Ipswich Town 1 Manchester United 1

November 17, 2024February 4, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

When I was young, so much younger than today I would often travel to Layer Road, Colchester on a Friday night to see the U’s engage with the likes of Torquay United, Darlington or Aldershot, and then on Saturday afternoon I would watch Ipswich Town in the First Division. The days of ‘Col U’ playing on a Friday evening are sadly gone, as is Layer Road, but this weekend I had the opportunity to see two games in two days once again, taking my pick from an extensive menu of local non-league matches on Saturday afternoon and then catching the Town on Sunday afternoon with a wholly unwelcome four-thirty kick-off. As it turned out, I didn’t bother, but stayed indoors and courtesy of a ‘Firestick’ watched Paris FC play Annecy in French Ligue 2, and then Ligue 1 RC Lens play Marseille on the telly. I sometimes think I have lost my joie de vivre.

Today is Sunday and it is blowing a gale as I waste away a whole morning and much of an afternoon waiting to go to Portman Road. I tried drilling some holes in a wall to put up some shelves, but I think the party wall in my house must be made of granite and all the time I’ve been wondering if the trains are going to be disrupted, some have been cancelled already. Mick has been in touch to see what time I might be at the Arb’ but the Sunday train times either get me there earlier than I’d like or with not enough time for a couple of drinks. I should be able to sue Sky TV and the Premier League for the inconvenience. The pre-match tension is palpable.

In time, I decide that it would be best for everyone if I simply spent a bit longer at the pub before the game and so after a train journey on which Manchester United supporters sing ‘Eric Cantona’ endlessly to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas and on which I don’t see a single polar bear, I buy a programme in Portman Road and finally arrive at the Arb’ to purchase a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£4.14 with CAMRA discount). Mick has already texted me to say he is ‘on the bench in the beer garden’ and that is where I join him to discuss Gary’s absence, houses of multiple occupation, local non-league football, how Mick has been seeing ‘someone’ (a woman), newspapers, religion, today’s Town team and what time we go to bed; Mick is a bit of ‘night owl’ it seems, and if I didn’t get up at twenty past six each morning I think I’d quite like to be able to watch Newsnight too.

A good hour and twenty minutes drift by in a sea of words and more Suffolk Pride, and we realise that everyone else in the pub beer garden seems to have left, so we do too not wishing to miss the kick-off, although happy to forego the leaping flames and tiresome, over-excited young stadium announcer with his elongated vowels and slightly cheap-looking suit. There are no queues to get into what used to be Churchman’s and I arrive at my seat as ever to find ever-present Phil who never misses a game, his son Elwood, Pat from Clacton, Fiona and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) already here. There’s a lot of noise as the two teams process onto the pitch and I don’t know why, but I can’t help feeling rather bemused, so much so that I suddenly notice Pat from Clacton looking at me a bit quizzically because the over-excited young stadium announcer is reading out the Town team and I’m not bawling out the players’ surnames in the manner of a Frenchman. It’s been so long since Town were last at home that I’ve forgotten what to do and I’m lost in idle reverie. Returning to Earth, I try to make amends but find that the over-excited young stadium announcer is not in -sync with the score board and I therefore have no idea which surname comes next; it’s like a bad dream in which Murphy has returned but years younger and taller, and in a shiny suit

Kick-off comes as a relief with Town getting first go with the ball and aiming it in the direction of me and my fellow ultras. Town are of course in blue and white whilst Manchester United are in red shirts and black shorts, a bit like Stade Rennais, but messily the shirts are two shades of red and the shorts have red flashes on them. The relief is short-lived as within eighty seconds Manchester’s number 16 skips past a Town player, puts in a somewhat limp looking low cross and their number ten nips in to tap the ball past Aro Muric, who looks as if he was expecting to simply casually pick the ball up. My hopes that VAR will have spotted some invisible infringement in the run up to the goal are dashed, largely because there simply wasn’t enough time for anything to have happened.

The game resumes over a minute after the goal was scored and we all feel a bit shocked. The current Manchester United team is widely believed to be pretty useless I believe and here we are losing already. I thought we were going to win two-nil and had told Mick as much. Five minutes are almost gone however, as Town win a corner. Eleven minutes disappear and Sam Szmodics has a decent shot that the goalkeeper saves and in terms of attacking intent at least, Town have drawn level.

