Ipswich Town 1 Stoke City 0

December 12, 2025December 12, 2025 / martinpbrooks / 1 Comment

Matches against Stoke City always remind me of a bloke I knew when I was at university in the late 1970’s called Tony. Tony was from Wolverhampton and had a thick West Midlands accent but supported Stoke City, or “Stowke” as his accent forced him to call them. Tony, however, was what many people might term “a bit of an oik” and as well liking to boast that he had “shagged the Chief Constable’s daughter”, (Staffordshire’s or West Midlands’ I assumed), he also once defecated into a milk bottle and regularly claimed that he only went to Stoke City matches for the violence, or “vorlence” as his accent called it. Oddly, however, he was also a really nice bloke.

Also a really nice bloke is my friend Gary, although he has no discernible accent and as far as I know has never been carnally involved with any relative of a senior police officer. I must remember to ask him one day what he does with his empty milk bottles. Gary joins me on the train to Ipswich, which a text from Greater Anglia has told me is running a little late this evening. Unperturbed, we talk of the World Cup and Gary tells me how the city of Seattle, which has been nominated as one of the venues for World Cup matches, had decided to combine one of its match days with a Gay Pride Day. The Gay Pride Day was chosen before the World Cup draw took place and when the draw was made last Friday Seattle discovered that on its Gay Pride Day it would be hosting Iran versus Egypt. I laugh out loud as does the woman opposite us.

We arrive in Ipswich more than two hours before kick-off, but the floodlights of Portman Road are already shining, and Ipswich is aglow with electric light from lamp posts, buses, traffic signs, headlights and windows. The sky is a deepening dark blue and the tarmac of the roads shiny black. The red and white stripes of a Stoke City shirt peak out from beneath a jumper. Gary and I hasten as best we can to ‘the Arb’, which isn’t quite as busy as usual, probably because it is mid-week. First to the bar, I buy a pint of Lager 43 for Gary and a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride and, impressed by Mick’s lunchtime snack on Saturday order a Falafel Scotch egg for myself, before we retire to the beer garden to drink, eat and wait for Mick.

Mick arrives just as Gary returns from the bar with more Lager43 and more Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride; at my suggestion he also has a pint of Suffolk Pride for the previously imminent Mick. We talk of relatives’ funerals, Gary’s grandfather, who was a member of the Communist Party, and I tell of how I was watching Toulouse v Strasbourg on tv at the weekend and how when Strasbourg replaced Diego Moreira with substitute Martial Godo I remarked that I had been waiting for him to come on. In fact, however, I had been waiting for some club or other to sign a player called Godot, or Godo as it turned out, so I could make that joke.

The beer garden begins to empty out as other drinkers fold and head for Portman Road, but like the carefree over-sixties that we are Mick gets another round in; rather curiously a gin and tonic for Gary this time, but I have another pint of Suffolk Pride and Mick, eager for alcohol has a pint of Leffe. Gary then tells us about a friend of his who went to Ireland and wanted to buy a newspaper in a village shop, but all the newspapers were dated the day before. When he asked if they had any of today’s newspapers, the shopkeeper told him yes, but he’ll need to come back tomorrow. We continue to laugh and drink and enjoy living before I suddenly notice that it’s twenty-six minutes past seven and we probably ought to go.

Once again, down in Portman Road where I can already hear the excitable young stadium announcer excitedly announcing the Town team, there are no queues at the entrances to the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand and I breeze through, throwing my aeroplane pose as I’m cleared of carrying any weapons by a man in dark clothing and a hi-vis jacket with a hand-held scanner. Another similarly attired man tries to scan me again as I reach the famous turnstile 62 but rather than tell him I’ve already been scanned I just say “Oooh, I’m gonna be scanned twice”, which perhaps oddly, perhaps not, seems enough to deter him.

After venting spent Suffolk Pride, I arrive in the strangely sulphurous smelling stand to edge past Pat from Clacton and Fiona to my seat just as everyone bursts into respectful, appreciative applause for former Town goalkeeper David Best, who has died this week at the age of eighty-two. I don’t know why, but I always think of David Best in the context of the night Town beat Real Madrid, but also wearing a red goalkeeper’s jersey, flying horizontally across the face of the goal in front of the North Stand to perfectly catch a shot and, when he spoke to me as he autographed my Texaco Cup final programme, having the sort of Dorset accent that I imagined belonged in the fictional creations of Thomas Hardy . Incidentally, David Best was for a while manager of Dorchester Town (Casterbridge) where Hardy had lived.

There’s barely time after the minute’s applause for Fiona and ever-present Phil who never misses a game to each hand me a Christmas card before the match begins. It’s Stoke City who get first go with the ball, which they propel in the general direction of the Brewer’s Arms on Orford Street and the former Spiritualist church on Anglesea Road, whilst sporting their handsome traditional kit of red and white striped shirts and white shorts. I will later notice however that the red stripes are all a bit wavy as if the kit designer had spent a long lunch hour in the Brewer’s Arms or was trying to convey the sort of weird ghostly aura normally accompanied by the made-up word “Woo-oooh”. Happily, Town are in their standard blue and white and perhaps as a direct result of this soon have possession of the ball, are advancing down the left, exchanging a couple of passes and Jaden Philogene is cutting inside at the edge of the penalty area to curl the ball inside the far post of the Stoke City goal. Town lead one-nil, and the game is barely two minutes old. Every match should be like this I tell Fiona.

Two minutes later however, and Stoke have a corner, and three minutes after that their supporters are singing “Football in a library” and then “Your support is fucking shit” as they embark on a desperate attempt to make us feel bad about ourselves. Stoke also start to dominate possession. Behind me a bloke has his scarf wrapped over the top his head. “Dress rehearsal for your nativity play?” asks the bloke next to him. Sixteen more minutes of winning one-nil elapse and Town dismantle the Stoke City defence again, only for Ivor Azon to shoot high and wide from a metre or so inside the penalty area with Stoke defenders scattered like shards of broken pottery. The bloke behind me thinks he sees Nunez chuckling.

“One of you singing, there’s only one of you singing” chant the Stoke fans to an oblivious audience, and Jack Taylor generously allows time for the whole Stoke team to receive remedial coaching on the touchline as he receives treatment from a Town physio for some ailment or other. “Who’s the Stoke manager?” asks Fiona, but I tell her I don’t know and all Fiona can come up with is Tony Pulis. Later on, I will remember the name Tony Waddington, but Wikipedia will tell me he died in 1994.

The game re-starts and Stoke still keep the ball most of the time, but without ever looking like scoring. I realise I recognise Stoke’s Nzonzi, having seen him play previously on the telly for Rennes and then I realise he even came on as a substitute for France in the 2018 World Cup final. “Addy, Addy, Addy-O” sing the Sir Bobby Robson standers out of the blue, perhaps to celebrate the twenty-sixth minute but possibly in an attempt to encourage Town to keep possession of the ball a bit more often. The chanting of “Come-On Ipswich”, a few minutes later, which sounds more like pleading, betrays our anxiety despite still being a goal ahead. But gradually the chanting and pleading starts to work, and Town dominate the final ten minutes of the half, even inspiring more confident sounding but boringly repetitive chants of “Blue Army”, whilst Nunez and Philogene both shoot on target but at the Stoke goalkeeper, and Nunez also shoots wide.

