It’s a grey December afternoon, there is a strong, gusty wind and the forecast is for rain, or for showers at least; ideal weather for a football match, particularly one at step five of the non-league game where shelter from the cold and elements will be minimal. From where I live it is only possible to use public transport in getting to Haverhill by catching a train to Ipswich and then to Cambridge and then a number 13 bus, which overall would take about 4 hours. The 42 kilometre drive by Citroen C3 will take about a minute for every kilometre, perhaps a few more depending on the traffic. I opt for the car journey; I’ll have to make up for the impact on my carbon footprint another time.
Even on a grey day it’s a pleasant enough drive through north Essex, skirting Halstead and then Castle Hedingham, with a glimpse of the Norman castle off to the right, and on through the villages of Great Yeldham, Ridgewell and finally into Suffolk and Sturmer, one of my favourite place names. Arriving on the outskirts of Haverhill the dull estates of houses contrast with what went before. This doesn’t feel like Suffolk, it looks like a ‘new town’ and in a way it is, Haverhill having been expanded in the 1960’s and 1970’s as part the Greater London Plan to re-house people from Inner London. “Overspill” was the less than flattering word often used to describe the towns, and the people.
From Chalkstone Way (a street name made up by developers if ever there was one) I turn the Citroen right into the car park of the New Croft, home of Haverhill Rovers and the Haverhill Community Sports Association. I park up a short walk from the neat metal turnstile block. It’s not half-past two yet and I’m one of the first here.
I hand over my £6 entrance money and remark to the turnstile operator, a man who is probably in his late sixties that it’s good value for money and how surprised I was to have to pay £8 at Framlingham a few weeks ago.
He explains in a London accent how the league tells the clubs that they can charge between £6 and £8, but the club wants to get as many people in as possible, so why charge more than the minimum? Children are admitted free. I buy a programme (£1) and the man tells me I can get food at the tea hut or I can go inside in the warm, in the bar. I choose the tea bar where a mother and daughter combine to serve me with a bacon roll (£2.50); daughter takes the money, mum prepares the roll. It’s a very good bacon roll with two lean rashers of bacon, although in an ideal world a small baguette would get my vote over a soft roll, I blame Brexit.
I eat the bacon roll as the two teams warm up on the pitch in front of me; then I think I might have a drink in the bar, but sadly looking along row of pumps it doesn’t look like there is a real ale and I’m nothing if not discerning. Needing something to wash down the bacon roll I return to the mother and daughter for a cup of tea (£1.20) and then, paper cup in hand, I take a look about. The New Croft is a fine facility with its sports hall, spacious looking changing room and toilet block and 3G pitches, but for a non-league football ground it lacks character. It’s too neat and tidy and there is something a bit soulless and anodyne about it, with its two off the shelf metal stands and sturdy metal rail around the pitch; Meccano meets the Football Trust. The presence of a ‘lost’ football on the roof of the changing room is a good attempt at creating a bit of interest, but it doesn’t compete with the discarded double glazing and bollards of Stowmarket Town, the scaffolding poles of Ipswich Wanderers or the car park kiosk of Long Melford.
The concourse in front of the bar is getting busier as a steady flow of mostly men in their sixties and seventies make their way through the turnstile. The two teams, the referee and his assistants then appear from the Sports Centre building; they stand and wait a while as if to create some pre-match tension before parading onto the pitch and lining up in front of the main stand to indulge in the ritual handshakes.
It is the home team that get first go with the ball, kicking in the direction of Great Wratting and wearing an all deep red kit, and very good it looks too. Wroxham sport blue and white striped shirts with blue shorts and socks; they look like Brighton & Hove Albion and are playing into a strong wind rendered more unpleasant by a fine drizzle, the sort of thing that might well come off the English channel at Brighton. Nicknamed the Yachtsmen, Wroxham should at least be able to tack into this wind in the first half.
Opening exchanges are very messy as the ball is booted up and down the far touchline in turn by both teams.
I go and sit in the main stand which is adorned with two signs proclaiming that it is the Terry McGery stand; the match programme tells us that Mr McGery is the club president. The signs feature a photo of Terry smiling benignly like a pools winner from the side of a bus; it seems somewhat self-aggrandising to me, usually people wait until they’re dead to have football stands named after them. Soon enough however, the football settles down as the rain stops and the cloud clears to reveal a pale blue sky. It all looks rather beautiful with the sun illuminating the red and blue of the teams and the green of the pitch but the few spectators on the far side of the pitch and the occupants of the dugouts have to squint.
