Cardiff Met’ 1 Haverfordwest County 0

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(Met Caerdydd 1 Hwlffordd 0)

I cannot help but think that I have been waiting all my working life just to retire. Despite a university education, I have never been ambitious or really interested enough to ‘progress’ or have a career.  I’ve earned enough to buy a house and sufficient beer, football tickets, books and long-playing records to keep myself amused, but sadly I have had to wait until the state is prepared to pay me a pension before I can afford to retire.  Finally, however, after forty-four years of unbroken public service my time has arrived, and I feel reborn.  Symbolically perhaps therefore, today I am on a pilgrimage in my planet saving electric Citroen e-C4 to the place of my original birth, Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, and whilst there I will fulfil a typically modest ambition to visit the Bridge Meadow and see Haverfordwest County play at home in the Cymru Premier League. 

It is a discouraging 500 km journey from our house to Haverfordwest, but with no restraints on time, except the ultimate one, my wife Paulene and I have broken the journey up into manageable pieces, staying last night with my stepson and his family in Basingstoke, before today driving on to Cardiff . Conveniently tonight, as a sort of hors d’oeuvre to seeing them playing at home this coming Saturday, Haverfordwest County have a Cymru Premier match in Cardiff versus Cardiff Metropolitan, a university team.

After an early dinner of grilled salmon and steamed vegetables, washed down with a pint of S A Brain’s Barry Island IPA (strapline: ‘Fresh, Hoppy, Tidy!’) in the Cardiff Novotel ‘Customs Shed’ restaurant, where waitress Evie looks after us brilliantly, we allow time for digestion before setting out for the Cyncoed campus of Cardiff Metropolitan University.  The Citroen’s Satnav leads us on a complicated, five-and-a-half-kilometre path through the Cardiff suburbs of Roath and Pen-Y-Lan down both narrow, terraced streets of parked cars and along more opulent tree lined avenues. The 52 bus runs from the city centre to the campus but heaven knows how long that would take or when the last bus leaves, and bizarrely in the United Kingdom our English bus passes aren’t valid in Wales.  On arrival, the Cyncoed campus reveals itself as a campus as dull as the word campus suggests it might be, but we are able to park up in the first car park we come to and then look to the now darkened skies for the glow of floodlights. 

I always enjoy the walk to the match, even when only from a nearby car park; I think it’s the anticipation.  This evening is warm and finding our way between what might be student residences, we embark on a walk of discovery.  “Do you know where it is?” asks a man on his own who has the air of an anxious groundhopper about him.  He hurries off towards a second glow in the sky before we get much of a chance to reply. The glow in the sky that we have just arrived at has proved to be an athletics track, but beyond that and something that looks like a massive white tent is another rectangle of not quite heavenly light; this we will discover is the 3G pitch that passes as the home ‘stadium’ of Cardiff Met.

It was possible to pay for our admission online but logging in and typing out personal and account details is a ridiculous faff when all we want to do is watch a football match which will attract a crowd of less than three hundred.  A well-built bloke directs us to the gate where a middle-aged woman in a red and white jumper says: “Ten pounds please”.   “Two over-65’s please” I reply.  “Oh, twelve pounds then please” smiles the woman, and I dare to think that she probably doesn’t think I look old enough.  I hand over a ten-pound note and two one-pound coins, which seems to please her because she won’t have to mess about giving me change. Disappointingly however, Cardiff Met’ FC do not produce a programme, which is surprising because I would have thought it could have been a module in some sort of media studies degree.  Just as surprisingly, Cardiff Met does not seem to have a bar or even a hut or hatch from which burgers, chips and bacon rolls are dispensed.  The only catering facility seemingly being the serving of coffee from the back of a muddy-coloured Bedford Rascal van, which if the sign writing on the side is accurate belongs to a smug looking bloke with glasses called Donald.  I speculate that Donald is studying for a master’s degree which combines catering, graphic design, sports management and vehicle maintenance.  To his credit, Donald charges a very competitive 30 pence less for a double espresso than Marks & Spencer do for a single at the Leigh Delamere services on the M4.

With nothing else to entertain us, Paulene and I take a stroll around the ‘stadium’ to the strains of various 1980’s disco ‘hits’ including “Oops upside your head” by the Gap band.  I take in the architecture, which amounts to two low stands (one either side of the pitch) and the high, green metal fence on three sides.  We settle in the back row of the four-seat deep stand on the far side of the pitch from the entrance, between four youths in hoodies and an earnest looking man who is on his own.  Time moves on and after a burst of Fatboy Slim’s “Right Here, Right Now” the names of the Haverfordwest team are announced over the public address system before the announcer perhaps takes a gulp of one of Donald’s double espressos and launches much more excitedly into the names of the Cardiff Met team; his doctorate on the art of stadium announcing in a postmodern context will be a doddle.

At seven forty-four the game begins, although the large digital clock on the side of the adjacent sports hall is trying to convince us that the time is only 18:36. The undergraduate who has been asked by his tutor to provide a practical demonstration of horology, sport and the built environment is contemplating re-sits. It is Haverfordwest County who get first go with the ball, which until half-time they will mostly attempt to send in the direction of the huge white tent and the athletics track beyond.  Haverfordwest sport an away kit of white shirts and black shorts, whilst Cardiff Met’ model burgundy shirts with a blue and yellow band like a bib up the front, and navy-blue shorts.

Early exchanges are tentative.  A bunch of pre-pubescent ultras in the corner of the ground by the big white tent chant “Archers, Archers”, not because they are fans of the wireless soap opera, nor because they have been tasked with advertising brands of peach schnapps, but because Archers is the nickname of Cardiff Met sports clubs and the club badge depicts a stylised rendition of a bloke with a bow and arrow.  After five minutes, Cardiff record the first shot on goal, which is easily collected by the Haverfordwest goalkeeper Ifan Knott.

