Ipswich Town 0 Liverpool 2

August 18, 2024August 19, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

The start of a new football season feels a bit like flying to Australia; you depart Heathrow in the spring and in the space of less than twenty four hours, you’re in Sydney, Melbourne or Perth and it’s autumn. Where did the summer go? Did it ever come?

To add to my feeling of disorientation today, Town are playing Liverpool, who I don’t think I’ve ever heard of. I am of course familiar with The Beatles, Ken Dodd, Jimmy Tarbuck, Derek Hatton, Cilla Black, Sandra and Beryl the Liver Birds, Roger McGough, Adrian Henri and Brian Patten, the Mersey Sound, The Scaffold, the Pier Head, Paddy’s Wigwam, Hope Street, Lime Street station, Penny Lane, racing from Aintree, the Albert Dock, St George’s Hall, the Queensway tunnel, the Three Graces, Brookside, the ferry ‘cross the Mersey, the ‘Boys from the black stuff’, Littlewoods Pools, Letter to Brezhnev, dodgy blokes in shell suits with ‘taches and perms, the Anglican Cathedral, Alexei Sayle, the Echo and Scouse, but who knew there was a football team too? If they’ve got one, they certainly haven’t been frequenting the sort of exotic places we’ve been visiting in recent years.

It was only when staring into the distance and idly reminiscing about when Ipswich used to nearly be the champions every year, a long time ago when we was ‘fab’, that I remembered that it was a team called Liverpool that mostly were the champions every year. Then I remembered Mich D’Avray heading home a cross from Kevin O’Callaghan as Sammy Lee sat on his bum on the wet turf and watched, and eventually, much later, Adam Tanner and Marcus Stewart scoring winning goals at Anfield. Yes, I remember Liverpool now.

I meet Gary on the train to Ipswich, and he tells me that only one of the current ninety-two football league teams is in a parliamentary constituency that has a Tory member of parliament; he asks me which one I think it is. I think for a moment and say “Cheltenham”. But I’m wrong, it’s Bromley. So much for Siouxsie Sioux and the ‘Bromley contingent’, although I guess that’s what they were escaping from, even if some of them did like to wear swastikas. We carry on talking as if life is a pub quiz and Gary seems impressed that I know that when George Best played for Dunstable Town, Barry Fry was the Dunstable manager. Suddenly, following a tangible moment of recollection that is visible on Gary’s face, he pays me for his ticket to see Stewart Lee at the Chelmsford Civic Theatre next February (£31 including booking fee) and we complain to each other about the scandal of booking fees. I never paid a booking fee to see Rick Wakeman at the Ipswich Gaumont in 1975, or for my FA Cup final ticket in 1978, or to see Buzzcocks at the Brighton Top Rank Club in 1979, when I recall being handed tickets by a person from behind a glass screen and not having to print anything myself using printer ink, paper and electricity paid for by me. If they’re going to riot, this is what people should be rioting about, not a few unfortunates being made to waste away their days in a Best Western.

Disappointingly, we do not see the polar bears of Wherstead today as the train descends into Ipswich, but at least the bloke mowing the grass in their enclosure lives to mow another day, and arriving in Ipswich we head for the Arboretum, travelling via the ice cream kiosks that sell match programmes. We buy a programme each (£3.50) and are both impressed by the design of the front cover, which has taken a step away from the usual boring fare, although it’s a shame about the same old drivel inside, and the price. Portman Road is busy; very busy considering that there are another two hours to pass into forgettable history before the game begins. Middle- aged blokes with estuarine accents hawk blue and red scarves that are half Ipswich and half Liverpool, no one seems to be buying. At the Arb’ there is no queue at the bar, and I quickly order a pint of Lager 43 for Gary and one of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me (£8.35 including Camra discount). In the beer garden all the tables are occupied, so we sit on a park bench and have barely discussed anything before Mick arrives, before leaving again to acquire his own pint of some beer or other, probably Suffolk Pride, before returning to discuss ‘half and half’ scarves, which Mick says are like being bi-sexual. It’s much worse than that I tell him, and we all laugh, much more than we probably should, and for a variety of unspoken reasons.

