Author: martinpbrooks

Ipswich Town 2 West Bromwich Albion 2

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Waking up on a Saturday morning is never quite as good as I think it should be. All through the week I’m usually awake shortly before my alarm clock goes off and I lie there in my warm bed, longing for the weekend, drifting in and out of cosy consciousness, wanting to go back to sleep but knowing that in a few minutes the alarm will sound, and I will have to get up and get ready for work.   But on Saturdays, despite the fact that I can go back to sleep, I seldom do, and the lovely lazy feeling of luxuriating in a warm bed somehow doesn’t materialise. It’s as if existence just wants me to be dissatisfied.

Today is Saturday, and having risen from my bed, showered, prepared and eaten a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs and toast and honey with both tea and coffee to help it down, and then kissed my wife goodbye, I am off to face the world of trains, public houses and football.  I hurriedly leave the house to escape the sound of The Stone Temple Pilots who my wife has invited to play very loudly because she knows I won’t be there to complain; not that I would, I’d just stick my fingers in my ears and pull faces or go and play outside.  Outside, it’s a beautiful, clear, bright Saturday morning beneath blue skies dappled with altocumulus.  At the railways station I look over the wall at the back of the platform to see three Christmas tree baubles and I count five ladybirds on surrounding plants.  I didn’t know ladybirds celebrated Christmas, and in February too.  Once on the train I am vexed by one bloke in a group of four ‘lads’, who cannot speak without shouting as they talk of Ibiza, women and Fantasy Football.  I peer out of the train window at the wet fields; after a couple of days of rain everything is sodden and today courtesy of Sky TV it’s another sodden 12:30 kick-off; it will be gone three-thirty by the time I get home, virtually a whole day gone, and at my age I don’t know how many I’ve got left.

Arriving in Ipswich, I head for ‘the Arb’ via Portman Road, where I stop at a kiosk to buy an ice cream but ask for a programme instead (£3.50). The girl who effects my debit card transaction is the youngest looking person I have ever seen working in retail, she looks about twelve.  I thank her sincerely and she thanks me in return but doesn’t wish me ‘bon match’ as a French programme seller would, if they had them.  At ‘the Arb’ I buy a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.60 with Camra discount) and retire to the garden to await Mick.  I sit in the shelter that backs onto High Street , but plagued by more people who can’t talk quietly I move to sit in the open where piercing voices won’t echo off the roof and walls.  It’s not long before Mick appears from the back gate and once he has acquired his own pint of Suffolk Pride we talk of honey, Europe’s most obese nations (Greece and Croatia) , kebabs and takeaway food, e-numbers, water filters, bowel movements,  blood tests and prostates, driving to France, Spain , Italy and Belgium, and Mick becoming a grandfather again next week and having an operation on his foot.  At some stage I also buy another pint of Suffolk Pride and a Jamieson’s, ‘Stout’ Whisky for Mick (£8.56 with Camra discount).

It must be nearly 12:15 by the time we leave for Portman Road, and I consider it a badge of honour that we are the last to leave.  We go our separate ways near the statue of Sir Alf Ramsey as Mick makes for the West Stand and I head to what will to some always be Churchman’s; I pause on the way to help a short woman of Asian origin who is trying to take down the portable gazebo from which East Anglian Daily Times ‘goody bags’ were being sold.  There are no queues at the turnstiles, but disappointingly I am directed away from turnstile 62 by a steward because it doesn’t seem to be working properly; I use turnstile 61 instead, which is almost as good, but not quite.  After syphoning off some excess Suffolk Pride, I emerge onto the stand where Pat from Clacton, Fiona, ever-present Phil who never misses a game, his son Elwood and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) are already in position as the team walk on and flames erupt around the edge of the pitch, warming our faces and any other bare patches of flesh we may have on show.  Meanwhile, Murphy the stadium announcer makes his usual appalling hash of reading out the names of the Town team, failing hopelessly as ever to synchronise with the names appearing on the score board.  By the latter half of the team, I just give up and simply shout the names out as they appear, regardless of what Murphy is reading out.

Today’s opponents are West Browich Albion and it is they who get first go with the ball as they attempt to put it in the goal net at the Castle Hill and Akenham end of the ground.  Whilst Town are in their signature blue and white, West Brom are kitted out in an all-peppermint green number, which seems ill-advised, although conceivably it has been devised to simply perplex the opposition who will be too busy mouthing “WTF” to one another to properly defend set-pieces.

The Albion supporters are in good voice and immediately break into a song about Albion which sounds suspiciously like one that Town fans sing about ITFC.  Not sixty seconds have elapsed and West Brom’s number 31 has the game’s first shot at goal, albeit way off target. West Brom then win the game’s first corner and it takes repetition of the mantra “Blue and White Army” at least three times to get the ball back off them.  “Shall we sing, shall we sing, shall we sing a song for you?” enquire the West Brom fans in generous mood and as fictional supporters might have if there had ever been a Hollywood musical about football.  I notice that West Brom’s number four is called Cedric Kipre and hope his surname is pronounced ‘Kipper’, but I don’t suppose it is given that he’s from Cote d’Ivoire. 

Suddenly, it looks like Town might be on the attack, but Wes Burns is offside, and we get to see how unfortunate he looks with his new haircut.  He needs to grow it back as soon as possible and I hope the barber asked if he wanted anything on it to help it grow, and that he accepted.  There used to be a barber and avid town fan on Felixstowe Road (John) who would always ask that, it was one of the reasons I used to go there.  “We want the action down this end” complains Pat from Clacton as I see that the West Brom goal-keeper is called Palmer, which depending on how good he is might almost be a case of nominative determinism.

It’s only the fifteenth minute, but I seem to have been here longer. Seagulls are hovering above the Cobbold stand perhaps looking for burgers and other mechanically reclaimed meat products hurriedly discarded in Portman Road before kick-off.  West Brom win another corner “Come On You Baggies” chant their fans.  The corner takes an age to be taken and results in a shot over the Town bar.  Two minutes later Luke Woolfenden looks to be brushed off the ball a bit too easily and West Brom’s number thirty-one Tom Fellows runs on to score rather too easily.  The only good thing is that I am momentarily reminded of Graham Fellows and his alter ego “Jilted John” , who along with his album “True Love Stories” was another of many highlights of 1978.

The West Brom team have an extended celebratory drinks party on the touch line before returning to resume the match, whilst the referee Mr David Coote, who sadly isn’t bald (unless he’s wearing a toupe) , looks on pathetically.  Two minutes later and Town have a corner of our own and I bellow “Come On You Blues” as loudly as possible to make up for the thousands who remain silent, lost in quiet contemplation. The corner is far too easily cleared and frankly wasn’t worth my effort.  The Baggies fans continue to sing and the Town fans don’t, although someone is banging a drum, albeit mournfully.

I don’t realise it at the time, but the twenty-fourth minute is the peak of the first half for Town as Nathan Broadhead glides into the penalty area and pulls back a low cross which Conor Chaplin proceeds to boot high above the cross bar with ‘the goal at his mercy’.  I shake my fist at the sky.  The West Brom fans couldn’t laugh more if they’d been watching Charlie Chaplin. “Bus stop in Norwich, You’re just a bus stop in Norwich” they sing. “Better than being a public convenience in Smethwick” I think to myself in a Midlands accent.   A half an hour has receded into history and Sam Morsy is booked for bumping into Fellows twice in a few seconds, “David Coote’s a Moron” I sing to myself in the style of Jilted John.  Four minutes later Sam Morsy has a shot on goal, but it’s too weak for Palmer to even have to palm away.  “There’s more of them on the pitch than us” complains Pat unhappily.  I tell her it’s an illusion created by their peppermint shirts.

There are less than ten minutes to go until half time and it seems like West Brom are going to try and spend the whole nine minutes taking a throw-in.  We wait and wait, and Mr Coote starts waving his arms about as if relaying what the odds are on a thirty-sixth minute throw in, before circling his hands about one another like a John Travolta hand jive in Saturday Night Fever.  Town win another corner and I bellow “Come On You Blues” again, not discouraged by the fate of the last corner kick.  Two minutes later, Wes Burns shoots and a deflection produces another corner, and I’ m bellowing once more, but to no effect.  “We all hate Walsall” chant the Baggies fans, I think. “Shit referee, shit referee, shit referee” sing the home fans and the Baggies claim that they had forgotten the home fans were here, although I bet they can remember who won the FA Cup in 1968.

