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 paternal grandmother claimed to have been born within the sound of Bow bells but was actually born in Tunbridge Wells although she did later live in Hackney.  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 (obviously 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 .

Ipswich Town 3 Leicester City 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

The English Football League Cup, as it was originally called back when participating in or watching the sport of football was more important than just the money that could be extracted from people in the process, is a curious competition.  The French abandoned their version of it, the Coupe de la Ligue, a few seasons ago, and I’m pretty sure the Germans, Italians, Spanish, Dutch and Belgians have never even had one.  But the Scots have one and it seems that in Britain we are suckers for a secondary cup competition, and as if to prove the point non-league football has tertiary, quaternary and probably quinary cup competitions too; more than you can shake a floodlight on a stick at in fact, floodlights on sticks being essential on the late summer and autumn evenings when these early round cup ties are played.

I liked the League Cup more in the past, before the invention or discovery of “energy drinks”, when the early rounds were over two legs, guaranteeing away trips to exotic locations such as Torquay, Wigan, Exeter and Stockport.  But despite Ipswich having reached the semi-finals four times (losing all of them of course) I do wonder “what is the point?”, and possibly so did the Town XIs that in recent years lost at home to Newport County, and Colchester United.   Famously, for former Town manager Mick McCarthy, it was a badge of honour to exit all cup competitions as soon as possible.  Tonight, Town have drawn five times finalists and three times winners of the competition, third division Leicester City.

It’s been a bright, warm, late August day beneath a clear blue sky, although I’ve been mostly indoors, eking out the final sixteen days of my working life.  Just before five o’clock I catch the train to Ipswich, which might be on time, and Gary joins me at the next station stop to talk of couples in which one partner is much older than the other and to look for polar bears; we spot two, both not surprisingly and reassuringly in Wherstead.  On arrival in Ipswich, the train draws unexpectedly into Platform Two, but it doesn’t worry us unduly and we stroll calmly across the forecourt-cum-plaza and up Princes Street towards ‘the Arb’, where I am first to the bar to order a pint of Estrella Galicia for Gary and one of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for myself (£10.70 with Camra discount). We retire to the beer garden and a table where we can sit without the sun in our eyes.    Gary wears his replica 2026/27 season Ipswich Town away shirt this evening and I remark that this cream top with narrow black and red bands appears to be a popular choice for the mature gentleman, with at least two other grey-haired old duffers sporting one in the beer garden this evening. As expected, time passes and Gary buys a second round of drinks, a repeat of the first.  We talk of TV quiz shows and attending the Chappel beer festival and I ask Gary if he is no longer on his diet; he isn’t.  Gary doesn’t manage to finish his second pint of Estrella Galicia before we decide to leave for Portman Road and judging by the loud fart he emitted earlier as we walked here, for which he did apologise, I think he’s probably a bit dyspeptic this evening.

In Portman Road, at one of the booths that look as if they might sell ice creams but don’t, we each buy a programme after I first ask how much they cost.  I am prepared to pay £3 but not £4 for a programme and whilst Gary points out that the £4 programme is probably better value for money in terms of pages, I tell him that the programmes are full of “old rubbish” anyway, so I am therefore happy to pay proportionately more for less.  Tonight’s programme has an interesting and unusual front cover depicting an unlikely scene of a flying carthorse about to knock over the League Cup with its front right hoof whilst an upset looking fox takes evasive action.

The queues to be checked for weapons, explosives and scrap metal are shorter than on Saturday and move more quickly, and we are soon breezing through the commemorative turnstile, No 62 and ascending multiple flights of metal stairs to our seats in the top tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand, where the public address system is so loud I imagine it might be possible to successfully sue the club for causing hearing damage.  When the teams eventually appear from the ‘tunnel’ I don’t notice them at first because of the absence of the usual accompanying balls of flame, confirming this fixtures’ status as something more akin to a meaningless pre-season friendly.  The game begins with Leicester City having first go with the ball, which they try and kick mostly in the general direction of Vets4Pets on Handford Road, where they are bracing themselves for a sudden influx of squashed foxes, and carthorses with bruised fetlocks.

Leicester are parading a necessary change kit of burgundy, maroon or possibly dark red shirts ,with white shorts.  Ipswich are adorned in their signature blue shirts and white shorts. It might be my failing eyesight but momentarily from time to time, when they’re at the far end of the pitch, I can’t tell the two teams apart.  Ipswich start well and Chuba Akpom is shooting wide of the goal within thirty-five seconds, with a noisy crowd fully behind him.  But the joie de vivre doesn’t last long and before ten minutes are up the Leicester fans are asking “Is this a library?” through the medium of opera.