There are a number of old boys in the stand behind me each offering his
own commentary of the game. “Bet they’re all called Roy” calls one
making a weak joke about the Wroxham team and a well-known store local
to Wroxham. “Yes, Roy’s of Wroxham” says another slowly and softly, as
if explaining the joke to himself. Wroxham play fast flowing skilful
football, but Haverhill look stronger physically and have two big blokes
up front in their number nine and number ten, Graeme Turner and Mark
Lovell. Haverhill’s strength and directness soon pay off as the ball
drops back to Marc Abbott just outside the penalty area and he half
volleys it with tremendous force into the far corner of the Wroxham net,
it’s a helluva goal which has those capable of standing in the ageing
crowd, on their feet. A couple of old boys behind me are very excited. “
It hardly left the ground” says one and then “ He must have been fully
forty yards out”. It seems not so much that his eyesight is failing him,
more that he is hallucinating.
Although Haverhill lead, the old boys
behind me aren’t optimistic as Wroxham launch a series of quick passing
moves, their nimble wide players creating chances which are spurned.
“Good football” is the considered verdict from the commentary behind.
“They’re a good footballing side”, “Attractive”. It takes twenty
minutes, during which time Haverhill miss a good number of chances of
their own, but eventually Wroxham do equalise as Nathan Stewart breaks
clear of the Haverhill defence and Sonny Carey tidies up and places the
ball in the net.
The skies have clouded over again but it’s an
entertaining game and whilst it looks like Wroxham are quicker and more
skilful they don’t seem able to stop Haverhill making chances. A minute
before half-time there’s a free-kick and a scramble and the ball is
diverted into the Wroxham goal from close range. “Who scored?”
– “It was Foxey”
– “Was it?”
-“Ask him when he comes off” So someone does because it’s now half-time, and it was Foxey, aka Jemel Fox.
I watch the teams and officials leave the field, referee Mr Chambers gingerly holding the ball perhaps because its unpleasantly wet and muddy.
It’s time for another £1.20’s worth of tea so I join the short queue. As I stand and wait I admire the large menu screwed on to the wall, it’s divided into four sections under the headings Food, Snacks, Drinks and Children. “Cheap prices aren’t they?” says a man spotting my interest in the sign. I can’t disagree.
The teams return to the fray and I take a stroll around the pitch. I smile to the linesman with the orange and yellow flag and we speak briefly, agreeing that it’s a bit parky, although I suspect he knows it more than I do because linesmen don’t generally get to wear woolly hats and scarves, although his colleague does look like he’s wearing a trackie top.
The open sides of the ground are bleak and windswept and I don’t linger between the dugouts for long before returning to the comparative warmth of the more populated side of the ground. I stand amongst a line of people stood behind the rail in the half of the field which Wroxham are defending. Haverhill’s Mark Lovell falls to the ground under a challenge from Wroxham’s captain Adam Plumstead as he charges into the penalty area. “ ‘e took his feet away” bawls a voice from behind the rail. Referee Mr Wayne Chambers, who reminds me of a mid-1970’s Eric Clapton agrees and Marc Abbott scores the penalty to put Haverhill 3-1 up.
I return to the comparative comfort of the Terry McGerty stand where the supporters are now more relaxed. Haverhill’s sturdier approach to the game has seen them dominate this half and Wroxham no longer draw their admiration with their ‘attractive’ football. But just before twenty-five past four a run down the left and a low cross, which appears to squeeze between a defenders’ thighs reaches Wroxham’s Adam Plumstead who makes the score 3-2 from close range. I’m expecting Wroxham, who are third in the league and ten points ahead of Haverhill to push for an equaliser but within two minutes a Haverhill corner is played to the near post where number four Jake Noble is unchallenged as he passes the ball into the goal from six yards. The sky has turned a deep cobalt blue and a bank of cloud has built up in the south, threatening a wet journey home. An aeroplane swoops low over the town and banks sharply on its approach into Stansted airport.
The sky has turned a deep cobalt blue and a bank of cloud has built up in the south, threatening a wet journey home. An aeroplane swoops low over the town and banks sharply on its approach into Stansted airport.
The remainder of the game sees substitutions and bookings as desperation takes hold. “You two, come ‘ere” says the Eric Clapton lookalike to Haverhill’s Ryan Yallop and Wroxham’s Sonny Carey as they reach for their inner naughty school boy. Mr Chambers has impressed me all afternoon with his casual approach to the game, he never seems to find it necessary to break into a run, preferring to get to the important incidents just on time as any blues guitarist might if they were a referee. Behind me someone calls out the latest scores at West Ham and Tottenham and one of the old boys gets excited calling out “Corner! Oh, no its not”. The game ends and Haverhill Rovers deserve their win and we’ve all had our money’s worth from a very entertaining match. It’s good to see Suffolk beat Norfolk, even if this doesn’t really feel like Suffolk, with its Cambridge postcode and London accents although old blokes watching football are pretty much the same everywhere.
