Ipswich Town 3 Millwall 1

November 30, 2023December 1, 2023 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

The promise of an evening kick-off at Portman Road has been enough to drag me through the drudgery of a Wednesday at work, albeit only the at-home form of work, which doesn’t involve having to go outside in the cold and travel on public transport early in the morning. Today, I get to use public transport at a far more civilised hour, when the late afternoon becomes early evening and people have their tea. Outside it is bloody cold. But I have an extremely warm coat, a hat, scarf and fingerless gloves so I’m ready for anything. A slightly less than circular, pale, golden moon hangs low in the sky and the train arrives a minute late; I board and find I’m in a carriage where all the seats seem to face where I’ve just come from rather than where I’m going. But it’s dark now so it doesn’t matter, it’s like being in a very, very long tunnel. “Shudda scored, it was all Fiorentina second ‘alf” says a voice from somewhere behind me. On the other side of the carriage sits a man who looks like a bearded Trevor Eve, but shorter. “Second time this season, Scum two-nil up and lose three-two” says the voice. From the seat in front of me I can hear snorting noises. I tune out and text my sister to ask her how she enjoyed Thanksgiving (she’s just got back from New York) and what she wants for Christmas.

I exit the train hastily on arrival in an Ipswich wreathed atmospherically in winter fog and police officers in day-glo jackets. I think of Poly Styrene and X-Ray Spex as I head up Princes Street and Portman Road towards ‘The Arb’, pausing only at one of the blue booths to buy a match programme (£3.50). It’s too cold for ice cream tonight, but the streets look wonderful, everything looms out of the mist and is almost monochrome. In ‘The Arb’ I am quickly to the bar and order a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride, whilst a woman next to me talks to her accomplice about Nethergate White Adder, before buying a glass of Rose. The bar is busy and as I head for the beer garden I meet Mick coming in the opposite direction. We meet again in the beer garden after Mick has bought his own beer. We talk of Ipswich Town conceding early goals, of the person whose funeral I went to last week, of bowels and food diaries, of houses of multiple occupation, of the Lord Lieutenant of Suffolk and what is to be done about the poor.

Our conversation rattles on, breaking only while Mick returns to the bar for a whisky for himself and another pint of Suffolk Pride for me. It’s a good job it’s an eight o’clock kick-off tonight or we’d miss the start of the game and Mick momentarily panics when I tell him it’s nearly twenty to eight. We bid each other adieu until Saturday at the corner of Sir Alf Ramsey Way. Portman Road is less thick with crowds than usual and at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand I do not have to queue at all at turnstile 62 and am soon standing between Fiona and the man from Stowmarket whose name is actually Paul. A row or two in front of us is ever-present Phil who never misses a game, but tonight there is no Elwood or Pat from Clacton, who I suspect has been kept indoors by the cold and her arthritis.

Murphy the stadium announcer speeds through the team names as if they’re not important and I give up trying to call out their surnames as if I was French because Murphy is onto the next name before I have uttered a syllable; the names flow freely from Murphy’s mouth like diarrhoea. As the teams parade onto the pitch flames shoot from little black boxes arranged around the touchlines, and we hold our hands out as if warming them by the fireside. I’ll bring marshmallows next time. An enthusiastic hand-warming minute’s applause for the recently deceased Terry Venables follows before tonight’s opponent’s Millwall are given first go with the ball, which they mostly try and direct towards the Sir Bobby Robson stand, and the goal in front of it. Town are as ever dressed in blue and white, whilst Millwall are dressed perfectly for a foggy night, in all over orange, looking like Lyons Maid Mivvis, or how Ipswich will look when we play away to Millwall.

“Millwall, Millwall – Millwall, Millwall, Millwall – Millwall, Millwall, Millwall- Millwall, Millwall“ sing their fans imaginatively to the tune of Que Sera Sera. “Blue and White Army, Blue and White Army” is the quite a bit less tuneful Ipswich response, and the mist and fog rolls in over the roofs of the stands to replace all the condensing moisture burnt off by the flames moments before. “Addy-Addy, Addy -O” sing the Sir Bobby Robson Stand . Barely six minutes of the usual opening exchanges passes and Wes Burns takes on the Millwall full-back and gets beyond him to cross the ball for George Hirst to head down and back for Conor Chaplin to half volley into the Millwall goal past Bartosz Bialkowski, and Ipswich lead one nil having not conceded an early goal. Conor Chaplin thanks Goerge Hirst who thanks Wes Burns and Sam Morsy gives thanks to Allah.

The cold and the fog are forgotten, everyone is happy. “We’ve got super Kieran Mackenna, he knows exactly what we need” sing the north stand, but it’s only in my imagination that they carry on to chant “Wolfy on the bench, Ladapo on the bench and other people in the team instead”. Town are dominant and surge forward on the end of through balls with regularity. Wes Burns hurdles the perimeter wall to join the people at the front of the West Stand as he evades a challenge from Millwall’s Murray Wallace. The twelfth minute arrives and following an eye crossing sequence of short passes, Conor Chaplin sets the ball back for Massimo Luongo to belt into the net from near the edge of the penalty area ; it’s the second life enhancing goal of the evening and it’s possible Bialkowski never saw it.

A minute later Bart tips a first time George Hirst shot over the cross bar to give Town a corner and ever-present Phil and I manfully chant “ Come On You Blues” as the rest of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand looks on in puzzled silence. Behind me a bloke who doesn’t sound like the usual ‘bloke behind me’ explains Town’s recent success to his accomplice as something to do with passing, but with liberal use of the word ‘fucking’. I don’t think it can be the same as Ruud Gullit’s ‘sexy football’. Town win another corner I don’t pause for breath between lonely shouts of “Come On You Blues”. I can only think all the noisy people I stood alongside in Churchman’s forty years ago have gone to an early grave.

Town are cruising and even let Millwall have a corner, and Vaclav Hladky also makes a neat save. As the man from Stowmarket will say at half time, it’s as if we’re inviting Millwall to have a go and then we’ll just hit them on the break. I feel a little sorry for Bartosz Bialkowski, although he has the consolation of a psychedelic purple kit with abstract shapes that make him look like he’s wearing the sort of “dazzle” camouflage applied to ships during World War One, which Picasso claimed was invented by Cubists, the camouflage that is, not World War One.

With a quarter of the game gone for ever, except on Sky tv highlights, Massimo Luongo is the first player to see the yellow card of referee Mr Bramall, apparently because of a supposed foul. Wes Burns makes things a bit better with a shot that hits a post that almost lives up to the description “cannons off”. I notice that I am being dripped on by droplets of moisture condensing on the cold steel girders of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand roof, and the North stand deliver a funereal version of “When the Town go marching in” before upping the tempo for a brief encore.

I’m beginning to think it’s been a while since I saw a goal, but as half-time beckons Wes Burns crosses from the right and Cameron Burgess moves into space in front of the penalty area. Everyone wants him to shoot thinking that he’s been possessed by the spirit of Bobby Charlton, but wisely he lays the ball off to an overlapping Leif Davis whose cross is met full on by Nathan Broadhead, who lives up to his name with a very straight and well directed header into the far corner of the Millwall goal net. Town lead 3-0 and every goal has been a sight to commit to memory and treasure. There is not a hint of irony tonight as we all sing “Ipswich Town, Ipswich Town FC, the finest football team the world has ever seen”. Three minutes of added on time are surprisingly not enough to give Town a fourth goal, but the applause and appreciation are not diminished by this as the teams leave for their half-time break and I make the short journey to the front of the stand to chat with Ray and his grandson Harrison, who is much taken with ‘new’ Beatles single, which I can’t remember the name of. I tell him it’s not as good as their old stuff, so everything they ever did before really, even Yellow Submarine. I haven’t seen Ray for several weeks and I learn that he has been on two back to back cruises and not on the Orwell Lady either, but down to Madeira and southern Spain.