Fifteen minutes of our lives have been lost to history and the game is dull. All around me people sit impassively, staring ahead, not speaking.  The sky above the Sir Bobby Robson stand is pale blue but growing darker and a faint red smudge can be seen through the metal girder above the roof as the sun goes down. Three or four silhouetted seagulls ‘bust some shapes’ on the roof the West Stand as if auditioning for the opening credits to a new Bond movie. A man in a smart suit, who looks like Ken from the BBC tv sitcom Citizen Smith, appears at the top of the steps into the top tier of the stand and then turns around and goes back down the steps.  “Sorry mate” says a girl in her teens to a man in his seventies as she gets him to stand up as she returns to her seat having perhaps been for a pee.

Twenty-four minutes have been lived and lost and something vaguely football-like happens, the home crowd stirs from its slumber. “We forgot, we forgot, we forgot that you were here” chant the Leicester fans to the tune of Cwm Rhondda; I wish they’d forget they were here too.  Town win a corner and then another and Dara O’Shea’s header is saved by Leicester goalkeeper Stolarczyk. There are now ten minutes left until half-time and Town win a third corner before Leicester get one too, courtesy of an interrupted shot from Conor Chaplin and with five minutes remaining Leicester’s Olabade Aluko is the first player to feel the wrath of referee Mr Lewis Smith and his bright yellow card after a foul on Eggy.  Mr Lewis is clearly now making his own entertainment and awards a corner to Leicester to punish Town goalkeeper Christian Walton for apparent time-wasting.  Leicester proceed to take more time over the corner kick than Walton took over the goal-kick, which if the laws of the game are to be consistent should I think mean that Town now get awarded a goal-kick for Leicester’s time-wasting.   Eventually, the corner kick is headed over the Town cross bar before a minute becomes as much time as the officials dare to add on.

With the half-time whistle, Gary and I descend into the bowels of the stand, or at least its chest cavity, where we meet Gary’s nephew Dan, who is here with his wife Sarah, but she is still sat in her seat up in the moderately fresh evening air. Down here in the guts of the stand the air smells positively stale and a bit sweaty to be honest, not pleasant at all.

At ten to nine the players return to the pitch to once again attempt to find the secret to entertaining football and possibly a goal. Quickly, Town succeed, but the ‘goal’ is deemed offside, a particularly harsh decision, even if correct; like taking food away from a starving man because the best before date was yesterday.  Meanwhile, the Leicester supporters chant “He’s one of our own, He’s one of our own” about some youth or other in their team and I question if that’s really a good thing, before wondering what it is of their own that he is one of? A juvenile delinquent? Sex offender?  Leicester city councillor? 

The game moves on, plagued for a while by the ball mysteriously being deemed to have gone out of play and by offsides not visible to the naked eye.  The final third of the match looms up out of the night and the Leicester fans offer a cheery, allegro rendition of “When the blues go marching in”, which compares very favourably to the dirge-like version of the same song favoured by the Town supporters.  When the hours mark arrives, Leicester flinch and make the first substitutions, Within two minutes Town take the lead as for the first time Jack Clarke has plenty of space down the left to run into before his accurate low cross is swept masterfully into the corner of the Leicester goal by Eggy, a player whose goalscoring ability is kept largely hidden when he is used as a winger who only passes the ball back and to the side.

From here, the game picks up, as Town win another corner, Cedric Kipre is booked and the crowd in the Sir Alf Ramsey stand get far more enthused about the ejection of a couple of Leicester fans from the Cobbold stand than anything that has happened on the pitch. Quickly however, Leicester win a corner and equalise with a header from Aluko, who no one had bothered to mark.   “Premier League, You’re ‘avin’ a laff” chant the Leicester fans to the tune of Tom Hark in their curious east Midland’s dialect.  They’re not wrong, Mark Ashton and Co  are ‘laffing’ all the way to the bank, for the time being anyway.

As the game enters its final twenty minutes Town take the lead again and in fine style, Nunez instinctively squeezing the ball in off a post from outside the penalty box, and then with Town 2-1 up Wes Burns arrives as substitute for Leicester to much adulation.  Happily, Burns makes no impression on the game at all and as the final ten minutes turn up, we are told that there are 21,559 of us here tonight, Town make more substitutions and weirdly a few people suddenly shout “Blue Army” as if they are afflicted with Tourette’s syndrome.

Two minutes of normal time remain and for the second time this evening Chuba Akpom is through on goal with just the Leicester goalkeeper to beat.  Last time his shot rolled beyond the far post, this time it is saved.  Akpom needs Jack Clarke to teach him how to the curl his shots around the ‘keeper and inside the far post.  Ipswich have another corner for what it’s worth. “Come On Leicester” implore the visiting fans, who presumably wouldn’t mind having to stay late to watch penalty kicks. 

I’m getting ready to get up as the final minute lands from eternity and as if Portman Road has been strangely blessed something rather wonderful happens as from the mundane surroundings of the centre circle Nunez looks up and lobs the ball high into the night air towards Norwich Road.  The ball comes down off the underside of the Leicester City cross bar and into the goal net with Stolarczyk not being able to work out its trajectory before his team are 3-1 down.  It’s a magnificent goal, one of those that might have people questioning one another as to whether they would have been happy to pay a tenner just to see that and then go home. 