question. Bristol City begin the game, un-necessarily wearing a change kit of white shirts and black shorts when their first kit is all-red; a polyester precis of what is wrong with modern football. Town are kicking towards me , Phil, Ray and Pat from Clacton, and of course wear blue and white and provide their own summary of football’s modern failings with the hideous logo of a gambling company, as ever despoiling the front of their shirts. If Town are relegated this season that logo and choice of an on-line gambling business as sponsor will be partly to blame. There are about ten thousand fewer people here than there were for the last game, but surprisingly the match atmosphere doesn’t seemed diminished by a corresponding 44%. The 13,436 of us here (that excludes the 290 Bristolians) are the hardened rump of Town’s support; we are , I like to think, the ones who care the most and so the sound of our anguish is louder and maybe we breathe more heavily.
the Bristolians assembled in the Cobbold Stand chant “Red Army, Red Army” as their team has a couple of shots blocked and then earns a corner when Bartosz Bialkowski has to make the first save of the game. Perhaps through the eyes of a die-hard Robins fan Bristol City are always in red. But the Red Army domination is brief and Freddie Sears runs at them and has a shot blocked before then shooting wide. There’s enough here to please a home crowd whose desire to see Town win a home game almost has a physical presence. On the pitch there are fouls and free-kicks and a general lack of precision, which is what we’re used to. Jordan Roberts is the first name to be recorded by referee Mr David Webb, who like last Friday’s referee is not a tall man. “Short refs, we only get short refs” I sing, to the tune of Rodgers and Hart’s Blue Moon, but to no 
one’s amusement save my own.
Spread Eagle, a Grade 2 listed building that dates back to the 17th century, where I drink Grain Brewery Best Bitter (£3.50 a pint). The leather aprons of the bar staff remind me of Fred Gee, the pot-man at the Rovers Return in Coronation Street, but I don’t suppose he’s still in it, particularly since Fred Feast, the actor who played him died in 1999. Roly and I continue not to talk about football, not from any previous agreement, but just because there doesn’t seem anything to say. From the Spread Eagle it is a bit more of a walk along Orwell Place and Tacket Street, up Brook Street and Buttermarket, over Giles Circus and Cornhill, along Westgate Street to St Jude’s Tavern in St Matthew’s Street. They may not all be looking at their best, but Ipswich’s medieval or even Saxon pattern of streets remains and is brim-full of fine buildings; if only the locals appreciated it. 
The visitor looks somewhat bemused and blurts some exasperated expletives in the direction of one of his fellow supporters; his thick Midland’s accent rendering them incomprehensible and unpleasantly nasal. I pass the grinning statue of Bobby Robson; his best playing days were arguably with the ‘Baggies’ of West Bromwich, but thankfully he never picked up the accent.
unequal lengths.; with a self-satisfied air of streetwise, intellectual superiority I join one of shorter ones and am inside the ground whilst others still queue. On nights like this it’s fun to laugh and sneer at those people who aren’t regular supporters and are only here because the tickets are cheap. I head for the betting shop bit beneath the stand where the handy shelf gives me somewhere to write the greeting on Elwood’s birthday card. I stop to talk to a steward I know called Dave, but at the very moment I arrive at his side so does another acquaintance of his who begins a personal monologue. I wait for the other man to pause so that I might speak to Dave, but the other man breathes through his ears and doesn’t draw breath for a second; so I screw my eyes up at Dave and nod sympathetically; I imagine my face might look a bit like the one Gary Lineker pulled in the 1990 World Cup semi-final after Paul Gascoigne was booked and became tearful. But tonight I’m not indicating that Gazza is upset, I’m signalling to Dave that I’m going to bugger off, and that’s what I do.
misses a game and son Elwood are already here and I settle down a couple of seats along before giving Elwood his birthday card and a few ITFC ‘goodies’. Phil tells me that earlier in the club shop Elwood had handed in an ITFC badge that he found on the floor to the staff serving behind the counter. One of the things I have given Elwood is such a badge; it seems like Elwood has been rewarded for his honesty and whilst we all know that’s not true, in an ideal world it would be. 
odd West Bromwich Albion supporters cooped up in the corner of the Cobbold Stand. In the corner, in the bottom of the North Stand blue and white flags are being waved and drums drummed and voices voiced; for a little while anyway. But West Bromwich Albion are better at football than Town and as they start to dominate, some of the enthusiasm ebbs away, which is the opposite of what should happen of 
course because it obvious that a struggling team needs most support. But then logic is not always a strong point in ‘Leave’ voting Ipswich. The West Bromwich fans soon sense our weakness and after first chanting something stupid about being a “…shit Norwich City”, which is a bit rich from people supporting a team wearing yellow and green, they go for the jugular with the reliable old “ Your support, your support, your support is fucking shit”. Cut to the quick I try some chants of my own but the cowering reticence of the Suffolk public means I’m beaten before I begin, even with my cardboard clapper, which is a little too lightweight and disintegrates as I bash it relentlessly on the back of the seat in front of me. Only ten minutes have gone and Town’s Matthew Pennington is booked by referee Mr Keith Stroud who is possibly the
smallest referee I have ever seen; he doesn’t even rival Paul Hurst in stature.