It’s the 43rd minute already and Palmer palms a fine Harry Clarke shot over the cross bar and for the final time this half I get to bellow to no effect. Two minutes of added-on time are added-on and as the first half approaches its finishing line Darnell Furlong dillies and dallies with a throw-in and encouraged by the home crowd, Mr Coote shows him the yellow card.  Time remains however for a final through ball into the penalty area which Conor Chaplin can’t quite reach, “because his legs are too short” suggests Fiona, and we agrees that some sort of clown shoe could make the necessary difference.

With the half-time whistle Mr Coote is booed from the pitch, but it seems likely he’s used to it.  I head down to the front of the stand to speak with Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison, stopping briefly to speak with Dave the steward with whom I used to work back in the 1980’s and early 1990’s, in the days of Frank Yallop, Graham Harbey and Ulrich Wilson.  Ray shocks me by saying that a profile picture I posted on social media made him think of how he imagines a young Boris Johnson might have looked. I may not speak to Ray at the next home game.   

No sooner has the match re-started than Ipswich equalise, George Edmundson nodding the ball on for the excellent Nathan Broadhead to skilfully and acrobatically prod inside the far post on the half-volley.  Nathan Broadhead is such a beautiful player to watch,  with great balance and poise; he just needs longer hair.  Town will surely now go on to win provided Mr Coote allows it, although very soon he is suggesting he might not as he books Harry Clarke for a supposed tackle from behind, but then he does award a free-kick after a foul on Keiffer Moore, which invites ironic and prolonged jeers from the home crowd.

Town are now the better side and dominate possession.  Another corner is won by Town, and Sam Morsy shoots over the cross bar before West Brom decide something better change, and they make two substitutions.  In an isolated West Brom attack,  a free-kick is handled into the Town goal by an Austrian whose name looks like he could be Scotsman, Andi Weimann (Andy Wee-Man), and he is rightly booked, although why keeping the ball out of the net by handling it is a sending off offence, but putting it into the net by handling it isn’t is a mystery; it’s all cheating of the worst kind that could directly affect the result.

A half an hour of normal time remains and at the Sir Bobby Robson Stand end of the ground “When the Town going marching in“ is sung as if someone has died, although a minute or two later a more cheery version is heard.  Meanwhile, West Bromwich have a man down as the Town fans sing “Sky TV is fucking shit”, a point of view with which I concur incidentally, although much more politely. The club golf buggy appears and as the game is put on hold it trundles around the pitch to collect the unfortunate Darryl Dikes and transport him back to the player’s tunnel.  He sits on the back in a pose that resembles Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker”.  The buggy moves slowly. “Put your foot down” I shout, eager for the match to resume; the driver takes no notice.  The bloke behind me suggests this has been the highlight of the whole match.

In due course the match resumes as before with Town actively seeking a goal and West Brom hoping for one. Marcus Harness and Omari Hutchison replaces Conor Chaplin and Wes Burns. Murphy announces today’s attendance as 29,016 including 1,670 Baggies fans. The scoreboard operator, seemingly unable to resist the joy of mental arithmetic, shows the attendance as 30,686.  “They’re there for the taking “ says the bloke beside me.  Moments later West Brom’s number 19, John Swift shoots from outside the Town penalty area and scores, the ball somehow evading the outstretched hands of Vaclav Hladky, who looked all set to save it. “Wasn’t expecting that” says the bloke behind me, and indeed there had been no indication whatsoever that the next goal would not be in the West Brom net.  It feels a lot like fate has been conspiring against us lately.

As Town get back to staying in the West Brom half, the visiting fans come over all religious and start singing Psalm 23, and indeed divine intervention would seem to be the only plausible explanation for their team once again being ahead.   Town win consecutive corners but a lot of time is taken up with West Brom goalkeeper Palmer catching Town crosses.  Seven minutes of normal time remain and Massimo Luongo and Nathan Broadhead make way for Ali Al Hamadi and Jeremy Sarmiento.  Seven minutes later and there will be at least another eight minutes to play.  Two minutes in and Town win another corner before a game of bagatelle ensues with crosses and shot being blocked before the ball drops to Omari Hutchison. At first it seems he hasn’t controlled it, but then as it drops for a second time he strikes it through a crowded penalty area, past Palmer’s palm and on into the goal and Town have equalised again, and deservedly so.

The relief is palpable, isn’t it always? But Town should have won this game and continue to want to do so.  A shot, a save, another corner; almost another minute over the eight, but there is no third goal, and the game ends as a draw.    At least we haven’t lost.   As I leave for the railway station, I think how, much like waking up on Saturday mornings, football often isn’t as good as it should be, but then again I think I might be wrong.

Ipswich Town 1 Maidstone United 2

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As working weeks go it’s been a good one, I had Friday off and only worked until a smidgeon after half past two on Thursday, and all week long I’ve been looking forward to Saturday and the FA Cup fourth round, a ‘straightforward’ home tie versus non-league Maidstone United.  On Thursday night I dreamt of Kieran Mckenna. As is often the case with dreams, I don’t really remember much about it,  but I know I  was left with the sort of sensation of calm and well-being you might expect if you’d just had a chance encounter with Jesus or Mohammed, or George Harrison. I had never dreamt about a Town manager before, and the only ‘celebrities’ I can ever recall  entering my dreams previously are Sid James and former Liverpool City Council leader Derek Hatton.

One of two flies in the ointment today however is that the match begins at half past twelve because it is being televised by the BBC and then transmitted on by BEIN Sports, ESPN, SPOTV ON and Supersport MaXimo 1 amongst others; not that I begrudge those Town fans in Eritrea, Guadeloupe, South Korea and Weymouth the sight of our wonderful team in search of FA Cup glory.  But at least there’s no hanging around waiting to set off the match as there’s not much time to do anything more than fall out of bed, have a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, prime the breadmaking machine and fill up the garden bird feeders before I’m smoothly and quietly driving away in my planet saving Citroen eC4 to collect Gary.  There don’t tend to be many flies about in Northern Europe in January but the second one in the ointment today is that there are no trains to Ipswich from the direction of Colchester, only replacement buses and whilst it is possible to travel on these free of charge because no one ever checks your ticket on a rail replacement bus, that would be as dishonest as charging for a rail fare and then providing a bus ride, and then where would we all be?

We park up and stroll across Gippeswyk Park under what approximates to clear, azure skies in Suffolk in winter.  The roads were busy, but the streets are not and in Constantine Road there is still the odd parked car.  We pass by the entrance to the fanzone and I ask Gary if he’d like me to take his photo with Bluey, Ipswich Town’s Suffolk Punch mascot.  He wouldn’t, but was going to ask me the same thing, and I am tempted because it would make a fine addition to my collection, which sees either me or my wife Paulene in the company of Ri-Ri the Nantes canary, Bouba the Monaco elephant and Merlux the Lorient hake, amongst others.  Instead, Gary buys me a programme (£3.00) by way of payment in lieu, for my electricity and chauffeur fees.  Turning away from the programme booth, Gary attempts to hand the programme to the man in the queue behind him, thinking it is me,  but quickly regains his bearings and we amble on towards the ‘the Arb’, after I have tucked the programme away in my coat pocket.

Bursting in the through the door with a raging thirst after our walk, we find ‘The Arb’ is surprisingly quiet, and we also find Mick sat at a table in the middle of the room before he lithely slips off his stool and heads to the bar to buy me a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride and Gary a pint of Lager 43. Beers in hands we head out into the cool of the beer garden where there are no other drinkers until a couple arrive about fifteen minutes later and sit a polite distance away.  I think Mick would have preferred to stay indoors, but I’m having none of it, sitting outside for pre-match  beers feels to me like the most natural thing in the world.  We talk of the operation Mick is to have on his foot, of police identity parades, the locations of the Mauldon’s and Nethergate breweries, the Golden Hind pub quiz team, today’s team selection, the work ethic and how lazy and unpleasant some people are, and the 1978 FA Cup final. Gary kindly buys me another pint of Mauldons’ Suffolk Pride, a Jamieson’s whisky for Mick and another pint of Lager 43 for himself.  I hand Gary and Mick their tickets which I have printed off because I thought it would be easier than the three of us having to pass my mobile phone between us and open each ticket up from the e-mail confirming their purchase.