Mick asks what time we should leave for Portman Road, anticipating that the turnstiles will be busy. I tell him that its likely all our fellow drinkers will leave here long before we do because they will be wanting to experience the Premier League circus, and we should be able to rock up just before kick-off and walk straight in as if we were playing Preston North End. My prophecy will come to pass, but we nevertheless agree to depart shortly after midday, and after Mick buys a round of three more pints, which he sensibly carries from the bar on a tin tray, that is what we do, although not before discussing why Mick may not go to Nice next weekend after all, today’s team selection, how to spell Szmodics and how I don’t feel as excited as everyone else seems to be; it’s just another new football season, another game.

Portman Road is still busy, mostly with queues for ice creams that turn out to be programmes. At turnstile 62 at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand, there are no queues, but a man who looks older than me seems to be struggling to get his season ticket to work, so rather than create a queue with just me in it I use turnstile 61 and am soon hugging Pat from Clacton who then photographs me in an embrace with ever-present Phil who never misses a game. Ever-present Phil’s son Elwood, Fiona and the man from Stowmarket are all here too of course and soon the teams are on the pitch and flames are leaping into the air which are much bigger than any flames that we’ve ever seen before at Portman Road, because these are Premier League flames.

The teams are announced by an enthusiastic bloke in a grey suit who looks about half the age of Murphy, the now pensioned-off, one season wonder of an announcer who took nearly all of last season to learn how to read out the names of the team. Unfortunately, Portman Road is so noisy today and the PA system so unintelligible that I can’t hear a word this fresh young fellow says and am reduced to having to try and lip read as he tells us the Town line-up, but I think I do a reasonable job of bellowing like a French football supporter the surnames of the players as he says them. Except for the obvious and necessary concrete bits, the stands are mostly a sea of blue shirts.

‘The Knee’ is taken, which we haven’t seen for a while, and the game begins with Liverpool having first go with the ball and wearing all red, pretty much like they did back in 1974 when I first saw them at Portman Road and Bill Shankly spoke to me, telling me in his gravelly Ayrshire accent “Aye, you’ve a good team”. As ever, Town are in blue and white and when they get the ball, they send it in my direction and that of ever-present Phil, Elwood, Fiona, Pat and the man from Stowmarket. My early impressions are that there are new illuminated advertisements between the tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand, one of which advertises Universal Customs Clearance, whatever that is. I like to think it is something to do smuggling because this fits in with my pre-conceptions about the dodgy owners and sponsors of Premier League clubs. I also notice that the Liverpool number four has the name Virgil on his shirt and so I think of both the Aeneid and Thunderbirds. Sadly for Town, from his stature, Virgil looks more likely to be a classical hero rather than a jiggly puppet that appears like all Thunderbirds puppets to be suffering from Parkinson’s Disease. Omari Hutchinson has an early shot on goal for Town but Liverpool are awarded the game’s first free-kick. After six minutes Luke Woolfenden greedily claims the first booking of the Premier League season for some shirt grabbing and torso grasping of Jota who had run around Woolfenden as if he was a large bollard with a blond wig.

The game is even, with Liverpool having more possession but Ipswich looking no less likely to score, albeit on the break. Thirteen noisy minutes have disappeared for ever, only to be repeated on satellite tv and Match of the Day, and Omari Hutchinson is booked for a supposed foul, for which any decent player would be embarrassed to be awarded a free-kick. We need to keep an eye on the referee Mr Tim Robinson, he may prove to be a bit of a berk. The game continues in much the same manner to a back-drop of general noise, but no discernible organised chanting, as if the Premier League just makes everyone talk very loudly, which I think in some ways it probably does. Town win a free kick and Jacob Greaves heads the ball straight at the Liverpool goalkeeper; would Terry Butcher or Kevin Beattie have scored? We’ll never know, so it doesn’t really matter.

The first half is half over and referee Tim Robinson, whose name is a little too much like ‘Tommy Robinson’ for comfort, confirms that he is a complete berk as he books another Town player, this time Wes Burns, for a supposed foul that most under-fourteen players would not have noticed. Much booing ensues and I join in, swept up in the maelstrom of silliness that is the Premier League, and we haven’t even had the VAR out yet.