Anyone who does arrive very late only in time to see that goal, gets to see six minutes of added on time as well, but despite some end-to-end action there are no more goals and ultimately Ipswich are relatively comfortably through to the third round of the League Cup.  If Mick McCarthy were dead, he’d be turning in his grave. 

Ipswich Town 2 Sunderland 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

A little strangely perhaps, the 2026-27 football season seems to me to have been a long time coming.  Obviously, I hope, I don’t mean that in the context of the whole of time, because everything has been a long time coming if that’s our measure, but just since the end of the 2025-26 football season.  As a result, this means I am both looking forward to this afternoon’s fixture versus Sunderland and not looking forward to it.  Being mostly human (apart from a bit of bovine tissue in a couple of heart valves), I have adapted quite easily to the football-free regime of June, July and most of August, and having done so I’m buggered if I can now be bothered to change back, but of course I will.

The last time Ipswich Town played Sunderland at Portman Road on the opening day of the season was seven years ago, a one-all draw courtesy of a late defensive error by captain and all round “man’s man” Luke Chambers. Less than a week later I was in hospital in an induced coma (see ‘mostly human’ above), so I will prefer to recall the time before that, in August 1981.   Remarkably, I vaguely remember that match from forty-five years ago and how disappointed I was that Town hadn’t won, despite having come back twice from two goals down to draw 3-3.   But I was young, Town were the UEFA Cup holders and after finishing university, life had barely hinted at trying to run off in directions I didn’t want it to.  In August 1981 I was about to start work or at least search for a permanent job; now at last I am about to retire.

This morning is fraught with concerns about getting into Portman Road using the new mobile phone-based ticket system.  Foreseeing queues, I arrange with Gary to meet him on the train that leaves a whole hour earlier than the one we usually catch and after an unusually late breakfast I am soon changing my mind about whether or not to take a jumper and a light coat because the wind is in the north and there could be showers.  At the local railway station, I resume my acquaintance with the fellow Town supporter who lives down the road from me but who I otherwise never see.  We talk of the currently unknowable prospects for the new season and it’s a conversation which gets more or less repeated when Gary joins us at the next station stop along with his nephew and his nephew’s wife.  Our conversation rattles along with the train, and I almost forget to look for polar bears as we pass through Wherstead; I do however remember to look, just in time to disappointingly not spot a single one.  I hope it’s not a portent of future disappointment.

Ipswich is glorious, sunny and busy when we get there, and with the exception of the man who lives down the road from me, whom I wish ‘bon match’ as I bid him farewell, we all head off up Princes Street towards the Arb, where weirdly people are once again queuing at the bar instead of swarming around it like people did in pubs back in 1981 and probably even in 2019.  Gary gets the drinks in whilst I claim the only vacant table and chairs in the already busy beer garden. Time passes amidst shared tales of organising tickets online and passing oneself off as an away supporter.  I learn that Gary’s nephew has a ‘dream car’ and so does his wife, which I find surprises me as I don’t, although I’d quite like an open-top bus.

Because Gary’s nephew and his nephew’s wife have to meet someone at the ground at 2pm they leave shortly after I get a second round of drinks comprising just a pint of Estrella for Gary and one of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me (£10 something with Camra discount).  Gary and I speculate as to when most people will leave for the match and by the time we finish doing so most people seem to have left.  We question whether by leaving early we will not just join a queue and perhaps we should leave late to hopefully arrive after everyone else has gone into the stadium.  But being cautious by nature we leave at about twenty past two.

At twenty-seven minutes to three I join a queue the back of which is within touching distance of Russell Road, which must be about 100 metres from the turnstiles.  I am soon joined by Pat from Clacton who seems a bit puffed after walking from where the Clacton supporters’ bus is parked on Sir Alf Ramsey Way.    Our queue is static, so we soon switch to one which is moving and looking ahead I see that there are minimal queues for the actual turnstiles, the delay is with everyone being checked for weapons, explosives and scrap metal.  Fortunately, our queue seems to be leading to a couple of the more enlightened employees of Achilleus Security who are able to tell at a glance that whilst many of us are old enough to have been members of the Angry Brigade, the Baader Meinhoff gang, the Red Army Faction, Black September, the Weathermen, the Brigate Rosse, the Symbionese Liberation Army or even in a few cases the People’s Front of Judea and the Judean People’s Front (revisionist bastards), we are mostly only interested in football this afternoon, so just a cursory wave of their ‘wand’ and a smile is all that is needed to send us on our way towards the turnstiles.  There is a blockage at my favoured turnstile 62 so I move to turnstile 60 and am amazed and impressed that the sorcery that is a football season ticket on a telephone (whoever heard of such a thing?) actually works.  I run through the turnstile before it can change its mind, shouting “I’m in!” and waving my arms with excitement. 

