Ipswich Town 0 Arsenal 4

April 22, 2025April 22, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Easter Sunday is the most significant date in the Christian calendar, one of only two days in England when even the big, mainly Mammon-worshipping supermarkets don’t open. As well as not going shopping for groceries on Easter Sunday, until today I don’t think I’ve ever been to a football match on Easter Sunday either, but today, because Ipswich Town are for now still in the evil Premier League, it is their turn to play Arsenal at Portman Road. My memories of previous Easter fixtures against Arsenal are not happy ones, with Easter Saturday 1981 looming large as one on which hopes of becoming champions of England were mortally wounded courtesy of a 2-0 defeat. Those hopes failed to be resurrected on the Easter Monday when we lost at Carrow Road, pretty much like today’s hopes of avoiding relegation, although I am told there is life after death in the second division.

The sun is shining this morning, but a cold north-easterly wind chills my un-gloved hands as I step out for the local railway station. It’s an eventful walk enlivened as it is by the sight of a horse’s bum through the open back of a horsebox trailer, the Colchester United team bus, a bumble bee crawling on the pavement where I’ve seen a bumble bee on the pavement before, a squashed ladybird with yellow innards, a dead squirrel, and a tall man sitting on the bonnet of a small car smoking a cigarette. By way of a conclusion to this odd combination of sightings, today’s train is going to be a bus that celebrates the fourth letter of the alphabet, a double-decker belonging to Don’s of Dunmow. But at least I get to sit upstairs at the front, from where I spot a banner imploring me to say ‘No’ to 180km of ‘giant pylons’. The banner sets me thinking about the stark beauty of electricity pylons in the rural landscape; I’m not sure about ‘giant’ ones mind, but imagine they’re better than tiny ones, which could be a trip hazard.

The bus journey is mercifully short, and I’m soon sat on a train next to Gary looking out for polar bears. I spot a couple as we pass through Wherstead, and when I tell Gary he asks if they were waving to the train. I tell him they were, and that it was a scene reminiscent of a polar bear-based version of the Railway Children, but without Jenny Agutter. In Ipswich, our carriage lands perfectly adjacent to the bridge over the tracks that has fewest steps, and with the benefit of the energy saved we are soon in Portman Road buying programmes (£3.50 each) and looking at what the design of the programme front cover should look like. Today’s design is a mash of the Town and Arsenal club crests and for some reason reminds me a little of the programme for the 1951 Festival of Britain ,I think it’s the colours. Cursing the grandees of Umbro for the actual programme cover picture (Conor Chaplin’s modelling for Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’), we ascend to the Arb, where for £8.94 including Camra discount I buy a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me and a pint of Lager 43 for Gary. Drinks in hand we find Mick in the beer garden and join him to talk of film, religion, sexual politics, double funerals, beer, wedding anniversaries, incels and birthdays before Gary buys a repeat round of drinks, including a Jameson whisky for Mick. Eventually Mick says “Its twenty to three, we’d better leave” so we do.

Either our ambling has got faster or The Arb and Portman Road have drawn closer together, but I’ve been checked for firearms, relieved myself and am shuffling past Pat from Clacton and Fiona to my seat next but one to the man from Stowmarket (Paul) and two rows behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood before the teams are even on the pitch. This means I get the opportunity to bellow the Town player’s surnames in the manner of a Gallic ultra as the over enthusiastic young stadium announcer reads them out, although sadly like a latter day Murphy he is not wholly in sync with the names appearing on the scoreboard today. The announcer ends his announcement by doubling over in the style of the deranged Basil Fawlty and bawling “Blue Armeeee! ” into his microphone three times before turning to hug his silent sidekick, Boo Boo, who I can only think is on hand to finish the announcement if he were to suddenly explode or have a seizure.

It is Ipswich who get first go with the ball this afternoon, sending it for a short while, until Arsenal steal it, towards the goal just in front of me and my fellow over-fifties ultras. Town are in blue and white, whilst Arsenal are in their customary red with white sleeves and shorts, resembling, to those familiar with the ‘lower divisions’, an uncharacteristically ‘up themselves’ version of Fleetwood Town . “We ain’t getting nuthin against this lot” remarks the bloke behind me optimistically, before the first minute has elapsed. “Fuckin’ unbelievable play” he says. “Just the way they play” he continues , explaining himself to the bloke next to him.

For all their ability, it takes Fleetwood nearly five minutes to win a corner. “Oh, When the Town, go marching in, Oh when the Town go marching in, I’m gonna be in that number, when the Town go marching in” drone the Sir Bobby Robson standers mournfully and the mood only lifts when the words “Home of the XL vent shipping container “ chase themselves across the illuminated billboard between the tiers of the Sir Bobby stand. Then, suddenly, Julio Enciso incisively runs at the Fleetwood defence, singling himself out as the Ipswich player with attacking intent, but sadly his flash of inspiration, is just that, a flash.

It’s the fourteenth minute, it’s still goalless and then it’s not as a run down the Town left and a low centre becomes a goal and the illuminated billboard reads “External Wall Insulation”. Fleetwood lead 1-0. “Come to see the Arsenal you’ve only come to see the Arsenal” sing the jubilant Fleetwood fans and then “We’ll never play you again, we’ll never play you again” confirming perhaps that they are some of the more pessimistic supporters with regard to their hopes for the future of the planet.

The once blue sky above Portman Road has become cloudy. A corner is headed over the Town crossbar, but otherwise the game consists of Fleetwood just passing the ball about endlessly. I begin to wish to myself that somebody would just do something. Fourteen minutes after the first goal comes a second. Again, a run down the left, a low cross, which is more of a pass, a flick which is a pass, and a player is free to pass the ball into the Town net. Fleetwood lead 2-0.

Four minutes later and Leif Davis’s studs come into contact with the back of Bukayo Saka’s ankle. Saka leaps into the air like a startled cat and Davis is sent off for endangering life, which VAR confirms. Later this evening in France, in an almost identical incident a St Etienne player (Lucas Stassin) will be sent off for a similar foul against the less feline Corentin Tolisso of OL, but this will then be rescinded and changed to a yellow card when the referee looks at the VAR screen. Tolisso will be carried off on a stretcher and Lucas Stassin will go on to score the winning goal. Sadly, Ipswich is not St Etienne.