The match settles down into a dull contest only brightened by the orange shirts of the referee and his assistants, and the bald head of the referee as occasionally the glare of the floodlights reflects off his naked scalp.  At ground level the players kicks are met with puffs of tiny rubber balls leaping up from the artificial playing surface.  After twenty-one minutes another Cardiff shot fails to trouble the Haverfordwest goalkeeper as this time it travels over the surrounding fence and high into the trees that back onto the road outside. Five minutes later Haverfordwest’s Ricky Watts claims the first yellow card of the evening, although I’m not sure why.  Met’s Toby Raison levels the score in this regard a bit later because of a push or a shove or perhaps a bit of both.  As a highlight of the half it’s a poor one and as the half-time whistle is blown, I reflect on a half in which Met’ looked a little but not much more motivated than Haverfordwest and their number twenty-nine showed himself either to be a delicate boy or to be studying dramatic arts, although no one took much notice.  But as the half wore on Haverfordwest had begun to dominate possession although without looking like they knew why they were doing it.

Half-time is as dull as the first half had been and looking for excitement Paulene and I walk to the other side of the ground, and I vent some spent Barry Island IPA.  We take up a position for the second half in the back row of the three-seat deep stand behind the dug outs, which I will later discover backs onto no lesser structure than the National Indoor Athletics Centre.

The football resumes at sixteen minutes to nine (19:21 by the stadium clock) and is as unprepossessing as it was in the previous forty-five minutes. But then, all of sudden, the referee Mr Kenny awards Haverfordwest a penalty.  Again, I’m not sure why because I wasn’t really paying attention; I think it was for a foul rather than handball, but I can’t be sure.  There then follow minutes of doubt and uncertainty because the Cymru Premier, a league of all round similar standard to step four or five of English non-league has VAR!  So, we and the players hang about until Mr Kenny inevitably goes to look at the tv screen at the side of the pitch and decides it’s not a penalty after all. “Fuck VAR, fuck VAR, fuck VAR” chant the Haverfordwest fans with the most limited sex lives. The football resumes again, Cardiff launch a cross to the far post and their somewhat lumbering, top heavy looking number nine, Sam Snaith heads goalwards, Ifan Knott blocks the effort but as he tumbles to the ground the ball drops to the feet of Snaith who has a simple task of rolling the ball into a now unguarded net. From thinking they had a penalty kick just moments before, Haverfordwest County are now losing one-nil.  “Sods law” says a grizzled, grey-haired man in the row in front of us “Better side all night” he adds, bending the truth a little but not too much.

A goal down, Haverfordwest begin to dominate the match as they desperately search for a goal. Number ten Dan Hawkins is probably the best player on the field, but he can’t do it on his own and for the most part County are playing a game of hit and hope in which their crosses are mostly too deep and no one quite seems to quite know what anyone else will do next.  The group of Haverfordwest supporters behind the goal with their flag tied to the high fence begin to pass the time exchanging ‘banter’ with some home fans.  My wife Paulene gets her entertainment from the interaction between a group of teenage girls stood down the front and a group of teenage boys sat a few seats along from us.  One of the lads appears with what looks like a cardboard box containing a quite pungent shepherd’s pie, suggesting that there is food available, but it’s not burgers or chips.

A couple of head injuries, one for each team and multiple substitutions add on time such that the final count for time added on is eight minutes.  But tonight, Haverfordwest probably wouldn’t score if Mr Kenny added on eighty minutes.  The eight minutes slide away, taking with them the result and the three points which go to Cardiff Met’.  I had been looking forward to tonight, probably for several years, but the match and the result have both been disappointing.  So much for feeling re-born. All I can do now is to enjoy the drive back to our hotel through the dimly lit streets of Cardiff, drown my sorrows in another pint of Barry Island IPA, and look forward to Saturday at the Bridge Meadow .

Clacton Town 8 Diss Town 0

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It’s just under 37 kilometres from my house to the Rush Green Bowl, home of Clacton Town Football Club, but as far as I can tell the quickest that it is possible to make this journey by public transport is one hour and thirty-six minutes, and this involves a challenging degree of co-ordination of buses, trains and footsteps, probably not possible on a Saturday and not convenient for a 3pm kick-off, and then I still have to get home.  Never mind, I think to myself, I have an electric car so can save an hour for worthy purposes and still try and save the planet too whilst travelling to watch non-league football, and so that’s what I shall do today having chosen to watch Clacton Town versus Diss Town in the snappily monikered Thurlow Nunn Eastern Counties League First Division North.

It’s been a while since I last saw Clacton play; eleven years and eight months to be almost precise, but rocking up at the Rush Green Bowl it doesn’t seem that very much has changed in all that time but for a superficial and recent switch from being FC Clacton back to being Clacton Town, and as William Shakespeare might have said if in a sarcastic mood, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. 

It’s a gloriously sunny, early autumn day as I step out of my neatly parked Citroen, breath in the briny scent of sea air and walk to the turnstile along the back of the clubhouse beneath an ugly gable and a sign bearing the Clacton Town crest, the word ‘Welcome’, a CCTV camera and a burglar alarm.  The turnstile itself is a magnificent piece of iron work but is set at a somewhat impractical angle as if an overly large person had tried to force their way through it or it had been rescued from a shipwreck. I ask the lady operator if it’s from the pier, but she doesn’t know.  Entry for a ‘senior’ costs a fiver, but more importantly and satisfyingly Clacton Town still produce a programme (£2.00), an impressively glossy twelve-page effort between stiff covers. Through the turnstile, a man sells old programmes and ‘goes’ on a pub card on which the pubs are football clubs. Seeing that Ipswich Town has already been bagged by someone called Richard, I plump for Burnley, who Ipswich beat to the 1962 version of what is now called the “Premier League” title.

There is still most of a half an hour until kick-off and so I look about a bit. I poke my head in the club house, a large, gloomy space that smells of body spray and has a large bar at one end; the back of the door is where the team line-ups are posted.  Returning outside, I take in the architecture comprising three small stands and a gathering of blue portacabins linked by a porch that looks like a massive nesting box and features another gable, which in this case grandly announces, “Hospitality Suite”.  Mostly blokes stand about awaiting kick-off as last-minute adjustments are made to the goal nets at the clubhouse end of the ground.  Some blokes hold plastic pint glasses of pale beery liquid.  One of the blokes not holding a plastic pint of beery liquid turns out to be Richard of pub card fame, who I know from our mutual historical association with Wivenhoe Town. Richard had booked a trip to the nearby Essex County Council dump to dispose of some garden rubbish and to my amusement had decided to combine that trip with one to the Rush Breen Bowl, which handily is next door.  We stand and talk and listen as the Clacton Town club secretary, a man called Karl, looks at his mobile phone and reads out the teams over the public address system.  Richard and I look at each other askance as the name of Clacton’s number three is announced as Lincoln Green.  “Surely, that’s a colour not a left-back” we almost say as one.