When I reach my seat next to Fiona and just behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood, it is four minutes to three. The man from Stowmarket (Paul) arrives soon afterwards and soon after that the excitable young stadium announcer, who now has the sort of haircut which suggests National Service might have been re-introduced, reads out the team and like a Frenchman at the Stade Marie-Marvingt in Le Mans or the Stade Felix Bolleart in Lens I bellow their surnames as they appear on the scoreboard.

The teams arrive amidst shooting balls of flame and the smell of sulphur affirming the Premier League’s deal with Satan, and once the roasted and badly singed seagulls have been collected up the game begins.  It is Sunderland who get first go with the ball, which they try and aim mainly in the direction of the former Spiritualist church on Anglesea Road. Sunderland are sporting an un-necessary and rather boring looking change kit of all pink with black shoulders.  The pink shirts look completely plain, but no doubt close-up it is possible to see that the fabric is woven with patterns depicting lumps of coal, ship rivets and Giro cheques to celebrate the north-east’s rich industrial heritage.

Ipswich Town are of course wearing our signature blue shirts and white shorts and within four minutes Leif Davis is blocking a shot from a big Dutch bloke called Brobbey, and Sunderland have the game’s first corner.  But within sixty-seconds Town’s Enciso also has a shot blocked as it leaves his foot and Emersonn has a header comfortably saved by the diving Sunderland goalkeeper, whose name is Roefs.  I need the action to slow down so that I can begin to get to grips with who is in the Town team. As I say to Fiona, it’s almost like coming to support a different club, with only four of last season’s players in today’s team.

I quickly decide I like that Town’s new team is mostly peopled with players from abroad, because if the Premier League has taught us anything it is that as a general rule Englishmen are not as good at football as South Americans, Africans and people from the Schengen Area, but at least we have our sovereignty, whatever that is.   Sunderland it seems are having the majority of possession, possibly because they have not needed to sign a whole new team over the summer.  I wonder to myself why Town’s Issa Diop appears to be wearing puttees and realise I have previously seen Sunderland’s Enzo Le Fee and Thomas Meunier playing in France for Lorient and Paris St Germain.

It’s the twenty-fourth minute and Enciso intercepts a poor pass, runs past the poor passer, runs easily past another bloke in pink and finally squares the ball well enough for Emersonn to be able to roll it  into the empty goal and Town lead one-nil.  Happiness ensues and Town’s first twenty-four minutes in the Premier League this season already seem better than the whole of the 2024/25 season in the Premier League.  “Ipswich Town, Ipswich Town FC, the finest football team the world has ever seen” we all sing to the tune of The Wild Rover, as we collectively raid our folk memories.

Five minutes later and fortunately for Town one of the pinks heads the ball more or less straight at Town keeper Scherpen.  “How many more games have we got left” asks Pat from Clacton anxiously.  Five minutes later and Sunderland have another corner, but in the Sir Bobby Robson supporters chant “Ole, Ole, Ole” whilst they still feel able to do so. Six minutes later and Sunderland claim the season’s first yellow card at Portman Road for number five Ballard, which consequently makes me think of JG Ballard, his novel ‘High Rise’ and Ipswich’s Cumberland Towers.  The bloke next to me is clearly hallucinating almost as much as I am as he then says to the bloke behind me “Imagine if we do get into Europe”. We must have inhaled something in the smoke from those balls of flame.

There are six minutes until half-time, and Sunderland have a free-kick following a foul by Issa Diop.  Unexpectedly, a tall bloke in pink with bleached hair by the name Angulo steps up to curl the ball into the top left had corner of the Town goal just beyond the very outstretched figure of Scherpen, and the score is one all.  To add to the disappointment, although celebrating the event as one might expect, the Sunderland supporters fail to break into a version of Brotherhood of Man’s 1977 number one record “Angelo”.   

The now even first half trails off into the past with a Sunderland corner and an additional two-minutes, but the mood is still positive with Town having scored a goal and despite a bit less possession than Sunderland no evidence that the away team are more likely to score than the Town are.  With the half-time whistle I remain where I am because Ray is still in hospital and his grandson Harrison and son Michael have moved seats.

The football returns at three minutes past four and most of the ensuing half suggests that another opening day draw might be the outcome as although Sunderland have the ball much of the time they don’t do very much with it and Town are tidy with Enciso playing a starring role and looking a better player than he did two years ago.  Angulo is the second Sunderland player to be booked, for being obtuse perhaps and O’Nien the third; Sunderland are the first to make substitutions and Town win two corners before making substitutions of their own in the sixty-sixth minute.