In the aftermath of Davis’s dismissal, Cameron Burgess replaces Jack Clarke and Saka proceeds to miss two decent chances for a goal to loud jeers and boos from Town supporters before I notice that the floodlights are now on and it’s not even a quarter to three yet. I surmise that the lights are on because conspicuous consumption is one of the rules in the Premier League. Five minutes of added on time are added on thanks to the delay when Saka received treatment from the club vet. It allows time for a moment of joy for Town fans and the opportunity to cheer ironically when George Hirst is awarded a free-kick for being fouled. Ironic cheering is one of the skills supporters of ‘little’ teams promoted to the Premier League quickly develop .

Half-time is a brief island of pleasure in a sea of pain and is made all the more pleasurable by my consumption of a catchily named Na Okraglo chocolate and wafer bar, which I picked up in the World Food aisle at Sainsbury’s, and which is made in Poland and is just one of the many benefits of immigration into Britain in recent years.

But the football resumes all too soon at seven minutes past three and Town are quickly defending another corner. The highlight of the match for Town arrives in the fifty seventh minute as Sam Morsy shrugs off a couple of opponents, strides forward and places a ball over the top of our opponents’ defence, for George Hirst to run onto and then cut inside a defender to curve a shot just beyond the far post. Apart from Enciso’s early enthusiasm, it’s probably been the only thing worth seeing from Town all afternoon and I can’t help wondering if the opposition are that good, or if we’ve just given up.

Fleetwood make some substitutions, but it doesn’t seem to alter their ability to dominate the game and as I begin to wonder what Pat from Clacton might be having for her tea and whether it will be any different to usual because it’s Easter Sunday, I hear her say “potato”. “Mashed?” I ask, half believing I heard her say that too, but no, she said “Jacket”. I then have a brief conversation with Fiona about hot cross buns. She had hers on Friday as you should, but I admit to having been eating them for weeks now.

We’re heading towards the last twenty minutes and corner follows corner follows corner, and from the last one Town concede a third goal, as some bloke in a red shirt turns, shimmies and just kicks the ball into the goal in a ridiculously simple manner, as if suddenly bored with all this passing the ball around the goal, so he thought he’d just score instead. “We’ll never play you again” chant the Arsenal fans once more, gloomily foreseeing Armageddon within all our lifetimes and then the excitable young stadium announcer gives us that the news that there are 29,549 of us here this afternoon, but 2,955 of us are just passing through. Unsportingly, but failing to realise most of us no longer care, the Arsenal fans now taunt us with chants about ‘going down’. But who won the FA Cup in 1978 eh? Winning the Cup is permanent, as is losing in the final, but relegation isn’t.

Nothing continues to happen except the ball going backwards and forwards across the pitch as if we’re playing a team of hypnotists. I’m struck by what a miserable looking lot the Fleetwood players are. Eighty-seven minutes are pretty much up and a shot hits a Town goalpost when no one is looking, and then a minute later a different shot strikes Cameron Burgess’s bum and swerves off the perfectly angled buttock into the goal; perhaps that’s why they call them the Arsenal; Town lose, four-nil. As if to rub it in, there are four minutes of added on time too.

With the final whistle, those that haven’t already left, mostly leave quickly. With just thirteen minutes until my train departs I swiftly clear off too, feeling suddenly alive as if awoken from the afternoon nap equivalent of a nightmare in which I’ve been mesmerised by life-sapping close passing and bad singing. I’m just glad it’s over, just Brentford and West Ham United to go now.

Ipswich Town 1 Wolverhampton Wanderers 2

April 8, 2025April 23, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

This week has felt somewhat depressing, probably because I have been reading ‘The Kevin Beattie Story’ as told to Rob Finch (Cult Figure Publishing 2007). It’s a sorry tale of lost innocence and cruel fate and its sadness was not helped by the fact that my copy of the book had belonged to a close, longstanding friend who sadly died; his wife kindly asked me if I’d like any of his collection of ITFC related stuff, and the Beattie book was the one thing I didn’t have in my own museum.

Wednesday’s win for the Town in Bournemouth perked me up a bit, although I hadn’t bothered to find it on the telly, preferring to watch the second semi-final of the Coupe de France between AS Cannes and Stade de Reims. But now, as I step out into a bright blue Saturday afternoon, my mood has performed a summersault, and I can only think of a Town home win, a series of further improbable wins and the greatest escape from relegation ever seen. The season starts now and given that today’s game is only the second match at Portman Road in almost six weeks, it genuinely feels like it.

Unhappily, my journey to the match begins with a rail replacement bus service, but on the plus side I sit across the gangway from a woman of retirement age brandishing an ‘Extinction Rebellion’ placard. I think to myself how I might like to go on some demos in my retirement. As a baby-boomer, moulded by the 1960’s I think I owe it to future generations to stoke up a bit of revolution before I shuffle off this mortal coil. The diesel engine powered bus ride is mercifully brief and I’m soon with Gary on an electric train to Ipswich looking out for polar bears. We sit at a table and a man about the same age as me, possibly a little younger, sits down opposite us, first asking if we don’t mind if he sits there. “As long as you don’t disturb us” I tell him, by which I really mean “As long as you don’t join in with our conversation”, and that of course is exactly what he does. I’m not sure why I feel averse to social interaction today, perhaps it’s because with no match for three weeks I ‘ve become overly introverted.

Our arrival in wonderful down-town Ipswich is heralded by loud chanting from the car park of the Station Hotel where Wolverhampton supporters are singing “We are Wolves, We Are Wolves, We Are Wolves”. Such loud, pre-match singing has been unusual from visiting supporters this season and Gary and I speculate as we head for the Arb, that either the beer here in Ipswich is stronger than they’re used to in Wolverhampton, or they’ve all arrived early and been here for several hours. Gary asks if I’m going to get an ice cream; I tell him I am, but as usual I come away from the blue booth with just a match programme (£3.50).

At the Arb, there is no queue for the bar and I am soon stood in the beer garden holding my pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride and one of something called Rosa Blanca belonging to Gary (the Lager 43 is ‘off’), as I wait for him to emerge from the toilet. He takes an age, so regrettably I can’t help surmising that he must ‘doing a number two’. Mick does not join us today because he is watching his paramour’s granddaughter play for Ipswich Town Under-16 girls against Leeds United at Needham Market (kick off 12:30). I assume that the Leeds team is also made up of under 16 girls. After another pint of Suffolk Pride for me and an Estrella Damme for Gary, (he didn’t like the Rosa Blanca) it’s gone twenty to three and is time to leave for Portman Road and the main event of the day.