“United, United, United, United” chant the Mancunians and their friends from London and the Home Counties up in the Cobbold Stand, separating each ‘United’ with three quick claps. A little slow to catch on, the Blue Action group belatedly shout “Shit, just like people did in the 1970’s, but usually before the visitors had stopped shouting ‘United’. The football is quite good though. Lots of passing is going on and Ipswich are probably doing more of it than Manchester. The half is half over and finding himself next to Sam Morsy, the Manchester number seventeen falls to the ground and rolls over and over and over and over to both the anger and amusement of the home crowd. “Get up, ya great pussy” I tell him loudly. “That’s Garnacho” says the bloke in front of me. “Yer what?” I ask him. “That’s Garnacho” he says again. A bit confused being unfamiliar with the names of any footballers unless they play for Ipswich Town I say “So it’s not Pussy then.” “He’s a funny looking bleeder” says the bloke behind me of the aforementioned Garnacho and the bloke next to me momentarily reflects on how children don’t get called ‘little bleeders’ nowadays, and sadly I think he’s right. Amusingly, to me anyway, ‘ya little bleeder’ was probably the polite version of ‘ya little bugger’ which is how my grandfather affectionately knew me.

Another Town corner unexpectedly inspires a warm booming chant of “Come On You Blues” and Liam Delap earns a free-kick on the edge of the penalty area as United’s captain Jonny Evans looks bothered; having only this week watched a version on the telly, I think of Evans The Death, the undertaker in Dylan Thomas’s ‘Under Milk Wood’. The free-kick is neatly taken, but goes straight to the goalkeeper Andre Onana for whom I am amazed the United supporters do not sing KC and the Sunshine Band’s ‘Baby Give It Up’. Sensing my disappointment when Town don’t score, Pat from Clacton tells me that she’s already had her dinner today – a Marks & Spencer roast turkey ready meal. “It’s not even Christmas yet” I tell her and Town win another corner from which a shot is blocked after the ball had been headed back across goal. United breakaway up field, but Sam Morsy slides across to sweep the ball out for a throw with the sort of tackle that takes the Manchester player as ‘collateral damage’ and which the home crowd loves, especially against a rather ‘poncey’ team like this one seems to be.

With five minutes until half-time,Town produce the move of the match, tearing the Manchester defence apart as Leif Davis chases a raking long pass, checks inside and plays in Liam Delap who has a whole goal to aim at , but somehow Onana gets a hand or an arm or a shoulder in the way of the goal bound ball. Within sixty seconds, another move opens up a view of goal for Jens Cajuste, but he shoots over. The momentum is with Ipswich however and Omari Hutchinson claims the equaliser very soon afterwards with a shooting star of a shot from outside the penalty area which loops gently off a Manchester head on its rapid journey into the top right hand corner of the goal net, at last beyond the reach of Onana. Three minutes of added on time follow without incident and we are relieved not to be losing anymore, but also feeling like we could be winning.

With half-time I dispose of excess Suffolk Pride and then speak with Ray, to whom it seems I haven’t spoken in months. We speak of car parks and Kemi Badenoch, whose surname Ray pronounces as Bad Enoch, which for those like us who remember Mr Powell seems worryingly appropriate. On the way back to my seat I congratulate ever-present Phil who never misses a game on having recently completed his quest to see a game at every one of the ninety-two League grounds in England and Wales. I tell him I got to around seventy-eight grounds about fifteen years ago but have never managed to get any further. I don’t tell him it’s a metaphor for my entire life.

The football resumes at twenty-four minutes to six when people without a subscription to Sky Sports TV are watching Countryfile and eating buttered teacakes. I notice the moving advertisement for Aspall cider which reads “made in Suffolk since 1728” , words that fosters images in my romantic mind of misty orchards, wooden vats and apple presses, horses, carts and crusted rustic characters, and then the illuminated display says “now available in a can”.

“Come On Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” we chant a good three or four times because Manchester are keeping the ball more than we’d like. The encouragement works and Town get the ball, Wes Burns whips in a low cross and Onana saves brilliantly again from Liam Delap and Town have another corner. Manchester break again and Jens Cajuste chases back to make a perfect tackle inside the Town penalty area and now Manchester have a corner. Not an hour has been played and Manchester are making substitutions as Evans the Death and some bloke who is so good he only has one name goes off and some other blokes I’ve not heard of come on. Up in the Cobbold Stand the away supporters sing songs about Roy Keane and Eric Cantona, perhaps because like me they don’t know who their current players are either.