Three minutes of added on time are added on and then it’s time to leak more spent Suffolk Pride before speaking with Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison. When asked by Ray for my thoughts on the game so far, I tell him that despite seemingly never having the ball, Ipswich look like the only team likely to score. The football comes back at nine minutes to nine and Town soon have their first corner of the game in what will become a better half for the Town in which Stoke look even less like scoring than they did in the first half; although Pat from Clacton woke up with a blood-shot left eye this morning and so even if we did score again, it would be a bit blurry to her.

Five minutes pass and it’s about now that I notice that the stripes on the Stoke shirts are not straight but a bit wiggly, and not for the first time when watching a team in red and white stripes I am reminded of Signal toothpaste. Signal co-incidentally and appropriately, given tonight’s opponents, also being the name of the fictional local newspaper in Arnold Bennett’s passingly football-related, 1910, Potteries located novel ‘The Card’. More Town corners ensue. “Your support is fucking shit” opine the travelling “Stokies” as they ironically become the first set of away fans in well over two years to fail to fill at least half of the away section. Not surprisingly, their chants are greeted with disinterested silence, which is followed later by confirmation that tonight’s attendance is a meagre 27,008, the lowest of the season so far. The drop in attendance and therefore income is large enough to mean that at least one player won’t be getting paid this week.

Only fifteen minutes of normal time remain by now and later than usual Keiran McKenna dives into the world of multiple substitutions as Eggy, Azon and Taylor go for a sit down and Clarke, Cajuste and Akpom get to run around for a bit. Ten minutes left and Azor Matusiwa becomes the first player to be booked tonight by the referee, Mr Adam Herczeg, who is a sucker for giving a free-kick when anyone falls over. Meanwhile, Pat from Clacton won’t be having a baked potato when she gets in tonight, but she will have something cheesy from Marks & Spencer with a latte and she won’t be go to bed until midnight. As for me, I wish my bed was just the other side of my front door so I could step straight into it when I get indoors.

The final ten minutes ebbs and flows a bit more than has been the pattern up to now but it’s Ipswich who should score and don’t. Behind me a bloke complains that if he’d only known there would be no more goals he could have gone home after two minutes. The game soon ends in the second and final minute of the unexpectedly brief period of added on time following a Stoke City corner, which doubtless has legions of pessimistic Ipswich fans anticipating going home disappointed. With the final whistle, Pat from Clacton and Fiona disappear like water vapour, although Fiona does turn to say good-bye, which water vapour never does. I applaud briefly and then, conscious that I have perhaps nine minutes in which to catch my train make a bolt for the exits.

It’s been a decent game again tonight, mainly because Ipswich have won again, but despite Stoke dominating possession by a reported 57% to 43%, Town have apparently had twice as many shots at goal (16) and six times as many shots on target. Statistics are however famously boring and do nothing for one’s personal safety. On my way back to the railway station therefore I instead keep a look out for any angry looking Stoke fans brandishing milk bottles.

Ipswich Town 3 Coventry City 0

December 7, 2025December 7, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s been a strange week of not feeling great and then feeling better and then not feeling great and then feeling better again combined with seeing the excellent Mark Steel at the Apex Theatre in Bury St Edmunds with my friend and former ‘boss’ Ray, surprising myself by successfully arranging an on-line meeting at work, and then witnessing on tv the most stomach churning World Cup draw in history, in which the ridiculously fawning, bottom licking FIFA president Gianni Infantino (‘Johnny’ to his friend) prostituted the World Cup, the beautiful game and himself to the odious Donald J Trump. It feels like nothing can ever be the same again after such a performance from the man, but I have woken up this morning to find that Ipswich Town are still playing Coventry City at Portman Road at three o’clock this afternoon and there are still eggs and bacon in the fridge.

It’s a day that is neither bright nor dull but the train to Ipswich is on time and the bloke who spoke to me when I boarded the train for the Wrexham match a fortnight ago is here again, but with a female accomplice. “Hello, again” I say, but that’s the extent of our conversation today, perhaps he’s ‘on the pull’ and sees me and my luxuriant head of hair as a threat. Time passes quickly and Gary is soon sat next to me on the train and telling me how he could have gone to the footie with his brother, as he did for the Wrexham game, but instead decided to go with his trusted friend. The punch line is of course that his friend isn’t available, so he’s going with me instead. Gary isn’t as vain as Donald J Trump, but his story is an obvious attempt to show off his brand of wit in this here blog. I gain a modicum of revenge when Gary says he’s been to London to see a production of Othello with Toby Jones, and I tell him I didn’t know he knew Toby Jones. The highlight of our journey is as ever the sighting of two resting polar bears as the train descends through Wherstead into Ipswich.

In Ipswich, the Station Hotel is heaving with Coventry City supporters, and I remark to Gary that they are clearly a soft, wussy bunch because there aren’t many of them outside drinking in the beer garden. Gary suggests that I probably wouldn’t tell them that to their faces and I agree, telling him “I expect they already know”. In Portman Road we don’t waste money on match day programmes and proceed as fast as Gary’s legs will carry us to the ‘Arb’, where with perfect timing we arrive at the bar just as Mick is buying a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride. Naturally Mick buys me one also and a pint of Lager 43 for Gary, and he also orders a falafel Scotch Egg. We retire to the beer garden like the tough Suffolk blokes that we are, although curiously Gary is an Essex boy and I was born in Wales.

Today’s conversation meanders like a lowland river and under instructions from my wife I tell Mick that the problem he has in being unable to straighten out one of his little fingers is an affliction he shares with the late Margaret Thatcher. Understandably, Mick is not best impressed, but I tell him we thought he should know given his lustful feelings towards Kemi Badenoch. Mick not unreasonably responds that Margaret Thatcher and Kemi Badenoch are ‘erotically’ very different. Any mention of Liz Truss would be a step too far and likely to result in inclusion on some sort of register. Mick meanwhile woofs down his falafel Scotch egg and as other pre-match drinkers drift away, Gary gets in another round of Lager 43, Suffolk Pride and Jameson Whisky before we speculate as to why people leave so early for the match and wonder if they are going to another pub on the way.

It’s twenty to three when we leave ‘the Arb’ and roll down High Street past the Museum, whose reopening we eagerly await next year. We part ways near the statue of Sir Alf, bidding one another “adieu” until Wednesday evening and our inevitable alcohol-fuelled preamble to the Stoke City match. At the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand there are no queues at all and I have a choice of electronic detector wielding men in dark clothes and high-vis tabards to approach with arms outstretched as if playing ‘aeroplanes’. I pick a bearded man of probable south Asian origin and he asks me to empty my pockets “What all of them?” I ask incredulously, wondering why he would want to see my scarf, woolly hat, fingerless gloves, notebook and pencil, as I wave my mobile phone about. We laugh and smile and I head for the famous turnstile 62, named in honour of the great Premier League win of sixty-three years ago, when hand-held electronic detectors and hi-vis tabards were just a dream.

Relieved of spent Suffolk Pride I’m soon shuffling past Pat from Clacton and Fiona to my seat a couple of rows behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood, who of course are already here. The man from Stowmarket (Paul) is however absent again, but his grandson will later tell me he’ll be back for the Sheffield Wednesday game. In the excitement of arrival, it takes me a while to realise that the excitable young stadium announcer is already halfway through announcing the team, and I only get to bawl the last three or four Town player’s surnames in the manner of someone Gallic with an abonnement at the Stade du Moustoir in Lorient or the Stade de la Meinau in Strasbourg.