When the football begins, it is visiting Diss Town who get first go with the ball, which they despatch in the general direction of the club house and the North Sea, whilst hoping the goal net stops it from going that far.  Diss, known as “The Tangerines” wear an attractive kit of orange (more accurately tangerine) shirts and navy-blue shorts.  Richard and I agree that you can’t go far wrong with an orange football shirt. Clacton meanwhile sport white shirts with royal blue trim and royal blue shorts.  To avoid doubt they have the words Clacton and Town printed across their shoulders where players at professional level have their names.  Any musings about the comparative merits of the team kits are quickly forgotten as Diss Town soon lose possession and inside a minute Clacton dismantle the Diss defence and number seven Sonny Carr scores with a low, casually placed shot into the corner of the goal to give Clacton a very early lead.  It’s a lead which is almost doubled very soon afterwards as Letts’ header is saved and number two, Logan Green has a shot cleared off the goal line.

After thinking that Clacton might run away with the game, it settles down into one of scuffs and miskicks on the hard, uneven and dusty surface.  More than one hoofed clearance is propelled at an unexpected angle and into the undergrowth beyond the pitch.  Diss make it into the Clacton penalty area to win a couple of corners but seem to lack attacking players.  “’kin ‘ell” shouts a Diss player in response to a high boot and the game is held up as the Diss physio runs on carrying what looks like a first-aid kit from the glove compartment of his car. The game resumes with a Diss free kick which is booted straight out beyond the goal line from a good 40 metres out.   Cirrus clouds wheel above us, a small plane takes off from the adjacent airfield.   “We’re fuckin’ walkin’” shouts the totally bald Clacton coach as the game fleetingly descends into the not unusual swearing match often associated with local football.  “Keep it down for the kids” says Richard to me quoting the Thurlow Nunn League’s long-time mantra, and weirdly it seems to do the trick.

It’s now twenty-six minutes past three and all of a sudden Clacton lead two-nil as the speedy but diminutive number nine Adam Wrathall runs at goal, number seven Carr has a shot blocked at close range and number ten Letts bundles the ball into the roof of the net from even closer range. It’s a goal which owes its existence to pace and poor marking and the home crowd cheers. The Rush Green Bowl as its name more than implies is shaped like a bowl and on three sides there are mostly overgrown banks of grass on which spectators stand like the occupants of broken-down cars at the side of a motorway.  In front of us Diss’s number eight Ellis shepherds the ball out putting himself between it and the Clacton number five Cooper-Macklin. As the ball crosses the touchline Cooper-Macklin kicks Ellison on the ankle in what might generously be described as an act of petulance. The referee Mr Mills explains to Cooper-Macklin that the ball was already out but fails to book him for his spitefulness.  Soon afterwards, karma takes a holiday and after a Clacton corner kick the ball runs to Cooper Macklin on the edge of the penalty area and his low shot is deflected into the Diss goal to make the score three-nil.

The bald Clacton coach standing near the touch line in his blue tracksuit continues to shout and encourage.  Clouds of dust accompany almost every kick, and such is the apparent lack of any reaction in the Diss Town dugout I wonder if Diss have a coach at all, or whether the team functions as some sort of autonomous collective.  There are five minutes of the nominal first forty-five remaining as Clacton score their fourth goal from the penalty spot courtesy of captain Emmanuel Ikwuegbu after Wrathall runs at and around the Diss centre-half Viner and seems to be about to shoot when Mr Mills points to the penalty spot.  Richard and I agree it looked a soft penalty decision (shirt tugging?) and we wonder if Wrathall wouldn’t have scored anyway.  As if to let the world know that yes, he would have scored, five minutes later Wrathall rattles in a fantastic shot into the top corner of the Diss goal from something like 30 metres out.  When the half-time whistle is blown at twelve minutes to four the score is a probably decisive Clacton Town 5 Diss Town 0.

Richard and I have, during the course of the match, been making our way around the pitch and with half-time, we move from the sunny eastern side to the more shaded area next to what passes as the main stand.  On our way, we go onto the pitch to get around the subsiding terrace stand behind the goal that is now closed off for safety reasons.  It is at the same time a shame that the stand cannot be used but it also strangely adds to the character of the place and the delightfully depressing sense of decay and dilapidation that often characterises lower league football. 

The football resumes not much after four o’clock and at three minutes past Clacton score a sixth goal as number eleven Morton receives a square pass and from about 10 metres shoots the ball into the top right-hand corner of the Diss Town net.  The game resumes again and a man in a blue shirt, Diss Town club tie and possibly stay-pressed trousers, walks past us from the direction of the hospitality suite.   Earlier this afternoon as we stood near some of the Diss Town committee members I reflected on how even now some club officials come to games looking like refugees from the 1950’s with their collared shirts and club ties and sometimes even blazers and as a result they can’t help but also look a bit like coach drivers.    Richard suggests that if Diss have a bus in the car park they should make a note to park it in front of their goal in future. Our reverie is broken as the ball flies off the pitch and lands in the long grass next to me.  As I throw it back, I think it feels a bit soft, but on a rock-hard pitch that’s probably a good thing.

A Diss player is the first to be booked by Mr Mills, possibly for tugging a shirt, we’re not sure, and  as a cool breeze blows in off the sea the players shadows begin to lengthen across the mottled green of the pitch.  Diss win a freekick outside the Clacton penalty area, the Clacton captain is booked and from the kick Clacton’s goalkeeper Palmer, palms the ball away for his only save of the game.  Four minutes later and Clacton score their seventh goal as Wrathall scurries into the penalty area holding off a towering defender before sending a scorching shot high into the top corner of the net at the goalkeeper’s near post.

