rocked up too late to see the excitable young stadium announcer reading out the team but as much as I enjoy pretending to be a Frenchman at the Stade Roazhon by bawling out the players’ surnames I can’t say it has overly reduced my enjoyment of the day so far.

When the time comes, it is Millwall who get first go with the ball, which they are attempting to send in the direction of the goal at the far end of the ground from me and my fellow ultras. Town are in their natural colours of blue and white whilst due to a colour clash Millwall sport off-white shirts and shorts with what looks like green trim; it’s a look that suggests the kit was left too long in the boil wash. Portman Road is noisy today, with an atmosphere a bit like that for a Norwich match but without the bile, and Norfolk variants of the Habsburg chin. After five minutes, Dan Neil shoots wide of the Millwall goal and then Millwall win a corner. Up in the Cobbold stand even the gangways look full in the away ‘end’, as if those crafty, lawless cockneys have somehow managed to sneak in ticketless fans in the pockets of their fashionable short coats or disguised as sharp haircuts.

Ipswich dominate and shots rain in on the Millwall goal. The Millwall goalkeeper Patterson ‘spills’ a shot from Ben Johnson and Dan Neil has a shot blocked before Ivan Azon volleys goalwards from reasonably close range and Patterson makes a remarkable reflex save to divert it over the cross bar for a corner. From the corner I am struck by the enormity of Millwall’s centre halves Cooper and Taylor and by Cooper’s mullet haircut, which suggest either that he would rather be playing Aussie Rules Football or that he has travelled forward through time to be here from circa1984.

On the pitch, Ipswich begin to dominate and by the eleventh minute the noise subsides. Every time Millwall concede a free-kick their supporters chant something about being “fucked by the FA” as they weave another repeated pattern into their rich tapestry of self-pity and conspiracy theories. Ipswich dominate. “We can do all this and then they’ll breakaway and score” says Pat from Clacton with the understandable pessimism of someone living in the constituency for which Nigel Farage is member of parliament. In the sixteenth minute, Millwall’s Josh Coburn is the first player to be booked by referee Mr Michael Salisbury, who I like to think is heir to the former high street chain of handbag shops.

The half is half over and in a rare Millwall interlude, their number four shoots wide of the Town goal. Above the goal, the electronic advertising hoarding mysteriously reads “The UK’s leading Hydrogen Water” and all around the ground people stop and think, “Ooh, I’d better stop for some Hydrogen Water on the way home”. Ipswich otherwise continue to dominate, winning corners roughly every two minutes until in the forty-first minute Jack Clarke embarks of a short, characteristically stuttering run somewhere near the far edge of the Millwall penalty area before shooting low into the near corner of the goal, and Town lead one-nil.

The goal is no more than Town deserve and probably a lot less, but it’s enough to inspire a miserable sounding rendition of “When the Town go marching in” and a minute’s worth of time is conjured up and added on to the forty-five we’ve already lived.

With half-time, I quickly depart to dispense more spent Suffolk Pride and as I stand along with many other men, all with our penises in our hands, urinating, I wonder at our interesting juxtaposition to the posters above the urinals that introduce us to Ipswich Town’s ‘safeguarding’ team. Relieved but confused, I leave the toilet to talk to Dave the steward and then Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison at the front of the stand. Ray tells me how he is going to have to have an operation in the next month or so which will involve a bone graft with bone taken from his leg that he apparently doesn’t need. Harrison, who is in a wheelchair, has told Ray he can have the bones from his legs because he never uses them.

The second half begins at twenty-eight minutes to two and within two minutes Millwall have a corner. Three minutes later Millwall have equalised as Darnell Furlong lies pleading on the turf, knocked over by some muscular, proxy docker before a low cross is diverted into the net between Town’s two centre backs from close range by the previously booked Josh Coburn. “The future of flat roofing” read the illuminated advertising hoardings on the Sir Bobby Robson stands. Four minutes later, and from a corner Millwall have the ball in the Town goal net again but foul play is suspected and Town are awarded a free kick.

Millwall are stronger this half, more capable of winning the ball back and getting forward with it themselves. Town aren’t without their moments however and as the first hour of play recedes into history three corners are won from shots on goal, with the last ending with a knot of players collapsing to the ground as if the edges of the Millwall six-yard box had been laced with trip wires. Pat from Clacton meanwhile tells Fiona and me about the flocks of what she thinks were Canada Geese that she saw from her hotel whilst on her whist-playing holiday in Great Yarmouth. What is more, Pat shows us the photos to prove it too.

The sixty-seventh minute is later than when Keiran McKenna usually unleashes his first batch of substitutes, but today this is when Jaden Philogene and Jack Taylor replace Casey McAteer and Dan Neil, although in my head I can’t not hear the excitable young stadium announcer barking “Jack Clarke” as two very separate and distinct words as the change occurs. It takes Fiona to convince me that he actually said “Jack Taylor” and not “Jack” “Clarke”.

As the succession of minutes beginning with the number seven pass by, Millwall are winning more corners and now George Hirst and Chuba Akpom replace Ivan Azon and Anis Mehmeti. Pat from Clacton unfolds the two pieces of paper that show the scores she has drawn in the ‘predict the score’ competition on the Clacton supporters’ bus; 3-2 seems a bit unlikely, but 2-1 to Ipswich has us now all rooting for another Town goal twice as hard as before.

Heading down the final descent towards ninety minutes we are told that there are 29,129 of us here today and satisfyingly such crowds are now so commonplace at Portman Road that people no longer applaud themselves for their own existence. Four minutes of the standard ninety remain and Millwall’s Derek Mazou-Sacko replaces Billy Mitchell, a player who sounds more like a character from Eastenders. Within seconds Derek Mazou-Sacko clatters Jack Clarke and as a result his name makes an interesting entry in Mr Salisbury’s notebook. Clarke is quickly substituted, replaced by Eggy before he comes to any more harm.

The final minute has the match leaving the impression that Millwall are more of an attacking force than they have been as Walton makes an excellent reaction save from close range and then the rebound is smacked into the underside of the cross bar by Ivanovic when it looked certain that Millwall would score. Two more Millwall corners follow and yet another in the four minutes of added on time but despite the presence of the towering Cooper and Taylor Town defend these successfully before Mr Salisbury’s whistle delivers a curdled cocktail of both relief and lingering disappointment.

Fiona and Pat from Clacton are swiftly away with a brief farewell and “See you on Easter Monday” but I hang on to applaud both teams off for providing a very entertaining match. As ever I had high hopes for a win, but as ever in the Second Division strength has matched artistry. I should have known that on the day of the Spring equinox the two teams level on points would receive equal sunlight.