Less than a third of the half is left and after a Liverpool corner Omari Hutchinson breaks away, beats two Liverpool players and then shoots, but not well enough to avoid the goalkeeper’s elongated but comfortable looking dive. “Your support, your support, your support is fucking shit” chant the Town fans at a Liverpool player whose truss has come apart, or may be at the Liverpool fans who are quietish and so far don’t compare for enthusiasm to those of clubs in the second division that are only ‘fashionable’ in their home towns.

Eight minutes until half-time and Christian Walton makes a fine diving save from a Luke Woolfenden diversion, but by way of balance Axel Tuanzebe heads the ball onto the roof of the Liverpool net before Town win a corner, and in the last action of the half the Liverpool have their first recognisable shot on goal, courtesy of the lengthily named Trent Alexander Arnold, whose names seem to have either been arranged back to front or mostly taken from a map of Nottingham. After a minute of added on time spent finding the ball after TAA’s shot, Robinson blows his whistle and we all get the opportunity to boo him again as he and his minders wander off for a cup of tea and to do whatever referees and their assistant’s do at half-time.

The consensus amongst those around me is that it was a satisfactory half in which Town did pretty well and arguably had the better chances to score, although it could be a worry therefore that they didn’t. For half time entertainment Ray’s son Michael and a much larger man wearing possibly an XXXL Town shirt take part in a little quiz, the first few questions of which are stupidly easy and appear on the large screen between the Cobbold Stand and the Sir Alf stand. Later questions unfortunately, do not have multiple choice answers and are therefore read out over the incomprehensible PA system, so we have no idea what is going on.

At twenty-seven minutes to two the second half begins, and Liverpool have substituted their number 78 for a more sensible number 5, who is Ibrahima Konate and also plays for France, so is therefore likely to be pretty good. But, eight minutes into the half and it is Town who are appealing for a penalty as Leif Davis is barged over. There is a brief VAR check, during which I find myself praying to someone or something, perhaps divine providence, but conveniently for Liverpool and the status quo, the linesman has his flag raised for offside. The bloke behind me jokes that with all the recent works to the stadium the electrics for the VAR haven’t been finished yet, so the protocol is just to wait for five minutes and then say “No”.

As if being denied penalties isn’t bad enough, Wes Burns seems to be hurt and has to be substituted for Ben Johnson. Three minutes later Christian Walton has to make a fine save and then gets lucky as the ball is crossed back in and an unmarked Jota heads wide of an open goal from close range. Just a minute further on however, Jota scores as the ball is pulled back from the by-line and the Town defence is ripped apart. The Liverpool fans in the Cobbold stand can suddenly be heard, and above the general hubbub comes a jubilant roar. “Someone’s just found a quid I reckon” says the bloke behind me.

Town substitutions follow in the 64^th minute with Conor Chaplin and Massimo Luongo being replaced by Marcus Harness and Jack Taylor. Just a minute later Liverpool lead 2-0 as Salah tucks the ball neatly over Christian Walton from an angle. Liverpool seem to have simply changed up a gear and Town have been overrun. Omari Hutchinson manages a volley from quite close in that might have headed goalwards, but doesn’t, and the bloke beside me says “A goal would be nice, wouldn’t it?” The bloke behind me says “Yes”. Marcus Harness has a shot, but it goes high over the bar.

More substitutions follow, Ali Al-Hamadi and Sammy Szmodics replacing Liam Delap and Axel Tuanzebe but Liverpool are still the better team. I ask Pat from Clacton what she’s having for her tea tonight. A baked potato with barbecued chicken slices is the answer. Fiona and I are both having left over curry from Thursday night, both our curries were home-made, not takeaways. The attendance is announced as 30,014. It’s the first time there have been over 30,000 people at Portman Road since 20^th April 1981 when we played Arsenal; we lost that afternoon 2-0 too, and I remember standing with my father in the North Stand, it was the only place where we could get in. It was a result that severely and unexpectedly dented our hopes of winning the league and I can still recall vividly how royally peed off I was, I think I still am.

It is now clear that Town are going to lose today, and Liverpool come close to scoring several more times as Christian Walton plays an absolute blinder in the Town goal, a state of affairs confirmed by the Sir Bobby Robson stand’s embittered chanting of “Two-nil and you still don’t sing” followed by a reprise of “Your support, Your support, Your support is fucking shit”. A monstrous eight minutes of added on time is announced to give us hope of a miracle, and last season Town would probably have won, but today it’s Liverpool who nearly score again, twice, with Christian Walton making a brilliant ‘double save’ although ‘man of the match’ is awarded to Jacob Greaves. Scant consolation for the result arrives in the form of a late booking for Liverpool’s number 18 Cody Gakpo, which is greeted with ironic cheers and sarcastic ripples of applause from the home crowd. The bloke behind me wonders if Mr Robinson had lost his yellow card somewhere and only just found it.