The last fifteen minutes of the match have arrived and to their credit Diss Town continue to do what they can to score and Ellis should do so when confronted with an open goal, but instead he boots the ball high over the subsiding stand. Four minutes later and once again I have to throw the ball back onto the pitch for a second time, I think I’ve now had more touches than the Clacton Keeper’ and the Diss centre forward.  Clearly a sympathetic man, Richard is hoping for a Diss goal but all they can manage is a shot that sails higher above the subsiding stand than the previous one and another which curls increasingly wide of the goal after leaving the Diss player’s boot.  It is a quarter to five when Clacton score an eighth goal, an audacious lob over the luckless Diss goalkeeper’s head from 50 metres after he misguidedly leaves his penalty area and clears weakly.

Finally, after an uncomfortable sounding clatter of shin guards on studs there is a late caution for Diss Town’s number three and captain Bray, who had deserved a booking for some earlier successful attempts to con freekicks out of Mr Mills.  With the final whistle, an understandably appreciative crowd applaud the teams and Richard and I make for the car park only to wonder if either of us had won the pub card.  Although it’s been a one-sided game in terms of goals, it has still been an entertaining one and on a beautiful autumn afternoon. After a rotten day for Diss Town however, we can only wish them and their coach drivers a safe journey home.

Ipswich Town Reserves 2 Arsenal Reserves 4

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Arsenal fans seem to get everywhere, like those tiny black insects that you find in picture frames, or like ants in your pantry.  I shared a house in Brighton with one called John, an Arsenal fan that is, not an ant, I also used to travel home from work on the train with one called Alan, I still work with one called Felicia, I used to work with two others both called Chris, a friend went out with one called Ellie, I had a lodger called Mark who was one and my mother worked with one called Yvonne.  As if that wasn’t enough, Osama Bin Laden, Ronnie Biggs and John Lydon were/are also followers.  This evening they will be everywhere at Portman Road because Ipswich Town are playing Arsenal in what is nominally the Football League Cup but is likely to be more like a throw-back to the days of the Football Combination with both teams fielding what are effectively reserve teams mostly made up of players who didn’t start in the team last weekend and won’t start in the team next weekend.

I leave home a smidgeon over three hours before kick-off and meet Gary on the train to talk of having not gone to the Chappel beer festival last week because of the rain and how a woman told Gary she didn’t like him when she first met him and he was able to truthfully tell her he didn’t like her either. The descent into Ipswich then reveals three polar bears all doing passable impressions of furry hearth rugs. Ipswich is bathed in soft early evening, late summer sunlight when we arrive and make for ‘the Arb’ heading up Princes Street, Museum Street and High Street against a background of cumulous clouds and several Grade II listed nineteenth century buildings.  Ipswich is the best I tell Gary, it just needs the gene pool pepping up.  

At the Arb I ‘get’, as modern parlance dictates, a pint of Estrella Galicia for Gary and one of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me (£10 something with Camra discount). We repair to the beer garden to wait for Mick who ‘gets’ more beer when he arrives and a portion of “mini fish and chips”, which looks very good and makes me a tad jealous and regretful that I ate Toad in the Hole at lunchtime and then vowed not to eat again and only drink beer.

Some forgettable conversation and another round of drinks later it is gone seven-thirty and hopefully with no other Town supporters showing such cool by not leaving earlier we at last make our way to Portman Road.  Selecting the queue that looks like it’s shuffling fastest we make our way towards men of Asian descent with wands, and the turnstiles but are ushered to a side entrance like three Mr Benns where magically my mobile phone is interrogated by a man with a cross between a taser and one of those ‘guns’ you scan your shopping with at Sainsbury’s. A quick stop to drain off excess spent Suffolk Pride and we’re ascending the umpteen flights of metal stairs to the top tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand.

Arriving at our seats, the queues to be checked for explosives, scrap metal and weapons outside have resulted in us missing the first three minutes and twenty-eight seconds of the match but to our relief the scoreboard still says nil-nil and I check with the bloke who is going to be next to me for the rest of the evening, who isn’t Mick, that we haven’t missed anything.  He reassures me that we haven’t and makes a witty remark, which I quickly forget. I don’t know who got first go with the ball tonight but unusually for the first half the Town are kicking towards the London Road Baptist church end of the ground. Both teams are in their signature home kits; Ipswich beautiful in blue and white, Arsenal with their red shirts and white sleeves looking like Rotherham United in go-faster Adidas stripes . “You know who we are” chant the Arsenal fans and I guess they probably know who we are too or otherwise they would never have found their way to the right football ground. We are of course the team who beat Arsenal in the only Cup final the two teams have ever met in.

Seven minutes are nearly up and some bloke in red with white sleeves with a stupidly high number on his shirt (fifty-six) jinks past a slightly ponderous Cedric Kipre and Arsenal lead one nil.  “Bugger” I say under my breath.  “We are the Champions, the Champions of England” chant the Arsenal fans.  It’s a chant which in its attempt to boast fails almost as one that goes “By far the finest team, Norwich has ever seen”.  We all know that the real words to the song are “We are the Champions, Champions of Europe”, which sadly for Arsenal they are not.  They (Ipswich) were doing alright until you got here” jokes (I think) the bloke next to me who isn’t Mick. He could well be right.

“He shudda gone down there” says a depressingly worldly-wise pre-pubescent voice behind me as Nunez is clipped lightly when traversing the centre circle.  Fourteen minutes are nearly up. “Come to see the Arsenal, You’ve only come to see the Arsenal” chant the visiting fans and I reflect on how hard it would probably be for Town fans to inject sufficient sarcasm into a chant of “Yes, yes, of course we have”, but I wish they’d have a go.  A minute later and Arsenal score a second goal as Town give the ball away and their number twenty passes the ball into the net.

It is the nineteenth minute, and Town have their first shot at the Arsenal goal courtesy of a bloke called Florentino whose signing for the Town must have passed me by; I felt I had to admit to Mick that I hadn’t heard of him before, but found that nor had Mick.  “ITFC!” shouts the worldly-wise kid behind us and the clock ticks forward to the point where Gary exclaims “We’re kicking the wrong way” and a woman walks up the gangway next to us who I think looks a bit like the late Tony Hancock.