Eventually, the game begins and it is Coventry City who get first go with the ball, which they attempt to boot mainly in the general direction of Sir Alf Ramsey’s former house on Valley Road and the Man On the Moon pub on Palmcroft Road. Coventry City are sporting shirts, shorts and socks in a shade of orange so lurid as to be indescribable. The sight of this ultra day-glo kit is quite overbearing and immediately explains why a team managed by Frank Lampard has so unexpectedly climbed to the top of the league and why so many Championship players are suffering from migraines this season. As Ray will tell me at half-time however, the West Midlands Metropolitan Council highways department want the shirts back immediately after the game. Town meanwhile are of course kicking towards me and my fellow ultras in our customarily tasteful blue and white.

The early exchanges on the pitch are uninteresting, as are the musical exchanges between supporters, with Coventry fans weirdly singing that song about super Keiran Mckenna knowing just what they need with Woolfy at the back and Ladapo in attack before launching into the old favourite about football in a library. Meanwhile, I amuse myself pondering the origins of the two Coventry players with double-barrelled surnames, Kesler-Hayden and Mason-Clark. Are they perhaps the sons of people who Frank Lampard first met when at public school or were their parents just not married and unable to decide who had the best surname to give to their offspring. Personally, I like the idea of the hyphen in double-barrelled surnames being replaced with “and/or” so the child can decide themselves.

“Your support is fucking shit” chant the Coventry fans imaginatively as Town’s Sindre Walle Egeli has a shot on goal and, possibly channelling Frank Lampard’s probable familiarity with public schoolboy nicknames, I decide that from now on I am going to refer to Walle Egeli as Eggy for short. In the row behind me an overly talkative man is revealing himself to be some sort of tactical expert, or at least someone who has a strong command of the vocabulary of the average Match of the Day pundit. I console myself by enjoying the sight of low, winter sunshine illuminating the huge, white-painted girder above the roof of the Sir Bobby Robson stand.

Fifteen minutes have disappeared into forgettable history and George Hirst is an early victim of referee Paul Tierney’s yellow card after he fouls the cheeky-sounding Bobby Thomas. Mr Tierney incidentally sports a Gianni Infantino hairstyle but without the stick-on eyebrows. Four minutes later and it sounds like the Coventry fans are singing “Your boss is a Norwich fan”, which is banter of primary school standard rather than public school. Back on the pitch, the main Coventry tactic that I have discerned so far is that it is necessary to take a very long time over throw-ins and to make sure they are thrown straight to Christian Walton the Town goalkeeper.

The half is half over. “No noise from the Tractor Boys” chant the Coventry supporters, and it’s not that surprising because as the bloke behind me succinctly puts it “Shit game at the minute”. But then either Coventry briefly come to life, or Town nod off and a deep cross is inexpertly headed wide and over the bar by Kesler-Hayden. A minute after that, Coventry’s Eccles, whose grandfather was a character in the Goon Show, has a low shot touched onto a post by the lengthily diving Christian Walton, moments before Mason-Clark “gives it both barrels” and Walton tips the resultant shot away over the cross bar.

Happily, Coventry’s serious attempts to score are now over and George Hirst is chasing a ball from an offside position and shooting past the far post, tricking the Coventry players into revealing how utterly unsporting they are as they plead with the referee to send him off. It’s a pitiful sight, a perfect accompaniment to Gianni Infantino’s antics in Washington the night before and along with sponsorship by betting companies, dubious bit coin currencies and despotic regimes further evidence of just how rotten to the core professional football is. “Super Frankie Lampard” sing the Coventry fans in an apparently unrelated incident, although after the match he will repeat that Hirst should have been sent off because of course if Hirst hadn’t kicked the ball past the goal and delayed the game by less time than it takes a Coventry player to take a throw in, Coventry would definitely have won.

The last five minutes of the half have Ipswich dominating as Eggy is fouled, and then so is Nunez, and Coventry’s Grimes (aka Grimey) is booked before Town win two corners in quick succession and we chant ”Come On You Blues” for all we’re worth as the ball is sent back and forth across the Coventry goal mouth until Philogene squares it to Eggy, who curls it first time into the corner of the Coventry net from the edge of the penalty area. A minute of added-on time is added on, and the first half ends with Ipswich 1-0 up.

I spend half-time venting more spent Suffolk Pride before joining Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison at the front of the stand where Harrison riffs on the Coventry goalkeeper Rushworth and rush goalkeepers and we generally spend our time feeling happy. The football resumes at two minutes past four and the pattern of play differs immediately from most of the first half as Town retain possession and look the better team. Nunez shoots wide at the end of a long series of passes between Town players.

“One-nil and you still don’t sing” chant the Coventry fans unaware of our vow of silence or that being tough enough to drink outside at the pub makes us the strong silent types. Seven minutes into the new half and George Hirst is sent through on goal by Cedric Kipre but his shot is saved by Rushworth in exactly the manner that Hirst might have expected Rushworth to save his first half offside effort, which instigated the whole embarrassing “sending-offgate” scandal later to be promoted by a tearful, foot stamping Frank Lampard. Eight minutes later and it’s Nunez who puts Hirst through on goal, this time in a more central position, and this time Hirst scores the second Town goal. “Top of the League? You’re having a laugh” we all sing to the tune of Tom Hark, which was originally by Elias and his Zig-Zag Ji-flutes but later covered by The Piranhas, who I fondly recall seeing play regularly on a Sunday evening at the Alhambra on Brighton seafront in the late 1970’s.

Coventry fight back with a meagre corner but a 71^st minute, triple substitution keeps Town fresh, although as the tension mounts Pat from Clacton says she feels sick. The excitable young stadium announcer tells us that there are 29,025 of us here today and adds the usual platitudinous something about “incredible support” when it would be more honest to say “numerically impressive, but not especially noisy support”. A seventy-fourth minute Coventry corner and another decent save from Christian Walton has Pat from Clacton swallowing hard and not thinking about the baked potato she’s going to have for her tea. I meanwhile relieve the tension with the thought that Coventry number nine Ellis Simms looks like the bloke in the 1970’s illustrated sex manual ‘The Joy of Sex’. Staying back in the 1970’s Pat then reveals the existence of a what she dubs a ‘lucky’ 1973 fifty pence piece commemorating Britain joining the European Union, that someone on the Clacton supporters’ bus had tried to pass off as legal tender and which she now has in her purse along with the masturbating monkey charm from Cambodia and Derek the Dodo from Mauritius. I immediately place my faith in the lucky fifty pence piece and a return to the EU. Hopefully, we can also rely on Ellis Simms not having the energy to pull a goal back for Coventry.

There are nine minutes left of normal time and a slow chant of “Oh when the Town go marching in” emanates from the Sir Bobby Robson stand, who really need to work on sounding more cheerful when we’re two-nil up with less than ten minutes to go. With the final minute of normal time Christian Walton merely catches the ball, and I think it’s one of the best saves I’ve ever seen and we’re into five minutes of time added on, even though there have only been seven of a possible ten substitutions and no injuries. I can only imagine we are recouping time spent on Coventry throw-ins but if this is the case the visitors are then hoist by their own petard as substitute Ivan Azon has a cross blocked but then strikes the ball obliquely into the Coventry net for a third Town goal, which confirms an ultimately comfortable victory.