The final whistle draws appreciative applause from all around the ground and it has been a decent couple of hours of football, although after Liverpool scored Town were no longer in it to win it, only to keep the score down, which they did. “You’re gonna get relegated aren’t ya? ” Says a Scouser to me as I walk back to the station. “Not today” I tell him. “We’ll be alright”. The football season has started so it may be approaching autumn, but it’s not winter yet, and I’m still hoping for an Indian summer.

Ipswich Town 1 OGC Nice 0

August 14, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

As far as I can recall, the last time Ipswich Town played French opposition was forty-three years ago when ‘Les Verts’ of St Etienne visited Portman Road in the second leg of a Uefa Cup quarter final tie. For me, as someone who feels certain the world would be a better place if only Napoleon had won the battle of Waterloo, this is nothing short of a personal tragedy, but one I’ve tried to make up for by watching French football whenever possible. I can now boast (and I do) having been to every stadium in Ligue 1 except Stade Meinau in Strasbourg and Stade Raymond Kopa in Angers, having seen more than half of the teams in Ligue 2 and scores of those in Ligue National and the regional leagues below, and I’ve been to the final of the Coupe de France at the Stade de France. When I heard therefore that Ipswich would be playing Olimpique Gymnast Club Nice (known as Le Gym or Les Aiglons – The Eaglets) in a pre-season friendly I was as happy as a Frenchman with a fresh baguette and a 2 litre bottle of Pastis. But, as someone who thinks access to pre-season friendlies should ideally be free, I also immediately regretted having already forked out a stonking twenty quid for a ticket for the pre-season friendly versus German second division club Fortuna Dusseldorf, and with good cause as it turned out, because that match was a stinker.

After ten days or more of mounting anticipation, today is the day of the match. Resisting all temptations to have croissants and champagne for breakfast, it’s not long before I’m on the train to Ipswich with my wife Paulene and friend Gary looking out for polar bears as we descend past Wherstead, the A1214 and into town; we see three, two of whom are stretched out on the ground like a big game hunter’s fireside rug. Arriving at Ipswich station there are the inevitable queues at the gates as two trains disgorge in quick succession and people struggle with QR codes on phones before eventually, a wise ticket collector simply opens the ‘sluice’ gates to prevent the human tide backing up into Greggs, a brand which I imagine any French person on the station concourse would instinctively keep a safe distance from.

Gary and I cross the road to the Station Hotel whilst Paulene makes straight for Portman Road because she wants to watch the players of OGC Nice warm up before the game; she has a particular interest in the forty-year old Brazilian colossus Dante, former Olympique Marseille players Morgan Sanson and Jonathan Clauss and the attractively monikered Gaetan Laborde. Unfortunately for Paulene, Nigerian forward Terem Moffi isn’t in the squad today because of a cruciate ligament injury. Meanwhile, back in the Station Hotel, Gary buys me a pint of Abbot Ale and some heavily advertised lager or other for himself. As we sit down, Mick arrives , and once he has a pint of Abbot Ale too, we talk of the Olympic games, the complicated cycling events such as the Madison and Omnium, how Gary might buy programmes for the home matches this season and the local Nicois or Nicard language or dialext of Nice as we struggle to hear ourselves talk above the noisy family who are enjoying a pre-match drink on the other side of the room. They annoy me a bit, but Mick thinks it’s good to see families out enjoying time together. Mick is very resaonable man. Mick also has plans to be in Nice (Nissa in Nicois) for a jazz festival a fortnight today and I quickly interrogate the interweb to discover that OGC Nice will be at home to Toulouse that weekend too. I advise him that the Ligne 3 tram will take him to the magnificent Stade de Nice or Allianz Riviera as it is also known.