It’s gone ten past twelve when we leave for Portman Road, but it’s a slightly disappointing walk to the ground because there isn’t the usual gathering excitement of an increasing and purposeful crowd like it must have been marching to the barricades of the Paris commune. There are however queues at the turnstiles in Sir Alf Ramsey Way, although as usual the further we walk, the smaller the queues become, as if most people, like myopic lemmings  just join the first queue they come to. Mick, Gary and I also voted ‘Remain’.

A visit to the toilet facilities to drain off excess Suffolk Pride is required before we take our seats, and from my position in front of the urinal I hear Murphy the stadium announcer reading out the teams and no doubt failing hopelessly to synchronise with the players’ names appearing on the electronic scoreboards.  It’s a pity to miss out on trying to behave like a French football fan by bawling out the players’ surnames, but Murphy would doubtless have ruined it with his lack of co-ordination, so it’s probably best for my mental health and future comfort that I am down here in the toilet.

Up in the stand, our seats are fairly central and at the front of the middle tier of what to people of our generation is still the Pioneer stand; they are in row B, but there is no row A, so our view is only obstructed by passing late comers, people with weak bladders and the interminably hungry who flit back and forth before us annoyingly on their way to and from the facilities under the stand.  With all the hand shaking malarkey out of the way the game begins; Ipswich getting first go with the ball and sending it in the direction of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand. Ipswich are in their standard blue shirts and white shorts whilst Maidstone sport yellow shirts and black shorts, although apparently their shirts are actually ‘amber’, but they don’t have fossilised insects encased within them, Maidstone’s oldest player Gavin Hoyte being only 33 years old.

“We’re the something Army” ( I can’t make out the third word) sing the Maidstone supporters, who occupy the whole of the top tier of the Cobbold stand and cheer every throw-in that their team win and every tiny perceived mistake by an Ipswich player. They’re clearly not expecting any bigger victories than these and are getting their kicks where they can. Eventually, the home support in the Sir Bobby Robson Stand chips in with some random “Ole’s”. Portman Road is noisy this afternoon but it’s mostly Kentish noise.

Ipswich are dominating possession and with no more than two minutes played a Nathan Broadhead shot is blocked. It’s the fifth minute and Jeremy Sarmiento shoots on goal and hits a post. “ Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, the Norwich ran away” chant the North Stand raising the spectre of Boney M of Christmas past. A minute later Omari Hutchison runs in on goal from the right; he shoots and the ball is deflected onto a goal post before George Edmundson sends the rebound wide. It’s an exciting start to the match and in a parallel universe somewhere, perhaps one where Boris Johnson was never Prime Minister and beer is still 25p a pint,  Town are probably  a couple of goals up already.

“Your support, your support, your support is fucking shit” sing the fans of the plucky underdogs, revealing that they are just as unpleasant and lacking in imagination and vocabulary as supporters of the ‘big’ clubs, even if what they sing has the ring of truth.  “Shall we sing, shall we sing, shall we sing a song for you?” they continue generously, taunting the pensioners who populate the Sir Bobby Robson stand but who tell people they sit in Churchman’s. Fifteen minutes have passed and Town win a corner. “Come On You Blues” I bellow before looking around me to check for signs of life amongst my fellow silent Town fans.  Sam Morsy shoots, the Maidstone goal keeper saves, Town have another corner and the process repeats.

Town continue to dominate completely, and Maidstone aren’t getting a kick as their coach driver apologises to manager George Elokobi for not having been able to manoeuvre his vehicle down the players tunnel.    The Maidstone fans repeat their kind offer to sing a song for us and then chant what sounds to me like “We’re the black pepper army”.  Omari Hutchison shoots and wins another corner before George Edmundson heads past a post.”

In the Cobbold Stand, the Kentish equivalents of Lennon and McCartney, and Rogers and Hammerstein have been thinking furiously, but can only come up with “Doo, Doo, Doo, Football in a library”. Mick asks me what they’re singing and having told him I add that I have e-mailed the club to suggest they paper the walls of the inside of the away  end with that wall paper that looks like the spines of books; I don’t know if they have  taken any notice because all they said in their reply is that they would pass it on to the relevant department – the wallpapering department presumably, who knew?

Jeremy Sarmiento shoots over the cross bar prompting rare chants of “Addy, Addy, Addy-O” from the home support and as the game reaches the point where only two thirds of it remains unknown the Maidstone number ten collapses to the ground, receives treatment and everyone else has an impromptu drinks party by the touchline.  The two-thirds milestone is also the prompt for the Maidstone fans to sing “Championship you’re ‘aving a laugh”, a disarmingly honest admission that if a team hasn’t scored against them after thirty minutes they can’t be much good.  It’s at times like this when one most regrets the overblown, puffed-up  marketing ruse of using the term ‘Championship’ as opposed to plain old ‘Second Division’ .  Singing “Second Division you’re ‘aving a laugh”,  doesn’t quite sound so damning.

On the touch line, Kieran Mckenna signals obscurely with his hands as if communicating to the players that the odds on a draw are shortening if they want to place a bet now.  Being as close as I’ve ever been to Keiran Mckenna feels a little odd having dreamt about him the other night; it’s a bit like when you’re a teenager and the shock of finding yourself sat on the bus next to a girl you really fancy.  Jeremy Sarmiento has another shot and Town win yet another corner; minutes pass and another corner follows a deflected Jack Taylor shot. From the corner Maidstone break, it’s the first time it’s happened, it’s almost the first time Maidstone have been close to having possession in the Ipswich half as the man with his team’s most exotic sounding first name and prosaic surname, Lamar Reynolds bears down on goal and then clips the ball over Christian Walton and into the Town goal net. The Maidstone supporters are understandably very excited, but not it seems as much as the collection of people in the peculiar car seats allocated to Maidstone which pass for a substitute’s bench nowadays.  They race onto the pitch to form a human mound with the team and most impressively substitute Chi Ezennolim gets booked by referee, the completely hairless Mr Anthony Taylor, even though he will not end up getting to play any other part in the game.  Somewhat bizarrely, Maidstone lead one-nil, but Ipswich will surely soon equalise and then win comfortably.

Two minutes of added on time are announced by Murphy as the Maidstone fans channel the clean-living optimism of Doris Day and sing  “ Que sera, sera, Whatever will be, will be, We ’re going to Wem-berley, Que Sera, Sera.”  With the half-time whistle it’s time to discharge more excess Suffolk Pride and as Mick queues for a vegan pie I return to our seats to enjoy the names on the list of one-hundred people, mostly children I imagine, who are attending Portman Road for the  first time today.  Perhaps I shouldn’t, but  I can’t help laughing at the names Ember, Maverick and Rogue, and pine for the days of Moon Unit and Dweezil;  it’s probably my age.

At twenty-six minutes to two, the match re-starts and Mick returns, pie-less, I guess they ran out of vegans.  As the Maidstone fans resume their chants of “Black pepper army”  Gary explains that they are actually singing “Black and Gold Army”, which makes me think I should perhaps get a hearing aid like his. Ten minutes of Ipswich domination pass and then Jeremy Sarmento cuts in from the left, shoots, and scores. I leap up and wave my arms about like a man with only a sketchy understanding of semaphore and receive a text message from a friend in Weymouth that reads “That’s more like it”. Town have equalised and will surely soon score a second, third and probably a fourth goal as the Earth returns to its normal orbit around the sun and the clocks stop going backwards.

A mass substitution follows shortly after the goal as Sone Aluko, Dominic Ball and Cameron Humphreys bow out in favour of the superior Conor Chaplin, Harry Clarke and Leif Davis.  “You’re not singing any more” gloat those Town fans who know the tune of Cwm Rhondda and can be bothered to sing at all. Not to be outdone,  Maidstone make substitutions of their own, but only two of them, and then chalk up another yellow card in the form of the ageing Gavin Hoyte.

As chants of “Championship, you’re ‘aving a laugh” resurface, Town fans retaliate with “Sunday League you’re ‘aving a laugh” and the wit and ready repartee of the football crowd reaches its peak for the afternoon.  Town still dominate of course, but just as it seems travellers might be able set up camp in the Town penalty area, or sheep might safely graze, Maidstone break away for the second time in the match and lightning strikes again as Sam Corne, who sounds like a character from rustic folklore, smacks the ball into the Ipswich goal net with aplomb, and Maidstone are leading for an improbable second time.  “Who are ya?” ask the Maidstone fans, temporarily losing their memories in the excitement of it all and capable of only following this up by stating the obvious with “ You’re not singing anymore”.