The back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand is thick with queues when I arrive and as I stand in line I pass the time by looking up at the dark metal fascia of top of the stand, which is impressively streaked with guano, although there is not a seabird to be seen, as if when asked they will say “it was like that when we got here” . The queue to turnstile 62 is as ever the slowest, so I switch to the seemingly better lubricated turnstile 61, but I’m still syphoning off excess Suffolk Pride as the team is read out and by the time I am reacquainting myself with Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his young son Elwood, all trace of the excitable, young and somewhat lanky stadium announcer, and his sidekick Boo Boo, has gone.

It’s the Town that get first go with the ball this afternoon and naturally sporting the famous blue and white they are soon getting the ball to travel in the direction of the goal just in front of me and my fellow fifty plus (with the exception of Elwood) Ultras. Wolverhampton are almost in their signature gold and black kit, but disappointingly their black shorts seem to be in the wash and their ‘gold’ shirts and substitute shorts aren’t that golden, more of a dark yellow, so anyone who is a bit short-sighted, or just contrary like me, might think they’re a poor man’s Cambridge United.

Pat is soon asking me if I’m well and we exchange complaints about aching knees and joints, it’s been that kind of a week. “Oh when the Town go marching in” chant the north standers miserably as if we’ll be doing it under duress, and the Wolverhampton number twenty-seven shoots over the Town cross bar. “Ed Sheeran, what a wanker, what a wanker” sing the Wulfrunians, as well they might, given that they share their love for their team with the likes of Robert Plant and Noddy Holder.

The Wolverhampton number nine shoots and Palmer saves as the prequel to repetitive chants of “Come on Wolvers” which are the soundtrack to three consecutive corners before Town earn a couple of corners of our own and I get to bellow “Come On You Blues”, which always seems to amuse Pat from Clacton, Then the ball is crossed in again. Dara O’Shea heads the ball back across goal and Liam Delap slides in to score, and Town lead one-nil. “Liam Delap, Ole,” chant the multilingual home supporters and Pat from Clacton snaps pictures of our hysterical faces. This is what being in the First Division is supposed to be like, but then reality bites as we have to wait for VAR to confirm that what we think we saw, we really saw. “VAR don’t work in football” says the bloke behind me bitterly as we grow cold and old waiting for the decision, which presumably takes so long because there is controversy over whether the blade of grass on the toe of Liam Delap’s boot is a part of his boot, in which case he’d be offside, or part of the pitch, in which case he isn’t. Surprisingly perhaps, the goal stands, and feeling even more excited than I did when we actually scored, I celebrate all over again.

High on the goal and VAR decision I am more convinced than ever that the Town will escape relegation, and decide that the Wolverhampton number seven, who mysteriously is just called ‘Andre’ , looks a bit like Freddie Mercury. Naturally intrigued, Pat from Clacton zooms in on him with her camera and disappointingly concludes that he looks nothing like him. It must have been the spring sunlight playing across his dark moustache. “Balustrades” reads the electronic advert between the tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson Strand, and then “Hot Sausage Company”, before then trying to convince us it is the ideal place to get one’s pre-match meal, making me wonder in the interests of a balanced diet what vegetables they serve to accompany the hot sausage.

Life winds down towards half-time with an indirect free-kick on the edge of the Town six yard box after Alex Palmer misjudges a back pass and has to make a diving save to prevent the ball from going into the goal. Another lengthy delay ensues as the referee struggles to employ the ten-yard rule within a space of only six yards, and predictably perhaps Wolverhampton miss anyway. Alex Palmer is booked for encroachment, probably because he felt responsible. Incredibly, but thankfully, only three minutes of added on time are added on and the first half ends with the home crowd feeling quite content with our lot.

Half-time is a blur of talking to Ray and his grandson Harrison, feeling a spot of water on my hand from the sprinklers on the pitch, syphoning off more Suffolk Pride and eating an oddly named ‘Alibi’ chocolate bar, which I found in the World Food aisle at Sainsbury’s and which comes from Poland and is a bit like a plain chocolate Toffee Crisp, but bigger; rather nice.

The football resumes at five minutes past four under the same clear blue sky that’s been here all day. “Come On Wolvers, Come On Wolvers” is quaintly reprised up in the Cobbold Stand, Wolverhampton win a corner and Ipswich win two, but it is the team from the Black Country who are mostly running at the Town defence with the ball and looking quite good, much better than they did in the first half, unfortunately. Silky Nathan Broadhead is replaced by the more combative Jack Taylor for Town. There are only twenty minutes left and Town still lead but it doesn’t feel like it. “Come on Wolvers” continue the Wulfrunians and a SWAT team snatches away one of their number who has presumably been being doing something good football spectators shouldn’t. I beginning to think that the Wolverhampton team is a bit whingy, whiny and rough and a bad influence on their supporters. “Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, the Norwich ran away” chant the Sir Bobby Robson standers referencing football hooliganism of yore in solidarity with the naughty boys of Wolverhampton.

After the seventy first minute, the seventy-second minute turns up as we expected it would, but with unexpected consequences as Wolverhampton’s Pablo Sarabia turns on the edge of the penalty area and shoots with no particular power at the Town goal. From where I am sitting I am fully expecting Alex Palmer to dive across to his left and palm the ball away, but instead the ball unsportingly evades him and carries on onto the corner of the net. Town are no longer winning and life is suddenly not as sweet as it was a few moments ago. Of course, VAR has to give us false hope that a loose thread from a gold shirt was in an offside position and might have distracted Palmer, but it is not to be and our pain is doubled with the seemingly inevitable confirmation that the goal was indeed a goal.

“We are Wolves, We are Wolves” chant the visiting Wulfrunians, at last feeling bold enough to identify themselves in public, and by way of confirmation we are told that there are 2,955 of them amongst a total crowd of 29,549 and we are all thanked for our “incredible support,” which I can’t help thinking gets a little less incredible and a little more ordinary every time we are told that it’s incredible. Meanwhile, back in the Cobbold stand the Wulfrunians have broken free of their shackles and launched into a chorus of the socialist anthem the Red Flag, although despite the lyrics of the song expressly forbidding it, they have changed the colour of the flag from red to gold. Flippin’ revisionists.