Resisting temptation for a second time today, I don’t have another pint of Abbot Ale; the first one wasn’t that great, and it also seems that today in the Station Hotel is a dress rehearsal for hosting the supporters of Liverpool next week because we are having to drink from plastic glasses. Liverpudlians are also only allowed to use scissors if supervised by a responsible adult. Mick and I briefly discuss oxymorons before heading off for Portman Road; Gary has left already because he is making a visit to the club shop to collect one of the bright pink third choice shirts which went on sale recently and when worn will cause many a Town supporter to look like a raspberry blancmange. Weirdly, the club has allowed Ed Sheeran to advertise one of his many bland tunes on the shirt by scrawling an impression of Framlingham Castle across the front. It would make sense on a Framlingham Town shirt, but with its high-Victorian Town Hall, Italianate Customs House, brutalist St Francis Tower, Orwell bridge, Meccano-like dockside cranes and a Corn Exchange which wouldn’t look out of place in any French city, Ipswich has more than enough interesting architecture to conjure up a skyline of its own for a Town shirt.

Mick and I don’t quite get as far as Portman Road itself because we end up approaching the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand across the site of the former Staples store in Ruseell Road and I remark that the wide tarmac approach to the stand would be a tree-lined avenue in France; both Mick and I buy programmes (£2.50) from the ice cream booth which is situated where the first London Plane would be.

Once onto the lower tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand it seems odd not to be greeted by Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket and most strangely of all ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood. I’m not sure if ever-present Phil counts pre-season friendlies in his long back catalogue of games he has not missed, but if he’s not here today I for one think he risks losing his epithet, and no one wants to see that. I am however re-united with Paulene and together we ‘go down the front’ to talk with Ray and his grandson Harrison. Paulene asks Ray about his solar panels, and he tells us that they are very successful although British Gas don’t seem to be paying him the money for the electricity his system puts into the grid. We tell him to dump British Gas and sign up with Octopus.

Back in our seats, the Town line-up is announced, I think, but I’m not sure because the public address system is completely unintelligible, which is shame on today of all days when I imagine everyone will want to pretend to be French and call out the surnames of the players after the announcer reads out their first names. The stadium announcer seems not to read out the names of the Nice team at all, perhaps for fear of embarrassing himself with poor pronunciation, not that it would matter when no one can understand a word he says anyway. Eventually, the teams appear and I recall how for home games in Nice, the pre-match ritual includes ‘Mefi’ the eagle flying around the stadium; perhaps Town should have a Suffolk Punch rolling the pitch. When the game begins it is Town that get first go with the ball and aim it mostly in the direction of the goal almost in front of me, Paulene, Mick and Gary in the Sir Alf Ramsey stand. Town wear their signature blue and white kit today, whilst Nice wear an unnecessary away kit of all-white, which is huge shame because their red and black home shirts and black shorts are a visual treat.

After almost eighteen minutes I glance up at the scoreboard and say “Is that all? It feels like we’ve been here far longer.” The game has so far displayed a dullness to rival the thoughts of Michael Owen or that of the Dusseldorf game. But after an impromptu drinks break, when a Nice player receives treatment for acute boredom, the game miraculously perks up and both teams venture forward by means of neat passing and winning corners. “Allez les Bleus, Allez les Bleus” I chant at an appropriate moment, and Paulene tells me later that people gave me funny looks as a result. Liam Delap runs through on goal for Town and has a shot saved by the Nice goalkeeper and everyone starts to think that may be the new season might be ok after all, except for Paulene who supports Portsmouth and so doesn’t really care. Then, with half-time approaching like a motorway service station on a not overly long journey but one where it’s probably as well to stop, it looks like George Edmundson and Axel Tuanzebe both make a bit of a lunge on Evan Guessand, a player with whom incidentally, Debbie Harry, Alan Sunderland and I share a birthday, albeit not in the same year. Presumably unaware of Guessand’s star sign, not that it makes any difference, referee Mr James Bell awards Nice a penalty. Mohamed-Ali Cho takes the penalty kick for Nice, but unusually the laws of physics are defied in Town’s favour for once and the ball strikes the inside of Muric’s right-hand post and deflects out of rather than into the Town goal. It’s a lucky escape for Town and after only literally seconds of added-on time Mr Bell says it’s time for a cuppa and the opportunity to reflect.