Then Ipswich make substitutions; Sam Szmodics and Jens Cajuste departing and Jack Taylor and Jack Clarke arriving. “For me, Burns ain’t done nothing” says the bloke behind me clearly thinking he should have been substituted but perhaps not having noticed his pass to Omari Hutchinson for the goal, that cross for Liam Delap, or his defensive play. Twenty-three minutes are left and Manchester have another corner before a couple more substitutions; a bloke called Zirkzee comes on. “Sounds like a cleaning product” say the bloke behind me. This early afternoon and early evening’s attendance is announced by the over-excitable young stadium announcer in the shiny suit as being 30,017 with a very nicely rounded 3,000 of that number being here to sing about Eric Cantona.

Manchester United are mostly the team with the ball in the second half, but despite some grace and speed and long accurate passes they aren’t threatening the Town goal much, they just look like they could if they thought about it a bit more. Perhaps they just have too much confidence and and self-love for their own good. The good thing is it means Town look more likely to score, but as Pat from Clacton says to Fiona “You can feel the tension” . Eventually, the bloke behind me gets his wish as Wes Burns is replaced by Conor Chaplin, and the match rolls on into the final ten minutes of normal time. Ali Al-Hamadi shoots and Onana saves, again. Conor Chaplin shoots, but pretty much straight at Onana.

Only four minutes of added on time are added on and I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Do we need more time to score or less time so we don’t concede? “Oh when the Town go marching in, Oh when the Town go marching in“ drone the home crowd mournfully as if they’ll be following a coffin when it happens. Manchester United win a corner and the ball is booted clear to create maximum distance between it and the Town goal and then the match ends. Fiona and Pat from Clacton are quickly away, but not before Fiona says “See you next Tuesday”- it’s when Town play Crystal Palace.

It’s been another fine game, perhaps not as exciting as some of the others this season, but despite not dictating enough of the play in the second half there is no doubt Town can claim they deserved to win more than Manchester did, and Onana is clearly Manchester’s ‘Man of the Match’, although they probably won’t admit it. Leaving Portman Road for the railway station I think back to the first time I ever saw Town play Manchester United, in December 1971. That game ended in a draw too, a goalless one, and Best, Law and Charlton were all rubbish.

Coggeshall Town 1 Harlow Town 3

November 17, 2024November 17, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

As someone who enjoys going to football matches and has a collection of favourite clubs, I am sometimes torn between actually experiencing the real world and going to a game, and just staying at home and vicariously living life through watching a match featuring one of ‘my clubs’ on the television. Today is potentially such a day because Haverfordwest County (Hwlfordd in Welsh) are playing at Ammanford (Rhydaman in Welsh) in the third round of the FAW Welsh Cup (Cwpan Cymdeiths pel-droed Cymru in Welsh), with kick off at the predictably unusual time of twenty past two. Haverfordwest are one of ‘my club’s and the game is on the telly, on channel S4C home of Sgorio (‘Scoring’ in English) and the soap opera Pobol y cwm (The people of the valley’ in English).

Had it been raining, or snowing, or blowing a gale I might have stayed home and sat in front of the telly, but it’s not, and I’ve already texted Gary to see if he fancies catching the bus to Coggeshall to see Coggeshall Town play top of the table Harlow Town in the Thurlow Nunn Eastern Counties League First Division South. He does, and there’s no backing out at the last minute because he will already be on the bus forty-five minutes before the Welsh cup tie kicks off. A blue double-decker bus hoves into view pretty much according to when the timetable predicted it would and having tendered my £2 fare and collected my bus ticket I turn to see a grey-haired man in a tan coloured puffa-style jacket wave to me. Fortunately, it’s Gary, but I can’t deny I’m disappointed to find him sat downstairs in what used to be called the saloon. I can’t shake myself from thinking that sitting downstairs on buses is for wimps and old or incapacitated people.

It’s only a ten-minute trip to Coggeshall, or ‘Coggy’ as I have decided to call it, and today’s trip is even shorter because we accidentally alight at the stop before the one we really want, getting off at ‘Paycocke’s’ instead of ‘Nursery.’ The extra 200 metre walk to Coggeshall Town’s ground is good exercise I tell Gary and it allows us to see more of Coggeshall’s quaint vernacular architecture, but he is more concerned that he can’t see the floodlights yet. Walking to the match is as much a part of going to a game as the game itself , even in Coggeshall, where to disprove my point it seems that the car park is already full and people are parking on the road outside. I think to myself how different L S Lowry’s “Going to the match” might look if painted today and wonder if anyone could be persuaded to pay £7.8 million for a painting of a car park.