Back in my seat, I quickly scoff a Nature Valley cereal bar as the fog is thickened by use of the Versailles fountains on the pitch, before the game resumes and Nathan Broadhead is viciously hacked down by some Millwall oik who is then shoved by George Hirst who seems to have come over all protective of his team mate Nathan. An unseemly melee ensues as if the players hadn’t been drinking tea or isotonic drinks at half time but pints of Stella. Eventually however, the original perpetrator, the deceptively bitter George Honeyman, is booked by Mr Bramall and everyone simmers down.

More bookings follow for both teams before the game reaches its 60^th minute birthday ,and Millwall make a double substitution with the plain sounding Billy Mitchell replacing the more exotic Casper de Norre and the boring sounding Kevin Nisbet replacing the equally dull sounding Tom Bradshaw. Town have a brief flurry of attacks, Massimo Luongo shoots very narrowly wide and Bialkowski makes a save, but the fog has thickened and I couldn’t swear to having seen any of it very clearly, and up in the Cobbold stand the Millwall fans are singing “ We can’t see a fucking thing” to which the wittiest of the Ipswich fans in the Sir Alf Ramsey stand reply “We forgot that you were here”, and all to the tune of Cwm Rhondda.

The second half is not as entertaining as the first and with twenty minute to go Keiran Mckenna, who must be freezing in what my friend Pete’s mum would have called “just a shorty-arsed jacket”, commits to a mass substitution as Marcus Harness, Omari Hutchison, Dane Scarlett and Kayden Jackson usurp Nathan Broadhead, Wes Burns, George Hirst and Conor Chaplin. Moments later Murphy tells us that there are 27,702 of us here tonight of whom 1,270 are from Millwall, and no one likes them. Murphy thanks us very much for our support, but unusually applies no adjectives to it, which is a good thing.

With time slipping away, empty blue seats are appearing in the Cobbold stand and Millwall supporters would seem to be slipping away too, but then with twelve minutes of normal time remaining a deep cross drops to the far post and Nisbet’s leg reaches in front of Cameron Burgess and he hooks the ball into the net for a Millwall goal. ”We’re gonna win 4-3” sing the Millwall fans admirably, and then “How shit must you be, we’ve just scored a goal” showing a streak of self-deprecating humour not expected from fans of London clubs, although Fulham supporters also have it. For a few minutes Millwall’s supporters have renewed hope as their team get forward, but don’t really threaten the Town goal. It might just be that they are trying to keep warm, but there are some roars of encouragement , a chorus of “We Are Millwall, No one likes us” and one of “One-nil in the second half”, all healthy signs of supporters who know winning isn’t essential and have learned to get their fun where they can.

As the cold begins to get to grips with my woollen socks the sound of the final whistle can’t come soon enough. Jack Taylor replaces Massimo Luongo with a minute of normal time left and, we quickly learn there will be a mercifully brief four minutes of added on time. Man of the Match, Murphy tells us is Conor Chaplin, which draws an impressively uninterested response from the crowd and the final whistle is met with a sharp exit into the fog on all sides of the ground.

It’s been yet another enjoyable game at Portman Road, made even more memorable by three excellent goals, fog and freezing temperatures. Whilst I loved the football, what I think I learned most from tonight is that fingerless gloves do work, I have a very warm coat, but my socks could be better.

Ipswich Town 3 Swansea City 2

November 12, 2023October 13, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

This morning at about half past one I suddenly awoke from what had been a deep sleep, and as I tried to return to my dreams my mind began to race and I was thinking of the first time I saw Ipswich Town play Swansea City, almost exactly forty-two years ago, on 7^th November 1981. Swansea, enjoying a very good start to their first ever season in what some people now call the Premier League, went on to win by three goals to two. I was only twenty-one years old, and recall being royally pissed off at what I think was the Town’s first home defeat of the season. The following March, I drove down to the Vetch Field, Swansea with my friend Tim in his 1968 Morris Minor 1000, and despite the best efforts of referee Clive Thomas, who awarded the home team a highly dubious penalty, we witnessed Town exact revenge as we won by two goals to one. We stayed the night in Swansea, and spent an evening crawling the city’s pubs. Sadly, all I really recall, apart from correctly pronouncing Cymru Cenedlaethol on the side of a bus, is playing pool in a pub and leaning down to look along my cue and seeing beyond it and the cue ball and the cushion and up the dress of a young woman sat on the other side of the bar, opposite the pool table. I was a shy, single, young man so I probably blushed, but shamefully I cannot deny that the sight of this young woman’s red pants has stayed with me ever since. In their early twenties my grandfathers and my father had all been tasked with killing Germans, but I just had to cope with the freedom they helped win.

Since that guilty, intoxicated evening in South Wales, I have seen Swansea City a further fourteen times, but only half of those matches have been against Ipswich Town. The other seven matches were at Manchester City (one), Portsmouth (one) and Colchester (five), and Swansea didn’t win any of them. In all the intervening years I have never seen another Welsh woman’s pants and even though Ipswich are once again playing Swansea City, I do not expect to do so today as I step from my front door beneath a clear blue sky and head for the railway station. I have been looking forward to today’s game after no home match for three weeks, and in an early morning trip to the shops even bought two packets of Welsh cakes by way of celebration; I ate a couple for breakfast. I was born in Wales see, albeit in Haverfordwest.

The train is on time and not particularly busy. At the first stop I am joined by Gary who is wearing a bright orange jacket over his Ipswich Town home shirt. We talk of whether we are sat in a carriage or a car, when Gary is likely to retire, the sort of people who ‘go postal’, and on which train journeys to watch football matches it might be possible to see a Polar Bear from the train window; surprisingly Swansea to Ipswich is one of them. It seems unlikely there are trains to Svalbard, but hopefully there is football even if only with seal skins for goalposts. Arriving in Ipswich, my exit from the station is annoyingly delayed by being unable to display my e-ticket on my phone, I eventually manage to create a glimpse of it for a split second and fortunately the ticket collector seems happy with that. I will later learn of an “update”.

Gary and I stroll up Princes Street and Portman Road towards ‘the Arb’, pausing only so that I may buy a programme (£3.50) from one of the blue booths, the appearance of which tempts me to ask for a choc ice as well, but luckily I resist. At ‘the Arb’, Mick is already stood at the bar about to order a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride. Now aware of our arrival, Mick generously buys two pints of Suffolk Pride, and a pint of Lager 43 for Gary, who to my knowledge never has drunk proper beer. We repair to the beer garden to talk of the horrible Suella Braverman, the ‘A Load of Cobbolds’ fanzine, the Covid enquiry and the lies of Boris Johnson, and last night’s Ligue 1 encounter between Montpellier Herault SC and OGC Nice, which despite being an open, attacking match, ended goalless. I return to the bar to buy myself a further pint of Suffolk Pride, a Jameson whisky for Mick and a half of Lager 43 for Gary (£10.40 including Camra discount). We continue our conversation, which unusually does not involve reference to death or illness today, although we do talk of remembrance poppies and Mick recalls how his father was responsible for distributing them in the Orford area and how in the days when the ‘stems’ were made of wire the poppies first had to be assembled. At about twenty-five to three we depart for Portman Road.