Half-time permits a thorough read of the match programme, because we don’t get much for £2.50, and for some unfathomable reason the text incorrectly, but consistently, refers to OGC Nice as OGM Nice. I wonder what the half a dozen Nice supporters up in the Cobbold stand think of this poor journalism, particularly given that they are used to match programmes being free.

Beneath oppressive grey skies the second half begins and carries on where the first half left off. Both teams pass the ball tidily, but Nice possibly have a bit more flair, and in keeping with both teams’ respective country’s geographies, Nice’s passing is more expansive whilst Town’s is tighter; l’hexagone against Little England. Napoleon would have understood.

Early second half action sees George Edmundson clear a shot from Jonathan Clauss off the Town goal line, but then the thirteenth minute of the half proves unlucky for Nice as a goalmouth melee is abruptly ended by Axel Tuanzebe lashing the by now disorientated ball into the net from inside the six-yard box. Town lead, but less pleasantly four minutes later Omari Hutchinson suffers the ignominy of being booked for a foul in a friendly match, although to his credit he does look sorry. A minute later and mass substitutions are made, and the hopeless PA system sounds off to full effect, like a malfunctioning foghorn. The Town players who are replaced gather in the corner by the Cobbold and Sir Alf stands presumably to warm down, causing us to speculate on whether the gym is full of building materials or whether this is just a PR exercise and the players are merely getting close to their public. I suggest that they are going to form a cheerleading troop, but no one is overly surprised although they may be disappointed when events prove me wrong.

The highlight of the final seventeen minutes is a low shot from substitute Freddie Ladapo which strikes the inside of the far post and predictably deflects out of the goal, not into it, and Marcus Harness is arguably a little too careful with his follow up shot, which consequently is booted clear by a retreating defender. When the time comes, the final whistle is blown promptly by Mr Bell (Monsieur Cloche in French) with no un-necessary added-on time, and we all agree that it has been an enjoyable game full of free-flowing football. Paulene and I bid farewell to Gary and Mick at the railway station as Gary catches an earlier train and Mick collects his bicycle. We look forward to seeing the Polar bears again on our journey home and I reflect on how if only Town were in Ligue 1 we might be playing Olympique Marseille next week, not Liverpool.

Stanway Rovers 0 Maldon & Tiptree 0

August 4, 2024August 6, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s the third day of August and the domestic football season is yawning and stretching after a long sleep throughout June and July. However, in the same way that an early morning shower, or a nice cup of tea, will bring enjoyment and refreshment at the start of another day, so the FA Cup also invigorates and refreshes and quickly brings a sense of purpose, and today is the start of this season’s FA Cup (although some games were played last night). The ‘proper’ rounds of the FA Cup of course do not begin until the league clubs enter in November, and non-league football clubs have to qualify to get into the ‘proper’ FA Cup and so obsessed with hierarchy is the Football Association that before the first qualifying round there is a preliminary round, and before that is the extra preliminary round, and that’s what’s happening today. It’s as if the FA is saying to the smallest clubs, at the lowest levels of the league pyramid “You are nothing and you have no money, so whilst we’ll let you play in the FA Cup, it won’t be the ‘proper’ FA Cup” Worse still, some clubs, those below Step Nine, aren’t even allowed to enter the extra-preliminary round.

I have toyed with the idea of attending any number of possible FA Cup fixtures today with Long Melford, Cornard United, FC Clacton, Basildon United, Little Oakley, Stowmarket Town, Heybridge Swifts, Ipswich Wanderers and even Harleston Town all having home ties that I could surely get to. But as a lazy person who economises on effort wherever possible, I eventually choose the fixture that is closest to my house and therefore easiest to get to. I briefly consider catching the bus, but the service is only hourly and whilst I would arrive in plenty of time for kick-off, I can’t be certain that I would make it back to the bus stop in time after the final whistle. So it is that I set off forty minutes after the bus, just before half-past two, in my planet saving Citroen eC4 to travel the 5.76 kilometres to New Farm Road and ‘The Hawthorns’ where at three-o’clock Stanway Rovers of the Essex Senior league will be playing Maldon & Tiptree of the Pitching-In Isthmian League North.