At the turnstile, Gary and I are first and second in a quickly forming queue of four people. Feeling nostalgic I tender cash (£8) and after turning down the chance to purchase a golden goal ticket or two with a polite “Not today, thank you” I push through the turnstile which clicks satisfyingly. Gary attempts to pay in the modern cashless manner but eventually gives up because the technology refuses to work; I blame the ley lines which supposedly converge on Coggeshall. Gary pays with cash and we are soon wandering along the concrete path which looks down upon the pitch and leads to the club house and its bar, where I buy a pint of something called San Miguel for Gary, and a pint of Guinness for me (£10 the pair) because there doesn’t seem to be any real beer available. Pints in hand, we stand out on the decking amongst numerous excitable Harlow Town supporters and wait for the teams to emerge from the changing rooms to stand on the steps down to the pitch, which strangely are shielded from view by a high stockade fence. As the teams finally process onto the pitch one of the excitable Harlow Town fans winds up a siren as if to announce an imminent flood or air raid. Fortunately, no one panics and the people who smile seem to do so happily rather than nervously or uneasily.

The game begins at two minutes past three with Coggeshall getting first go with the ball, sending it mainly in the direction of the clubhouse, and Braintree beyond, where Braintree Town are simultaneously playing AFC Fylde. Coggy wear the current incarnation of their usual red and black striped shirts and black shorts, whilst Harlow sport a change kit of predominantly off-white shirts decorated with random, overlapping, shadowy geometric shapes, paired with navy blue shorts. I like to think it’s a design inspired by the angular lines of Britain’s first tower block (The Lawn built in 1950), which is in Harlow, or the luxuriant moustache of its architect Sir Frederick Gibberd, but given that Harlow Town are playing in the catchily titled Thurlow Nunn Eastern Counties League First Division South, the tenth level of senior men’s football in England, it doesn’t seem likely.

The game soon settles into an oddly enjoyable pattern of unsuccessful passes and balls over the top sprinkled with clumsy tackles. “Ref! ‘Ave a word!” is the call from the main stand as Coggy’s centre half and captain Tom Johnson pushes over Harlow’s Jack Zieleinski. “Movement, Movement!” bawls the Coggeshall goalkeeper in an unrelated incident which nevertheless singles him out as the frustrated choreographer in the team. Back in the main stand the ‘banter’ is being directed at the referee. “You’re ‘avin’ a mare already ref. Just because they’re top of the league” shouts a home supporter weirdly.

A very early substitution occurs after Harlow’s Teddy Jones is left in a crumpled heap near the centre circle, but he manages, after treatment, to make it to the touchline where Dan Heald replaces him. It occurs to me that from where I’m sitting I think the referee looks a bit like a young Harry Kane. But then again I figure that anyone with a pointy beard, high forehead and fair hair probably would. I discuss with Gary whether the linesman on our side of the ground looks like a bloke we used to work with twenty years ago who lived in Clacton. Gary proudly manages to recall the Clacton man’s name and that when answering the phone he would always say his first name twice before giving his surname – a bit, but not exactly like James Bond does when introducing himself; in fact, a lot more like a stutter.

At seventeen minutes past three we witness the first shot on goal of the game as Coggeshall’s Alex Banyard seizes an opportunity to make a penetrating run and shoot past the near post. Three minutes later, as a succession of balls are booted over the perimeter fence and into the field beyond, a couple of old blokes in the row in front remark on how so far this season surprisingly few balls have been booted out of the ground. “Bust a gut!” shouts someone all of a sudden, I’m not sure why, but I don’t think it’s to do with the lost balls.

Coggeshall are looking quite strong on the left where Banyard occasionally links up with full-back James Long. The Harlow goalkeeper also looks a little suspect with his handling. Now Banyard runs into the penalty area and as he goes to take the ball past a defender, he could not be more scythed down if the defender had actually been wielding a scythe. Harry Kane awards a penalty without hesitation and Connor Randall scores from the spot to give Coggeshall a one-nil lead which, on the basis that they are the only team to have had a shot on goal, they deserve.