The queues at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand are shorter today and seem to be being managed by stewards. I go to queue at the illustrious turnstile 62 but am ushered towards a side gate where my season ticket is scanned by a woman using a hand-held device which looks like one of those things you use to find hidden electrical wiring in walls. I arrive at my seat moments before the two teams parade onto the pitch. Naturally, the man from Stowmarket, Fiona, Pat from Clacton, ever-present Phil who never misses a game and his young son Elwood are all already here, although it’s Pat’s first game in a while as she’s been in Mauritius to attend a wedding. Ever-present Phil and I attempt to bawl out our players’ surnames in the French style as stadium announcer Murphy reads out the line-up, but as ever Murphy is in far too much of a hurry and has finished before the players’ faces have stopped appearing on the large screen; he really is useless, bring back Steven ‘Foz’ Foster I say.

After a minute’s silence and the last post and occupation of the centre circle by various personnel from the armed forces, things never seen or heard at football matches until comparatively recently, the game begins, with Ipswich in traditional blue shirts and white shorts getting first go with the ball, and sending it mostly in my general direction. Swansea City are today wearing an un-necessary away kit of reddish shirts, shorts and socks. Unfortunately, the reddish colour of their kit reminds me of the young Welsh woman’s pants from 1981, so I try to imagine them all with just one leg each and no heads, to make them look like a team of Lyons Maid Raspberry Mivvis.

“I do, but I don’t” says the bloke behind me about I’ve no idea what, and after three minutes Town win the game’s first corner. A couple of rows in front of me a young man is topless and the waist band of his Calvin Klein pants is visible to all. Suddenly I can smell meat and gravy and assume that someone nearby has bought a pie; it’s either that or the Army personnel in the centre circle were from the catering corp. “Blue and White Army” chant the section of the crowd up in the corner of the Cobbold Stand before a wider congregation strikes up with a chorus of “We’ve got super Kieran Mckenna, He knows exactly what we need…”. The Swansea goalkeeper, whose name, Carl Rushworth, would be ideal in a match with ‘rush goalies’ is all in orange, so looks like a Wall’s Solero Exotic. “Ipswich Town, Ipswich Town FC, By far the greatest team the world has ever seen” chant some of the crowd and there’s every chance I sang the very same at the Vetch Field back in 1981.

Seven minutes are almost up and rather disappointingly Swansea City score, a dinked cross from inside the penalty area being nodded into the corner of the goal by their number four, a bloke called Jay Fulton. “Who are ya?” chant the Swansea fans having presumably forgotten where they are and being too idle to look at their match programmes or tickets. “One-nil to the sheep shaggers” they continue, in more revelatory mood, and suddenly I don’t feel quite so bad about having once accidentally glimpsed a young Welsh woman’s pants in a public bar.

Town win another corner. “Come On You Blues” I shout and from a low cross, a shot goes curling over the cross bar. “Der, der, der, Football in a library” chant the Swansea fans imaginatively, getting in as much gloating as possible whilst they still can. Omari Hutchinson shoots straight at Rushworth and for the third time in the last few minutes a Town player is flagged offside, raising doubts about the parentage of the linesman with the chequered flag.

Town are giving Swansea a hard time, but all of a sudden the world is restored to its axis in truly spectacular fashion as Jack Taylor strikes a magnificent 20-odd metre shot against the inside of Rushworth’s left-hand post and the ball hurtles and spins into the back of the net. Quel but! (What a goal!) as they didn’t get to shout in Montpellier last night. From my position in the cheap seats, I have a thrilling head-on view of the ball as it speeds towards the goal. All the best goals strike the wood work as they go in; that final split-second diversion adding a thump of confirmation to the event, like having your passport stamped or hearing the pop of a Champagne cork. As Fiona observes, today’s goal is the polar opposite of Taylor’s goal at Rotherham earlier in the week, which spun in off his leg from close range, almost without his knowing it.

Ipswich Town are now almost unstoppable. Conor Chaplin shoots over the bar and Omari Hutchinson has a shot saved despite having seemingly dribbled around Rushworth. “Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, the Norwich ran away” sing the Sir Bobby Robson stand getting all festive and nostalgic at the same time, and just five minutes after Taylor’s goal, George Hirst heads the ball down and Conor Chaplin spins on his right foot and hooks the ball inside the near post with his left from a few metres out. The Town lead two-one. Presumably, the Swansea fans up in the Cobbold stand now answer their earlier question “Oh, it’s you lot” .

Town now just need some more goals to confirm their superiority, but instead there is a bit of a melee with players either squaring up to, pushing away or pulling apart their team-mates and opponents, perhaps depending on how zen they are feeling today. Conor Chaplin and Swansea’s Liam Cullen are booked by referee Mr Sunny Singh Gill, presumably as the instigators. In the stands there is almost the burst of a song, but then it all goes quiet, with even the away fans feeling too crushed by the turn around in scoreline to sing “Two-one, and you still don’t sing”. If there was a corner of the ground occupied by fans of a musical and literary bent, now would be the time for them to sing “ We all agree, Britten is better than Thomas”.

With ten minutes of the first half left Omari Hutchinson breaks down the right, but his low cross is just an overly long stud’s length away from being diverted into the goal by Nathan Broadhead. A couple of minutes later the blokes behind me clear off to the bar, whilst Mr Singh seems to take far too long to allow Conor Chaplin back onto the field after receiving treatment, perhaps he has been influenced by Suella Braverman and sees receiving treatment as a ‘lifestyle choice’.

In the final ‘normal’ minute of the half Sam Morsy gives George Hirst the chance to score, but Hirst’s shot is saved and as we progress into four minutes of additional time Jack Taylor surges into the box and might or might not be tripped and Portman Road reverberates to the sound of the question “Who’s the wanker in the black? Encouragingly, I don’t hear any references to Gunga Din, Gandhi or corner shops, although Mr Singh is roundly booed as he leaves the pitch.

The half-time break brings a chat with the man from Stowmarket who Pat from Clacton later discovers is called Paul. I syphon off some spent Suffolk Pride and enjoy the almost theatrical display by the pitch sprinklers before the football resumes at ten past four and Town set about getting the goals that they should have and almost did, but ultimately didn’t score in the first half. Immediately things are different as the seat next to me, which was empty in the first half, is occupied by a woman with obviously dyed hair, who might be the mother of one or more of the blokes sat behind me. Ipswich quickly win a corner after some argument, and predictably once the kick is taken a free-kick is then awarded to Swansea.

Mr Singh further endears himself to the crowd as Leif Davis is cynically shoved into the advert hoardings as he tries to run past a Swansea defender, but no yellow card is shown. Seven minutes into the half however all is forgiven, for a while any way, as Mr Singh awards Town a penalty. No one sat near me has any idea why, but we’re not too bothered, particularly when George Hirst steps up to score and Town lead three-one. There is a feeling of contentment around me and it seems like we will be happy if the score stays like this, although further Town goals will not be turned away.

The action on field follows the pattern of a team closing the game down and Swansea enjoy more possession but to little effect. There are however occasional moments of anxiety. Swansea break forward, but Leif Davis calmly first looks for the offside flag, and then realising it isn’t coming makes a perfectly timed sliding tackle inside the penalty area. Five minutes on and the first substitutions are made for Town as Marcus Harness and Wes Burns replace Omari Hutchinson and Nathan Broadhead. Pat from Clacton shares with us how much she loves Marcus Harness’s ‘lovely blue eyes’ and can’t hold back from telling her that even I had noticed those too. Harness immediately intercepts a Swansea pass and draws appreciative applause.