It’s been a sultry morning under cloudy skies, but now the sun is shining as I edge through the car park and am directed by a man in a dayglo tabard into what is possibly the last available parking space. The car park is like Brighton beach without the nudists, and pebbles crunch under foot as having left my car I head for the club house and the bar, where I am delighted to see real ale for sale. With kick-off only twenty minutes away I buy just a half a pint of Colchester Brewery “Romans go home”, which of course they did at the beginning of the 5^th century. At £2.30 it seems rather expensive but the beer is tasty and I quaff it quickly before I trudge back across the beach between the cars to the turnstile, where a queue has formed, largely due to the time taken for someone up ahead to pay by debit card, although cash is also accepted. To heighten and prolong my sense of eager anticipation and impatience to see the game, and that of the people behind me, I too pay by card (£8.00).

Stepping inside the ‘stadium’ I exercise a visual stock take and don’t think the place has changed much since I was last here, which was on a cold day in December 2013 to see Stanway Rovers lose improbably by a single goal to mighty Wivenhoe Town. There may now be a few more bus shelter style stands and a couple less portacabins but that’s about it. What does differ from eleven years ago is that there are no programmes on sale today but a faded, laminated A4 poster displays a QR code for digital programmes, although these turn out to be last season’s, not today’s game. I ask a man in a dayglo gilet if there is a programme today; he doesn’t know, although trying to help he asks another man in a dayglo gilet who doesn’t know either but responds in a manner which suggests it’s nothing to do with him and he prefers not to answer questions about anything.

Time passes as Nineties dance music plays over the public address system, which turns out to be two large roof mounted speakers, one on its side, that look like they’ve been liberated from an ageing hi-fi system. The music stops abruptly as the two teams appear from the corner near the turnstile to process onto the pitch and go through all the usual handshaking before forming separate huddles and then lining up to await the ‘parp’ of the referee’s whistle. The Stanway number eleven has one leg of his shorts rolled up over his thigh as if to ‘show a bit of leg’. Slightly late, at two minutes past three, the match begins with Maldon & Tiptree getting first go with the ball, which they boot towards the car park end. The visiting team are wearing a frighteningly dull kit of pale grey shirts and slightly darker grey shorts; it makes them looked like all life and natural colour has been drained out of them as if by some previously unknown Essex coast vampire. Maldon’s home kit is one of red and blue stripes like Barcelona of the Spanish La Liga or Stade Malherbe Caen of French Ligue 2 and it’s a mystery why they’re not wearing it as it would not clash with Stanway’s yellow shirts and black shorts. Perhaps the home kit is in the wash, or maybe they are wearing it and that vampire is real.

The opening stages of the game seem tense and cautious. “Mick, right shoulder” shouts the home goalkeeper. “’old ‘im” bawls someone else “Get over!”. It’s a relief when the ball leaves the pitch and hits a man with a jade-coloured jumper draped over his shoulders. I walk down the ground behind the dugouts past a man with a golden retriever dog. I overhear a snatch of conversation “Tooting Broadway Witherspoons (sic) is right across the road” explains someone. I stand between the dugouts “Joe, Joe, can we?” implores one of the Stanway coaches curiously as he stands momentarily with hands on hips in his black nylon tracksuit. “Come On Ref!”

At twelve minutes past three the Stanway number four heads wide of the Maldon goal. The opinion in the Stanway dugout is that he “needed” to score that. As if to almost prove them right Maldon are almost immediately on the attack and win two corners in quick succession. A Maldon player dribbles the ball cleverly between two opponents. “Nice feet” says a man near me, who is possibly a chiropodist. Stanway almost score almost again as a back-header skims off a crown and is tipped away acrobatically by the Maldon goalkeeper.

Keen to experience the game from all around the Hawthorns I move to the corner of the ground where the slope on the site affords me an unexpectedly elevated view across the gently, but nevertheless worryingly rolling, undulating pitch. Above me a blackberry bush hangs down over the fence and I spend the remainder of the half feasting on plump, ripe blackberries which are being warmed by the mid-afternoon sun. By half-time I have eaten more blackberries than I have ever eaten before whilst watching a football match. It’s now twenty-five past three and the somewhat lumbering, balding and clearly bearded referee calls for a drinks break. The Stanway substitutes trot about in front of me, stretching and discussing football boots; apparently, one of them owns a pair “…like the Trent Alexander Arnold ones”.