As ever, Pat and Fiona are quickly away to catch a bus and a train but with time on my hands I linger to applaud the Town team from the field and gloat as the man I know through my West Ham United supporting friend Claire as ‘fat Frank’, leaves the field with his day-glo clad supporting cast. Despite a dull first half, it’s been a very enjoyable afternoon overall and undeniably an excellent result. It’s amazing how quickly a goal or three can make everything alright again. With a celebratory beer and a couple of glasses of wine with my dinner tonight I might even be able to forget Gianni Infantino.

Ipswich Town 0 Wrecsam 0

November 23, 2025November 23, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

I am not ashamed to admit that I’ve got ‘a bit of a thing’ for Professor Alice Roberts the popular physician, anatomist, physical anthropologist, author and tv presenter. I can’t help but smile, blush a little and feel a close affinity with her when she’s on the BBC’s ‘Digging for Britain’ programme and she uncovers some ancient artifact or other and comes over all misty eyed and wistful as she realises no one has clapped eyes on said artifact for a thousand years or more. As a football supporter who keeps track of every game I’ve ever been to and every team I’ve ever seen, today is a bit of a Professor Alice Roberts moment for me because today Ipswich Town are playing Wrexham (Wrecsam in Welsh) in the Football League, and that’s something neither I nor Professor Alice nor anyone else has ever seen before, not in a thousand years or indeed in the entire history of the planet or time itself. Sadly, I doubt Professor Alice will be here today to see it, perhaps I should have invited her, but at least I will be here.

It’s been a miserable, grey, wet, November morning, lightened only by the occasional daydream about Professor Alice sitting next to me at the match. Fortunately, it’s not raining as I make my way to the railway station and board the train, which is on time. “Going to the match” says a man on the platform. “Yes, well, I don’t usually wear this blue and white scarf” I say rather facetiously considering I don’t know the bloke. “Bit of a giveaway” he replies. Of course, to make matters worse people do wear football scarves when not going to football matches, I’ve done so myself.

The train arrives, it’s not very full and I find a window seat for what will be a lonely journey because Gary is going to the match with his brother today and will therefore not be on the train. Across the aisle from me sit an elderly man and what I assume is his wife, or lover. “More football” he says grudgingly as people in blue and white scarves, shirts and woolly hats board the train at the next station stop, I think they are the only words the couple exchange the whole journey. Passing through Wherstead I spot a polar bear striking a Fox’s Glacier mint pose, well almost, and then the man opposite gets up fussily to take a bag down from the luggage rack. The woman glances at me fleetingly with a look of resignation that seems to say she realises he’s an idiot.

There are spots of rain in the air in Ipswich and only a handful of Wrexham fans are drinking in the garden of the Station Hotel. In Portman Road, because this is the first time that Ipswich have ever played Wrexham here, I buy a programme (£4.00) from one of the booths that looks like they should sell ice cream. Stupidly, I wish the seller “bon match” and then reflect upon the first time I ever saw Wrexham, in November 1978 at the Goldstone Ground in Brighton. I will later decide I like the Brighton programme from that day forty-seven years ago more than today’s effort because it read ‘Wrexham’ in bold letters on the front. Today’s programme just displays the two club crests in monochrome in the top right-hand corner, and they get equal billing with the flippin’ Sky bet/EFL logo. Brighton won 2-1 back when Ipswich were the current FA Cup holders and the Wrexham team included players called Davies, Jones, Thomas and Roberts; very Welsh it was. Having been born in Wales myself I am suddenly filled with bonhomie towards these immigrants for the afternoon and I half think about wishing any random Wrexham supporter “diwrnod da” but decide against it.

‘The Arb’ is busy with drinkers and diners and when I eventually get served, I order two pints of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£8.40 with Camra discount) before retiring to the beer garden where I sit at a table beneath an umbrella. I’m in the throes of texting Mick to tell him there’s a pint of Suffolk Pride waiting for him when he appears at the back gate. “What a lovely thing to do” he says of my buying him a pint before he arrives and he then disappears inside to order some food and get the next round in early. We talk of his continued lustful feelings towards Kemi Badenoch, blood test results, our disappointment that so many people are so willing to believe the worst, our continued and increasing despair regarding Donald Trump, mutual friends and the difficulty of describing one’s sibling. Mick eats his food, cheesy chips, and I tell him of the ‘le Welsh’ festival in Lille next weekend, le Welsh being melted cheddar cheese with beer and an egg on top, served with bread and chips. We laugh quite a bit and are dismayed that everyone leaves so early for the match and as per usual by about half-past two we’re the only drinkers left.

Having negotiated High Street, Crown Street, Lady Lane, Civic Drive and the Portman Road car park Mick and I part ways beneath the blind gaze of Sir Alf Ramsey’s statue. Mick asks what and when the next game is, neither of us has any idea. I mention that I think there is a midweek game versus Stoke at some time, but we both have faith that we will work it out in good time. At the back of Sir Alf Ramsey’s stand there are no queues at all and I approach the Anglo-Asian man looking for weapons with outstretched arms. He asks what I have in my pockets and I reveal the pair of woolly fingerless gloves that my wife knitted for me. “No mobile phone?” he asks. “Ahh, that’s up here” I tell him as I unzip a breast pocket on my multi pocketed coat to show him.

Having syphoned off some spent Suffolk Pride I find myself in the stand shuffling past Fiona and Pat from Clacton to my seat just as the excitable young stadium announcer, who today is wearing a woolly hat, tells us today’s line -up. I try to bellow the Town players’ surnames as a Frenchman would as the announcer reads them out, but he’s reverted to not being in-sync with the scoreboard today so it’s not a great success. My fellow football fans in the Stade Geoffrey Guichard or Stadium de Toulouse would doubtless be disappointed. Quel dommage.

Inevitably, ever present Phil who never misses a game is here but sadly his son Elwood and the man from Stowmarket Paul) are not, and this is because they have both been unlucky enough but at the same time lucky enough to have been benefitting from our National Health Service and have not been in a position to even take late fitness tests for today’s game. It’s Wrexham that get first go with the ball, which they launch in the general direction of Coe’s outfitters and the Halal butchers on Norwich Road. With Wrexham wearing red shirts and white shorts, and Town in blue and white I am naturally reminded once again of the Continental Club Edition Subbuteo teams from my childhood. Wrexham, however, seem to me to be wearing a particular shade of red that marks them out as being Wrexham rather than Bristol City or Barnsley or Nottingham Forest. But then again, I do know they are Wrexham, even if the front of today’s match programme was very little help in making that clear.

The early part of the game consists of Pat from Clacton telling me she’s wearing new glasses and they’re a bit wonky and also how she’s been a bit ‘chesty’ with difficulty breathing since she had Covid, whilst Fiona has lost her voice and sounds hoarse. As if that’s not enough, Wrexham win a corner after seven minutes and Pat also tells us she has a large floater in her eye. She then can’t help but mention the other sort of floater, although none of us admits to knowing much about these and the subject is quickly closed.

Eleven minutes gone and Town win two corners in quick succession giving us the opportunity to chant “Come On You Blues”, which we do and a loud bloke behind joins in too, which is nice. Dara O’Shea volleys past the far post from the second corner. “Come on Town, these are rubbish, and Welsh” says a bloke a couple of seats away and it seems that one of the other blokes nearby has Welsh ancestry and so his friends are behaving like Edward I would have if he hadn’t been able to build castles to suppress the Welsh but had been reduced to just taking the mickey.