There are still twenty minutes left so there is no need for Ipswich fans to worry, but just as insurance Town replace Omari Hutchison with Wes Burns, and Jeremy Sarmiento with Gerard Buabo although a little alarmingly Wes Burns has had his hair cut.  Nevertheless, Town pretty much instantly win a corner as the afternoon’s attendance is announced as 27,763  of whom a stonking 4,472 are from Maidstone,  despite Maidstone’s largest home attendance this season being only 4.024. Not to be outdone, Maidstone again try to show that they can make double substitutions too and introduce Perri Iandolo for Sam Bone and for Lamar Reynolds a man who sounds like a block of Council-owned flats, Riley Court.

Town continue to keep possession of the ball except when Maidstone boot it away. George Edmundson appears to be fouled in the penalty area but is booked for just pretending by the overly suspicious and imaginative Mr Taylor.   Conor Chaplin has a shot saved and corner follows corner follows corner.  Harry Clarke has a shot saved, a Conor Chaplin header is saved, a Wes Burns header is saved and before we know it, time is being extended by eight minutes. In the netherworld of compensatory time a Jack Taylor shot is blocked, corner follows corner again and Nathan Broadhead shoots wide; a Jack Taylor header is saved, a Nathan Broad header is saved and then that’s it. Ipswich haven’t won at all and we’re out of the FA Cup despite a ‘straightforward’ comfortable home tie to a non-league team. 

I’m a little shocked, I thought I’d seen it all in fifty years of coming to Portman Road but there’s no denying I hadn’t seen this before and in truth I  didn’t really want to. I hope I dont see it again. As we leave the ground Gary says he expects we’ll wake up in a minute and it will all have been a bad dream.  I’m still waiting.

Ipswich Town 2 Sunderland 1

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I don’t know much about Slumberland mattresses and it’s surprisingly difficult to find much out about them on the interweb, there isn’t even anything about them on the fount of all knowledge that is Wikipedia.  What I do know however, is that Slumberland sounds a lot like Sunderland,  the town (probably now a city) at the mouth of the River Wear whose football team won the FA Cup in 1937 and 1973, lost a Milk Cup final to Norwich City in 1985 and are forever sleeping giants, having seemingly worn themselves out by winning what people now call the Premier League, six times between 1892 and 1936.  Today, Ipswich Town play slumbering Sunderland in the Second Division and I will be at Portman Road to witness this fixture for the 19th time since 1976.

When I woke up this morning and drew back the curtains on another day, my wife suggested I close them again because outside was grey and miserable. I didn’t however, but instead put my mind to how I was going to fill the additional two and a half hours before kick-off this evening, the match having been chosen for broadcast by loathsome Sky TV with a ridiculous kick-off time of 5.30pm.  If the modern football-watching equivalent of the proletariat could be bothered to draw up a Charter for the running of football, it would surely demand that all games only kick-off at 3pm on Saturdays or between 7.30 and 8pm on weekdays. Come the revolution.

I spend a morning replacing an outside light, failing to find a bulb that fits an indoor light and filling-in a hole in my garden that looks like it was dug by a rat.  Fortunately, I am pretty sure a combination of some peppermint oil and the local cats has now sent the rat packing, or to an early grave.  After a lunch of baked Coley and chips and an espresso coffee I set off for the match.  Engineering works on the railway mean that trains have been replaced by buses today, and refusing to pay a train fare to travel by bus (why are they allowed to charge the same?) I take the wheel of my planet-saving Citroen e-C4 and agree to give Gary a lift too, in order to keep his petrol-burning, carbon monoxide emitting Suzuki Swift off the road.  Our journey is a smooth one, punctuated on arrival in the outskirts of Ipswich by a stop to lend two season tickets to Aimee, an attractive mother of two whose daughter is in a girl’s football team, which has won its way through to a national competition.  The promise is that the team will get to wave to the crowd from the pitch at half-time, but Aimee now tells me that because the game is on Sky TV this may not happen, which seems like a good reason to smash-up your satellite dish, or perhaps your neighbours’, and post it back to Rupert Murdoch with no postage.

Having parked up the trusty, clean-air loving Citroen, Gary and I wander across Gippeswyk Park towards Portman Road and ‘the Arb’ beyond, pausing only for Gary to kindly buy me a programme by way of ‘payment in kind’ for his lift.  Uniquely, the front cover of the programme looks like an advert for hair shampoo featuring Nathan Broadhead. At ‘the Arb’ I order a pint of Lager 43 for Gary and a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for myself, whilst a loud man sat at a table with other drinkers complains at length that Gary has not closed the door, although oddly, at no time does he say “Please would you close the door”. Gary has a hearing aid,  doesn’t hear the man and didn’t realise the door hadn’t shut.

In the beer garden, we join Mick who is already half-way through a pint of Suffolk Pride. We talk of the African Cup of Nations, how Gary knows someone whose nephew plays for Tanzania (and Wealdstone), and how it is a busy time of year for undertakers. Mick gives me a belated Christmas present, an Ipswich Town hat bearing the logo of TXU Energy, the club sponsors during the glorious relegation season of 2001-2002.  It’s not even two o’clock and many drinkers are already leaving for Portman Road. We collectively scoff at such behaviour and Gary boldly buys another round of drinks, the same as before, but Mick has a Jameson’s whisky. We discuss how my pint of Suffolk Pride is a bit of a short measure, but like people not prepared to stand up to the way televised football invariably inconveniences the people who actually go to football matches, we decide to let it pass this time.

At around 5:15 we leave for Portman Road, we are the last football supporters to leave the pub and can’t stop being surprised at how the throng of people treading the well worn path is much reduced today.  Perhaps supporters have had enough having spent all afternoon in the pub, or maybe they are in the thrall of Sky TV and the leaping flames that will greet the players as they parade onto the pitch. We part ways near the statue of Sir Alf; at the back of his stand there are no queues and as I enter the meaning-laden turnstile 62 I ask the steward “Have you been waiting for me?”, I’m not sure why.

Up in the stand, Pat from Clacton, Fiona and ever-present Phil who never misses a game and his son Elwood are all here, but the man from Stowmarket (Paul) is missing; I’m surprised (again).  I have missed the leaping flames that now seem to be de rigeur before televised games, but I’m in time for Murphy the stadium announcer’s reading out of the teams.  Wondrously, his performance is much better today and he gets through the first seven or eight names pretty much in sync with the names appearing on the scoreboard, but he can’t help gabbling Conor Chaplin far too quickly and all is suddenly lost and my bawling of players names as if I’m French becomes a hopeless, pointless struggle like trying to look cool in a Norwich City shirt.

Before kick-off there is a minutes applause for all the Ipswich Town supporters and a former player who have died in the last year, because apparently this fixture is the club’s dedicated ‘Memorial Match Day’ for the season.  It’s an odd idea and I don’t like it very much; it strikes me as mawkish. Sadly, people die but life, and that includes football, is for the living. Also, if people didn’t die we would need much bigger football stadiums, but I suppose they could always watch on Sky TV.

At last, after a decent burst of The Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude’,  the game begins, and Sunderland get first go with the ball, aiming it more or less in the direction of the hospice on Anglesea Road.  Pleasingly, Sunderland are sporting their handsome signature kit of red and white striped shirts with black shorts, and look like Exeter City, which I‘m hoping is a portent for another six-nil home victory; we haven’t had one for a while now.  Town are also in their natural habitat of blue shirts and white shorts.  Portman Road is full of noise today and I suspect an afternoon in the pub is something to do with it.  “Addy, Addy, Addy-O” sing the Town fans in the Sir Bobby Robson stand.  Sunderland win the games’ first free-kick to groans from the home crowd and their number 21, Alex Pritchard, who is allegedly 3cm taller than Conor Chaplin, but doesn’t look it, has the first shot on goal; it goes over the cross-bar.  I’m finding it difficult to read the black squad numbers of the Sunderland players against the red and white stripes of their shirts.  Harry Clarke loses the ball by the corner flag and some Sunderland player or other advances towards the goal unopposed. “Firkin ‘ell” I mutter to myself under my breath so that Pat from Clacton won’t hear, but fortunately the ball is soon cleared. 