When the match resumes Maldon pass the ball amongst their centre backs, in the style of England, until number six carefully side foots the ball into touch. It’s three thirty-eight, and a Maldon free-kick thumps the head of the Stanway number eight, who was in a defensive wall but now lies prone on the grass; the game is stopped while he receives treatment and then leaves the pitch. In due course he returns, but oddly now has his shorts rolled up over his thighs like the number eleven.

The match is not of the highest quality and the ball regularly sails aimlessly through the upper atmosphere and on one occasion into a neighbouring garden. At eleven minutes to four however Maldon’s number nine shoots and only a low diving save from the Stanway goalkeeper prevents a goal. From the resultant corner however, the ball is fired out into the car park and hopefully avoids my Citroen; the high fence behind the goal doesn’t seem to be quite high enough. The half ends with me reflecting on the names on the advertisement boards and questioning whether Planned Environmental Services have a rival company called Un-planned Environmental Services. Finally, I find myself disappointed that neither club seems to have neither a band of noisy teenage Ultras or one of ageing but witty malcontents.

With half time I head to the tea bar where I invest in a pound’s worth of tea and two pounds’ worth of sausage roll, which comes with a free paper napkin. I don’t think the sausage roll is as good as the ones at Coggeshall Town, although it is cheaper, but it is definitely better than the ones from Greggs. Having eaten my sausage roll I move to the two-step terrace cum bus shelter behind the goal at the car park end and strangely overhear more people talking about Tooting Broadway. I finish my tea and the teams amble out only to line up and then have to wait for the referee and his two linesmen, one of whom has a beard, whilst the other is older and has a bit of a pot belly.

It is eight minutes past four as the football resumes and unexpectedly a small man in a polo shirt with a tie draped around his shoulders begins to bawl Yellow Army, Yellow Army, Yellow Army several times. I see from my phone that the current temperature is twenty-four degrees and then the man in the dayglo gilet who I asked about the programme appears and tells me that there is currently an ‘error’ with the programme. I wonder if the error is that no one produced one as Maldon win successive corners and I get the impression that they are the slightly more dominant team.

Continuing my odyssey I walk a little further round the ground and on to the fourth side where there is a small pre-fabricated stand containing the only seats in the stadium. I am suddenly struck with the thought that Stanway Rovers seem to have an uncharacteristically small number of players with visible tattoos before I spot what looks like my friend Gary in the seats. Approaching the stand, I confirm that the reason the person I see looks like Gary is because it is Gary, and I decide to sit down in the seat in front of him just as Maldon’s number four is booked by the referee for a misdemeanour I didn’t see fully because I was concentrating on identifying Gary.

As Stanway make their first substitution, Gary tells me how his mother has been ill and in hospital. It’s now twenty-three minutes to five and the game remains tense, cautious and lacking in goalmouth action with both teams either defending well or just lacking the ability to score a goal, I’m not sure which. At seventeen minutes to five some football suddenly breaks out as Maldon’s number nine dribbles down the right flank leaving three Stanway players in his wake before putting in a low cross. The cross unfortunately runs behind the Maldon player’s team-mates, but their number seven manages to get to the ball and turn, but then sends his shot over the goal, the fence and into the premises of Collier and Catchpole, the independent local builders’ merchants.

The clock is running down, it’s nine minutes to five and my thoughts are turning to what I might have for tea as a Stanway shot rolls rapidly towards goal and this time it is necessary for the Maldon goalkeeper to make a save. Gary and I chat as we watch and I learn from him that the concessionary admission price at Stanway applies to over sixties, not over sixty-fives, so I’ve spent three pounds more to get in than I needed to. It’s two minutes to five as another football sails out of the ground and into one of the neighbouring properties, but a minute later the game is over; the final score nil-nil.

The game over and with no conclusion except that there will be replay at Maldon, Gary and I quickly vacate our seats, leaving together as he heads for the toilet, and I make for my Citroen. Briefly deconstructing the game in the style of football pundits, I think the match was a bit of a non-event, but Gary thinks the second half was better than the first.

With no conclusive result, no programme and having paid three quid more to get in than I needed to, it hasn’t been the best afternoon, but then again the sun has shone, I had a decent half of beer, a decent cup of tea, an ok sausage roll and most memorably of all more blackberries than I’ve ever eaten before at a football match. It must be the magic of the Cup.