Five minutes later, Enciso is sitting on the ground looking like he might have felt a twinge or an ache and he is replaced by Jack Clarke or as the excitable young stadium announcer calls him “Jack! Clarke!”.  Town take a little while to adjust to the loss of Enciso and in the lull Pat from Clacton shares with us that today she is wearing a new pair of ‘Ipswich Town’ blue and white knickers.  I check with her that they are definitely new, and not old, and ask if they’re comfortable. Apparently, they are.  Pat goes on to say they’re sort of “silky” and I tell her I hope she doesn’t slide off her seat.

More substitutions follow for Town, with Abdoul Outtara and Eggy replacing Nunez and Daizen Maeda with less than fifteen minutes remaining, after another Town corner.   The simmering noise of the crowd seems to ask if there is going to be a winning goal and helps erase  memories of talk of Pat’s pants. The excitable young stadium announcer then tells that we are 26, 669 and after Sunderland take the game’s final useless corner I tell myself that there’s little prospect of another goal. 

The final minute of normal time arrives and as thoughts turn to the train home, Town’s Sasa Lukic intercepts another loose Sunderland pass and sets off Jack! Clarke! to run at the Sunderland defence.  With his characteristic style Clarke! drops a shoulder and then curls the ball into the far side of the goal net with a low shot. Town are winning two-one and subject to surviving four minutes of added on time will make almost everyone who isn’t about to make a long journey up the A1 deliriously happy.

The four minutes are easily survived, there’s even some hope of a third town goal, but it’s probably best we keep that in the bank for a day when it will make a difference.  Pat from Clacton and Fiona are quickly away, Pat particularly so in her new, silky, free-moving pants, but I hang about to applaud and maximise my time spent learning what this new team look like.  The new season might have felt like it’s been a while coming,  but on the albeit slim evidence of today’s showing it’s been worth the wait.

Coggeshall Town 2 Hertford Heath 3

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Not since the 1990’s when I lived in the fair town of Ipswich, have I had the pleasure of being able to simply walk to a football match unless going to a game whilst away on holiday.  There are mitigating circumstances today; I’m not actually starting from home but from stepson number two’s home, where I have left my wife Paulene to help prepare for this evening’s twice previously postponed celebrational family gathering, the purpose of which has now been lost in the mists of time, to me at least.

Google Maps tells us that it is a 2.3 kilometre walk from stepson number two’s house to The Crops, home of Coggeshall Town FC, who today play Hertford Heath FC in the snappily titled Thurlow Nunn Eastern Counties League First Division South. What Google Maps cannot convey is that it is a pleasant walk because Coggeshall is an attractive place full of ye olde worlde half-timbered houses, although in truth it is a bit twee for my tastes, but it doesn’t repel me like Lavenham, and when talking Grade 1 listed, Tudor houses the National Trust owned Pocock’s is a wonder to rival Ipswich’s Ancient House.

It’s a cloudy, sultry August afternoon as I set off, I check the time just a few yards down the road and it is twenty-three minutes past two.  It is thirteen minutes to three when I hand over a fiver at the turnstile at The Crops asking for the ‘old gits’ admission price.  I also ask if there’s a printed programme, but the turnstile operator says the programme is on-line and today contains fifty pages.  But I’m not impressed; all that scrolling would make my eyes feel like the reels in a one-armed bandit.  Thirsty and a bit sweaty after my walk in the heat of the afternoon, I head for the bar and the dubious pleasure of paying out six quid for a bottle of Adnams Southwold bitter. There are a lot of relocated Londoners in Coggeshall, and they seem to have brought their metropolitan prices with them.  Although the beer comes from the fridge, I am delighted to discover that it is not so cold as to give me a headache, in fact it is just on the right side of refreshing, which, if I could get an appointment, is probably just what any doctor would have ordered.

I stand about on the decking outside the clubhouse, sipping my expensive beer and savouring each mouthful in the hope of extracting maximum value for money.  I look at the team sheet posted on the wall of the changing rooms but don’t recognise any of the names so scan the faces of my fellow travellers. I recognise Jim who lives down the road from me and cheerily say “Hello Jim”, he says hello back, but he’s either giving me the cold shoulder or doesn’t remember my name.  I watch the three match officials warm up. They’re all a little portly and I’m relieved to see that on such a warm day they don’t do much running, only stretches.  The referee is Mr Oliver Townsend, a name which mashes together in my 1960’s and 1970’s coloured imagination the figures of Oliver Reed and Pete Townsend, neither of whom were probably ever suitable material as football referees.