Ten minutes of normal time remain as hopelessly inaccurate shots rain in on the Town goal and the Wolverhampton fans gain in confidence to the extent that they tell us we’re “Going down with the Albion”, by which I assume they must mean Burton Albion because both West Bromwich and Brighton & Hove are both securely mid-table. Either their barbed taunts provoke a reaction, or Keiran McKenna looks at his watch and realises it’s nearly tea-time as he makes a sudden rash of substitutions with Delap, Townsend and Cajuste replacing Philogene, Davis and Hirst on the bench. The changes unfortunately bring disaster for Town as within three minutes a run into the box and a low cross allows a large Norwegian by the name of Strand Larsen to score a close-range goal similar to that which Delap scored in the first half. “Like a a bag of cement” says the bloke behind me about some Town defender or other. “Piss poor” he concludes. VAR twists the knife by again making us wait for confirmation that the goal was a goal, as all hope at first slowly but then more quickly bleeds out of us.

Seven minutes of added time are of no help; we lose and are well beaten by a more skilful, more exciting, more proficient team, interestingly made up entirely of players from Portugal, Brazil, France, Spain and other countries that aren’t England. But the league table still says that they are the next worst team after us.

Not to worry, this sorry tale of a season of lost innocence and cruel fate will soon be over.

Ipswich Town 2 Nottingham Forest 4

March 16, 2025March 17, 2025 / martinpbrooks / 2 Comments

One of the many awful things about the awful English Premier League is that it is possible to go weeks on end without a home game. It is three weeks since Ipswich played at Portman Road, and in that time the cost of the rail fare to Ipswich has increased by about four per cent. It feels so long since I last went to a match that I would believe it if someone told me that not only have the fares gone up, but electric trains have replaced steam ones too. It is with a sense of dim resignation therefore that I set out for the railway station beneath a blue, but cloud strewn sky.

Gary joins me at the first station stop after I send him instructions by text that I am sat at the back of the second, forward facing, pointy-ended carriage. The train does not seem as busy as usual as if everyone is losing interest. Descending into Ipswich through Wherstead, we spot one polar bear having a swim and another languidly strolling along like polar bears do. Arriving in Ipswich we head for ‘the Arb’ via Portman Road, where Gary is handed a Panini sticker, which bizarrely features the gormless, messy-haired portrait of local ginger celebrity Ed Sheeran. I tell him he should hand it back. We pause to buy programmes (£3.50 each) at one of the booths that look as if they should also sell ice creams. Today’s programme has a boring picture of a footballer on the front cover, I think it’s Luke Woolfenden, but am struck by the thought that it looks a bit like Kurtan Mucklowe from TV’s This Country. Either way, the world would be a better place if the ‘poster’ design on the inside of the back page featuring the Cobbold Stand was the front cover of the programme. I am sure that if the poster designs had continued to be used as front covers as originally intended, Town would not be in the relegation zone. Damn you Umbro.

At ‘the Arb’, Gary buys the drinks (Lager 43 for him, Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me), and then Mick appears, and Gary buys him a drink too (Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride), and at Mick’s request, a packet of potato crisps (Fairfeld’s Cheese and Onion flavour). We repair to the beer garden where unusually there are plenty of vacant seats and tables, further evidence perhaps that the supposed excitement of Premier League football is wearing thin, or that it’s been so long since we had a match people thought, or hoped, the season was over. We talk of firing squads, lethal injections, the full moon over Felixstowe, Allan Hunter, kitchen tidiness and wedding anniversaries. We laugh a lot, Gary gives Mick his sticker of Ed Sheeran, Mick buys more drinks (Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride, Lager 43 and a Penderyn Welsh whisky) and we predict a 2-1 win to the Town on the understanding that we actually expect them to lose, again. Proudly, we claim the distinction of being the last Portman Road-bound drinkers to leave the pub.

In Portman Road we part ways near Sir Alf Ramsey’s statue and wonder on what far off date we will meet again for the next home match, which we think is against the Wanderers of Wolverhampton. I sense that we don’t care too much about what match it will be, but are already mostly looking forward to the hour to be spent in the pub beforehand. At the back of the Alf Ramsey Stand the queues are modest in length, but I join those being ushered through the side entrance, which makes me feels like I’m entering Studio 54 or some after hours boozer. After venting excess Suffolk Pride I am soon with Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood. I must be early again today because I’m here in time to witness the attempt to barbecue any stray pigeons and seagulls in front of the Cobbold Stand, and to shout out the surnames of Town players in the style of the ‘Magic Fans’ of St Etienne or ‘Les Dodgers’ of Lens as the overly enthusiastic young stadium announcer reads out the team before he finally, embarrassingly, bellows ‘Blue Army’ into his microphone.

Today’s visitors and therefore inevitable winners are Nottingham Forest, who also get first go with the ball, which they initially send only in the general direction of the goal in front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand. Sensibly, Nottingham wear all red, having only swapped their usual white shorts to avoid any hint of a colour clash, rather than donning some weird all-black or gaudily-coloured away kit which will sell well in replica versions in Myanmar, Papua New Guinea and South Korea, but is not necessary.

In the upper tier of the Cobbold stand the Nottingham fans sing incomprehensibly about their team, who hold on to possession for almost two minutes before Town get to have a go with it too, courtesy of a throw-in. “England’s, England’s, number ten” continue the Nottinghamians mysteriously, about a player who, unless it’s Nigel Clough, I have probably never heard of. It’s the fourth minute and Town have a free-kick in the sort of location from which Colin Viljoen or Arnold Muhren might have easily scored in happier days, but today’s effort only strikes the defensive wall.

“Down with the Leicester, you’re going down with the Leicester” chant the Nottingham lot as I fantasize about a big wheel of red cheese, whilst the words “Home of the XL vent shipping container” scroll their way along the front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand before disappearing into the side wall of the Planet Blue shop. Not much is happening on the pitch, but with a seemingly limitless but mostly unimaginative back catalogue of songs and chants, the Nottingham fans proceed to resurrect Tony Christie’s cheesy ‘Road to Amarillo’ before hitting on the old classic “Football in a library, do-do-do”. The Nottingham Forest team seems fashionably short-haired, looking as if National Service didn’t end in the East Midlands in 1960, like it did in the rest of Britain, but the exception is number thirty-four who resembles side-show Bob from The Simpsons, and probably has more hair on his head than all of his team mates put together; if he went to head the ball with any part of his skull but his forehead, there’s a risk the ball would disappear.