There are twenty-five minutes of normal time remaining as Town win a corner and the sky darkens behind the floodlights as one of the first early winter evenings descends and I can feel the chill of the air as I breathe in. “Carrow Road is falling down” chant Town fans in the furthest top corner of the Cobbold stand, but where I’m sat no one can understand what else they’re singing or whether it’s witty, abusive or stupid. Four minutes later and Mr Singh stops his charm offensive as he sends off Swansea’s Liam Cullen, we think following a second yellow card after a foul on Leif Davis. “Cheerio, Cheerio, Cheerio” sing the Town fans sympathetically.

Surely the three points are now safe with only ten men to play against, and the optimism in the stands is expressed in chants of “Ole Ole Ole” from those Town fans who just won’t let the memories of holidays on the Costas fade away. Would that Keiran McKenna, as wonderful as he is, was as colourful, as he stands in the technical area in his dull grey trousers and black car coat. If promotion to the First Division is achieved, I’m hopeful that the budget will then stretch to a stylist for Kieran. Town win another corner and the attendance is announced by Murphy as 28,929 with 634 from Swansea, although to be fair to the Welsh it is a very long way from Ipswich; four-hundred and forty-three kilometres in fact. “Thank you once more for your incredible support” says Murphy, stretching the definition of incredible.

The final ten minutes of normal time see Marcus Harness booked by Mr Singh; the bloke behind me asks “ Is he dead?” of the player Harness fouled. Town win a corner and Mr Singh walks patiently over to the dug outs to raise his yellow card towards someone on the Swansea bench. Freddie Ladapo replaces George Hirst. Swansea win a rare corner and we are told that there will be a minimum of nine minutes of additional time, which in percentage terms when added to the four in the first half is greater than the Camra discount on beer at ’the Arb’.

I am thinking that added on time is just something to be endured, until the right-hand side of the Town defence gets a puncture and Jamahl Lowe rather embarrassingly skips past Luke Woolfenden and around the excellent Vaclav Hladky to make the score three-two from very close range. Pat from Clacton is suddenly nervous, and Hladky makes a late challenge for the title of Man of the Match, even though it has already been awarded to Jack Taylor. But Town survive and victory is ours yet again, and it’s been yet another rollicking match; Kieran Mckenna and his team continuing to make up for fifteen years of mediocrity and worse, in fifteen months.

It’s gone five o’clock as Pat from Clacton and Fiona hurry away to buses and trains, but I stay for a short while to applaud, although the game has finished so late that I can’t linger long either, as my train leaves at nineteen minutes past. When I eventually head into the cold, damp evening I wonder if this afternoon’s match will live in my memory like my trip to Swansea of forty years ago, I hope so.

Ipswich Town 1 Fulham 3

November 6, 2023August 30, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

I have been at work all day today, since before eight o’clock; not working at home as I usually am, but in ‘the office’, experiencing first-hand the sounds and smells of my fellow human beings and colleagues. It’s been a long day, but now at nearly five o’clock I can release myself from the yoke of gainful employment and look forward to knocking off early tomorrow afternoon because I have clocked up an unseemly amount of flexi-time. But I strive to live more in the moment, and before tomorrow afternoon’s idleness comes the hopeful pleasure of League Cup football at Portman Road, as second division Ipswich Town confront first division Fulham.

It was almost exactly fifty years ago to the day that I first saw Ipswich Town play Fulham, and uncannily, or more probably just by mere coincidence, it was also in a League Cup tie, albeit a replay. Like today, Ipswich were riding the crest of a wave, enjoying a season in which we would go onto beat Southampton 7-0 and win both legs of the Texaco Cup final against Norwich City, and in which we had already despatched Real Madrid and Lazio from the UEFA Cup and the then mighty Leeds United from the League Cup. Town were the only domestic club to beat Leeds United in the 1973-74 season before late February when Stoke City inflicted upon them their first League defeat of the season, and how everyone cheered, because everyone hated Leeds United back then; even Leeds United hated Leeds United back then. Fulham would be the first second division team I ever saw. Town won 2-1 that night, but as I recall, and as the scoreline hints, it wasn’t an easy win. My father was in the Royal Navy back then and was able to get his hands on the complimentary tickets to the director’s box that the club provided for the captain of HMS Ganges at Shotley. We had those seats in the directors’ box for that match and as Town struggled to get the better of Fulham, I remember drawing disapproving glances from people who must have been Fulham officials as I shouted out “Come on Town, you can beat this lot, they’re only second division”. Tonight, fifty years on, the tables are turned.

It’s not much past six o’clock when I enter ‘the Arb’ and order a pint of Wolf Brewery Howler (£3.70 with Camra discount). After a delay to look at a menu, I also order chips with chicken and chilli (£8) before retiring to the beer garden in which there only four other people, two young blokes, and a large woman who swigs beer from a bottle; she is with a smaller man who has a glass of fruit juice; they are a drinks-based version of Jack Spratt and his wife. Later, the man and woman will leave to be replaced by two couples and another man on his own. Not unexpectedly for the first night of November, it’s not warm, and it’s breezy too. I drink my beer and eat my food and try to read the programme (£3) that I had bought earlier in the club shop. But the light is dim, and I find it hard to read the small typeface. I cannot find any mention of the match of fifty years ago in the programme, only the less specific reminiscences of Simon Milton, who before becoming famed in the writings of Dave Allard of the Ipswich Evening Star as “the former paintsprayer and van driver from Thetford”, lived with his parents in Fulham. I buy another beer, this time a pint of Nethergate Compete Howler (£3.87 with the Camra discount). The two blokes beside me talk about television programmes they have seen. One of them has seen a programme about prison inmates and says “One of them was a serial kidnapper and torturer, so he kidnapped people and tortured them.” They ramble on to discuss cold hands and wearing hats and thermals, and a television character who had a “New York twinge” to his accent.

With no Mick with me tonight, because he has to attend his daughter-in-law’s birthday celebration, I sup up my beer and leave for Portman Road a bit earlier than usual. Portman Road is busy and my path along it is regularly blocked at ninety degrees by queues for the Cobbold Stand. The mass of people at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stands is so dense that I don’t even attempt to negotiate it and instead walk around the old Churchman’s building and approach from Russell Road, which is much easier, although I still have to queue for a few minutes to get to my beloved turnstile 62. I feel a sense of achievement as I successfully pass through the turnstile using the QR code on the e-mail on my mobile phone, and to think, I failed my Physics ‘O’ level. Tonight, by way of a change, but mainly because the flat rate ticket price of £20 is an opportunity to sit somewhere ‘better’ than the cheap seats where I usually sit, I have purchased a seat in the upper tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand. Thinking of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand as Sir Alf’s face, if my usual seat is somewhere on his chin or at the corner of his mouth, tonight I am up on his left cheek, at the corner of his eye, where in the days before Kieran McKenna the seats were probably always damp with Sir Alf’s tears.

I am in good time to see the teams parade onto the pitch tonight and hear stadium announcer Murphy attempt to enthuse the crowd with mention more than once of “being under the floodlights tonight”. Murphy proceeds to make a complete hash of reading out the teams, hurrying through the names like they’re a shopping list, failing to synchronise with the big screen as the faces of the players appear on it and failing to pause at all between first and second names so that the crowd can bawl out the surnames as if we were French. I do the best that I can to shout out those surnames, to the amusement of the two young men next to me, but Dom Ball is a step too far and in the mouth of Murphy sounds like Doughball. Murphy then reads out Elkan Baggott’s name and number twice; if he read a bit more slowly, perhaps he wouldn’t make so many mistakes. “Murphy, you’re bloody useless” I call out and the blokes beside me laugh again.