With the twenty-sixth minute, possibly the highlight of the first half for the Town is Outtara overlapping down the left, crossing the ball, Flemming touching it back and Nunez shooting over the bar to general applause. Six minutes later and the Arsenal fans in the Cobbold Stand still can’t stop telling us that they are the champions, the champions of ….England!  It’s a chant whose repetitiveness inspires Town to gain two corners in quick succession before the Arsenal fans begin to enquire “Is this a library?”, a question which I always understood was ‘invented’ at the famously dull Emirates Stadium.  In front of us, a man who looks a bit like the late Jimmy Savile might have looked with short hair leaves his seat in anticipation of the half-time break and behind us a woman complains loudly about people standing in the gangway, which as far as I am aware never happens in the Suffolk County library Northgate Street.  It’s an incident that has me suggesting to Mick that people should be strapped into their seats like on a fun-fair ride. “Ah, I knew there was a fascist in you somewhere” says Mick.

The half ends with the Arsenal fans’ most ironic chant of the evening as they sing “Bus stop in Norwich, you’re just a bus stop in Norwich” when Arsenal literally is a tube stop on the Northern Line.  A minute of added on time is announced with an air of excitement, which it inevitably fails to live up to and half time arrives.

The football resumes at four minutes past nine and at six minutes past nine Town are losing by three goals, although Mick and I blame this on a sudden distracting explosion of white light from the advertising hoardings around the pitch. It reminds me, with a bit of artistic license, of the lighting at the Brighton Centre in 1981 when I saw The Who perform ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’.  Coincidentally, but perhaps not, Roger Daltrey is an Arsenal fan.

Despite the early disappointment, Town rally as Anis Mehmeti is put through on goal but fails to shoot, although Arsenal are then awarded their first corner and two minutes before the match enters its final third a fourth goal results from a shot from the edge of the Town penalty area, which strikes the inside of one post and pings across to the corner of the net behind the other.  It’s another good goal and I reflect that it’s a bit like watching Paris St Germain, except of course that they’re not the champions of England.

With an hour passed into history, now is the time for substitutions, and Chuba Akpom and Jack Clarke replace Jaden Philogene and Zian Flemming.  The results are instant as Clarke typically jinks past some bloke in a fake Rotherham shirt, squares the ball and Mehmeti passes it into the Arsenal net like a hot knife through butter, which has already been out of the fridge for several minutes. Easy.  Flushed with success, Gary O’Neill soon makes more substitutions with Davis and Eggy replacing Outtara and McAteer.  Nothing much happens at first, but with ten minutes left Town trash Arsenal in the corner count by three to one, unless I missed some, but then Arsenal get one back before tonights attendance is announced as being 28,566 and seemingly the greatest excitement of the evening for some home supporters is the sight of Arsenal fans in the ‘home’ stands revealing themselves as such and being ejected from the ground.

Finally, a sensible two minutes of added time turn up and another break down the right and a squared ball for Town finds Chuba Akpom, who pirouettes and scores into the corner of the Arsenal net with a smidgeon of help from an Arsenal player’s back.  There’s barely time for the scoreboard to catch up with the present and the game is over, with Ipswich yet again out of the League Cup, but not to lower league opposition as so often used to happen under Mick McCarthy, but to the champions of England, or at least their reserves.   

Ipswich Town 0 Liverpool 2

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Nothing says “Colchester United” to me more than a football match on a Friday evening.  Back in the days when I still liked nearly everything about football it was possible to watch Ipswich Town on a Saturday and as a sort of aperitif or starter for the football weekend, travel down to Layer Road on a Friday evening, park the car for nothing at the Gujarat Barracks, watch the likes of Mick Packer, Steve Dowman and Trevor Lee strut their stuff (this was the age of ‘disco’), stop for a pint and a packet of crisps on the way home and still easily have change from a tenner.   Tonight however, for the price, in 1980 of a second-hand Austin Allegro, I shall be watching Ipswich play Liverpool with no thought of Colchester United at all.

It’s been a cloudy day, but quite a warm and breezy one and I’ve been indoors completing the first of the final ten working days before I retire.  I meet Gary on the train to Ipswich, and we talk of how many days are left until I retire, the recently released film about Charles de Gaulle and how we agree that subtitled films and tv are better than dubbed films and tv.  Travelling through Wherstead we are both as excited as the other to spot a polar bear, a part of the match day experience no other Premier League football club can offer.

It’s almost five-thirty when we reach our destination and Ipswich is busy with people and traffic like the busy place it still occasionally is.  I ask Gary which way he wants to walk up to the Arb today and he chooses the Portman Road, Great Gipping Street, Civic Drive, Spiral car park, Lady Lane, St George’s Street route, although he claims not to be bothered either way.  Personally, I think I prefer the Museum Street route, although I am a big fan of the Spiral car park, Civic Drive and the old Crown Court building which remind me of the optimism of the 1960’s.  I see that the Crown Court building has been sold; I’d like to see it re-open as Ipswich’s museum of modern art and hope it isn’t demolished.

I am first through the door at the Arb and order a pint of Estrella Galicia for Gary and one of something brewed by Lacons for myself. Gary finds a table in the beer garden whilst I pay for the beer (£10 something with Camra discount I expect) and I then join him.  Gary tells me that as long as Ipswich win by six clear goals tonight they will be top of the league.  We agree that 9-3 is unlikely so pin our hopes on an 8-2 win. It’s not long before Mick arrives but he soon heads inside to order some food and returns with a pint of a golden ale by Mauldon’s, which he says isn’t very pleasant and I admit that my beer is pretty ropey too.  We had both been looking forward to drinking Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride. Our conversation takes in the sale of Mick’s dead neighbour’s house, Mick’s holiday in Scotland and an amusing story at a camp site where, when Mick’s companion asked if they could have a pitch with a view the site owner said “So you want a fucking view do you? Everyone comes here wanting a fucking view” and when told that his site got good reviews on-line he said “I couldn’t give fuck about on-line reviews, you can stuff fucking Google up your arse”.  It’s a great story, the sort to make a holiday truly memorable.  