Another ten minutes elapse and it’s the Welsh who are avenging the deeds of Edward I with their wit as they sing “Football in a library, do-do-do” and Portman Road is quiet, like it always was when there were barely 15,000 of us here a few years ago. Wrexham fans know all about that scenario. The game meanwhile is frankly a bit dull, like the weather, which is at least wet as well and I start to wonder about the words “Tingly Ted’s Hot Sauce by Ed Sheeran”, which appear on the electronic advert hoardings between the tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand. Who the heck is Tingly Ted? Why is Ed Sheeran making hot sauce for him, and now Sheeran has defected to Barcelona is he making Romesco sauce and Salsa dips for Kinky Carlos or Perky Pedro? I am relieved when the following advertisement is for EMP Drainage who are promoted with the words “Domestic and Commercial Unblocking”.

Such has been the level of excitement since three o’clock, I am surprised to find there are only eight minutes until half time and the home crowd are suddenly enjoying the booking of Wrexham’s George Thomason after he does an impression of a combine harvester meeting an unsuspecting Chuba Akpom in a corn field. I can’t help feeling that we’re all just clinging on to the hopes raised by occasional attacks that penetrate the Wrexham penalty area. A single minute of added time brings nothing new but just before it arrives Jayden Philogene has a shot that the Wrexham goalkeeper Arthur Okonkwo, who is very large and bright yellow, only stops with a fumbling save.

Half-time is spent venting more spent Suffolk Pride and then chatting to Ray and his grandson Harrison at the front of the stand. Ray kindly offers me a ticket to see Mark Steele at the Apex at Bury St Edmunds, because his wife isn’t really that keen, whilst Harrison tells me of someone he knows, who asked him if he was the same Harrison mentioned in this very blog. Unable to tell a lie, not unlike George Washington but doubtless very unlike Donald Trump, the now famous Harrison naturally admitted he was.

The second half begins at three minutes past four and regrettably fails to differ very much from the one that preceded it. Philogene has another shot barely saved by Okonkwo, Wrexham number eighteen Ben Sheaf is booked for fouling Azor Matusiwa, there is a scramble in the Wrexham goalmouth and Egeli shoots over the Wrexham cross bar but the causes for celebration are limited as evidence by the bloke behind me breaking into a joyous chorus of the “Scum are going down” when he learns that Norwich City are losing 4-1 at Birmingham.

An hour has left us for ever. “Wrexham, Wrexham” chant the Wrexham fans to no particular tune as their team indulges in some rare passing and retention of the ball before Matusiwa is booked, unfairly of course, and Keiran McKenna makes the first much needed substitutions, bringing on George Hirst and Jack Clarke for Ivan Azon and Jaden Philogene. Jack Taylor has a shot over the cross bar and Town win a corner but with no success from that Pat from Clacton takes things into her own hands and removes a blue Dodo from her handbag, which she bought in Mauritius, the Dodo that is, not the handbag, which given Pat’s age might have come from Salisbury’s. The Dodo passes to Fiona, to me and back again into Pat’s bag and we just hope he’s more successful than the masturbating monkey from Cambodia, who has been the ‘lucky charm’ until today. Fiona and I decide to call the Dodo Derek.

Less than twenty minutes remain for Derek to work his magic but a Town corner is easily headed away, and more substitutions quickly follow with Nunez and Cajuste replacing Akpom and Taylor. Wrexham continue to get to every Town cross and shot before Town do. Today’s attendance is announced as being 29,147 and we are thanked by the excitable young stadium announcer for our “Incredible support”, although the Wrexham fans remain unconvinced as they launch into a reprise of the old favourite “Football in library do-do-do” after first telling us we’re “Only here for the Wrexham”, which frankly seems unlikely unless anyone is a fan of stifling defending and zero excitement.

Less than ten minutes of normal time remain, and another Town corner comes to nought before Keiran McKenna goes for broke by bringing on Kasey McAteer, who immediately begins to live up to previous performances by being flagged offside. Only four minutes of normal time remain now, Wrexham win a corner and referee Mr Whitestone books Wrexham’s Lewis O’Brien when Jack Clarke runs into him. Up in the Cobbold Stand, the Wrexham fans suddenly come over all Welsh and start singing Men of Harlech. The end of normal time is now imminent. Town win a free-kick but like everything else this afternoon they might as well not have bothered although after some more bagatelle the ball runs to Kasey McAteer for possibly the best chance of the game. McAteer blasts the ball spectacularly high and wide, seizing the opportunity to be crowned the new Lee Martin.

Four minutes of added on time prove as disappointing and sapping of optimism as the previous ninety-one and with the final whistle from Mr Whitestone Pat from Clacton and Fiona quickly take flight, along with Derek the Dodo, which is at least a first for him. I’m not far behind as I console myself with the thought that at least I hadn’t witnessed Town lose like I did in Wrexham back in January 1995 in the FA Cup third round. I can be glad too that Professor Alice wasn’t with me, she would probably never have spoken to me again, and so I can still look forward to the first time.

Kings Park Rangers 2 Stanway Pegasus 0

November 16, 2025November 17, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

The snappily titled Thurlow Nunn Eastern Counties League Division One South has in the last year been shorn of two Suffolk clubs in the shape of Whitton United and Debenham Leisure Centre, who voluntarily dropped into the Suffolk and Ipswich League. But as if by magic, two replacements have immediately filled the gaps left, one in the shape of the venerable Halesworth Town (founded 1887) and the other in the form of the altogether less venerable King’s Park Rangers, who sprang suddenly from the Essex and Suffolk Border League after a brief two-season gestation, a bit like The Alien did from John Hurt’s stomach.

It is the final chapter of my two-part quest to be able to boast idly that I have seen every senior team in Suffolk play a home game. Today I am making the brief 19.2-kilometre road trip across the border from Essex to Backhouse Lane, Little Cornard where I hope to see King’s Park Rangers play another team of recent graduates from the Border League, Stanway Pegasus. If I was a younger man for whom the concept of time on this planet running out was less of an immediate concern, I might have caught the train to Colchester, or from Marks Tey to Bures, and then the number 44 bus to Great Cornard, but in truth I couldn’t really be bothered with the palaver, and in any case I have an electric car, so I am doing my bit to save the planet and reduce global warming. It is therefore a little after two o’clock when I set off from my front drive towards Sudbury.

Being in Little Cornard, it is no surprise that Backhouse Lane is the longstanding home of Cornard United, but more intriguing is why is it now also the home of Kings Park Rangers, who are they, why are they, and where is Kings Park? These questions have been niggling me all week in my idle moments, and fancifully I had postulated that they are perhaps a team from Kings Park, Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, a team of South African ex-pats who have named their club after Kings Park Stadium in Durban, or even that they are an incel’s bitter and twisted response to the existence of Queens Park Rangers. Eventually, there was nothing for it but to consult the interweb and hope I could find some information that was believable and not merely ‘content’ designed to enrage, influence or peddle consumer goods. It turns out, so it seems, that Kings Park Rangers are a sort of works team for Kings Park Fulfilment Ltd of Pebmarsh, Essex, a company that works for Amazon, aiding Jeff Bezos’s bid for world domination. According to ‘Suffolk News’, the club was set up in 2023 by “former Cornard resident” Josh Pollard “…as a way of connecting his family- including famous cousin Olly Murs – and work colleagues through their shared love of football.” I can’t decide if this is philanthropy, megalomania or just weird but it probably makes Kings Park Rangers a Pebmarsh team, an Essex team, that just plays in Suffolk.