The game begins and Fulham get first go with the ball, kicking it to their best of their ability in the direction of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand, Handford Road and Akenham and Barham far beyond. Ipswich are wearing their traditional blue shirts and socks and white shorts and it’s pleasing to see that Fulham are also wearing their signature kit of white shirts and black shorts, just like they did back in 1973, although this year they have black sleeves also. “Super Fulham, Super Fulham FC” sing the visiting supporters up in the Cobbold stand. The opening action on the pitch is muddled and uncertain. It’s as if the teams know not everyone has taken their seats yet, so they’re waiting a bit until we’re all in before beginning in earnest. The seats behind me and in front of me are empty. In the dullness of the early minutes, I notice how the bottom tier of the Cobbold Stand is painted matt black, like the interior of a 1980’s theme pub. The Ipswich supporters in the other end of the Cobbold Stand and the Sir Bobby Robson stand are singing, but sound like they’re in the next room. “Go on!” says the bloke next to me suddenly as a Town player gets the ball, and several in the crowd clap in time to the Sir Bobby Robson stand supporters singing “Addy, addy, addy-O”. The row in front of me is being filled with small children and their parents along with three teenage girls with very long straight hair, lots of make-up and hands grasping polystyrene containers full of chips.

Nine minutes have gone and as Fulham push forward Ipswich suddenly seem to have no left-back. Fulham exploit the oversight and the fulsomely named Bobby Decordova-Reid provides the wide pass that allows Harold Wilson time to take off his Gannex raincoat and light his pipe before taking the ball around Christian Walton and rolling it into an unguarded goal net. Fulham lead one-nil, which wasn’t expected. “Que sera sera, Whatever will be will be, We’re going to Wemb-er-ley” sing the Fulham fans joyously, and the two blokes next to me laugh.

“Here for the Fulham, You’re only here for the Fulham” sing the Fulham fans partly gloating and partly realising that they can’t see many empty seats, but more probably ironically acknowledging that no one other than a Fulham supporter would normally go anywhere to see Fulham. Twelve minutes have gone forever, and referee Mr Lewis Smith awards the first free-kick of the game, to Fulham. I notice that the name on the shirt of the Fulham number three is Bassey, and I wonder if he’s known as Shirley. Ipswich now lose their right-back somewhere and in the aftermath Janoi Donacien deflects a Fulham shot onto the Town cross-bar.

Ipswich haven’t done much so far by way of creating goals of their own, but Kayden Jackson has a shot deflected past the post for a corner after Fulham generously give the ball away. “Come On You Blues” I chant four times making the blokes beside me laugh, but no one else up here makes a sound. Janoi Donacien heads over the crossbar. “We’re on our way” sing the Sir Bobby Robson Stand alluding to hoped-for promotion, which seems an odd thing to sing at a League Cup tie. These millennials eh? From where I am sitting, I can see the top of the roof of the West Stand and forty years of accumulated lichens and grime; the stand looks quite old-fashioned and industrial from here, I rather like it.

Back on the pitch, and Town’s passing isn’t always reaching its intended recipients, there is a degree to which these players don’t look as though they have played very much together before tonight. “What’s going on here boys?” calls a bloke behind me, whilst another just says “Fucking shit”. The Fulham fans meanwhile enjoy themselves with a snippet of opera to which they sing the words “Is this a library?” and indeed, the Ipswich crowd is doing what it does best, keeping quiet in adversity. Sone Aluko draws some appreciation however, with a fine cross-field pass to Kayden Jackson and Mr Lewis then gives a free-kick to Fulham, the bloke behind me exclaims “ That’s bloody bollocks that is”.

As the game enters its middle third, Mr Lewis suddenly remembers his yellow cards and books Marcus Harness, Fulham’s Sasa Lukic and Town’s Jack Taylor, although none of them had done anything particularly heinous. If it was an attempt by Mr Lewis to get the crowd to sing about him it worked, and he is treated to numerous renditions of “Who’s the wanker in the black?” which many a Welsh chapel or colliery choir would surely be proud of. The young blokes beside me laugh, twice.

Half-time draws ever closer and both sets of fans have gone quiet, it’s that kind of a game. Four minutes until half-time and the Fulham fans blink first and blurt out a song of encouragement, albeit just “Come on Fulham, Come of Fulham” which sounds more forlorn and desperate than it does inspiring, as if the words “Oh for God’s sake” have somehow been edited out. Just a minute before the first half is due to expire, and following a corner, Christian Walton has to make a save from a shot by Shirley Bassey. Three minutes of added on time are announced by Murphy, although I doubt he’s got it right, and Town have the ball for a brief period. “Now we go, now we break” says a bloke behind me, but he’s wrong, and we don’t. Half-time comes as a relief when it arrives and so I go downstairs to drain off some surplus ‘Howler’ and ‘Complete Howler’.

Having returned to my seat, there’s not much to enjoy about half-time. Murphy interviews some local boxer and makes an arse of himself by speaking like a boxing bout compere, but when that’s over I enjoy the fountain-like pitch sprinklers and the odd names of what I assume are children attending their first matches tonight; I hope Jonah doesn’t live up to his name and wonder about the origins of Beau and Guinea. If I have a dull moment before the Swansea City game I think I might write to the club claiming I shall be attending my first match and that my name is Kermit or Beaker. I always liked the Muppets.

At nine minutes to nine, according to my mobile phone, the football resumes. Five minutes in and Fulham lead two-nil as a well angled cross from the Fulham right is tucked into the Ipswich goal from about seven metres out by a Brazilian called Rodrigo Muniz. If there is anything wrong with the Ipswich Town squad at the moment it is that we don’t have enough foreign players. As World Cups repeatedly show, teams of players who aren’t from Britain are invariably better than ones who are from Britain. Impressively the Fulham starting eleven fields just a Welshman and a Scot as the only representatives of the British Isles. “Who are ya, Who are ya?” chant the Fulham fans inquisitively, as if to say “you can’t be anyone special because you’re losing to us”, which is a fair point.

Whilst Town came back from two-nil down to beat First Division Wolverhampton Wanderers in the previous round of the League Cup, what has happened so far tonight does not suggest such a comeback will happen again this evening and indeed Fulham continue to pass the ball amongst themselves most of the time and Ipswich don’t. Much of the remainder of the game belongs to the Fulham supporters whose chanting is as close to witty as football chants ever get. “We love you Fulham” whilst not witty sounds heartfelt, but the singing of the Internationale with words altered to speak of shoving “your blue flag up your arse” is amusing both because it is directed at Britain’s greatest poseur football club Chelsea, and because it resurrects memories of Fulham’s most famous fictional fan, Citizen ‘Wolfie’ Smith.

“One of ya!” bawls a bloke behind me as Kayden Jackson and Sone Aluko both go for the ball at once and both miss it, and then the increasingly creative Fulham fans begin to sing about their former, but now deceased owner Mohamed Al-Fayed, although I guess they could be singing about his son Dodi. I have no idea what they’re singing, but I imagine it’s fun. With time running down, Town bring on Elkan Baggott, a young man who apparently has nearly as many Instagram followers as the club itself. With their team comfortably two goals up the Fulham supporters surpass themselves with the surreal chant of “Shit Leyton Orient, you’re just a shit Leyton Orient” to the Latin strains of Guatanamera. The young blokes beside me laugh, and so do I at what I think might be the first genuinely funny football chant I have ever heard.

There are twenty-one minutes of normal time remaining as George Hirst and Omari Hutchinson step forward onto the pitch charged with the task of pulling back two goals, and Freddie Ladapo and Janoi Donacien sink back into what look like knock-off sports car seats where the dugouts used to be. “Blue and White Army” chant the home crowd, digging deep for some optimism and Murphy announces tonight’s attendance “here at Portman Road”, just in case we wondered where we were, as 28,221 including 1,685 Fulham followers.