It’s gone seven-thirty by the time we leave for Portman Road after two further pints of Estrella for Gary,  another disappointing pint of something by Lacon’s and a better pint of Lacons Encore for me, and cheesy chips and another disappointing Lacon’s pint and a double whisky for Mick.  There are queues in Portman Road for the Cobbold Stand but the queues for the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand are much shorter than they were for the Sunderland match and I’m soon checked for scrap metals, weapons and explosive by a friendly man with big hair before accessing the illustrious turnstile 62. I arrive at my seat amidst a fog of thick smoke and a storm of great balls of fire like a scene from Dante’s Inferno.

Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood are of course here already but Pat from Clacton has been feeling a bit under the weather and stayed home to watch the match on the telly. In her place are her niece, in the seat in front of Pat’s and her niece’s husband in Pat’s seat.  In front of us, Bluey and Crazee and the excitable young stadium announcer, who tonight has two sidekicks both in freshly pressed suits.  They look like they’re going to a wedding but it reminds me of the old joke “What do you call a Scouser in a suit?”, “The accused”.   I try and join in with the excitable young stadium announcer’s announcing of the Town team but this evening he has become over excited and fails hopelessly to co-ordinate his reading out of the player’s surnames with their appearance on the scoreboard.  My attempts therefore to sound like a Frenchman at the Allianz Rivier in Nice or the Stade Oceane in Le Havre are woeful.

When the game begins, it is Liverpool who get first go with the ball, which they send in the general direction of the goal closest to the former Unemployment Benefit office on Handford Road.  Reassuringly, Liverpool are not wearing an unnecessary away kit tonight but are decked out in their traditional all red, albeit a version flecked with white marks as if it had been hung out to dry on a washing line where there were a lot of pigeons.  As ever, Ipswich are in their signature blue shirts and white shorts with not even a hint of guano.  The game begins at a fast pace and Liverpool win a corner within the first minute. The lead in my pencil breaks and I reflect on changing times and the absence of any Scots and Irishmen from the Liverpool team.  I remark to Fiona that if his football career goes awry, the Liverpool goalkeeper looks as if he could always get a part in “Jesus Christ Superstar”, as long as no one mistakes him for Russell Brand. 

In the sixth minute Liverpool score, Isak rattling the ball high in the net a nano second after it leaves his foot.  “Allez, Allez” something, chant the Liverpudlians in the Cobbold Stand noisily.  Three minutes later Isak scores again and my ears work out that the chant is “Isak, Allez, Allez”, which seems a bit odd given that he is a Swede not a Frenchman, but also probably confirms that Liverpudlians don’t know any Swedish or seemingly how to use Google translate, which would tell them to sing “Isak Kor!”.

It feels like the game may already be lost, but soon Fatawu is shooting over the Liverpool goal for the Town.  I remark to Fiona that nearly all the Liverpool players appear to be much larger than the Ipswich players and like Under 12’s versus Under 8’s it’s not really fair and suggests the ‘big clubs’ dominate by buying their players by the foot.  In the prevailing spirit of unfairness, one of the linesmen awards Liverpool a corner, which the Sir Bobby Robson standers agree should have been a goal kick. “Lino, Lino you’re a punt” they chant, curiously pronouncing the ‘p’ in hunt as a ‘c’.  When the corner comes to nothing and the same linesman awards Town a throw, the chant becomes “You’re still a fucking wanker”.  Just one more step up in this progression and the linesman would qualify to referee international matches.

We’re just over half-way through the first half and Town win a corner providing the opportunity to bellow “Come On you Blues” and have people turn around and look at me to see what someone who verbally supports their team looks like and whether perhaps I am a wearing a half and half scarf. As usual, the corner comes to nothing, but unusually Russell Brand unexpectedly and unintentionally catches the ball between his knees when it bounces up off the ground.  Under recently re-written rules this would probably have rendered all Town players offside if the ball had somehow ended up in the net.

Another two minutes fade away.   Julio Enciso bears down on goal, but his cross is hacked away from inside the six-yard box and then Leif Davis arrives beyond the far post only to head another cross over the bar.  Liverpool are then denied a goal because it was offside, but the half comes to an end after two more Town corners and more chants of ‘Come On You Blues’, with other people actually joining in on the second occasion as if singing and chanting at a football match was normal.

Half-time is a time to reflect and I conclude that Town are losing, and despite having played pretty well after the first ten minutes they probably won’t win, or even draw, but I will stay, just in case, and because I’ve never left early yet.  The football resumes at two minutes past nine. Liverpool have an early corner.  Town’s Fatawu shoots wide; I can’t see by how much but it’s a shot that looks good enough to draw ‘oooohs’ from the crowd.  After just twelve minutes, a third Liverpool player is booked, perhaps it’s because they’re so much bigger than us, perhaps it’s because they’re ‘dirty northern bastards’ but of course all of them are from south of the Penzance or east of Lowestoft.

Substitutions are made. Bradley Barcola makes his debut for Liverpool. He is a player who alone cost an insane £129,000,000, an insane 70% of the insane total Ipswich have spent on our entire team.   Jack Clarke replaces Daizen Maeda, and Emersonn is replaced by Town’s new £20,000,000 signing Zian Flemming.   Fiona admits to knowing the names of more of the Liverpool players at the start of this season than our own team.  I tell her I’ve only heard of Virgil, and that’s just because I remember him in Thunderbirds.

With twenty minutes of tonight’s ‘match experience’ remaining, we are treated to Portman Road’s first brush of the season with the drama that is VAR as some bloke in red falls over in the Town penalty area when tackled; eventually the referee, Mr Darren England awards Town a free kick for an earlier offside. Mr England announces his decision over the public address system and to my ears sounds like he has a slight Scouse accent.

The remains of the game are in Town’s favour with a few shots deflected wide and another corner predictably coming to nothing.  I have reluctantly given up on Town scoring the eight goals required to go top of the league tonight, but still draw hope from the fact that only last week Paris St Germain drew 2-2 in Lille after being 2-0 down as the game entered time added on. Tonight’s attendance is announced as being 30,019. It is only the second time since the 1980’s that more than 30,000 people have been to Portman Road.  The last time was in 2024, also against Liverpool, and along with the atypical number of east Asian people in half and half scarves I will later see on the train home, I consider that this supports my theory that Liverpool have even more non-local supporters (sometimes known as ‘plastic’ supporters) than Manchester United.