To our right the sun is sinking low in the sky, just about shining, albeit murkily through a pale yellow gash in the cloud. On the far side of the ground beyond the perimeter fence leafless trees stand gaunt and bare, beyond them and out of sight is the river Blackwater. “Keep up with play lino” calls someone in the crowd, perhaps feeling unable to goad the referee now he has been good enough to award Coggeshall a penalty. “He hasn’t had anything to keep up with” shouts someone else not unreasonably. It is twenty nine minutes to four and the Coggeshall captain is booked for holding a Harlow player.

With not much more than five minutes to half time Harlow are enjoying a rare attack and spell of possession on the left. The ball is passed into the Coggeshall penalty area; it is booted out and comes to Harlow’s Syrus Gordon who thunderously boots it back from 25 yards away, but into the top right hand corner of the Coggeshall goal; it’s a barely believable goal but the score is definitely now one-all, the siren has sounded again and the Harlow fans behind the goal are jumping about in the time-honoured manner. The half closes with a couple of corners to Coggeshall, but Gary and I are already heading for the tea bar, only looking back over our shoulders to ensure we don’t miss something worth seeing, we don’t.

Gary kindly buys the teas, and we check on the local half-times, discovering that Braintree v Fylde is nil-nil and Colchester United are losing by a single goal. Frustratingly, we can’t find any news of the score in Ammanford but to compensate we discuss how Harlow Town once beat Leicester City in the FA Cup ( I say I think it was about fifty years ago but it might have been a recently as 1980 – which in fact it was) , and how poorly Colchester continue to do under the management of the Cowley brothers, who I think I dislike because I don’t see why they always work together; it’s the sort of behaviour that if normal would have seen Mike McCartney (aka Mike McGear) in the Beatles instead of George Harrison.

The match resumes at six minutes past four and I ask Gary if he fancies standing to watch the second half, but he doesn’t and we return to the seats and shadows of the main stand. I’ve zipped my coat up now but I still don’t feel as cold as I thought I might and the sun has pretty much set. As Coggeshall win a succession of corners, the Harlow number twelve Oluwakorede Akintunde bounces up and down on his toes at what looks like the edge of the penalty area. Surprisingly, Harry Kane then books him and when someone in the crowd asks the linesman why, he says it’s because he didn’t retreat ten yards from the corner kick, but I would still prefer a talking linesman to VAR.

Confused, but not worried, just keen to have a good time, I ask Gary why he thinks Harlow Town’s nickname is The Hawks; but he has no more idea than I do unless like Havant & Waterlooville it’s simply because the first two letters of their name are the same as the first two in hawk, and hawks are considered more exciting than hamsters, who would be the only other easily remembered alternative if wanting a name from the animal kingdom. Our reverie is broken by a sudden outburst of anger from the Harlow Town bench, who it seems have become suddenly incensed because they haven’t been awarded a throw -in. A little more than five minutes later, the Coggeshall Town bench suffer a similar fit of apoplexy, but over a perceived foul. “Sit down, shut up, Sit down shut up” chant the Harlow fans, and the big hands on clocks everywhere starts to head up towards the number twelve. In front of us and an old boy turns round to tell a Harlow supporter that he doesn’t think there will be any more goals this afternoon.

Harlow win a couple of corners as twenty-five to five approaches and from the second one a header from very, very close range from Nana Agyemang does the only thing it can do and finds itself in the net and giving Harlow Town the lead. Once again, the siren sounds and a few of the older supporters look in vain for a table to crawl under. “Everywhere we go” sing the Harlow fans behind the goal, but I can’t quite work what happens everywhere they go and am frankly not interested enough to ask, although I like to think that everywhere they go they sing the praises of the 1946 New Towns Act.

Coggeshall don’t look in the mood to be able to score an equaliser and the game continues to take place mostly off to our left before at nineteen minutes to five Harlow substitute Jack Haley stands alone at the far post as a cross loops over everybody else and he heads it firmly to score Harlow’s third goal. To add to the spectacle the Coggeshall goalkeeper Joe Hodgson gets his hands to the ball but can only punch it up into the roof of the net, making the goal look a bit more exciting than it probably was. The siren sounds for what will be a final time today as the Harlow supporters celebrate and the last ten minutes are played out to an earache inducing cacophony of tuneless singing and chanting as if the Harlow fans have all suddenly become very, very drunk.