“We can still do this” people are surely thinking to themselves drawing on the spirit of Escape to Victory, but then Fulham break down the right and Tom Cairney scores from about 12 metres out shooting at and through Christian Walton. A legion of faithless, soulless, part-time Town supporters get up and leave, the clatter of their tipping up seats sounding like sarcastic applause to the imaginative ear. The game is lost it seems, but hope springs eternal, and consolation and a large two-fingers to the receding backs of all those who have just left the stadium comes just two minutes later as Town win a free-kick and Elkan Baggott stoops to head the ball into the Fulham goal and Town once again trail by only two goals, not three. The last ten minutes of the match runs down with barely renewed hope, but the home chants suggest we don’t care anyway because “E-i, E-i, E-i-o, Up the Football League We Go”, and apparently that’s more important than getting to the next round of the sort of trophy Norwich City were once capable of winning. We only came out tonight for a laugh, or the blokes next to me did, and they leave early too.

The last minutes of the game are some of Town’s best, but Fulham don’t look likely to give up the ghost just yet and Hallowe’en was last night anyway. A stonking eight minutes of time added on give us incurable romantics another dollop of hope, but whilst Omari Hutchinson, Dominic Ball and Kayden Jackson all manage shots on goal, none of them realises the prize and Town’s League Cup run is over yet again.

Ultimately, it has been a disappointing evening. It’s not been a great match; it was okay, but Fulham were too good for Town’s second- best team, who never really did much, but we knew it had to end at some time or other. At least we can’t lose at home to Birmingham City in the next round like we did in 1973.

Ipswich Town 3 Plymouth Argyle 2

October 29, 2023 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

All of a sudden, summer turns to winter overnight, and it happens today, well tomorrow morning at 2 am to be precise, but as Brexit proved facts aren’t really important anymore. Looking forward to another hour in bed or staying up late without really staying up late, I kiss my wife goodbye, step out of my front door and head for the railway station. The pale autumn sun shines down upon me. As I cross the bridge over the railways tracks a man in pale grey trackie bottoms, pale grey sweatshirt and pale grey adidas baseball hat engages me in conversation about Ipswich Town’s remarkable start to the football season. Damn, he must have noticed my blue and white scarf, which I donned thinking the weather is cooler than it is. I don’t really know what to say to him, I don’t talk about football if I can help it, but nothing surprises me in football anymore. After fifty-two years watching mostly Ipswich Town, but with sizeable dollops of Colchester United, Brighton and Hove Albion and Wivenhoe Town, I’ve seen it all, haven’t I?

As I sit and wait for the train, which is a minute late, two ladybirds are also seemingly attracted by my blue and white scarf, but thankfully they don’t ask me any questions, they just settle on it until I blow them away and tell them their houses are on fire. The train arrives, I get on and am unfortunate enough to sit where I can only see out of half a window, whilst on the other side of the gangway three men, a woman and two children discuss blood pressure, although to be honest the children don’t have an opinion, they just witter and gurgle as children do. I move to a seat that is situated with a full window view. The carriage smells of whatever it’s been cleaned with and I’m feeling very warm indeed. Behind me a man says “Is it a glamorous building?” The woman with him replies “Well, it’s nice”. I remove my jacket, scarf and jumper and reflect on what has gone right and what has gone wrong with my day so far.

The train arrives in Ipswich and I make swift progress down Princes St into Portman Road, where I purchase a programme (£3.50) at one of the blue booths that looks to me like they should also sell ice creams. The programme today has a picture of the excellent Massimo Luongo on its cover, he is clenching his fists and thrusting forward his groin whilst lifting one foot off the ground as if he might be ostentatiously breaking wind. Middle-aged men and older sit on the rail fence to the nearby car park and eat packed lunches. It’s one of those days when people catch my eye and half smile as if they know me. I check to see if the zip on my trousers is undone, it’s not, but it was on Thursday morning when I took in a parcel for my neighbour from the DHL delivery man.

In time I inevitably reach ‘The Arb’, which is very busy, and I join a queue at the bar. An obese man with shiny pink lips and waxy complexion annoys me a little by “cutting the line”, as Americans say, and getting served before me. Behind the bar the one female member of staff has brightly coloured hair, and for one fleeting, fanciful, enjoyable moment I imagine it’s TV’s favourite physical anthropologist professor Alice Roberts, but of course it’s not. When it’s my turn, I order a pint of Wolf Brewery Werewolf (£3.87 with Camra discount) before retiring to the beer garden where I look at my mobile phone and notice that Mick has tried to call me, twice. I call him back and he explains that he is late because he has been called out to Felixstowe to collect a dead person. He’ll be with me later. I have drunk my first pint of Werewolf and started a second when Mick arrives at about a quarter past two with his own pint of Werewolf. We talk of the bottles of Lancelot organic beer I brought Mick back from Britanny, of Lorient and Brest and bowels, prescriptions and mutual friends. At about twenty to three we leave for Portman Road, exiting through the back gate.

Portman Road is clogged with queues for the Cobbold Stand and there are queues at the turnstiles for the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand too. Happily, the queue at turnstile 62, my favourite turnstile because 1962 was when Ipswich won what is now called the Premier League, is a bit shorter than most. I wave my season ticket vaguely in front of the screen-thing, unable to remember which bit makes it work. The bloke behind me says it’s the bit on the left, or he may have said it’s the bit on the right, I can’t remember now and will do the same thing again when I come to the next game. Either way, I pass through the turnstile and having vented some surplus Werewolf, join Fiona, the man from Stowmarket, ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his young son Elwood, who are as ever already in their seats and applauding the teams as they process onto the pitch. Pat from Clacton is absent today, she’s playing whist in Mauritius. Murphy the stadium announcer reads out the names of the teams, but he is no Stephen Foster and hopelessly fails to synchronise himself with the scoreboard as it displays the names of the Town players, which he garbles leaving insufficient space between first and second names to facilitate the bellowing of the players surnames by the crowd as if we were French.

The game begins with today’s opponents Plymouth Argyle getting first go with the ball, which they aim mostly in the direction of me, the river and railway station. Town are inevitably in their signature kit of blue shirts and socks with white shorts. At first, I think Plymouth are wearing white shirts and black shorts, but a less cursory glance reveals that their shorts are a deep grey, and their shirts are a very pale, washed-out pink. I can’t decide if this is a tribute to prog rockers Caravan’s 1971 album ‘In the Land of Grey and Pink’ or if Plymouth had accidentally put their shirts in the wash with Exeter City’s. There could of course be a sensible explanation like the kit being dedicated to breast cancer awareness month, and for readers who like ‘boob jokes’, the city of Plymouth is coincidentally twinned with Brest in France.

With tickets sold out, Portman Road is loud just from people talking, but there is singing too and Christmas soon arrives with a burst of “Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, the Norwich ran away” quickly followed by a rendition of “ We’ve got super Keiran McKenna, He knows exactly what we need…” and it’s just as well he does because the match is not seven minutes old and Plymouth’s Morgan Whittaker plants a curling shot into the top right hand corner of Vaclav Hladky’s goal and Town are trailing one-nil. It’s a goal that inspires mass gloating from the Devonians up in the top tier of the Cobbold stand as the Argyle fans go inexplicably Spanish and start to sing “Championes, Championes, Ole, Ole, Ole” as if trying to convince us that they’re all linguists as well supporting the team that somehow pipped Town to the third division title a few months back. My inner superstitious pessimist is unexpectedly awoken by the noise, and I start to think to myself “Oh no, it’s game thirteen and we’re going to lose”. But I soon snap out of it and as Town respond with a corner, I repeatedly sing “Come on You Blues”, although solo. “No noise from the Tractor Boys” chant the Argyle fans, which, as I tell Fiona, is harsh on me, but not untruthful otherwise. Fully in character as vainglorious bastards, the Argyle fans proceed to sing “One-nil to the Champions”, and plagiarise the Pet Shop Boys in the process.