Only seven minutes have passed and the Sunderland fans sing “Doo Doo Doo, football in a library”.  A low Wes Burns cross skids across the face of the  goal but Kayden Jackson cannot quite get to it to apply the merest ⁹⁸touch needed to direct it into the goal.  Eleven minutes have gone and the Sunderland fans sing “Doo doo doo, Football in a library” and then “Shall we sing, shall we sing , shall we sing a song for you”.  Nobody responds, but I am tempted to ask if they know ‘I had too much to dream last night’ by the Electric Prunes, but I’m not sure that vocally they could re-create the reverb on the electric guitars which is an essential part of the record.   The seat on my left is vacant and so is the one next to that.

Darkness encloses the ground like a shroud.  Pat from Clacton asks the bloke behind her not to swear. “Your support, your support, your support is fucking shit” sing the Sunderland fans,  perhaps because it doesn’t  contain enough swear words.  “Football in a library, doo- doo-doo” continue the Sunderlandites, clearly now attempting a world record for the number of times they can diss another club’s support in the first half of a televised match.  It’s the nineteenth minute and a succession of short passes finally play Kayden Jackson into a position where he rolls the ball past a post.  The Sunderland number five Dan Ballard falls extravagantly under a challenge from Kayden Jackson.  Ballard is an outside toilet of a man, Jackson a waif by comparison. Referee Mr Allison awards a free-kick to Sunderland. “Weed” I bawl at Ballard, “Pathetic man”. He scuffs the ball into touch, no doubt unsettled by my calling him out.   Five minutes later and Harry Clarke is the first player to see Mr Allsion’s yellow card; the match is pretty good,  but home fans agree that the refereeing isn’t.  A minute passes and Vaclav Hladky makes a fine save at the expense of a corner to Sunderland and then they score as a large gap appears to one side of the goal and Jack Clark has too much to aim at to miss.  “Clarke, Clarke will tear you apart again” Sing the Sunderland fans to the dreary, similarly titled 1980 tune by the ironically named Joy Division.

The Sunderland supporters are very loud indeed, perhaps because shipyards of old were noisy places, although I don’t suppose the Datsun car factory and call centres compare.  Harry Clarke gets forward and a low hard cross earns a corner. “Come On You Blues” I bellow to a background of abject silence from all around me.  The corner comes to nought.  A third of the match has gone forever. “Football in a library, doo-doo-doo” sing the Sunderland fans now completely at ease with the complicated lyrics. Two minutes later and more Town passing involving Conor Chaplin peaks with a through ball for Kayden Jackson, which he sweeps past the Sunderland goalkeeper into the corner of the goal net and the score is one -all.  “I didn’t even expect that” says the bloke behind me as if at other times he always knows what is about to happen. “When the Blues go marching in” sings the Sir Bobby Robson stand at a funereal pace, perhaps because it’s the Memorial Match Day.

There are five minutes until half-time and more passes culminate in a Kayden Jackson shot wide of the goal.  “Football in  a library, doo-doo-doo” sing the Sunderland fans showing signs of addiction before the ball bounces about alarmingly in the Town penalty area and Murphy announces two minutes of additional time, which pass without incident. Half-time is spent at the front of the stand with Ray his grandson Harrison and son Michael. We agree it’s been a good half, but we appear to lack the confidence of previous games and Kayden Jackson would have done better in the days of two up front and needs Trevor Whymark to play off.

The football resumes at twenty-three minutes to seven and within a minute a Leif Davis shot forces a not very elegant save from the Sunderland keeper.   Sunderland win a free-kick from which they thoughtfully shoot directly over the bar and then Town work the ball from one end to the other with a succession of short passes. “Champagne football” says the bloke behind me, although really it’s Suffolk football.  George Edmundson puts his hand on the shoulder of Sunderland’s number seventeen who collapses in a heap and Mr Allison brandishes his yellow card, before celebrating the passing of an hour by doing the same at Wes Burns.  “We forgot, we forgot, we forgot that you were here” chant the Sunderland fans, but I’ve forgotten why.

“Handball” calls the home crowd as one at the north end of the ground, making that glorious unified sound of appeal, but of course Mr Allison’s ears are closed to it.   On sixty-five minutes Sunderland make a substitution with Adil Aouchiche replacing Abdoullah Ba, I recall seeing Aouchiche playing in French Ligue 1 for both St Etienne, where I thought he was quite good, and Lorient and can’t imagine why a player would leave such lovely places for Sunderland.  Within a minute Sunderland force a defensive howler as Town’s neat passing at the back goes awry and Aouchiche is presented with an open goal which thankfully he screws wide of the goal with a shot off the outside edge of his right foot. He follows this up by being nutmegged by George Edmundson .

It’s time for Town to make mass substitutions and Wes Burns, Kayden Jackson and new loan signing Lewis Travis whose name makes me think of Malcolm McDowell in ‘If’, depart to be replaced by Omari Hutchison, Dominic Ball and on-loan Jeremy Sarmiento from Ecuador via Brighton and Hove.  Town have started to dominate the game now and we even win a free-kick to ironic cheers from the crowd. “You go to a football match, you gotta expect to hear foul language.  It’s fucking ignorant, that’s what it is” blurts the bloke behind me philosophically.

There are less than twenty minutes to play; Town win a corner.  It’s too late to get ‘monkey’ out says Pat from Clacton referring to her lucky masturbating monkey charm from Cambodia.  “When does he he usually appear” I ask her. “Sixty-nine minutes” she tells me. “He’s obsessed” I tell her.  A low cross and a shot for Town follows as pressure builds on Sunderland.  Another corner follows for Town and a free- kick.  Leif Davis crosses the ball, Conor Chaplin finds space, runs towards more and heads the ball firmly into the Sunderland goal and Town lead two-one before an exultant home crowd.  After not scoring against QPR and Stoke some had doubts, but not anymore. “Ralph Woodhouse contact the nearest steward” announces Murphy over the PA system.  “Conor Chaplin Baby, Conor Chaplin O-o-oh” sing the Sir Bobby Robson Stand to the tune of the Christmas number one record from 1981.  “About fucking time” says the bloke behind me.

Not long to go now. Murphy announces the crowd as 29,291 with 1,965 away supporters. “Thank you for your continued support” says Murphy, perhaps worried that we might all stop coming to games at a moment’s notice.  If I do, it’ll be his fault. “One Bobby Robson, there’s only one Bobby Robson” sing some home supporters confusingly, seemingly unaware Bobby died in 2009.  Town are still dominating and appear to almost score again, but instead it looks like Luke Woolfenden misses an open goal.  “We want a striker” chant the Sunderland fans, when from where I’m sitting a couple defenders and a midfielder wouldn’t go amiss either, although handily they already have a referee.

At last additional time turns up and after five minutes of it the game ends and Town win.  It’s been an excellent match with the added joy of coming back from a goal down and returning to second place in the league table having been temporarily usurped before kick-off.  With no trains running, a road closure on my usual route out of town and having to drop Gary off, it will be nine o’clock before I get home. I shall sleep well tonight with or without a Slumberland mattress.

AFC Wimbledon 1 Ipswich Town 3

/ martinpbrooks / 1 Comment

With the end of Christmas, the return to the drudgery of work, the promise of more short, dark days, miserable weather and stale mince pies, the start of January needs something to lift the spirits.  Christians have Epiphany, and those football fans whose teams weren’t knocked out in the preceding rounds have the third round of the FA Cup; Christian football fans get both and no doubt count themselves blessed.

Having returned to the Second Division, Ipswich Town have this season avoided the first and second rounds of the Cup, and something like The Jam’s 1980 single ‘Going Underground’, which went ‘straight-in’ at No1 in the popular music chart, have gone ‘straight-in’ to the third round and a tie with fourth division AFC Wimbledon, who got here the hard way thanks to ‘going knap’ twice with  victories over Cheltenham Town and Ramsgate.  The joy of this third round tie is further enhanced by the fact that I haven’t previously visited to Wimbledon’s new ground at Plough Lane and they will become the first club I have seen play at five different ‘home’ venues. Take that ‘I-spy’ book of English Football League grounds.

But life is never simple, and the journey to Wimbledon is paved with rail-replacement buses, added to the fact that the year has started badly as I have broken my glasses and cannot see well enough without them to drive; safely anyway.  Just to add an extra layer of inconvenience to that, the match kicks off at the ungodly hour of 12:30pm in order that the good people of Aruba, Bolivia, the Central African Republic, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Myanmar, Norway, Rwanda, Sudan and Venezuela, amongst many others may share in our joy via the medium of satellite television on such channels as Star+, SuperSportGOtv LaLiga, DStvNow, NovaSport3, ESPNPlay Caribbean and SportKlub5 Serbia.