As normal time expires and we begin to enjoy time added on, Gary and I make a move for the clubhouse and the gents toilet, getting ready to make ourselves comfortable for the walk back to Coggeshall town centre and a final drink before the bus arrives to take us away. Happily, time added on is brief, although we are surprised to find that even after we have drained off excess tea and beer, the Harlow players are still milking applause from a lap of honour.

It’s not been a particularly good game, but it was good enough and what is not to like about drinking beer, travelling on buses and watching football. More importantly however, not seeing Haverfordwest County on the telly has not stopped them winning 10-9 on penalties .

Ipswich Town 1 Leicester City 1

November 3, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Suddenly it’s November and my back garden is strewn with yellow fig leaves, which might be odd if it wasn’t for the presence of the increasingly naked fig tree just beyond the back of my house. The fig leaves are a reliable indicator of what time of year it is and usually, so is a list of the number of football matches I’ve seen since the start of the football season. By November of last season, I had seen Ipswich Town play six games at Portman Road, and I’d missed two because I was away in France watching Lorient and Stade Brestois instead. By November of the 2022-23 season, I’d seen Town play eight matches at Portman Road and that was without seeing any Town games at all during the whole of September because I away again. This season I’ve missed just one home match, but I’ve only seen Town three times. I’m beginning to think I’m not getting value for money from this Premier League malarkey.

Leaden skies and spits of rain accompany me on my walk to the railway station where I stand far up the platform away from the hoi polloi, in a spot where I know the second carriage with a pointy front end will stop. Another man with grey hair has been pacing up and down the platform and gets into the same carriage once the doors eventually open, which they don’t for a good thirty seconds. He looks a bit nerdy, like a possible contestant on Only Connect. Gary joins me at the next station stop and we talk of someone he knows who is over seventy and still works in order to pay off his mortgage. Sliding down the hill into Ipswich we see two of the four polar bears and Gary muses on how many other football supporters travelling to games this weekend across Europe have seen polar bears on their journey to the match. I tell him how an article in the Guardian referred to the ‘Polar Express’.

The ‘plaza’ in front of Ipswich station doesn’t seem quite as busy as usual, but the Leicester supporters in the car park-cum-beer garden of the Station Hotel are plentiful. We stop and buy from a pretty, smiling young programme seller who is working the blue, mobile, metal desk at the end of Portman Road this week. The turnstiles aren’t yet open, and we have to weave between static Leicester supporters. A bunch of people surround a large white banner that reads “Premier League stop exploiting our loyalty” and pose for photos. “They’re Leicester fans” says Gary. “Well, they won’t be Ipswich” I reply cynically, obliquely expressing my belief that the revolution will not begin in Ipswich or be televised on Look East or About Anglia.

Reaching ‘the Arb’, we order a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride and a pint of Lager 43, for which Gary kindly pays. In the beer garden we find Mick half-way through a pint of Suffolk Pride already because he’s been here since a quarter past one having forgotten what time we agreed to meet up. I tell him he’s getting old and Mick soon remarks upon the gaberdine raincoat I am wearing, which I tell him my father wore when he was in the Royal Navy, and it is older than I am. This provokes Mick into telling us how as a child he grew up wearing the cast-off gaberdine raincoats of Ken Bruce, the radio broadcaster. Mick’s aunt, who lived in Scotland, was friends with the mother of the juvenile Ken and she would send the coats that Ken had grown out of down for little Mick to wear. This in turn leads to mention of former Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s Gannex raincoats and Keir Starmer’s tickets to see Taylor Swift, before Mick stuns us both with his surprising admission that although he despises the woman, he really fancies Kemi Badenoch.

After Mick’s confession I need a drink and head inside to buy another round, but am disappointed to find that the Suffolk Pride is now ‘off’ and I have to have Mauldon’s Special Bitter instead. Time moves on as it always seems to and not much after twenty-five to three after Gary has suggested we just stay at the pub all afternoon, we depart for Portman Road, Mick locking his bicycle to one of the stands close to where the olde West Gate to the town once stood. We go our separate ways near Sir Alf’s statue, and I walk down Portman Road alongside a small man with long hair wearing a replica home shirt, who introduces himself as Matt and predicts a 3-2 win for Town. I tell him I think we’ll win 2-0. The queues at the back of ‘Churchmans’ are quite long again and that at turnstile 62 seems the longest, but I can’t not join it and by the time I get to my seat everyone is stood silently, hopefully contemplating the futility and stupidity of war, even though it is a full nine days before ‘Armistice Day’. Even the seagulls atop the cross bar of the Sir Bobby Robson stand appear to be standing to attention. As usual however, I find it slightly weird how professional football now attaches itself to Remembrance, it never used to. Is it just what is now called ‘virtue signalling’? I’ve come to watch a football match, and I only really wanted to remember the fabulous Trevor Whymark today. I will remember those killed by wars on 11^th November.