Ipswich win a corner and I bawl “Come On you Blues” with minimal accompaniment before Omari Hutchinson shoots over the cross bar. Pat is working hard taking photographs this afternoon and seems particularly interested in snapping the Nottingham number five. “Murillo” she says. “What like the cherry?” I ask. Pat tells me she follows him on some social media platform or other. “Oooh, he’s gorgeous” she says. “Take a look, you might even fancy him yourself”. “If you hear something that doesn’t seem right” read the advertising screens between the tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson stand. I think of Gary’s Panini sticker, which he gave to Mick.

Over twenty minutes have gone forever, and Town aren’t losing. Cruel hope and foolish optimism begin to insinuate their way into my mind. Nottingham take a corner and still it’s goalless. “Come of You Reds” sing the occupants of one end of the Cobbold Stand. “Ole. Ole. Ole” sing the occupants of the other. The game is a third of the way to finishing goalless. “Blue and White Army” chant the Sir Bobby Robson standers a good two or three times and the words “Hot Sausage Company” appear above them in bold red letters moving from left to right.

The thirty fourth minute and Nottingham earn a corner as Alex Palmer’s hacked clearance cannons off Jens Cajuste. The corner is cleared but then crossed in again, knocked down and a big bloke called Milenkovic scores. Bugger. Two minutes later Town lose possession, have no left back and Elanga sprints away with the ball down the Town left and scores. “We’re gonna win 3-2” says Fiona. “Yes, we’re going to win 3-2” I reply as convincingly as I can. Five minutes later, the ball bounces and Elanga scores again.

Pat from Clacton is going to Great Yarmouth this week for her twice-yearly week of playing whist. She’s hoping to win lots of money and is looking forward to seeing the sun rise over the sea from her bedroom at the Palm Court hotel. “Down with the Leicester, you’re going down with the Leicester” chant the Nottingham fans, but Pat won’t mind. The half ends with Kalvin Phillips shooting over the bar, two minutes of added on time and an obese woman walks up the steps from the front of the stand carrying a bottle of Coke and bag of crisps.

With the half-time break, I take a short walk to the front of the stand to speak with Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison. In front of us are three ‘trainee’ guide dogs. “What do you call a group of dogs?” asks Ray. “A pack” I tell him “So this is a pack of guide dogs”. We go on to talk about the popular image of packs of dogs tearing other animals or even people apart, and contrast this to a pack of guide dogs who we imagine compete with one another to help people.

It’s three minutes past four when the match resumes. Town soon win a corner and Omari Hutchinson has a shot, then win another and O’Shea heads over the goal. As the man from Stowmarket remarked before the game, it’s very cold today, possibly the coldest it’s been at Portman Road all season. Kalvin Phillips is the first player to be booked because fifty-four minutes have departed and it’s about time for a booking. Pat reveals that she’s already started looking forward to eating the baked potato she’s having for her tea. There is a half an hour left and whilst Town are having most of the possession there’s not much going on.

The best bit of the game so far arrives when Nottingham’s Nicolas Dominguez rolls around on the ground having committed a foul, gets up, gets booked and then hobbles about pathetically. “There’s nothing wrong with you” chant the Sir Bobby Robson standers to the tune of Verdi’s “La Donna e mobile”, which the Argentinian Dominguez will no doubt appreciate if he’s ever been to the Teatro Colon opera house in Bueno Aires.

“It’s not worth getting monkey out, is it?” asks Pat, raising the possibility of employing her masturbating monkey good luck charm to influence the result. “Probably not”, agree Fiona and I. “He can’t perform miracles” says Fiona, and I suggest that we’d have the RSPCA round, especially on a day as cold as this.

Town win yet another corner, but nothing comes of it and the bloke behind me comments that “You can make all these passes around the penalty area look good, but it don’t do anything does it, fart-arsing around with it?”. As I digest the truth of this, the excitable young stadium announcer tells us that we are 29,878 and 3,000 of us are mainly here to watch Nottingham, not Ipswich; meanwhile the Nottingham fans sing something which sounds like “We’re eating porridge”, but they could be singing about Norwich. I resign myself to neither knowing nor caring, but instead enjoy the mass substitutions from both teams that greet the 80^th minute. What game-changing substitutions these prove to be as within two minutes Town are on their way to winning the second half. Presumably elated at having for once not been substituted, Jens Cajuste superbly turns and scores into the top corner of the Nottingham goal. Admittedly, just four minutes later a typical breakaway at pace allows Silva to restore the three goal lead for Nottingham, but then in one of the four minutes of added on time, substitute George Hirst rises to head into the other top corner of the Nottingham goal to win the second half for Town. Most of the home crowd have left by now, which in itself is quite satisfying because people who leave early don’t deserve to experience the joy that late consolation goals bring to proper fans.

The final whistle sounds, and with my train home still twenty-five minutes away, I stay to applaud what people not prepared to wilfully disregard all that happened before four o’clock will fail to realise is a victorious Town team as they traipse off the pitch. There are now just four home games left, we’re out of the FA Cup, in the relegation zone, effectively nine points behind the team above us in the league, and Spring is in the air. Today, it still feels like Winter and I suspect it will continue to do so for another four games, whatever the weather does. Up The Town!

Ipswich Town 1 Tottenham Hotspur 4

February 23, 2025March 20, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

I think it was Christmas 1970 when I was given a Continental Club edition of Subbuteo, which included a team in red and white and one in blue and white. The team in blue and white was of course Ipswich Town and before Christmas 1971 I had acquired a set of cut-out adhesive numbers to stick on their backs so that I could tell which one was Colin Viljoen, which one was Jimmy Roberston and which one was Rod Belfitt. But Subbuteo produced other teams too, and Viljoen, Robertson, Belfitt et al didn’t want to play Manchester United every week and so, because I liked Martin Peters, their plain white and navy-blue kit and all the letter T’s in their name, I acquired a Tottenham Hotspur.

I liked Tottenham Hotspur for a couple of years after that, until one Saturday in October 1973, when Ipswich played them at Portman Road in a rugged goalless draw; Ipswich should have won and Tottenham were the dirtiest team I’d ever seen. After that, I no longer liked Tottenham and soon painted two navy blue vertical stripes on their shirts, and they became Portsmouth.