As I leave home a little before 8am, my wife Paulene is only just stirring from her slumbers, but I think she understands when I kiss her goodbye and tell her the cup of tea I made her is probably nearly cold. I collect my train ticket (£26.60 with over 60s railcard) from the automatic ticket machine at the railway station. The train is on time and travels through long, broken shadows as the sun rises spectacularly in the East through bands of grey cloud. I look on in wonder through the carriage window, glad I don’t need my glasses to see the glory of this.   “Welcome to this service for Witham, we will be calling at Witham” says the soothing female voice of the train announcement as we depart Kelvedon, and then after a short pause “Next stop, Witham”.  In no doubt that this journey involves going to Witham, I am not surprised when I arrive there and then switch to a smart, bright blue double-decker bus with high backed seats and leg-room that would be uncomfortable even for Douglas Bader.  In the seats behind me are three generations of a family. The grandmother and daughter talk of people they know who died over Christmas, but how they won’t be going to the funerals.  The daughter says everything twice and her mother repeats it; the granddaughter just occasionally squeals.  The bus speeds along down the A12, and the bit of the window beside me that opens shakes in the breeze, causing a draft, but at least it helps to stop the window steaming up.

The bus takes us to Ingatestone where we wait on platform 2 for a train and I talk to a fellow Town fan also on his way to Wimbledon.  We share the glory of Ipswich Town in 2023 and agree that whatever happens, it has been, and still is wonderful, and it is up to everyone to just enjoy it.  He’s had a season ticket since 2007; I don’t tell him I’ve had one since 1983, but hope he still has one in 2048.  The train arrives at Liverpool Street and I take the Elizabeth Line one stop to Farringdon, where I arrive a half an hour earlier than expected and soon board a Thameslink train destined for Sutton, although I will alight at Haydons⁹ Road.  It’s a marvellous ride over the river at Blackfriars and then on through the city’s ripped backside. I peer down into scruffy back gardens, amazed at the prevalence of plastic lawns. Rows of double-decker buses stand idle outside a depot. Vicious looking spikes deter trespassers on roofs and messy graffiti adorns crumbling walls and corrugated iron fences.

Haydons Road is a miserable little railway station, two scruffy, open platforms either side of two sets of rails; this is suburbia and it’s ugly, but mainly because of the roads and the traffic; if trees and grass replaced tarmac and cars it would probably be lovely.  It’s cold and there are spits of something in the air, but it’s only a five minute walk along Plough Lane to the football ground, which is mostly hidden behind mixed-use development of plain appearance, but with attractive brickwork, which is preferable to render and cladding.  I buy a programme and the woman selling the programmes seems to recognise me, almost as if I’m a regular at Plough Lane.  I wonder for a moment if I have a doppelganger living an alternative life in suburban London, then I head into the club shop to admire the exhibits, which include bears, but not Wombles. Outside the shop are two display cases showing models of the previous Plough Lane ground and the Kingstonian ground plus other sacred artefacts.

As someone who has broken the habit of never missing a game home or away, I had no chance whatsoever of getting a ticket (£15) as an away supporter for today’s match.  I have therefore employed guile and cunning to get an old friend, Chris, known as ‘Jah’ because of his knowledge and love of Reggae, who lives in relatively nearby Kingston, to acquire tickets, just as he did when Town played Wimbledon shortly before lock down in 2020.  I had arranged to meet Jah at Haydons Road station, but my earlier than anticipated arrival has messed things up a bit and he was still in the shower when I texted him from Farringdon.  But I get time to explore and enjoy the delights of a sculpture carved from a tree trunk,  a bench that features Orinoco the Womble and an overflowing rubbish bin, the delightful street name ‘Greyhound Parade’, a featureless but clean alleyway behind the away end and a grotty looking pub called the ‘Corner Pin’.  When we finally meet, Jah reveals that he has spotted a bar and cidery nearby which also looked enticingly grotty and we head there to find that it is in fact rather marvellous, being a small bar attached to a cidery inside a rundown looking industrial unit.  It reminds me a little bit of a similar establishment called La Cave du Kraken, which is on the outskirts of Bruay-la-Buissiere in northern France.  I order two pints of an unidentified Porter and a packet of Piper’s Jalapeno and Dill crisps (£13.50). Unfortunately, I couldn’t read the pump label without my glasses. We are soon joined by a friend of Jah, introduced initially only as Mr Lynch, who is also a Town fan and who now also lives in Kingston, but was originally from Tattingstone.  Back in this same bar after the match, I will learn that at school he was taught geography by a man whose daughter I went out with in 1979.

The bar is only small and has perhaps eight or nine tables, so it is odd, given that is no more than 150 metres from the football ground that it is not full. Odder still, it is only ten past twelve and people are already supping up their beer and leaving.  When we eventually depart, about twelve or thirteen minutes later, we discover why, as there are long queues at the four turnstiles to the economically named Ry stand.  We miss the first six minutes of the match. Once we find our seats, Jah, who is a Newcastle United supporter, asks me who he should look out for in the Ipswich team.  Town have a corner.  I tell him Nathan Broadhead and no sooner have the words left my lips than Nathan hits a shot from the edge of the penalty area which he skilfully deflects off the heels of one and then a second Wimbledon player and into the corner of the goal. Town lead one-nil and having just sat down and advised Jah to look out for the Nathan Broadhead I claim some of the responsibility.  The bloke next to me curses the Wimbledon defence with tsks and sighs for their failure to stop the goal.

Wimbledon wear all blue with a yellow band across their chests, whilst Town look like Walls Calippos in all over orange, and clash somewhat with goalkeeper Christian Walton who is in pink, or as Jah suggests, ‘rose’.   In front of us, a large Womble trails a blue wheelie bin behind him and occasionally stops to rhythmically bang the lid as a prelude to the crowd shouting “Wombles”.  We join in because it’s fun, and already not being in with the Town fans has worked out quite well.  I haven’t long enjoyed the sight of a large electricity sub-station in the corner near the away end, when Wimbledon are awarded a penalty, I’m not sure why, even with the aid of the glasses Jah kindly lent me when we were in the pub. “That’s what you need” says the bloke sat next to me, and Wimbledon equalise less than ten minutes after Ipswich went ahead.

The goal inevitably excites the home crowd who begin to celebrate the smallest victories all across the pitch; throw-ins, the easiest of tackles and any small failures by Town players are either cheered or jeered  enthusiastically as if instead of the Town shirts bearing the Ed Sheeran logo thing, they bear the words “We are mighty Ipswich and we’re loads better than you, you snivelling little menials and we are gonna stuff you at least 10-0”.  Sadly however, I think there are some supporters who would like this printed on the Town shirts.

Town win a corner and a chant of “Come You Blues” drifts up the pitch.  The corner comes to nothing, as they often do, but being camped in the opposition half is always nice, even if fleetingly.  Their defensive successive inspires more rhythmic clapping and chants of “Wombles” from the inhabitants of the quaintly named Reston Waste Stand to our left behind the goal that Town are attacking.  Taking the home supporters’ lead of cheering their team,  the Town fans shout “Ole”  as one Town pass follows another, but may be they had hoped for more consecutive passes.  Oddly, Town are giving the ball away more cheaply than usual.  It’s just gone one o’clock and Nathan Broadhead displays excellent dribbling skills to set himself up for a shot for which he displays not quite so excellent shooting skills; both the words ‘high’ and ‘wide’ are unfortunately accurate descriptions. “Championship,  You’re ‘avin’ a laugh” sing the home fans to the tune of “Tom Hark” by Elias and his Zig Zag Ji-Flutes and later The Piranhas.

Marcus Harness is the first Town player to see the referee’s yellow card following a foul but not before referee Mr Donohue first bends down to speak to the prostrate victim, as if to ask him “Would you like me to book him for you?”.  Town haven’t done very much of note since Wimbledon scored, and with Town fans rarely ones to help their team in adversity, ⁹the home fans ask the question “Can you hear the Ipswich sing?” before slightly annoyingly telling us the answer, “No-oo, No-oo”,  but then admitting this is because they are all profoundly deaf, singing “ I can’t hear a fucking thing”.  It is to be hoped however that it’s due to nothing more than a build-up of excess earwax.   