The game soon kicks off, Leicester getting first go with the ball, aiming in the direction of Alderman Road and the canal and wearing all white, although just ‘white’ isn’t good enough for football kits anymore and the programme tells us on page 31 that the colour of the kit is actually ‘light ice blue’. Town are thankfully in the usual plain old blue and white. A little surprisingly, at the referee’s whistle Leicester play the ball back from the centre spot and hoof it forward like in days of yore. Then, to home fans amusement an early back pass goes beyond the Leicester goalkeeper towards his own goal, but unfortunately it is easily recovered. “We’ve only just got in the ground too” says Pat from Clacton “they were searching everyone’s bags”.

The afternoon is wonderfully grey, with the floodlights and illuminated adverts somehow making it look even greyer because of the contrast. “Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, The Norwich ran away” chant the Sir Bobby Robson standers getting prematurely excited with the season of Advent just 30 days away. Leicester create a couple of early chances attacking Town from wide positions. Eight minutes are lost, and Muric makes a flying save at the expense of the game’s first corner kick. “Come On Leicester” chant people who might once have parked their cars over the grave of King Richard III or bought a swede from Gary Lineker’s father.

It’s the fifteenth minute and Aro Muric makes another necessary save at the expense of a corner, this time keeping out a shot from Facundo Buonanotte, whose first name is derived from the Latin word for ‘eloquent’, which is unusual for a footballer. So far, but for Sam Szmodics heading an Omari Hutchinson cross over the goal and Conor Chaplin shooting past a post, Leicester have been the better team, without being very good; it’s a bit like a Second Division match as if both teams are re-living old times. Leicester’s Wout Faes clashes with Leif Davis which displeases the home crowd. “Fuck off, you fluffy-haired cunt” shouts someone from behind, and I think of Alan Brazil, probably Town’s only fluffy-haired player as long as I continue to forget about Kevin Beattie’s and Trevor Whymark’s perms.

An eighteenth minute shot from Conor Chaplin earns Town a corner and at last I get the opportunity to bellow “Come On You Blues” repeatedly until the kick is taken. “Do-do-do, football in a library” chant the Leicesterites revealing either that they rarely visit libraries, which is believable, or that the libraries of Leicester are quite unlike those in other places. The game is changing and Town win two corners in quick succession and again I bellow “Come On You Blues”, possibly until I’m blue in the face. The eloquent Facundo Buonanotte is booked by referee Tim Robinson, inevitably for dissent, although in this case by kicking the ball away his action has spoken louder than any words.

With the game a third over, Town win more corners and Dara O’Shea heads wide.” On a plate that” says the bloke behind me. Conor Chaplin shoots wide again and then spectacularly past the top corner after a run across the edge of the penalty area. “I-pswich Town, I-pswich Town FC, They’re by far the greatest team the world has ever seen” chant the Sir Bobby standers to the tune of the Irish Rover, and if Ipswich and Leicester City were the only two teams in the world it would currently be true. The last notable action before two minutes of added on time sees Ben Johnson hit a rasping shot towards the top corner of the goal, but the Leicester goalkeeper was perfectly situated to simply and rather nonchalantly pluck it from the air.

The Town are worth the applause they receive as they trot off for their half-time tea, or oranges, or whatever it is they consume and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) and I agree that once the Town got going, they were much the better team; we just need to score. Ray is not here today, so instead of talking to him I eat a Nature Valley cereal bar and consider the design of the Premier League football which, with its oddly molded surfaces looks like something that if somewhat smaller I imagine might be sold in an Ann Summers store, but wouldn’t appear in the window display.