Today, fifty-two years on and Ipswich are once again playing Tottenham, and a rugged goalless draw will once again suit Tottenham more than Ipswich, but the likelihood of that happening is slim. After losing track of time and having to hurry to the station I find the train to be quite busy, I have to ask a blond woman to budge up so I can sit down. Gary joins me on the train at the next station stop and he tells me of how he has had food poisoning after eating fried chicken from his local chippy. We spot one polar bear as the train descends into Ipswich, and an American man who is with the blond woman and who has come from Los Angeles to see the game asks me “Is that real?” I am tempted to say that they are just people dressed up in bear-suits but take pity on someone from a country in which truth and reality are at risk from being signed away by executive order at any moment.

Sensibly, the ticket barriers are open at Ipswich railway station and a human tide soon washes up Princes Street towards Portman Road where Gary and I both pause to buy a programme (£3.50) and comment on how boring the front cover is thanks to kit manufacturer Umbro and their corporate philistinism, which has kept the work of local designers confined to the inside of the back page and reminds us to tell the Portman Road ruling elite that “you can stick Umbro up your bum bro.”

We arrive at the Arb before Mick, and I buy myself a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride and Gary a pint of Lager 43 (£8 something with Camra discount). We sit in the beer garden with the many other match-bound drinkers discussing film, politics, death, religion and eventually Donald Trump. We’ve sunk a second round of drinks by not much after half past two and it’s against our will when we can’t help leaving a little early for the ground. Mick asks me for a score prediction; I tell him I’ve grown so accustomed to crashing disappointment that I can’t foresee anything other than defeat, however badly I want to say we’ll win and however poor I think Tottenham probably are. We go our separate ways at the junction of Portman Road and Sir Alf Ramsey Way, saying our farewells until next time in what might be the shadow of Sir Alf Ramsey’s statue if we were in the southern hemisphere.

The queues to get into the Sir Alf Ramsey stand are fulsome, but sensibly again, at turnstiles 59 to 62 supporters are soon syphoned off through a side gate by people with hand held bar code readers, which make them seem as if they’re interrupting their afternoon supermarket shop. In the stand, Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood are of course already here. The teams are only just coming out onto the pitch. “You’re early “says Fiona. “I know, I didn’t mean to be” I reply, and flames leap up in front of the Cobbold stand. I expect to see roasted seagulls and pigeons fall to the ground as the flames subside. The excitable young stadium announcer reads out the team as if it’s the most important announcement ever made and I mostly manage to bawl out the team surnames as if at a game in Ligue 1, but the excitable young stadium announcer panics towards the end like the youngster that he is and gets out of sync with the scoreboard. As ever, the excitable young stadium announcer who I admit I now find a bit annoying ends his announcement with his usual shout of “Blue Army” , before disappearing into the tunnel with his shorter side kick in the manner of Yogi and Boo Boo, Cheech and Chong or Rene and Renato.

It’s Tottenham, in white shirts with navy-blue sleeves and shorts that get first go with the ball, which they quickly boot in the general direction of the telephone exchange. But I’ve barely had time to register that the seat in front of me has no one sitting in it when Ipswich nearly score; Liam Delap bears down on goal, panic ensues in the Tottenham defence, the ball appears as if it might have been bundled over the goal line by Philogene and the linesman raises his flag for an apparent offside. Moments later Delap bears down on goal again but produces a pretty lame, scuffed shot which rolls harmlessly beyond the far post. It’s two-nil to Town, almost. The bloke behind me is getting excited about how Town have got Tottenham rattled. “He ain’t no strength if Omari pushed ‘im off the ball” he says as Town win the ball back in the Tottenham half, and then a free-kick is headed against the goal post by Liam Delap, who completes his hat-trick, or he would have done if any of his attempts had gone in the goal.

So much early excitement and it looks like Town are going to win handsomely as the Cobbold stand is bathed in soft, late winter sunlight. “Hello, Hello, We are the Tottenham boys” sing the Tottenham fans revealing possibly, not unexpected sexist attitudes, or more encouragingly that Tottenham girls now comfortably identify as boys if they feel like it. Fifteen minutes are lost to history and Tottenham’s Brennan Johnson is the first player to see the yellow of the referee’s cards. “Oh when the Spurs, Go marching in” sing the Tottenham fans miserably as if they might at any moment burst into tears or slit their own throats, but then their team unexpectedly scores. The best pass of the game so far, some jinking about by Son Heung-min, a low cross and Johnson arrives on time to convert a simple chance.

As supporters of a team that has already lost eight home games it’s a situation we are well acquainted with and is like water off a duck’s back. Within minutes Town have a corner and I am bawling “Come on You Blues” in glorious isolation. Delap shoots and again doesn’t score but the game then takes a surreal turn as alarmingly the Tottenham fans sing “Can’t smile without you” by Barry Manilow, before Son again gets past Godfrey on the left and provides a pass for Johnson to sweep into the Town net and Tottenham lead 2-0. I had hoped for better, and the mood is not lifted as Pat reveals that she has had sciatica all week and has been taking Ibuprofen and Paracetemol. “The hard stuff” says Fiona, and Pat does seem a bit spaced out as she admits that much more of this and her thoughts will turn to the jacket potato she’s going to have for her tea. I can’t help wondering if she hasn’t thought of the jacket potato already, which is why she mentioned it.

In the Cobbold stand, the now jubilant Tottenham fans sing “Nice one Sonny, Nice one Son, Nice one Sonny, Let’s ‘ave another one” stirring unhappy memories of “Nice One Cyril”, which phenomenally reached No14 in the UK singles chart in 1973, although more happily it was released for the League Cup final in which Tottenham beat Norwich City, and it wasn’t by Chas and Dave. In an apparently unrelated incident, Jack Clarke is the first Town player to be booked, probably just to even things up. A Spurs player meanwhile, is down on the ground receiving treatment. “Oh, just dig a hole” I say, having lost my carefree, happy-go-lucky outlook. “That’s an old song” says Fiona.

Four minutes later, and our depression lifts a little as Leif Davis squares the ball for Omari Hutchinson to sweep into the Tottenham goal and cruelly restore hope.

The final nine minutes of the half and three minutes of added-on time play out with Ben Godfrey getting booked, Alex Palmer making a save, Tottenham winning a corner and an obese woman walking down to the front of the stand and then back carrying a pie, a bottle of Coca Cola and a bar of chocolate. Having not had any lunch myself, at half-time I eat a Slovakian Mila wafer and chocolate bar from the Sainsbury’s World Food aisle, but not before I’ve gone down to the front of the stand and spoken with Dave the steward, Ray and his grandson Harrison.