Eventually, Mr England adds five minutes of additional time in which with a low shot Jack Clarke elicits a slow looking, diving save from the Russell Brand lookalike in the Liverpool goal. Along with many others I hang on to applaud the Town team after the final whistle, because leaving aside the opening nine minutes, which were a long time ago now, they’ve done alright.  I also check to see if Bradley Barcola is as skinny as he looks on the telly.  He’s not, but he does look sort of stretched in the middle, a bit like an insect does between its thorax and abdomen. I bet they won’t mention that on the telly, or Colchester United.

Harwich & Parkeston 1 Hackney Wick 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Having grown up in Shotley, in the extreme bottom right-hand corner of Suffolk, Harwich & Parkeston, in the extreme top right-hand corner of Essex had always been somewhere not very far from the top of the sludge in my mind.  All I had to do was look out of my bedroom window over the roofs of the Council bungalows behind our house, and along with Dovercourt, there they were across the River Stour estuary.  At night-time, the lights in the docks twinkled in the distance and at midnight on New Year’s Eve we would nip outside to hear the ship’s hooters and sirens sounding.   My maternal grandfather, who more or less lived in Shotley all his life would tell people who upset him to “Go to Harwich”, which was either an oblique way of telling them to go and jump in the river, or a polite way of saying “Go to Hell”, probably both.

My maternal grandmother meanwhile, was born in Hackney Wick and lived there as a child.  It is with these loose family connections in mind that I choose today to eschew the probable delights of football fixtures a little closer to home such as Halstead Town versus Sporting Bengal United, Cornard United versus Ely City, Coggeshall Town versus London Fennecs and Brantham Athletic versus Thetford Town to watch Harwich & Parkeston versus Hackney Wick in the Essex Senior League.

It is a wet, windy, miserable afternoon as I step out of my front door to walk to the railway station, and I half wish I hadn’t already bought my rail ticket (£10.70 with Senior Person’s Railcard).  It’s a fifty-minute journey to Dovercourt with the final eighteen minutes of the journey being from Manningtree to Dovercourt along what is now called the Mayflower Line.  The Mayflower Line is sadly not known as such because the Pilgrim Fathers at some time caught the train to Harwich before making their somewhat fateful but nevertheless well-intentioned journey, which has years later indirectly resulted in Donald Trump, but because Harwich was The Mayflower’s home port and was where it was built.   If, in our ever more likely looking dystopian future Americans were to buy the Mayflower Line, I imagine we could look forward to hearing Chattanooga Choo Choo played as we pull out of Manningtree station.

From Manningtree station, the train pulls gently uphill away from the River Stour to run along its south bank through Mistley and Wrabness, with murky views through the raindrop coated train windows of the River Stour at high tide, the southern shore of the Shotley Peninsula and the tower of the Royal Hospital School at Holbrook, where incidentally my father was an unhappy pupil back in the 1930’s.  Harwich International Station is just yards from the dockside and here it is possible to catch a glimpse of the red hull of the RRS David Attenborough, or to the 124,109 members of the Great British public who voted to name it so, Boaty McBoatface.

Arriving in Dovercourt, it is thankfully no longer raining, and it is just a ten-minute walk up Kingsway, along High Street and Main Road past what was Woolworth’s and what still is the Royal Oak pub to the Royal Oak Ground, home of Harwich & Parkeston football club.  When I last came here almost exactly eight years ago (Harwich & Parkeston v Benfleet) , I entered the ground through the turnstile down the side of the ground in the shadow of the main stand. Today however, the turnstile is shut, and although the external metal door is hanging off slightly, I wouldn’t be able to squeeze through even if I wanted to.  I return to the main road and am directed through to the far end of the clubhouse, which in the tradition of scout huts and community halls everywhere smells a bit of damp. 

At the far end of the musty clubhouse two men stand at a table with a carboard box.  The one on the left looks at me enquiringly and I ask for “One for an old git, and a programme please”.  I am very pleased to see that Harwich still bother to print a proper hold in your hand and stuff in your pocket programme rather than rely on some digital, virtual creation which only exists in the ether.

Having paid up my seven quid using cash, I am mugged at the door by an elderly man at least in his seventies, who relieves me of a further pound in exchange for a strip of draw tickets.  Folding the tickets away in my pocket, I head for the tea bar where I buy a paper cup of tea and am served by a surly woman who seems to think I should know the price.  “One-fifty? A pound?” I ask her as I reach for my remaining change. “Two pounds” she barks aggressively “Unless they haven’t told me.” she adds, supplementing her aggressive with some passive.  “Well, it’s the first time I’ve been here in eight years” I tell her, “So I don’t know”.   As I walk away with my tea, I see that above the word tea on the blackboard menu outside it says “£1.50”.  “I’d better rub this out then” I say, so I do.   Wiping my chalky finger on my trousers I consume my tea and then find a seat up in the main stand.

When the game begins, it is Harwich & Parkeston or ‘The Shrimpers’ as they are known colloquially that get first go with the ball, launching it towards the Royal Oak’s other covered stand more or less in the direction of Boaty McBoatface, the River Stour and Shotley beyond. Harwich & Parkeston look smart in their traditional black and white striped shirts and black shorts echoing the kits of their bigger east coast brothers Grimsby Town and Newcastle United.  Hackney Wick sport an all-cerise kit with yellow and green collars and cuffs and yellow numbers, which set off the dominant deep pink rather well. If it wasn’t for the yellow trim, and the heads and limbs, they’d look a bit like raspberry Mivvi ice lollies.  “Keep going Harwich” shouts somebody either from on the pitch or in the crowd, I’m not sure which, but the game has barely started.  I can’t decide if such a shout so early on is hyper-supportive or a bit pessimistic.  Either way, within a few moments Shrimpers’ number eight Jenson Goode lobs a shot over the Hackney Wick goalkeeper, but also wide of the goal.