Half-time will be here in less than ten minutes and Freddie Ladapo gets in a shot, but it is weak and easily saved by the Wimbledon goalkeeper Alex Bass, a player who shares his surname with a very tasty type of fish.  Another superb piece of foot-based trickery from Nathan Broadhead then earns Town another corner from which Axel Tuanzebe stretches to head the ball into the Wimbledon goal and Town are back in the lead.    The goal excites the crowd again and the home fans once more clap rhythmically and shout “Wombles” and it’s too silly and too much fun not to join in.  “You ‘af to win that, he’s a foot taller than the other geezer” says the bloke beside me as some Wimbledon player loses out in a struggle to head the ball before we learn that the first half is going to last forty-nine minutes instead of forty-five.  It’s a four minutes in which Omari Hutchinson has a run and shot, the bloke next to me says that at least Wimbledon have got good full-backs, Freddie Ladapo shoots over the cross-bar, Town fans sing “Addy, Addy, Addy-O” and the home fans respond with “Come On Wombles” and “Ole, Ole, Ole, Wombles, Wombles” despite not having heard the Ipswich fans singing.

With the half-time whistle Jah and I drain off some excess Porter and then tour the street food vendors which line the perimeter wall of the stadium offering a wide range of foods.  We look for the shortest queue and separately join queues for crispy pancakes and pies to see who gets served first.  The queue for pies moves much more quickly and I buy us each a sausage roll (£7.00 for two), although the pies have sold out.  When we get back to our seats the game has re-started and I will never know which team kicked off first; not unless I ask someone who knows.  I enjoy my sausage roll and Jah enjoys his too as Wimbledon earn a corner and their number eight, Harry Pell, glances a header into the arms of Christian Walton.  Ten minutes later and Pell is booked for a second time this afternoon and is sent off, we’re not sure why. “It looked like a head butt” says Jah, “But it didn’t seem that bad” he adds, revealing a worrying indifference to casual violence.

This is a reasonable game of football, with both teams mostly playing nicely and just trying to win, rather than not lose.  It’s what used to make Cup matches more of an attraction than dull, same old same old league games, but times change and people seem more serious and earnest nowadays.  Ipswich mostly dominate possession, but every now and then Wimbledon get the ball and quickly put in a cross to see what happens.  For Ipswich, Marcus Harness shoots weakly at the end of a flowing move and Walton makes a decent save from the interestingly named Armani Little after Axel Tuanzebe gives the ball away in the penalty area having earlier been booked.  With fifteen minutes to go Luke Woolfenden has a goal disallowed following a corner and Sone Aluko and Wes Burns replace Omari Hutchinson and Marcus Harness. I tell Jah that Wes Burns is another player to watch and I realise I forgot to tell him about captain Sam Morsy.

I decide I like Plough Lane football ground, it’s very much what a football stadium should be like in a big city, pressed up close against neighbouring buildings, but somehow quite spacious too.  The main stand (The Cappagh Stand) is quite impressive even if it does look a bit like it’s been transplanted from a racecourse and  Jah and I debate how it should be pronounced; is it Capparff as in laugh, or Cappa as in Fermanagh or perhaps Capparrrrrr as in some made-up, more amusing pronunciation.  Either way it gets us through to late chants of “Come On Wombles” and an almost frighteningly inaccurate Sone Aluko shot before Wes Burns runs, crosses and Jack Taylor taps the ball in from close range and Ipswich have won 3-1.  The attendance is announced as 8,595 with 1,390 from Ipswich, although the latter figure is actually at least 1,393 if you count me, Mr Lynch and the bloke sat next to him who Mr Lynch later tells us is  Mick Stockwell’s cousin. Four minutes of added time make no difference except to our ages, but then not much.

It’s a lovely feeling winning a Cup tie, especially away from home when there is no need to rush back, and instead we adjourn to the Against the Grain cidery just round the corner, and Jah is elated too because Newcastle have thrashed Sunderland  three-nil.  After leaving the cidery and Mr Lynch, Jah and I will head ‘into town’ for we have unlimited travel of tfl services and we will talk of all manner of things long into the evening, or at least until about ten past seven when I reckon I ought to be getting home.  We’ve had a lovely day, which is probably pretty much what the Magi said when they turned in for bed 2024 years ago.  

Ipswich Town 0 Queens Park Rangers 0

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Matches between Ipswich Town and Queens Park Rangers don’t register very high, if at all, on my imaginary list of the memorable events in my life.  I don’t recall anything about the first time I witnessed the fixture back in April 1974 (a one-all draw), nor do I remember the most recent fixture at Portman Road in October 2018, when QPR won 2-0.  The only thing I recall of any of the near thirty games I’ve seen between the two teams at Portman Road is some mild crowd trouble back in the 1980’s, when some youths with their jumpers fashionably tucked into their stonewashed jeans spilled onto the pitch to goad and then run away from each other before anyone could say anything derogatory about their ‘girly’ haircuts.

Tonight is a rare Friday evening fixture at Portman Road, and happily, after the debacle of Boxing Day, public transport exists again and I can catch the busy, stiflingly hot train to Ipswich.  A bloke sits next to me who talks to his friend across the gangway; he has a deep voice and an estuary accent, but he doesn’t say much, mostly “yeah”, which he elongates rather weirdly, a bit like a less well-educated Jeremy Paxman. Their conversation is about football.  I would switch off and look out of the window, but it’s dark outside.

Arriving in Ipswich, it’s a Raymond Chandler evening and the pavements are all wet.  It must have rained recently and large drops of water cling to car bonnets and windows, held there by pre-match surface tension.  On Portman Road the ground is not yet open but the club shop is, I venture in to buy a programme for the Norwich match (£3.50) , which I didn’t do at the time, and one for tonight’s game too (also £3.50); I am told I have £1.75 on my club card, so I ask that it is deducted from the total.  As I thank the sales assistant, pick up the programmes and turn to leave he entreats me to enjoy the match, which is nice. As I head off towards ‘the Arb’ I feel my heels rubbing painfully against the backs of my shoes, which is very odd as the shoes aren’t new and it’s never happened before. 

Arriving at the Arb, I find Mick already here and waiting to be served at the bar. He buys a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for himself and very kindly, a pint of Nethergate Blackadder for me.  I had originally asked for a pint of Suffolk Pride too, but changed my mind as I do enjoy dark beer in the winter. The bar is warm and quite noisy, and we retire to the cool and calm of the beer garden where fortunately there is a single free table in the shelter where we sit and talk of houses of multiple occupation, rogue landlords, television comedy, my impending trip to see Town play Wimbledon in the FA Cup, the dip in the number of funerals over the Christmas period and what we did on Christmas Day.  I buy a further pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me and a Jameson Whisky for Mick and we talk some more, this time about tonight’s match and Town’s weakened team.  By the time we depart for Portman Road the bar has emptied out, leaving only those people not going to the match.

Mick and I bid one another farewell at the junction of Portman Road and Sir Alf Ramsey Way, until the next match, the awkward five-thirty kick off on January 13th;  I might have to have dinner at about 9 pm that day. There are queues at the turnstiles in Portman Road, but no queue at all at my beloved turnstile 62, where I wave my season ticket about in the usual confused manner and walk right in.  After syphoning off excess Suffolk Pride, I find myself at the portal to another world, at the foot of the steps up into the stand.  Of course, Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game and his son Elwood are all here already; if I didn’t see them leave at the end of each match I might think they were here all the time.  Apart from the blisters on my heels, things have been going well but then I hear stadium announcer Murphy is back after not being here for the Boxing Day game; like Wizzard I wish it could be Christmas everyday.  Murphy makes his usual botched job of reading out the team, failing hopelessly to synchronise with the images of the players on the electronic scoreboard as he races to his climax like an inept lover; and I give up being French for another day.

The game begins and QPR get first go with the ball which they are mainly trying to send in the direction of the goal in front of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand.  Town are as ever in blue shirts ad white shorts whilst the QPR team are all dressed as Dennis the Menace.  I look for Gnasher in the dugout but can’t spot him.  The QPR fans are quick to tell us that somewhere, presumably the bit of London where they are from, is wonderful.  According to their song it is “…full of tits, fanny and Rangers”, although I haven’t been able to verify this on visitlondon.com website. 