When the football resumes, Luke Woolfenden is on as substitute for Godfrey, who it seems has been excused. Only seven minutes elapse before another substitution is made with a limping Jens Cajuste replaced by Jack Taylor, who fortunately is moving normally. “Edison House Group” says the illuminated advertisement display between the two tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson stand and I think of the bubble-gum pop stylings of ”Love grows where my Rosemary goes”, before Town win a corner and have a goal by Luke Woolfenden disallowed for an apparent offside.

More substitutions follow, Tottenham bring on former Canary Maddison to boos from the home crowd and a chorus of “He’s only a poor little budgie…”, whilst the bloke behind me exclaims “As long as he don’t score, I don’t give a shit now”. Tottenham win a corner, Town win a corner, chants of “Come On You Spurs” and “Come On You Blues” are followed by those of “Shit referee, shit referee, shit referee”, and then the same again but louder as Mr Robinson ups his game by awarding a random drop ball to Tottenham. Then it’s 3-1 to Tottenham and there’s only thirteen minutes left.

Today’s attendance is announced as 30,003 by the excitable young announcer , who as usual thanks us for our “incredible” support, something that he does with such monotonous regularity that if he weren’t so excitable he would probably now swap the word “incredible” for “usual”. Kalvin Phillips becomes the second Town player to be hurt and unable to carry on, but despite the deepening gloom in the stands the match is being played out under a beautiful blue sky dappled with puffy clouds. “Hot Sausage Co” reads the electronic advertisement hoardings. A fourth Tottenham goal leads to more rancour and “The referee’s a wanker” is chanted enthusiastically as Town win a late corner and the words “Home of the XL vent shipping container” appear on the electronic advertising hoardings to accompany a reprise of “When the Spurs go marching in” before a fruitless eight minutes of added-on time, is added on, fruitlessly.

The final whistle witnesses several sharp exits from the stands of those who of course haven’t already left, whilst others hang on to boo Mr Robinson, or applaud the team, who overall have not played badly, and have for all but four brief, but somewhat decisive spells of play matched their opponents. Sadly, I no longer have my Subbuteo teams, but if did Idon’t think I’d be painting out the blue stripes I painted onto those Tottenham shirts any time soon.

Braintree Town 2 Forest Green Rovers 0

February 16, 2025February 16, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It is roughly seven years and three months ago that I last made the 14.5 kilometre journey from my house to Braintree to watch Braintree Town play. That mild, blowy November evening in 2017 Braintree Town, or ‘The Irons’ as they are known to their friends, played out a one-all draw against Truro City and as on all the previous seven times I had been to see Braintree Town, I travelled by car. Today, having dismissed the idea of driving the 27.9 kilometres to Long Melford in my planet saving Citroen e-C4 to see ‘The Villagers’, as they are known to their friends, play Soham Town Rangers, I am going to return to Braintree. As a responsible adult however, I am keen to do things Donald Trump wouldn’t do, and to reduce the double scourge of traffic congestion and on-street parking I have therefore decided to take the X20 bus to Braintree, where most appropriately Braintree Town are to play probably England’s greenest football club, Forest Green Rovers, in the Vanarama National League. What is more, Forest Green Rovers are also supported by the Grateful Dead. As it used say on the sides of buses back in the 1960’s, “It’s better by bus”.

The X20 bus stop is only 200 metres from my front door and although the bus is about five minutes late, I am soon passing two one pound coins and two fifty pence pieces through the gap beneath the Perspex screen that separates me from the cheerful, bearded bus driver, who, although not old enough, looks a bit like he might once have been, or should have been in the Incredible String Band. Fortunately, the bus is a double-decker so I can safely sit upstairs; the leather high-backed seats are comfortable, the bus is warm, and the windows aren’t steamed up, so I look out on the gloriously grey Essex countryside as it alternately sweeps and judders by as the bus passes along the pot-holed roads. Behind me, younger, more self-centred people than myself either noisily watch ‘content’ or hold loud, vacuous conversations on their mobile phones. When I was young, old people would often sit next to me on buses and want to talk.

The timetable that I looked at on-line when planning my journey indicated that it would take twenty-three minutes, and the big blue bus is soon arriving on the outskirts of Braintree, something that is announced with its cathedral, a Tesco supermarket. From Tesco’s, Braintree unfolds as lines of dull looking houses of decreasing size. I am due to get off at the stop identified as “Braintree o/s King’s Head” and recognising the approach to the junction with Cressing Road where the King’s Head is situated and seeing a bus stop flag, I press the bell, but too soon and the bus draws up at a stop called “Dallwood Way”. Whilst stupidly unable not to think of Virginia Woolf, I nevertheless manage to say to the bus driver “Oh, I wanted the next stop . “He offers to drive on, because obviously he’s going to anyway, but I tell him it (Cressing Road) is only round the corner, and as things work out the bus is held by a red light at the junction and I get round the corner in to Cressing Road before I would have done if I’d got off at my intended stop. Across Cressing Road I can see that what was once the King’s Head pub is now a Tesco ‘local’.

It has started to rain, and weighed down with the responsibility of not wasting the valuable seconds I have gained by getting off the bus early, I step out on the ten-minute walk up Cressing Road and along Clockhouse Way to what was called the Ironmongery Direct stadium the last time I was here, but now rejoices under the name of The Rare Breed Meat Co Stadium. Being the world’s first vegan football club, I’m surprised Forest Green Rovers haven’t refused to play here, and there are so few people walking up Clockhouse Way with me I do begin to wonder if the game hasn’t been postponed. But the sight of a man in a day-glo coat, a full club car park, a man in an orange football club hat and three other people obviously dressed for an afternoon of spectating allays my fears and I head for the turnstile labelled “card only” where the wonder of modern technology takes £20 from my bank account with the mere tap of a piece of plastic. Satisfyingly, I am given a small, printed ticket in exchange, it’s number 86.

To buy a programme (£3.00) I make for the club shop, a cornucopia of old programmes, club badges and general football fan bric-a-brac in a portacabin; every club should have one, but fewer and fewer do. A radio in the club shop is tuned to Radio Essex and a time check tells me that it is six minutes to three, so I head out and onto the open terrace behind the goal to select a spot against the back wall, level with the eaves of the club house just behind.