Town win a second corner and a third and Conor Chaplin has a shot blocked. A Plymouth man goes down and whilst he receives succour, everyone else has a drinks break and catches up on the coaching they’ve forgotten since walking onto the pitch twenty minutes ago. Meanwhile the away fans deliver a strangely muffled chant of “Small club in Norwich, you’re just a small club in Norwich” displaying a lack of wit normally only associated with supporters of small clubs genuinely in Norwich. Plymouth make the first substitution of the afternoon as Ryan Hardie quits when his team is ahead to be replaced with Mustapha Bundu. “Substitution for Leeds United” announces Murphy over the PA, crowning his inept performance so far this afternoon, before just announcing “Plymouth Argyle” with no accompanying word of apology or explanation for those who hadn’t heard his gaff. Bring back Stephen Foster and his best man’s suit and poorly matched shoes I say.

Nearly a quarter of the match is gone for ever and the home crowd is beginning to sound and feel fractious, like toddlers who have been up too long and need a nap. “A bit sloppy there” says the bloke behind me as Plymouth busy themselves around the Town penalty area. “Unlucky” says the bloke continuing his commentary as Omari Hutchison makes a not very good cross. Town win a fourth corner and a fifth. “Come On You Blues” I chant again, and again, and miraculously the rest of the stadium join in. “Fuckin’ ‘ell, he’s phenomenal today, he is” says the bloke behind me of Brandon Williams as the on loan full-back performs a ‘full-blooded tackle’. “He’s on another level”.

Nearly a third of the way through the game and the first airing of referee Gavin Ward’s yellow card is in the direction of Plymouth’s Mikel Miller, whose name reminds me of probably the most famous racing greyhound of all time. “Diana Nicholson, report to the nearest steward” announces Murphy putting on the sort of serious voice that might get used when talking about Jimmy Savile or Rolf Harris. Town win another corner, our seventh? I think I might have lost count. The name of Massimo Luongo joins that of the famous racing greyhound in Mr Ward’s black book. “You don’t know what you’re doing” chant the Sir Boby Robson stand predictably. Town win an eighth corner and a Nathan Broadhead header over the cross bar elicits polite applause. Town win a ninth corner before, with five minutes to go until half-time Plymouth win their first and the away support debuts their rendition of “Argyle, Argyle” a soulless dirge in which the syllables in the word Argyle are elongated to depressing lengths. A minute late the blokes behind me head for the bar.

Two minutes remain before the tea break and Whittaker breaks forward for Argyle and falls to the ground as George Edmundson makes a lunging challenge from behind. Whittaker claims a penalty, well he would, wouldn’t he, but Mr Ward is watching a different match, the same one I’m watching, and whilst it looked like a penalty perhaps, I don’t think Edmundson touched Whittaker at all. It’s soon forgotten as Town claim yet another corner and four minutes of added on time appear before us. From the corner I can’t see what happens as it’s up the other end of the pitch and I’m in the cheap seats. But then a roar goes up and it seems we’ve scored, I’ll take everyone’s word for it I tell Fiona. Massimo Luongo is given the credit and half-time soon follows.

With the break I talk to the man from Stowmarket, and he tells me how his son-in-law is a Norwich City supporter and how he went to a Norwich match with him and was lucky enough to see Norwich lose 6-1 at home to Manchester City. Having syphoned off more spent Werewolf and stared blankly up at the half-time scores on the TV in the concourse below the stand I talk to Dave the steward. We agree that we can’t quite decide what Town need to do to win the match other than score some more goals.

The football resumes at, I think, six minutes past four and Vaclav Hladky is soon saving at the feet of Plymouth’s Finn Aziz, whilst the blue skies above begin to turn more grey with gathering cloud. But then Town win yet another corner and it seems there has been a change in tactics with the ball being dropped behind the Plymouth defence as well as passed through and around it, but I could be wrong. A meagre fifth of the half has trotted off into he mists of time when Leif Davis sends a through ball for George Hirst and his accompanying marker to chase. Hirst wins and curls the ball beautifully beyond the despairing dive of the Plymouth ‘keeper and perfectly inside the far post. Although I’m in the cheap seats, I doubt my view of the goal could be bettered on this occasion. It’s a goal to prove that going two one up having been a goal down is worth the initial suffering, and the sense of relief is palpable. “Ei-Ei-Eio, Up the Football League We Go” chants the Sir Bobby Robson Stand cheerfully to prove the point.

The home crowd had been quiet and a bit miserable for most of the first half, but we really do only sing when we’re winning. Plymouth win a second corner, but Town win a twelfth or thirteenth; I’m no longer counting. Omari Hutchison has a shot deflected wide when I was convinced the ball was in the net and Conor Chaplin heads over the Plymouth cross bar. Mr Ward the referee does something which inspires the lad who sits in front of me to say “The referee’s a talking point”, previously I’ve mostly heard referees described as bastards.

Three-quarters of the match is now historical fact and I turn to Fiona to tell her it’s about now when Pat from Clacton usually tells us what she’s having for tea. I ask Fiona what she’s having; she’s having fish and chips. I tell her I’m having left over curry. On the pitch, Town make substitutions and Mr Ward produces a rash of yellow cards, mostly directed at Town players, just to confirm his status as a talking point. Conor Chaplin and Omari Hutchison continuously almost link up well down the right, but frustratingly never quite manage it until Kayden Jackson replaces Hutchison with less than fifteen minutes left of normal time. After the substitution, Hladky makes a superb flying save following a meagre third Plymouth corner, and Murphy announces this afternoon’s attendance as 29,028; “Thank you for your continued support” he says obsequiously, sounding like Uriah Heep would have if Charles Dickens had made him a stadium announcer at the weekends.

Into the last ten minutes and Hladky makes another stupendous save, perhaps the most stupendous yet; this time from a close range shot by Joe Edwards. So perfect is Hladky’s performance in the second half that I am beginning to fear he might have sold his soul to the devil during the half-time break. “That’s better than a goal, that is” says the bloke behind me, getting a bit carried away.

Four minutes of normal time remain and Town are looking leggy whilst Plymouth still look fresh; Town are hanging on but somehow retain an attacking threat because of the nature of our players, we simply have a team designed to create and score goals, apart from Vaclav Hladky that is. Sam Morsy sends Leif Davis down the left, he crosses the ball to Marcus Harness who shoots from perhaps ten metres out, but his shot strikes a defender, only for the ball to rebound to him and allow him a second chance, which he takes. These things didn’t used to happen, but now they do, and Town lead 3-1.

There will be at least six minutes of added on time. Hardly a minute of that time expires and Plymouth score again, a low cross knocked in from close range after Hladky apparently renounces Satan, and we’re back where we were. Plymouth won all the points they needed to pip Town to the third division title and more in the closing minutes of games last season, but not today, and Town succeed in closing the game down by passing the ball amongst themselves and thereby draining the hope and possibly the will to live from the Argyle players. Mr Ward is keen to remain a talking point and adds a bit more time onto the six minutes but it doesn’t matter and Town win again.

With the final whistle Fiona departs and so does the man from Stowmarket, but I stay a few minutes to applaud, whilst others seem keen to jeer the Plymouth players, I’m not sure why. It has been a very close game, but Town have won yet again, and without having to rely on penalties or offside goals, or flukes. Summer and now British summer time might have gone, but since Kieran Mckenna arrived it’s been perpetual Springtime in Ipswich.