Looking out from the drizzle flecked windows of my planet saving Citroen e-C4 it’s a miserable, depressingly grey November day, the aftermath of an even more depressingly miserable, wet, November day, the day before. The only thing to raise one’s spirits a little is the fact that today the moisture in the air is just occasional fine drizzle, not the persistent rain and occasional monsoon that hit yesterday. Nevertheless, there’s no denying that the dripping trees, puddles, mud and soggy leaves are all rather glorious in their own way and provide a characterful backdrop to the twisting, turning, undulating B1508 as it makes its way along the north bank of the River Stour from Bures towards Sudbury.

Suddenly, out of the gloom I reach Great Cornard and quickly identify the need to brake and turn right into Backhouse Lane, a very narrow road which in places has a deep water-filled ditch on one side; it is not wide enough for two cars to pass. Fortunately, I meet only one car coming in the opposite direction and that is at one of the few passing places. I am therefore soon parking up my planet saving Citroen in the mostly full car park, next to a white Ford Transit van. The entrance to the football ground is off to my right, through the mist and back towards the B1508 along a concrete path strewn with fallen, brown leaves that have the consistency of wet papier mache. Two men stand talking each other by the entrance, which seems to marked by a collection of beer kegs, and as I approach they end their conversation and one of them nips into the turnstile booth. When I last came to Cornard, back in January 2019, the ‘turnstile’ was just a wooden hut but at some time in the intervening six years and ten months this has been replaced by a very neat structure that looks something like a cross between a very small domestic conservatory and one of the old toll booths at the Dartford tunnel. I tender my £5 concessionary entry fee by means of my bank card. There is no printed programme, but the window of the toll booth displays a QR code for a programme which is free. Pretending to be completely familiar with QR codes I point my mobile phone at it, because I think I know that is what you do. I have succeeded in accessing on-line programmes in the past, but not today, but at least I will have a nice photo of a QR code. The young man at the turnstile then strangely tells me that there are plenty of people in the club house, perhaps he thinks I look lonely.

There are indeed plenty of people in the clubhouse as the young man in the toll booth said, but I only talk to the barman who, when I ask if there is a bitter available, tells me there isn’t the call for it nowadays but helpfully adds that a pub nearby wins awards for its beer. Sadly, there’s no danger of that here and I settle for a bottle of alcohol-free St Austell Brewery Proper Job (£4.90). The barman apologises for not letting me have the bottle to pour the beer myself and explains that whilst he doesn’t think I look like I would cause any trouble, he’s not allowed to. Avoiding eye-contact with anyone else in the bar, I worry a little for my safety and take my beer outside where I watch the players, the referee and his assistants warm up, and a player in a track suit top walks a small brown dog. I notice that the two dugouts are almost at opposite ends of the pitch, when I was here in 2019, they were next to one another.

The referee is a young man with impossibly short hair who looks very keen and serious as he turns and sprints along the touchline and then does the same again. His assistants, two much older men, follow him for all of a few seconds, by which time he is almost out of sight. “Five minutes. Do your stretches”, says the referee and one of the assistants a portly, grey-haired man wearing an open knee support stretches down to his knee once or twice and the expression on his face says “that’ll do”.

The game begins at a minute past three and it’s Kings Park who get first go with ball, which they rapidly boot towards Sudbury and the Thomas Gainsborough school, which is just over the fence from the ground. Kings Park sport an all-blue kit with a wide, white, slightly blurry diagonal stripe across the front, and I think to myself what kit would I choose if I was inventing my own football club, probably not this one. Stanway Pegasus meanwhile are in all-green with a blurry white stripe down their left side and black socks, like an unhappy man’s Plymouth Argyle.

The most notable thing about this game from the start is the shouting on the pitch and from the dugouts. “You gotta work”, “Chase”, come the early, more polite commands extolling effort over skill. “Away” shouts the Kings Park goalkeeper and for some reason I think of the Teletubbies. Kings Park win an early corner. “Seconds, seconds” is another shout, appropriately twice. On the pitch, both teams seem wound up already and the Pegasus number nine screams at the referee’s assistant as he strides towards him intimidatingly over the trivial matter of a throw in. “Mental” he says to himself after being told to calm down by referee Mr Glasson-Cox, who coincidentally also refereed the match I saw at Halesworth last week.

The half is half over. “Fuckin’ ‘ell ref” says someone about possibly anything but soon the initial intensity of the match seems to have thankfully subsided a bit. I move into the main stand, a utilitarian, boxy looking structure but with a bit more character than most of the prefabricated metal stands erected nowadays. In a quiet moment I reflect upon the referee’s assistant stood in front of me, a wiry man with a large beard, which he looks as if he might have grown having been told by his doctor that he needs to put on a bit of weight. Between me and the referee’s assistant raindrops cling to the white painted rail around the pitch. The slightly calmer mood continues into a short delay in which the referee speaks to his assistant on the far side, the portly, grey-haired one with the dodgy knee who it seems has noticed that following a goal mouth scramble the goal at the Sudbury end of the ground, which is on wheels, has moved a little. Mr Gasson-Cox takes a look and gives the goal a little shove.

After the calm, there follows a short storm as Kings Park’s number eight and captain Noah Collard scythes down an unidentified Pegasus player who proceeds to writhe on the ground screaming. Once the Pegasus player has cried wolf for long enough Collard becomes the first player to see Mr Gasson-Cox’s yellow card, but discussion in the crowd is more about the girlish screaming than the booking. “Does he have to go off with the screaming?” asks a spectator not unreasonably. But as if to quickly even things up, a Pegasus player also gets to view the yellow card before half-time, although there is no further screaming from either side and the half ends goalless.

With half-time I drain-off some of the Proper Job and eat a Polish Grzeski chocolate bar from the World food aisle in Sainsbury’s. I peer through the window of the club house where a man and a woman, presumably club officials from Stanway Pegasus, and two men in large black coats featuring the crest of the Suffolk County Football Association drink tea with an array of what look like shop bought sausage rolls and homemade bread pudding wrapped in tin foil laid out before them. Only the man from Stanway Pegasus seems to be eating anything. I wonder to myself where the Battenburg and Swiss Roll are. Outside, next to the window I look at today’s team sheet, which looks like whoever wrote it might have been eating an orange at the same time. Beyond the club house the small brown dog is being walked by a different man, possibly a player, who is evidently not playing today; I hear him say he doesn’t know the dog’s name. “Come on you” he says. Two other small dogs are present in the crowd today too, one in a coat and one not.

At three minutes past four the match resumes and the Kings Park coach is immediately barking instructions to Georgie, Zammo and Hughsie as if his very existence depended on it, whilst also sounding like the games teacher from tv’s Grange Hill, but only because he said ‘Zammo’. His shouting works however and six minutes later a ball from left to right finds number twenty-two Daniel Cousens inside the penalty area. Cousens calmly places the ball wide of the Pegasus goalkeeper, and Kings Park lead one-nil.

Ten minutes later and Kings Park lead two-nil when a low cross from the right travels across the face of the goal, past the flailing limbs of a couple of Pegasus players until it reaches Kings Park number ten Harry Willoughby, who bundles it into the goal from close range before running off madly. “Whatever ‘appens, don’t let ‘em fucking score again” bawls a rough voice, presumably of a Pegasus supporter.