The teams process onto the pitch to the strains of “Firestarter” by ‘electronic punk’ or ‘rave’ band The Prodigy, who are or were Braintree’s modern claim to fame. There is a minute’s silence before the kick-off for a recently deceased former player. It’s a silence that is at first disturbed by shouts of ‘Rovers’ from somewhere off to my right. Once achieved, the silence seems a long one as if the referee in schoolteacher mode had decided that we were just going to have to wait to begin until everyone was quiet.

When the match eventually begins, it is Braintree who get first go with the ball, sending it mostly away from where I am standing, and in a south easterly direction towards the village of Tye Green and far off Witham, where this afternoon Witham Town are going to lose heavily to Bury Town in the Isthmian League. Braintree wear a gloriously colourful kit of orange shirts and blue shorts, a brighter version of Montpellier HSC of French Ligue 1. Forest Green Rovers by contrast are in a disappointingly dull, faded looking shade of all-over green, but with black slashes on the front of their shirts as if they had originally been intended for use by a safari park eleven.

Braintree dominate the start of the game and all the action is at the far end where it looks compressed into a few yards. A few feet along from me a middle-aged man twitches and flexes as he wills Braintree to score with a quiet commentary of encouragement to himself. “Oooooh” he suddenly exclaims as an early cross eludes the straining head of an orange shirted player at the far post. The rain has started to feel like sleet. Along the walkway at the foot of the terrace, a procession of hungry-looking ten and eleven-year-olds ferry polystyrene trays stacked with chips and burgers, which may or may not be from the meat of slaughtered rare breeds. “Your support is fucking shit” comes the chant from beneath the low roof of the terrace on the east side of the ground. “Come on” continues the bloke a few feet away from me, quietly to himself as Braintree win another early corner.

It is eleven minutes past three and Braintree score. A low shot from wide on the left into the far side of the Forest Green goal. “Goal scorer for…” says the stadium announcer from his garden shed inside the low-roofed terrace. He stops mid announcement but then continues to tell us that the goal scorer is what sounds to me like “Cairo Lisbie”. “Goal scorer today” he repeats as if he thinks it’s unlikely anyone else will score, “Cairo Lisbie”. In fact, of course, he is saying Kyrell Lisbie.

“No noise from the Vegan boys” is the chant from beneath the low roof of the side terrace, as if to rub it in that we’re in the “Rare Breeds Meat Co stadium”, and I decide that the drizzle is now too cold and heavy and so I make for the covered terrace beneath the low roof. “When’s the Southend game?” I hear a bloke say as I walk by. “I’ve got a feeling it’s next month” says his interlocutor evidently preferring to rely on sensations rather than the actual fixture list, which confirms that the fixture is on April 18^th. In my new location on the covered terrace with the low roof I have a new set of neighbours. “Yellow there ref, yellow, that is a yellow, thank you” says a bloke nearby as Forest Green’s Adam May becomes the first player to be booked by referee Gareth Rhodes, whose name is similar to that of a once popular, but now deceased tv chef.

A high cross field ball from a Forest Green player is greeted with a derisory jeer from the home crowd and then a collective, disappointed ‘Oh’ as it drops perfectly onto the bounce-free turf at the feet of Rovers’ wide player. Around me the locals continue to take umbrage at Mr Rhodes’ failure to book any more Rovers players. “Should of (sic) got booked earlier” shouts someone, “How many more times?” enquires someone else, before shouting it again, and then again, making me wonder how many more times he would shout it. “Cynical!” calls a short bespectacled youth next to me, and then “I’m watching you ten”, as if this matters.

At twenty-seven minutes to three Braintree score a second goal; one very much like the first, but this time with a shot from wide on the right into the far corner of the goal by number seven, Tom Blackwell. After three minutes of added on time, half-time arrives and the public address system returns us to 1979 with the sound of ‘A message to you Rudy’ by the Specials. I eat a Polish Grzeski chocolate-coated wafer bar from the Sainsbury’s World Foods aisle and reflect on all the other delicious European foodstuffs that could have been so much more freely available had Britain not left the European Union.

Today’s attendance is announced as being 860 and the football resumes at five past four. I walk to the far end of the low-roofed terrace where I find myself amongst mostly Forest Green Rovers supporters, and I feel happier amongst the sounds of their west country burr than amongst the aggressive rants and growls of the voices of the displaced Londoners who now live in Essex.

Rovers begin the half with purpose, and in the first few minutes spend as much time in the Braintree penalty area as they did in the whole of the first half. But then Braintree breakaway and hit the post or the bar with a shot. “Come on Rovers” call the people around me from beneath their green and black knitted headwear. “We’re winning” says a young bloke nearby and it seems from subsequent mention of Liam Delap that he and his friends are either Ipswich Town supporters watching Forest Green, or Forest Green supporters who follow Ipswich.

I’m seeing Forest Green at closer quarters this half and soon establish that their team is ‘set up’ in the traditional formation of a couple of big blokes at the back, a big bloke up front with smaller blokes all around, especially on the wings. Braintree would seem to be similar and with a blend of youth and experience which includes the venerable thirty-five year olds John Akinde, a man in the mould of the legendary Adie Akinbiyi, but obviously not as big, and defender Jamal Fyfield. Despite more possession this half, Forest Green are not making any decent chances. “Shoot” plead the people around me. “Bring on a fuckin’ strikerr” says another, more directly and rolling his ‘r’s like a comedy pirate in the process. It’s nearly twenty to five when Forest Green have a shot good enough to force the Braintree goalkeeper into making a save and by then they have replaced half their outfield with substitutes, including one Harvey Bunker, who I like to think has a brother called Cole.

The second half is one of frustration for away supporters and tension for home fans, only occasionally relieved by a wet, slippery, muddy pitch which induces a sprinkling of pratfalls and mis-kicks for added comedic effect. Eventually, after the initial ninety minutes are played out, Mr Rhodes adds another six for good measure and halfway through these the Braintree fans feel sufficiently confident of victory to begin chanting “We are staying up”. Their optimism is well placed as not surprisingly, given what has happened since three o’clock, Forest Green fail to produce a miraculous come-back .

With the final whistle, a mostly happy crowd slips away into the receding dusky light whilst a few Forest Green fans hang about to berate their players by way of encouraging better in the future. I too drift away, past the interesting 1930’s modernist workers houses beyond the club car park and back down Clockhouse Way and Cressing Road to the bus stop. The bus will be late again, the stop has no shelter and it starts to rain again, but as the win to the local team proves, it’s better by bus.