After just three minutes QPR win a corner. “Come on you R’s” chant their supporters quite a bit more enthusiastically than most Town fans ever sing “Come on you Blues”.  Fortunately, it makes no difference however, and  three minutes later a peachy through ball releases Freddie Ladapo into the QPR penalty box. But in the time it takes for Freddie to think “ooh, this is good, just the goalkeeper to beat, now where shall I aim the ball” a defender blocks his view and he has to lay it back for Marcus Harness to shoot straight at goalkeeper Asmir Begovic, who I seem to remember once played a few decent  games on loan for Town back in 2009 and is the only member of the QPR team who hasn’t come in fancy dress as Dennis the Menace.

Eight minutes have passed and the QPR fans are singing “You’re support is fucking shit” in the time honoured fashion and then Freddie Ladapo is through again thanks to a precision through ball from Marcus Harness. This time Freddie shoots but the ball strikes Begovic and balloons into the air descending to earth just the netted side of the cross bar. From the corner Dominic Ball shoots at Begovic.  With less than ten minutes gone, Town have possibly already had their two best chances of the game although no one yet knows that  yet, which is just as well because knowing what people are like, a lot of them would probably clear off home.

 QPR win another corner; their fans ask “Is this a library?” and “Where were you when you were shit?” All these questions, it’s like watching a game in front of a stand full of toddlers.  QPR win another corner and are selfishly keeping the ball to themselves much of the time, although without ever managing a shot at goal.  Omari Hutchinson runs down the wing when he can and pockets of Town support sing an overly wordy song that ends in Ole, Ole, Ole  but doesn’t provide the inspiration the team seems to lack.  We need a Marseillaise, but all we have is God save the King.

On twenty-two minutes there is applause and I wonder why. Fiona tells me it is for a Town supporter who has died; he was just twenty-two years old. “Oh” I say, and Fiona tells me that there will be another applause in the sixty-sixth minutes for another Town fan who has died, who was sixty-five.   As sad as death is, I find these applauses mawkish and a bit weird, I also worry that when my mother dies we are going to need extra time, because she’s already ninety-eight.  Fortunately, she’s not a football fan, so I don’t think she’ll be too bothered.

Three minutes later and the QPR fans are taunting the Town fans with chants of “No noise from the Tractor Boys.”  The Town fans’ response is a stony silence. Then Hutchinson breaks down the left again, Williams makes a run in to the box, but Hutchinson is tackled. “I hope Williams didn’t swear then” says Fiona. “I think he did” says the man in the row in front, whose name is Kevin.

QPR win yet another corner and from my vantage point over 100 metres away it looks very much like Town almost concede an own goal, although QPR might have hit a post, but either way I’m not too bothered because the QPR score remains ‘nil’, although so does the Town score, and an Omari Hutchinson shot being tipped over the cross-bar by Begovic for a corner does not alter matters.  Only ten minutes of the first half remain and I bawl “Come On You Blues” for all I’m worth.  “Three of us singing, there’s only three of us singing” sings Pat from Clacton sotto voce.  The corner is cleared and Conor Chaplin is the first player to be booked by referee Mr David Webb, who I think I remember playing for QPR in the 1970’s.  The booking is probably for a well-conceived foul, although as Fiona points out Chaplin seems to be the only player on the pitch who is shorter than Mr Webb, so it might just be bullying.

The teams exchange more corner kicks to more chants of “Come On You R’s” and I once again bawl “Come On You Blues” raising the fever pitch in the lower tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand to something  like  sitting in a bucket of cold custard.  The corners come to nothing as ever, and then as Hutchinson is flagged offside, a QPR player applauds the linesman, I can’t decide if he’s being sarcastic or if this is genuine expression of appreciation of a job well done, in which case he’s being patronising.

A minute of additional time is added in which the QPR fans sing cheerily of football in a library and people start to leave their seats for the underworld beneath the stand.  “Dire that, innit” says a bloke as he passes by. “Not good” says his companion, possibly commenting on his friend’s grammar as much as the match.  With half-time, the man from Stowmarket (Paul) and I agree that we haven’t played as we would have hoped, and I then nip to the front of the stand to talk with Ray and his grandson Harrison about what I was given for Christmas.  When I return to my seat I eat a Nature Valley Oat and Chocolate Crunchy bar, but the start of the second half is delayed for some time by what Murphy tells us is a ‘medical emergency’ in the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand lower tier, and in due course the crowd applauds the team of paramedics and the sight of a departing stretcher party, which is thankfully, but somewhat chillingly screened from our gaze.

When the match resumes at about ten past nine it is with added gusto, both on and off the pitch, as if the events of half-time have sharpened our appreciation of, and our lust for life, as well they might.  “Blue and White Army “chant the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand a good four or five times in succession, and then, after not too long a delay, they do it again.  A couple of minutes later they do it yet again. “Sit down if you shag your mum” respond the QPR fans, boldly recycling humour popular in year seven throughout the comprehensive schools of West London.

The first half was lack lustre, but now the match is fast and furious, which makes it more exciting but no easier to watch.  If I could lip read and knew what ‘purists’ looked like, I am sure I would see them saying to themselves “this isn’t the game for me”.  Luke Woolfenden is booked for a doomed attempt at winning the ball and Freddie Ladapo heads wide of the QPR goal. The QPR supporters tell us that QPR are “by far the greatest team the world has ever seen”, but I’m not inclined to believe them any more than I would Boris Johnson.   “Come on Blue Eyes” says Pat to the dreamily blue-eyed Marcus Harness, and he almost obliges with a shot which looked to me like it was saved, but for which QPR get a goal-kick.

“Come On Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” chants the crowd sounding increasingly desperate and as if sensing this a triple substitution follows with Harry Clarke, Kayden Jackson and Jack Taylor replacing Williams, Ladapo and Ball.  “Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, the Norwich ran away” sing the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand possibly having heard the question on last night’s University Challenge about the Harry Belafonte and Boney M recordings of Mary’s Boy Child.  Town win a corner and twenty-five minutes of the match remain plus any time added on for bad behaviour and injuries.

Tonight’s attendance is 29,100, with 1,698 supporting QPR we are told. Thank you for your “magnificent support tonight and all year” announces Murphy, toadying to the public. “Ere for the Rangers, You’re only ‘ere for the Rangers” chant the QPR supporters as if singing about Vincent Van Gogh. Twenty minutes remain and things are so desperate Pat from Clacton gets out the masturbating monkey charm along with several others that she carries in her purse, including a random owl and the Hindu deity Ganesh. If this doesn’t work, nothing will.

Thirteen minutes remain, and QPR’s appropriately named Ilias Chair sits down near the far touchline; he is ignored, and the game carries on before he is eventually substituted.  “Come On Ipswich, Come On Ipswich, Come On Ipswich, Come On Ipswich, Come On Ipswich” chant the home crowd. “Fuck off Ipswich” reply the away crowd, employing what possibly passes for an exchange of pleasantries in places like Willesden.  “Lovely feet” says the bloke behind me as Vaclav Hladky checks his stride to fool an opponent and then clears the ball.  Begovic is booked for time wasting and QPR win two more corners in a rare second half attack. “We’ve got super Kieran Mckenna…” chant the home support, relieved that the ball has been cleared, before a final switch sees Blue Eyes and Hutchinson replaced by Sone Aluko and Gerard Buabo, who nobody seems to have ever heard of.

The announcement of eight minutes of added on time comes as a bit of a welcome surprise; Fiona thinks it’s because of QPR’s time-wasting ‘tactics’. The added time passes all to quickly however and despite angry, desperate calls and shouts Town cannot score, although more happily they don’t concede either.  After such a marvellous twelve months at Portman Road it is a disappointing match with which to end the year, the only home league game in which we haven’t scored since October 2022, but it is also the only match in which all five of our five best attacking players have not been available to play; it has been the sort of team selection we would more usually expect if playing a first round League Cup tie against Sutton United or Crawley Town.  

Disappointed, but not downhearted, or even that bothered I leave the stadium and hobble to the railway station.  It feels like old times, comfortably yet uncomfortably familiar. This is what football used to be like before we started all this winning malarkey, this is what real football is about, as lovely as the success is.  I’m sure we will return to winning ways when the missing players return,  but for now I’m going to enjoy listening to and smiling at the wailing and gnashing of teeth of supporters who haven’t benefitted from having had a season ticket every year since 1983.