Having run out of things to do except drink, I head for the low main stand to find a seat and take up residence in the back row of three, a couple of seats back from Jim.  The teams eventually appear and when kick-off arrives, once the bearded Mr Townsend has carefully counted the players on each team, it is visiting Hertford Heath, who aren’t from Hertford at all but from somewhere called Stanstead St Margarets, who get first go with the ball, which they propel mostly in the direction of the goal at the clubhouse end of the ground.  ‘The Heath’ as I’m sure they’re probably known, wear a strange kit of white shorts and socks and pale grey shirts.  “I think they’ve been using the wrong washing powder” calls a bloke in the next block of seats, and I think he has a point; the grey football shirt is not a fashion icon. Coggeshall Town meanwhile, sporting their handsome signature kit of red and black-striped shirts with black shorts try to send the ball in the general direction of the West Street vineyard and Pocock’s, but hope the goal net will stop the ball before it gets that far. 

 “Come on Coggy” shouts a male voice as the action gets underway somewhat tardily at three minutes past three  and I look down to pick up my beer and notice what looks like a small animal turd on the concrete floor of the stand.  After just three minutes, the Hertford number ten launches a spectacular volley wide of the Coggeshall goal, but just two minutes after that they lead, as what might well have been intended as a cross from number three soars over the Coggeshall ‘keepers head and onto the top right-hand corner of the goal.  “I’m not sure he meant that” says someone nearby, whilst back on the pitch, after celebrating the goal the advice is “back to work”.  On the touchline the referee’s assistant appears to suppress a burp as if he’s not going to quickly forget what he had for lunch.

Six minutes have passed and in front of me someone remarks “No pattern at all today”. It’s ten past three and the nearby linesman, who can’t forget his lunch and conceivably has the same hairstyle that he had in 1978, looks at his watch; a look of disappointment follows as if to say “is that all?”.   With twelve minutes gone, ‘Coggy’ have their first shot, which draws a flying save. “Good move that, wasn’t it” says the voice who had earlier discerned ‘no pattern at all today’.  Coggy win the game’s first corner kick and in front of me Jim joins in with a conversation about how hot it is. “Bloody hot during the night, I know that” says Jim adding his two penn’orth.  When a player goes down hurt, silence falls but for the sound of a plane buzzing lazily above as it cuts through the still, summer, afternoon air.

‘Coggy’ have been getting the ball down the flanks a bit, but just before three-twenty a punt forward through the middle bounces once near the edge of the penalty area and number nine lobs it over the advancing Heath goalkeeper, and the scores are suddenly level. It seems likely that the Heath hadn’t expected to concede and they are soon shooting over the ‘Coggy’ goal as over excitement spoils an inviting lay-off to the edge of the penalty area.  On the far side of the pitch I notice that the linesman there is wearing glasses, perhaps in an attempt to deter any would- be terrace comedians from making wisecracks about his not having taken the opportunity to go to Specsavers.  Closer to hand, it strikes me that all the players have what might be termed ‘sensible’ haircuts; not a mullet or a top-notch in sight, although I think one of the Heath substitutes might have ‘curtains’.

Another ‘Coggy’ corner is the last action before a drinks break at twenty-six minutes past three and one of the blokes in front of me asks of his neighbours  “Did you hear about that woman who burned her three-month-old child with a hair dryer?”. “She should be burned at the stake” replies Jim.  With play resumed, the number twenty for Hertford Heath collects the ball at the edge of the Coggy penalty area and shoots low into the corner of the goal and the Heath lead 2-1. “That’s what you get for having a drinks break” says someone off to my right as if Hertford Heath had just carried on playing.

A minute later and the Heath lead 3-1 as a loose ball falls to number nine, who lobs it over the Coggy goalkeeper and possibly most of his teammates from perhaps 40 metres out. It’s a fantastic goal, well worth the price of a bottle of Adnams Southwold bitter and oddly therefore the entrance money. “Good start in’t it, 3-1 down in the first half” says a clearly disillusioned voice from somewhere in front of me.

The remainder of the half drags on giving time for the Heath’s number 20 to claim the first yellow card of the afternoon, perhaps for sheer petulance as much as serious foul play and I realise also that neither of these teams has a following of teenage or pre-pubescant ultras. The half ends at eight minutes to four and it seems that several people will likely be late home for tea this evening.

With the half-time break, I enquire at the tea hut whether they still ‘do’ those ‘nice’ locally made sausage rolls, but it seems they don’t have any today, although the young woman serving says she can put a sausage in a bread roll for me.  As grateful as I am for the suggestion, it’s not quite the same thing.

I return to my seat just as the players return to the parched, sun-bleached pitch and its curiously anomalous green patches, where I can only think there are concentrations of more hardy weeds or clover. Eventually, the officials emerge from the dressing rooms too; I had been beginning to get worried that with the heat, one or more of them might have succumbed.    The football resumes at nine minutes past four, again after Mr Townsend has carefully counted all twenty-two players.