Citroen and I roll into Victory Road at about twenty past two, where it is already so busy we are ushered into overflow car parking. I drive across the grass behind one goal and onto a field behind the pitch. Once out of my car a steward explains that entry today is through a side gate in order to keep pedestrians from slipping over where the cars have churned up the grass; health and safety eh? Entry costs £11, but I keep the gateman happy by tendering the right money. My wife Paulene has refused to join me today because she maintains that £11 is too much to pay to watch ‘local football’, and she makes a fair point, although today’s opponents aren’t exactly local, Rushall being about 285 kilometres away near Walsall in the West Midlands. In France it is possible to watch a fully professional second division match in a modern stadium for not much more than I have paid today, and sometimes for a bit less.
one to one approach. As half time nears I head back round towards the giant bungalow so that I can be handily placed for the tea bar when the whistle blows. As I watch on from behind the Leiston bench their number two Matt Rutterford commits a fairly innocuous foul, sidling up behind a Rushall player. Sadly for Leiston, Mr Hancock doesn’t consider that the foul is that innocuous and proceeds to whip out his yellow card in the direction of the unfortunate full-back, who having already seen the card once earlier in the game gets to see Mr Hancock’s red card also. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth ensues and there is a strong feeling that Leiston cannot now possibly win and Mr Hancock has ruined the game more than a few fouls ever could.
As darkness shrouds the ground it loses its plainness and takes on a new atmosphere. The long shadows have gone to be replaced by the glow of the floodlights. On the pitch Rushall push forward and Leiston defend; their goalkeeper Marcus Garnham makes a couple of smart saves. Leiston try to catch Rushall on the break with quick, astute passes and diagonal punts but it doesn’t feel as though Leiston or their supporters expect to win, and holding on for the goalless draw will be victory enough, of a sort. The story is a simple one; Leiston must keep Rushall at bay. But there have been injuries and delays and time added on at the end seems interminable. It’s the ninety fifth minute and Marcus Garnham makes a spectacular reaction save, followed quickly by another but before we have time to applaud the ball runs to Rushall substitute Keiron Berry stood just three yards from the open goal, a prod is all that’s needed.
pitchside rail says he’s “had it” with the referee and he’s going home, he starts to untie his flag. Another group of young lads head off too. “Fucking Toby’s fault” says a lad with long curly hair like Marc Bolan “it’s the same every time we come here with him”. The despondent occupants of the Screwbolt Fixings stand shuffle off with Mr Hancock’s final whistle whilst jeering at the Rushall goalkeeper Joseph Slinn, “Cheats” they shout, rather un-sportingly. In return the ‘keeper tells them how much he enjoyed their Neil Diamond song, but such is their disappointment they’re not listening and he was only trying to be friendly.
young and unusually trendy; one has a beard, one sports what may be designer stubble whilst the third has one of those tied-up, top-knot haircuts with two partings. I always thought the Football Association had their own barbers who tried to make all referees look like Action Man, but it seems not. They’ll have to keep an eye on the fella with the top-knot; seems a bit of a individualist.
With the Last Post over, it’s time for the minute’s silence, which happily is well observed by everyone and I suspect we all feel much better for it. For future reference, the Last Post should probably follow the silence.
Norwich number four Sam Applegate would seem to have a particularly vicious barber who has given Sam a haircut which makes him look as if he is wearing a skull cap. Fram’s number six James Mayhew becomes the first player to be booked by Mr Willmore. The excitement increases as Fram’ look for a second goal, but also look to hang on to their lead. “Go on Fram’”, “Go on, close ‘em down” “Come on Fram’, play football” are the calls of advice from the main stand.
At just before twenty five past four Max Willets chases off down the right for Fram’ once again. He gets into the penalty area, checks, changes pace and gains half a yard on the full-back before crossing the ball and Jake Seaber, whose name doesn’t even appear in the programme, scores a simple tap-in at the far post. The cheer for the second goal is even bigger than for the first and I once again join in; witnessing a Suffolk team called Town score a second goal against a team from Norwich is something I’ve not done in quite a while. Up the Towun!
trippingovertheball 