From my seat, up in the vertiginous main stand, I can see dock cranes beyond the battered black and white corrugated tin roof of the one other stand, which backs on to Main Road.  Back on the pitch, both teams are looking to attack one another down the flanks.  The Hackney Wick ‘keeper Tyron Osadolor misses the ball completely as a Shrimpers cross from the left flies across the face of his goal. “Goalie, you’re rubbish” shouts a voice in the crowd, a little prematurely it will turn out. It’s nine minutes past three and The Shrimpers win the game’s first corner, but it comes to nothing and the match settles down to being a bit messy, perhaps in part because of the bumpy, slippery pitch and blustery wind.

I turn my collar up against the breeze, which is coming over the hill to my right and off the North Sea beyond.  It’s not cold but it’s unpleasantly drafty. Beneath me, the yellow pitch almost looks as if it’s coming back to life whilst we watch as it drinks up the rain that has fallen.  The Shrimpers number ten shoots on goal but the Hackney Wick goalkeeper makes a decent diving save at the expense of a corner.  Eighteen minutes have passed and it’s almost as if the sun is trying to shine, but not quite. “Ball forward, ball forward” shouts a wanna-be coach from the stand as Hackney Wick pass the ball amongst themselves in the centre circle.

Twenty-five minutes have gone and as Shrimpers’ number three Jack Cosby receives treatment in the centre circle, there is an ad hoc drinks break, and I decide the breeze up here in the stand is more than I can bear so I make for the other covered stand behind the goal.  Two minutes later and the Shrimpers take the lead as their number nine Joe Knight runs towards goal and takes a shot from outside the penalty box, which strikes a defender and is deflected over the out-stretched goalkeeper. Knight performs a knee-slide by way of celebration and a jolly, well-fed looking woman in the crowd rings a hand bell.

The last worthwhile action of the half sees Hackney Wick’s number ten Durnall Taylor go through on goal and confidently lift the ball over the on-rushing goalkeeper only for the ball to go well wide of the goal. Taylor looks absolutely incredulous, as if the goal had somehow moved between his kicking the ball and looking up to see it not go in the goal.  The jolly woman with the bell is laughing like a drain and an elderly man wanders around the ground with a small blackboard displaying the winning draw numbers, none of which are sadly replicated by the tickets in my pocket.

Too scared to encounter the woman in the tea hut again, I forego a half-time cuppa and spend a few minutes on the phone to my wife, catching up on the latest at home. It seems we’ve lost power to the garage, kitchen and the fountain in the garden pond, but she’s rigged up an extension-lead to keep the freezer going. Good job I’m here really.

The football resumes at five past four and from somewhere unknown three Hackney Wick fans have taken up residence in the stand behind the goal and are chanting “Hackney Wick, Na Na Na, Hackney Wick, Na Na Na” repeatedly.   I’m now stood by the Hackney Wick dug out from where one of two coaches, a serious, slightly unhappy looking man bawls “Keep that pressure” and indeed his team do, pinning back the Shrimpers from the start, with their number eleven Josh Okpa in particular very busy down the right flank. “The Wick’n, The Wick’n” (I think, but possibly The Wicker?) continue the either newly arrived or miraculously cured of shyness Hackney Wick supporters, one of whom wears a bucket hat and one a bright yellow anorak.  The Hackney Wick coach is becoming a bit more effusive too. “Keep that fuckin’ pressure” he bawls, adding seemingly unnecessary coarseness to his advice. 

It has just gone a quarter past four and Shrimpers’ number eight Jake Gordon surges forward, only to overreach himself and slide through the legs of Hackney Wick’s massive number five and captain Kogo Feyi, who drops to the ground like a felled tree.  After the usual mass complaining and sweary advice to the referee that invariably accompanies these incidents, Gordon becomes the recipient of the afternoon’s first yellow card, to which strangely he gives the thumbs up. Five minutes later and Hackney Wick equalise as the ball is slipped through the square Shrimpers defence for number fourteen Emmuael Odegah to run after and roll past the exposed goalkeeper Will Healy. “We are The Wick, We are The Wick” chant the Hackney Wick Three in celebration.

Another five minutes pass and both teams now make substitutions like they’re about to go out of fashion. Hackney Wick continue to press with the creative Josh Okpa revealing his frustration and possible artistic temperament as increasingly nothing his team does quite comes off.  The Shrimpers are the more stoic of the two teams.  “Gotta dig in” is their advice from the touchline. With the second half, half over, there is once again a hint of rain on the air, and the three Harwich & Parkeston coaches huddle conspiratorially to plan the ‘final push’.  There is mounting tension as both triumph and disaster remain possible outcomes for either team.  From the main stand a black and white dog (presumably a Shrimpers supporter) follows the action intently and every now and then barks his support or advice, I’m unsure which; he might even be swearing.

It’s nearly twenty to five. “Wicker Army, Oh, oh, oh” chant the Hackney Wick three, who just won’t shut up.  The Shrimpers win a corner; the ball sails over the penalty area but is crossed back in and number six Lewis Wood heads it firmly goalwards only for Wicker goalkeeper Tyron Osadolor to fly across the goal and spectacularly grasp it in mid-flight. It’s a save which reminds me of one I think I saw Ipswich Town’s David Best make against Real Madrid back in September 1973.

The end of the game is nigh.  One of the linesmen has to remind the referee to give a drop ball after he stops the game as Lewis Wood struggles to get up off the turf and then as sunshine momentarily threatens to break through the cloud, Wood recovers sufficiently to chip the ball against the Hackney Wick cross bar and number ten Leo Carty chases a ball over the top only for it to bounce off his shin and past the post.  The Shrimpers have ended the game more strongly and in the final minute a handball just outside the penalty area by goalkeeper Osadolor gives them a final direct free kick.    Substitute Joe Wood steps up to take the kick but his low shot is comfortably saved by the capable Tyron Osadolor.

The final whistle is blown at six minutes to five and there is a ripple of appreciative applause from the crowd, which I will later learn numbers 141, although I‘m not sure if that includes the dog.  I hang about to applaud the referee, linesmen and the teams from the pitch, but the teams take so long I am heading for the club house and the exit with the Shrimpers still on the field.  As I walk back to the railway station I reflect on what has made this an enjoyable afternoon and decide it is because the two teams were evenly matched, the Royal Oak Ground is delightfully scruffy and full of character, and there was a dog.  All that and I’ve still got the train ride home and another glimpse of Boaty McBoatface .