It’s getting on for half past four and the game seems over. Pegasus don’t offer much else but for a goal mouth scramble which leaves the Pegasus coach feeling hard done by and asking rhetorically “ ‘ow’s your luck?” and then asking it again. For Kings Park the goalscorer Willoughby is substituted for the 50-year-old former Norwich City, Colchester United, Reading, Queens Park Rangers, Swindon Town, Shrewsbury Town, Bristol Rovers, Leyton Orient, Bournemouth, Barnsley and umpteen other clubs’ player Jamie Cureton. As Willoughby heads for the changing room, he emits a sort of howl.

Back on the pitch, Pegasus number five Jordan Robertson is booked after Kings Park’s number ninety-nine Oliver Sims is not given offside, and Robertson seemingly exorcises his disappointment by hacking Sims down. “Fucking embarrassing” says the Pegasus coach, but only about the presumed offside. Time runs down, on into the ninetieth minute. Pegasus can’t decide whether to just boot the ball forward as quickly as possible or pass it. “Just kick the fuckin’ thing” shouts an elderly spectator summarising a century and a half of tactics from the country that apparently invented the game. “Darren, time” shouts a player. “Darren, man on” shouts the same player a moment later. The final action sees another booking for Kings Park. “Fuck me, it’s getting boring now” say the Pegasus coach and happily at 16:52 Mr Gasson-Cox, who I think has had a good game calls time.

I wait as the players leave the field to no applause, just the blokey clasping of fists with a few spectators and shouts from inside the changing rooms. It’s been a good game in terms of the ability shown, but it’s not been a particularly enjoyable one. There’s been too much trying to pressure the referee, too much needless swearing and too much of a sense of needing to win above all else. I think I’ll just try to remember the afternoon for the miserable weather, the soggy leaves and the small dogs.

Halesworth Town 3 Haverhill Rovers 1

November 10, 2025November 11, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Between March 2017 and April 2019, I watched matches at each one of Suffolk’s then twenty-four senior football clubs and recounted my experiences in this here blog. Since then, Debenham Leisure Centre and Whitton United have sadly dropped out of senior football but this season the Eastern Counties League First Division North has welcomed two more Suffolk clubs into the fold in the shape of Kings Park Rangers, who are from Great Cornard but seemingly too shy to admit it, and Halesworth Town, who are proudly, clearly from Halesworth.

Today, with Ipswich Town playing far too far away in deepest Wales to trouble me to even think of getting a ticket, even if I had enough ‘points,’ I am travelling up to Halesworth in part one of my plan to restore my record of having seen all of Suffolk’s senior teams on their home turf. Fortuitously, today’s fixture is also an all-Suffolk cup-tie against Haverhill Rovers of the Eastern Counties Premier League, and the first time Halesworth Town have ever reached the second round of the FA Vase. To add to the adventure even more, despite the additional twenty minutes each way that it will take me, I am responsibly reducing congestion on the roads by eschewing making the 88-kilometre journey from my home by planet saving Citroen e-C4 in favour of taking the train (£18.10 return with senior railcard). It also means I can get plastered if I choose to.

It’s an intermittently cloudy but mild November day as I set off for Halesworth, but I am nevertheless surprised as I wait for the train that one of my fellow travellers appears to have forgotten to put on any trousers or a skirt. Once on the train, the infinite variety of human life continues to reveal itself as a small man of pensionable age repeats the names of the station stops as they are heard over the public address system; every now and then he delves headfirst into a large carrier bag as if checking on the wellbeing of a small animal or perhaps a baby. When the woman sitting opposite me goes to the buffet car, she asks me to mind her belongings. I of course agree but tell her she needs to be back before we get to Ipswich. When she returns, I tell her I had to fight off a couple of people who looked interested in her jacket but otherwise everything has been fine. Fortunately, she laughs, but the man of east Asian origin next to me looks at me askance and when she begins to struggle to open a bottle of drink, he very quickly offers to help so that she doesn’t have to deal with the looney opposite her again. The woman soon begins to chew on a large sandwich and a younger man on the other side of the aisle between the seats does the same thing, but takes much bigger bites, happily from a different sandwich, although with every bite he looks like he might lose a finger.

I change trains at Ipswich, boarding the 13:16 to Lowestoft, which departs a good twelve seconds early. I like the East Suffolk line, to me it feels like a one-hundred- and seventy-year-old umbilical cord connecting the outside world to rural Suffolk with its rustic sounding stations such as Campsea Ashe and Darsham and their Victorian architecture. Between the stations are Suffolk landscapes of river and marsh, Oak and Broom, sheep and pigs, outwash sands and boulder clay and gaunt, grey, flint church towers. As the guard checks passengers’ tickets, he helpfully advises those alighting at Halesworth not to use the doors in the front carriage, because the Halesworth station platform is not that long. There seem to be quite a few of us alighting at Halesworth.

The train arrives on time in Halesworth, where the sun shines from a pale blue autumn sky. A helpful sign points and tells pedestrians that it’s a seven-minute walk to the town centre and a minute’s walk to local bus stops on Norwich Road. Sadly however, no sign points helpfully towards Halesworth Town football ground, although having previously consulted the interweb I happen to know it is very close indeed, perhaps no more than a hefty goal-kick away. I walk up an alley between the railway lines and Halesworth Police station, a huge four-storey block of a building, which although it probably dates from the1960’s makes me think of a Norman castle keep, built to keep the locals in check. At the top of the alley, I turn right over a bridge above the railway and then right again down another alley the other side of the tracks, and down to the Ipswich bound railway platform. From here it is no more than 150 metres up Dairy Hill to the football ground, making it a toss-up between Halesworth and Newmarket as to which senior Suffolk football ground is most easily accessible by rail, my money’s on Halesworth.

Despite its attractive name, Dairy Hill is just an uninspiring street of modest modern houses; from the top I make my way across the stony club car park and along the back of the club house to the ground entrance. For a mere seven pounds I gain a programme (£1.00) and entry to the match as an over sixty-five, all that is missing is the click of a turnstile. The ground itself is underwhelming, but it does boast a decent looking pitch with a smart timber fence all around and a small stand at the end nearest the clubhouse, which according to ground grading rules needs to be big enough to accommodate fifty spectators, although I’m not sure if FA rules say how large or small the spectators need to be. The height of Halesworth’s stand suggests they should not be significantly taller than about 1.8 metres unless wearing crash helmets.

I head for the club house where the bar offers the usual array of fizzy lagers and cider and a pump which intriguingly bears the name ‘Wainwright’ written in biro on a plain white sticky label. The barman generously allows me a sampler of the ‘Wainwright’ and seeing as there’s nothing-else I might like I order a pint (£4.60) before heading outside again to visit the food trailer, where a tall man with tattooed arms, who looks like men in food trailers often do serves me chilli, chips and cheese for a modest six pounds, less than half what I paid for much the same thing in an Ipswich pub earlier this week.

I return to the club house to eat my chips and drink my beer, not being someone who likes to eat or drink standing up. The club house looks like there might be an older timber building, which has had a new roof and supporting structure placed over the top of it, it smells a little like that too, having a faint musty odour which isn’t uncommon in old village halls and clubhouses. The black and white interior décor and monochrome photos of old teams on the walls remind me a little of the Long Melford club house before it was re-built.

With chips eaten and beer drunk, I wait outside for kick-off, observing the growing crowd and the queue to get in at the gate, before standing closer to where the two teams will line up before the procession on to the pitch to shake hands and then observe the minute’s silence for remembrance day, a silence which whilst well observed around the pitch plays out to a back ground of chatter from inside the bar and clubhouse, where life continues as usual, oblivious to the silence outside.