The second half develops into one of gathering tetchiness, resultant yellow cards and increasing use of the word “fuckin”, most noticeably it seems from the Hertford Heath number six, who seems to believe it has motivational properties.   Coggeshall win a couple of early corner kicks, neither of which manage to travel beyond the near post and then after collapsing to the ground clutching his shin or calf, the Heath number five raises himself and strides menacingly and even murderously towards the Coggy number two, who he then proceeds to jab his finger at threateningly.  Much shoving and pushing ensues and I’m transported back to the school playground and the experience of tens of children all chanting “Fight, Fight, Fight! ”.  The incident fortunately soon ends, if not amicably, then at least not embarrassingly either and Mr Townsend’s cards remain in his pocket.

With the clock ticking beyond twenty past four the first substitutions happen, whilst in the seats in front of me there’s a brief discussion about a ‘nice’ garden centre at Boxted where, it seems, it’s possible to get a free meal as long as you buy another one as well, and possibly some drinks.  Speaking of which, the second half drinks break happens shortly after four-thirty.  “This is the worst game I’ve seen them play for a long while” says the disillusioned local in front of me. “They haven’t a bloody clue, have they?” he adds. 

A couple of bookings follow, one for each team, as two players appear to wilfully collide with others, and then at just before a quarter to five a Coggeshall shot strikes a Hertford Heath player and there are appeals for a penalty because of  a perceived handball.  Mr Townsend doesn’t seem to know what happened, but after consulting the linesman with the 1970’s haircut and indigestion he awards a penalty, and Coggy’s number fourteen boots the ball into the middle of the goal as the goalkeeper helpfully throws himself out of its path. Hertford Heath don’t seem too aggrieved, so Mr Townsend’s decision seems likely to have been a good call.

With the home team now trailing by just a single goal and with just ten minutes remaining, Mr Townsend develops a heightened awareness of potential time wasting from the visiting team and begins counting down from five whenever Hertford Heath have a throw, free-kick, or goal-kick.  Sometimes he shouts out the numbers and sometimes he holds a hand up and counts down with his fingers in the manner of the late gameshow host and alleged comedian Ted Rogers.  It’s a helpful ploy from the referee, but somehow the Hertford goalkeeper still manages to get himself booked for time wasting.

Sadly for Coggy, but happily for the Heath, despite a more exciting final ten minutes, there are no further goals, with a decent header from a corner being saved by the goalkeeper and Coggy’s number two then heading the rebound over the bar as the final interesting action.

With the final whistle, I wait in my seat a minute whilst everyone else departs.  I’ve enjoyed my afternoon in a short-sleeved shirt and shorts peering through the narrow gap between the roof of the stand and the perimeter fence.  I hadn’t been to see at game at The Crops since August of last year, but I now realise what I’ve been missing.  With Ipswich Town once again in the Premier League this season I might need more visits here as an antidote to all the hype and anti-social kick-off times.

Ipswich Town 1 Havre AC 0

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

According to the Chargemap app on my mobile phone, the 495 kilometre trip from my house to Stade Oceane in Le Havre, home of Ligue 1 football team Havre AC, would currently take seven hours and twenty-five minutes including two stops totalling fifty minutes to re-charge my planet saving Citroen e-C4.  This is a trip I made only last month and is one I would recommend, provided you have the cash to pay for the motorway tolls and the fare for le shuttle.   Le Havre is a fascinating port city and on account of its being re-built in concrete by Auguste Perret after the RAF flattened it, it is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.  Disappointingly however, Havre AC were not at home when I visited last month, so I made do with a trip to the Museum of Modern Art to see Ai Wei Wei’s Lego interpretation of Monet’s Water Lillies, several beers in the excellent bars of le brasserie L’Havrais biere, and wandering amongst some of my favourite buildings.  But the world and time are nothing if not round and a month later Havre AC have come to see me, playing a friendly versus Ipswich Town at Portman Road.

Unusually, my wife Paulene is coming to the match tonight, attracted by the promise of French footballers, although having grown up in Portsmouth she was, and as far as I know still is, always wary of French sailors. Our journey this evening is by planet saving Citroen e-C4 and we pick-up Gary on the way before parking very conveniently just around the corner from the Arb’.    Gary is sporting the very latest replica Ipswich Town away shirt this evening, and gets the drinks in first; a pint of Estrella for him, a small glass of dry rose for Paulene and a pint of Nethergate Stour Valley for me.    A woman in the bar compliments Paulene on her earrings before we retire to the garden and a table in the shade to talk of relatives and friends and other stuff, and Gary is impressed by my Havre AC T-shirt.  In due course, I buy another round of drinks the same as before, but I opt for a pint of the weaker Nethergate Voyager this time and am disappointed that it tastes a little like the pipes have been cleaned but not rinsed very well afterwards, as in fact  did the Stour Valley.