The football resumes at five past four and happily in the same vein as before the players went away and then came back again. For a while it even sounds as if the Leicester fans are singing “I’m Ipswich ‘til I die” before they start on about Jamie Vardy. “Jamie Vardy has won more than you” they chant to the tune of Sloop John B, but they can’t possibly know what I’ve won and to be honest I neither know nor care what Jamie Vardy has won, except perhaps Rebecca Vardy’s hand in marriage, and to be honest that doesn’t seem like something to boast about. “Small town in Norwich, you’re just a small town in Norwich” they continue, revealing that they will probably get lost on the way home.

Moments later and a diagonal cross field ball from Sam Morsy is volleyed beautifully, sumptuously, gloriously, magnificently and above all successfully into the Leicester goal by Leif Davis to give Town the lead they so richly deserve. After Wes Burns’ goal versus Coventry last season, this could well be one of the best goals seen at Portman Road this century. I text my wife to get her to put a bottle of Cremant in the fridge. It feels like we can only go on to score more goals and win because it’s plain to see Town are better than Leicester. But then referee Tim Robinson books Aro Muric for time wasting as he kicks the ball back to Cameron Burgess after it has gone out for a goal-kick and it’s time for Conor Chaplin to go down to receive treatment and everyone else to get some remedial coaching on the touchline. I think people call it “game management”, but there’s still half an hour to go.

“Champions of Europe, you weren’t even born” chant the geographically ignorant and ill-read Leicester fans jealously, realising that three League Cups do not equal a European trophy. Furthermore, Fiona, Pat from Clacton, the man from Stowmarket and I were all born when Town won the UEFA Cup, and three of us were there to see it. Such is the Leicester fans’ brazen lack of familiarity with facts that I’m beginning to wonder if Donald Trump isn’t a Leicester fan.

In the seats around me there’s a debate about who has played well. “To be fair” says the bloke behind me “they‘ve all played well” and he’s right, as he often is. Leicester blink first and make substitutions and four minutes later Jack Clarke and George Hirst replace Sam Szmodics and the glorious Liam Delap, possibly Town’s best centre forward since Paul Mariner. Then suddenly everything goes wrong, as if touched by the hand of some malevolent, unseen force, or the referee. Conor Chaplin is blatantly pole-axed by a Leicester player in the Leicester penalty area and no penalty is given, a clear and obvious error that VAR fails to point out, raising the possibility that we now need a VAR to assist the VAR. Moments later Kalvin Phillips catches a Leicester player with a dangling foot as he checks his run and referee Robinson books him for a second time, and he’s off.

Hereafter the Town are just hanging on. It doesn’t matter about the ‘incredible support’ of 29.874 (2,991 with little experience or knowledge of libraries and the geography of East Anglia). It seems too late for Pat to bring on the masturbating monkey charm from the depths of her handbag. All around is cursing and swearing about VAR and the referee. “Blue Army, Blue Army” chant the crowd, ready to storm FA Headquarters and string up the Premier League ‘grandees’, perhaps. Trying to reduce the tension I confirm that Pat from Clacton is looking forward to her usual, baked potato for her tea when she gets in. Leicester win two corners, Cameron Burgess clears a goal bound shot from substitute Jordan Ayew with an outstretched leg. There will be eight minutes of added on time, more than was added to all the matches played at Portman Road throughout the whole of the 1970’s. Half-way through the added epoch Leicester score through substitute Jordan Ayew and that’s it. Town haven’t won. I guess we now know how Southampton fans felt back in September when Sam Morsy scored. But who wants to feel like a Southampton fan? My wife texts me to say the Crémant is on the top shelf and she can’t reach it, I tell her not to worry.

With the final whistle I applaud the Town team but can’t be bothered to boo the referee Tim Robinson, an aloof and arrogant looking man whose hair is too short and who suspiciously has the same surname as a garrulous, overweight boy I remember from primary school, who was a Leicester City fan and was always getting into fights.

Feeling like I’ve been in a fight myself I head home and on the train, reflecting on how VAR seems to create the conditions for a belief in an unseen, but all-seeing big brother which promises on-field justice, but because it doesn’t share and explain all that it sees gives the impression rightly or wrongly that it sees what it wants to see, a possibility made more real by the corporate, heavily branded, money-loving nature of the Premier League with its need to suckle the big clubs and their global reach, whilst the smaller clubs are all just interchangeable parts. From such fertile soil conspiracy theories sprout.

The Premier League continues to short change me but I’m no doubt in the wrong demographic so no one cares. Tomorrow I shall wear my black T-shirt that bears the slogan “FC IT… where’s the pub”.