Eventually, it is Haverhill Rovers who begin the game, by getting first go with the ball, which they quickly hoof forward in the general direction of the stand, the railway station and town centre beyond, before it is booted into touch by a Halesworth defender, not unreasonably practicing safety first. It’s good to see both teams wearing their signature kits, Rovers in a rich shade of all red, whilst Halesworth sport black and white stripes with black shorts. In front of the only stand, a youth bangs the sort of drum I wouldn’t bet against him having been given as a present for his sixth birthday, probably about six years ago. The bulk of the crowd are lined up behind the post and rail fence along the touchline opposite the dug outs and when Halesworth win the ball they emit an encouraging rustic roar.

Seven minutes have passed and it’s Rovers who are the team kicking the ball most of the time; their number seven Prince Mutswunguma performs a neat turn and a decent cross which is headed over the Halesworth cross bar. The pattern of the game is generally one where the long ball is favoured over short passes and two minutes later Mutswunguma blazes the ball high above the Halesworth cross bar. I stroll along the front of the empty stand between it and the pre-pubescent ultras but remain nervous of hitting my head on the low roof. I stop close to the corner flag, halted by a sign forbidding further progress and disappointingly preventing me from walking round to watch the game from behind or between the dugouts, where the angst and frequent bad language of the managers and coaches is often as entertaining as the match. I am nevertheless now in a good position to see Rovers’ desperate claims for a penalty as Mutswunguma tumbles under a challenge from number 6, Ollie Allen and then two more players fall over. “Fucking disgraceful” opines a gruff voice from somewhere, either on the pitch or in the dugouts, but I’m not sure if he means not giving a penalty or having the temerity to appeal for one.

Keen to see the game from as many angles as possible I move again, this time to near the corner flag diagonally opposite the one I have been standing by. I settle near a man in late middle age who sports a Stranglers t-shirt and beanie hat bearing the name of The Rezillos, the excellent late 1970’s Scottish ‘punk’ band fronted by Faye Fife and Eugene Reynolds. He is on his mobile phone and seems to be arranging a claim on his motor insurance having hit something when parking his car in the club car park. In my new position I also benefit from a good view of an increasing number of unsuccessful Halesworth breakaways as the home team gain in confidence from repelling all Rovers’ attempts to score.

In goal for Halesworth, George Macrae has made a string of fine saves as Rovers win a succession of corners. Rovers’ best effort is a shot from Kyle Markwell, whose surname gives a clue to the opposition as to how to treat him, that whistles past a post. A half an hour is lost to history and Halesworth fashion another breakaway as captain Toby Payne receives a diagonal pass out on the left. “He’s on! He’s on! Well, he’s not off” shouts a young man to my left with rising excitement as Rovers’ offside trap is sprung. Payne advances into the penalty box, shapes up to shoot but then side foots weakly too close to the goalkeeper Alex Archer, who doesn’t have to stretch far to prevent a goal. Two minutes later however Halesworth break again down the left and this time the ball is pulled back from the by-line for Lewis Chenery to score easily into the middle of the Rovers’ goal from no more than 8 metres out and it’s 1-0 to Halesworth Town.

The remaining dozen minutes of the half repeat the established pattern of the previous thirty-three, and another Rovers’ corner is headed wide, which I view from back near the clubhouse as I prepare to be ahead of the queues for the toilet and the tea bar when the referee, the extravagantly monikered Mr Gasson-Cox sounds the half-time whistle. Having invested in a pound’s worth of tea I take-up a position for the second half just to the right of the stand, but not before I overhear a club official talking to the man on the gate and learn that the attendance today is a stonking two-hundred and fifty-eight. As the new half begins and the light fades, the lovely smell of the turf rises up from the pitch. A woman standing next to me tells me we will see the goals at this end in the second half and I agree, telling her that with the goal being scored at the other end in the first half, it figures that this is the end where the goals will be scored this half. We talk a little more and after I reveal I have an Ipswich Town season ticket, she admits to being a Norwich City supporter, but sympathetically I tell her someone has to be.

With the start of the second half at three minutes past four Halesworth seem to have lost a little of the confidence they showed by the end of the first half, perhaps because they realise they have to go through another forty-five minutes similar to the first, and indeed they do. But with twenty minutes gone and no further score it is Rovers who first feel the need to make substitutions. “Who are ya?” chant the pre-pubescent ultras, as well they might as the new players emerge from the dugout. Five minutes later and Halesworth’s Tane Backhouse is the first player to see the yellow one of Mr Gasson-Cox’s two cards, although as I become increasingly biased in favour of the home team and their superb goalkeeper, I can’t really figure out why. Two minutes later and I’m cheering as another characteristic break down the right sees Toby Payne run to the edge of the Rovers penalty area, cut across a little towards the middle and then shoot unerringly inside the far post and Halesworth lead 2-0. “Oh when the Town go marching in” sing the mini ultras, as do a number of people old enough to know better, but understandably carried away by the moment.

Things get no better for Rovers as after an innocuous looking foul Mr Gasson-Cox nevertheless seems annoyed with Prince Mutswunguma and standing his ground, summons him over before showing him the yellow card. “Wemberley, Wemberley” sing the Halesworth fans who should know better but are now too happy to care, but as they do so Rovers, perhaps realising their desperate position with only ten minutes left embark on a final push. It’s twenty to five as George Macrae makes another fine save, this time diving low to his left. “Two-nil down on your big day out” sing the pre-pubescents, not helping the situation with their cruel taunts and Rovers win another corner. The corner is cleared but moments later the ball is crossed low from the right and Rovers’ number eleven and captain Jarid Robson half volleys it high into the centre of the goal from a narrow angle and the score is a nerve-wracking 2-1.

It’s now eleven minutes to five, the match is a minute into added on time and Rovers are besieging the Halesworth goal like local Saxons or Danes outside the Norman police station. A cross comes in from the left, and a Rovers head goes up diverting the ball goalwards but once again George Macrae appears, seemingly from nowhere to save the day again by cleanly catching the ball. “Six more minutes Haverhill” I hear a voice call, perhaps from the Rovers’ dugout, or perhaps it was Mr Gasson-Cox or someone just mucking about. Six minutes seems an awfully long time given that neither I nor the lady next to me can recall anyone really being injured. Another Rovers corner goes straight to the arms of Macrae but then Halesworth break away again, bearing down on goal on the right and then switching the ball across the edge of the penalty box before number eleven Alex Husband shoots from a narrow angle and the ball strikes a Rovers defender and arcs up over Archer the goalkeeper and into the goal off the far post. It’s 3-1 to Halesworth! The game is surely won and the knot of Halesworth players hugging by the corner flag and the under12’s ultras who have run along behind us hoping to celebrate with them clearly think so.

Very soon however, it’s three minutes to five and finally Mr Gasson-Cox parps his whistle for the last time today and Halesworth are into the third round of the FA Vase. Most people wait to cheer and applaud the team as they leave the pitch, but not before they applaud Mr Gasson-Cox the referee and his assistants, which is something you don’t see every day, and then the Haverhill players too. It’s been a wonderful afternoon, an exciting cup-tie played in front of a large and appreciative crowd, and everyone’s had a lovely time. As I leave the ground and make my way back across the stony car park and down Dairy Hill to the station I reflect on what a fine little town Halesworth is and how one day I really should return. All hail Halesworth!