It’s about twenty past seven when we head for Portman Road and thankfully an easy downhill walk, because once again it is a very, very warm evening.  There are long queues for the Cobbold stand in Portman Road, but what I notice first is that there are no programmes on sale again, which vexes me greatly; even in the days of Marcus Evans there were always programmes for pre-season friendlies, weren’t there?   But my spirits lift slightly when I find there are no queues for the Sir Alf Ramsey stand and this gives me time to photograph Paulene with Town mascots Bluey and Crazee who are hanging around in the car park with a small man in spectacles.  I tell Bluey and Crazee that Paulene has been photographed with an army of mascots, including  Bouba the elephant in Monaco, Ri-Ri the Canary in Nantes, Auguste the lion in Reims, Merlux the Hake in Lorient, Erminig the ermine in Rennes, a very dodgy, moth-eaten looking Leopard in Rouen, but sadly not Sali the salamander in Le Havre.   Bluey and Crazee unfortunately do not reply, and I commiserate with them that they do not speak.

Having been checked for scrap metal and explosives, I am ushered by a lady steward towards turnstile 61, but I tell her that I have to use turnstile 62, although I don’t know really know why and tonight’s match is only a pre-season friendly. “You never know” she says, and I think to myself “You never know what?” but like Bluey and Crazee I can’t say it. After venting excess spent Stour Valley and Voyager I meet up again with Paulene and Gary at our seats, which until we sit on them are an oasis of blue plastic amongst a sea of parents and children, many in last season’s replica kits.  None of them are at all familiar and I look in vain for Pat from Clacton, Fiona, ever-present Phil who never misses a game, his son Elwood and the man from Stowmarket (Paul).  I feel rather uncomfortable, like a walrus stranded amongst roosting penguins on a stoney beach somewhere in the South Atlantic.  They seem to be giving off a lot of heat too because it is incredibly warm.

Eventually, the football begins with Town in their natural blue and white getting first go with the ball and kicking it towards the goal just off to our right.  Havre are most disappointingly in all black rather than their signature pale blue and dark blue halved shirts and dark blue shorts, although a look on their website suggests they have no away kit, at least, perhaps not one they think anyone would want to purchase a replica of.  Havre don’t know it, but they are of course kicking towards Cumberland Towers, a concrete building which is unlikely to earn Ipswich UNESCO World Heritage site status, but which I like because it looks a bit like a very big match box stood on its end.

In terms of football, the first half is awful, but this is at least consistent with most pre-season games.  We amuse ourselves by working out which players are which on both sides.  Gary asks who Mendel is and is more amused than he should be when I tell him that he is Mendelssohn’s father. This is probably the highlight of the half but only if I ignore the fact that Town’s new Japanese signing Daizen Maeda looks about sixty-five and nearly ready for his pension, but this is solely due to the strange silvery colour of his hair. Otherwise, all I recall are the numerous seagulls swooping overhead (have Le Havre brought their own?) and that Havre have a player whose surname is Pembele, which because it rhymes Dembele sets me off thinking about an imaginary team whose names all sound a bit like those of other, far superior players, like Zinedine Sedan, Bobby Carlton or Lionel Nessi.

The welcome relief of half-time is spent talking to Harrison, who Gary has never met before, although Paulene has. Harrison’s grandfather Ray is watching the match from his Heath Road hospital bed, from where he at least might have access to drugs.  I will visit Ray a day or two later and he will tell me that he missed the first fifteen minutes because Town TV is not very good.  I reassure him that in fact he missed absolutely nothing at all.

The match resumes at nine minutes to nine, predictably with a new Ipswich team.  As happened in last week’s pre-season game versus Osasuna the more or less wholesale substitution of the team seems to do the trick and thirteen minutes later a Town goal is being celebrated as Chuba Akpom directs a free header into the Havre net after some startlingly bad defending from the Norman team and Town lead one-nil.  On the touchline, the seldom smiling Havre manager Didier Digard, who incidentally played three games on loan for last week’s opponents Osasuna about ten years ago, is grim faced, looking as if he’s already deciding who to hit first when they all get back in the dressing room in half an hour’s time. Havre soon begun substitutions of their own, bringing on the players with the evening’s two most pleasurable surnames, Yanis Zouaoui and Hakim Dongopandji.

Twenty minutes of the second half have upped and left, and Jack Clarke has an early tilt at the worst shot of the season award as he shoots spectacularly wide and high.  A minute later George Hirst is brought on to see if he can do better.  Twelve minutes later, Havre produce what might be their only shot of the game, from substitute wide player Enzo Koffi, and the waning of interest in the stands begins to manifest itself with depressing calls of “Blue Army” from both adult males and small children. It’s something that doesn’t happen during ‘proper’ games and is another compelling argument for not attending pre-season friendlies.

The match nears its uninteresting conclusion and over the public address system we are told that collectively we number 6,669.  It’s probably close to a capacity crowd for the limited areas of the stadium that are open, but I remain disappointed that I have not seen or heard a single French person in the crowd this evening, or smelled a Gauloise or even a faint whiff of garlic.  I hope that we get to see RC Lens, Paris St Germain or Olympique Marseille at Portman Road before too long.