Billericay Town 1 Sheppey United 1

October 16, 2023August 30, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s a bright sunny day and I have spent the morning trimming the hedge that sits between my garden and the footpath outside my house and the road beyond. I didn’t know when I started hedging, that today was the day of the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup, but something inside is nagging at me telling me that I should be seeking out non-league football on a sunny October Saturday when Ipswich Town aren’t playing. In one of the many breaks from hedge trimming that I need in order to admire my work and drink tea, I therefore discover on the interweb that today is indeed an FA Cup day, and scanning the fixtures for ‘local’ games I see that Billericay Town will be playing Sheppey United.

Like seeing Haverfordwest County, which I did back in August, seeing Sheppey United has always been an ambition of mine. My father’s parents lived in Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey from the 1930’s until they died forty odd years or more ago. I can recall visiting them and discovering Sheppey United’s ground, which was then somewhere amongst the seeming maze of back alleys between their house in Vincent Gardens and Sheerness High Street. My father always laughed about Sheppey United, and I was a bit disappointed that neither he nor my grandfather ever suggested we go and watch them. So, today presents an opportunity to fulfil a longstanding wish. To add to the family association, when my grandmother and father were first married, she apparently worked in Billericay, and the story goes that at this time she fell pregnant with twins. There are no birth or death certificates for the twins however, so it is assumed they miscarried, but the story put about by my uncle was that she was going to name them Billy and Ricky, (as in Billericay) which seems unlikely, a bit ridiculous, and also very tragic all at the same time. But my uncle did have an odd sense of humour.

Google maps tells me that I am only forty-five kilometres from Billericay Town; a thirty-five-minute drive down the A12 and along the B1007. I drove that far a fortnight ago to see Garde St Cyr Moreac play OC Vannes in the fourth, and still amateur, round of the Coupe de France, so it only seems fair that I should drive as far to watch an FA Cup game this afternoon. I ask my wife Paulene if she would like to accompany me, because after all she was with me in Moreac, but her response today is verging on the impolite, and so having had a light lunch of potato crisps and left over pizza I set off alone in my planet saving Citroen e-C4.

It’s an easy drive from my house to Billericay, but I nevertheless set the Satnav to take me to New Lodge, Billericay Town’s home ground. I listen to BBC Radio Essex in the car in the hope of gleaning pre-match insight, but talk is mostly of Colchester United, Southend United and also Aveley, who like Billericay are playing in the FA Cup today, but at home to current National League leaders Barnet. I am kept amused meanwhile by the Satnav, which changes the pronunciation of the last syllable in Billericay from the usual ‘Key’ to ‘kay’. As the writers of ‘Gavin and Stacey’ and possibly my uncle knew, there is may be something inherently funny about Billericay.

The Satnav in my car unerringly takes me to Billericay Town FC as expected, but had not foreseen that the club car park would be full, and so I switch ‘her’ off and pop down a nearby side road to doubtless annoy someone by parking outside their suburban bungalow. At the bottom of the road on which I am parked, four blokes are getting out of a pick-up truck. A man stands on his front porch opposite and tells them to turn right then left to get to the ground, I guess they must be from Sheppey. “Up from Sheppey are you?” I ask. The answer is as expected, and our conversation reveals not only that the bloke I’m talking to is the Sheppey United manager’s son, but that one of the blokes with him owns a house in the same street in which my grandparents lived.

New Lodge lies down Blunts Wall Road, a bucolic, tree-lined lane which conveniently brings the pedestrian to a bank of four turnstiles at the corner of the ground. Being the modern tech-savvy bloke that I’m not, I had already purchased my ticket on-line just minutes before I set off from home, responding to the advertised promise on the club website of not having to queue at the turnstiles. It was a lie, there is no express check in, and so I begin to queue at the first in a row four turnstiles with all the mugs tendering bank cards and even cash. When I get to the front of the queue, I present my phone to the turnstile operator, who promptly apologises that she can’t let me in here and I must queue at turnstile number four. Luckily, having queued at the first in a row of four turnstiles it’s easy to work out which must be number four, although the turnstiles are not actually numbered. At least when I begin queuing again I can confirm to the two blokes behind me who also already have their tickets, that they are in the right queue.

Emerging from the turnstile, the pitch and stands of a very neat and well-appointed stadium appear before me, but sadly the same can’t be said of anyone selling programmes. The only programme today is an electronic one, and when I photograph the QR code and go to look at it, I find only the programmes from four previous matches; although one of them was an FA Cup tie, it was versus Stowmarket Town. A little down-hearted, I turn my attention back to my surroundings. The pitch is synthetic and in the tradition of non-league football grounds it appears to slope, in this case from east to west; I had thought that artificial pitches needed to be level, so perhaps it’s the stands that are sloping, or me. The stands are very smart, painted blue with neat rows of narrow, white roof stanchions fronting the pitch in wonderful repetition on all sides. The ground seems almost too smart for non-league, and it comes as a relief to spot some flaking white paint on the main stand, even if the metal beneath is shiny not rusty. The club house is large with two bars that wouldn’t look out of place in a Wetherspoons. There are further outdoor bars in the southern corners of the ground.

I eventually settle on the terrace where most of the Sheppey fans seem to have gathered. The teams process onto the pitch and the game begins. It’s Billericay who get first go with the ball and they are kicking towards the northern end, where I am standing. Billericay wear blue shirts and white shorts whilst Sheppey are in red and white stripes with black shorts; the scene is a perfect picture. The opening minutes of the game are dominated by people carrying plastic pints of beer and lager re-locating from the south end of the ground to the north, the end that Billericay are attacking. Billericay’s number seven has a shot during this time and fortunately it flies over the cross bar, if it had gone in, I fear the walkways around the ground would have been awash with beer.

The sun is shining strongly into the stand and I decide it’s too warm, so when the Billericay Town diaspora is over I go and find a seat in the front row of the stand on the west side of the pitch, which is shaded. It’s a good view if a little low down and afflicted with the pungent smell of what I think is pine from a close neighbour’s aftershave or may be an open bottle of toilet cleaner. Despite the main migration having finished, there is nevertheless still a constant flow of mostly blokes with pints from the bars.

As might have been expected, because Billericay Town are in a league a level above Sheppey United, the home team have the ball more of the time than do their visitors. Despite a lot of possession however they don’t have many shots at the Sheppey goal and Sheppey break down their attacks easily. It’s only twelve minutes past three and another attack is broken down and Sheppey send the ball off down their right flank from where it is played through to their number nine who quickly sets himself up for a shot and scores. Sheppey United lead 1-0 and there is an explosion of joy amongst the red and white shirts and scarves off to my left.

“Everywhere we go…” sing the Sheppey fans and then “No noise for the Essex Boys” which provokes the quickly thought out response “Essex, Essex , Essex” from the boys. Billericay continue to keep the ball a lot of the time but it’s as if they think that’s all they have to do. At twenty past three it’s Sheppey who win the first corner, and I notice the row of four Oak trees at the southern end of the ground, one of which is inside the ground, although it doesn’t look as healthy as the others. It’s a beautiful light blue afternoon with heaped up clouds like cotton wool decorating the sky and puffs of black rubber springing up from the synthetic pitch.

Sheppey’s number eight shoots on goal. “Oh, no-oo” exclaims the bloke next to me a moment before the ball skims just beyond the far post and I hear him sigh with relief. Sheppey win another corner, and then another but in between Billericay have another extended period of ultimately aimless possession. It’s not until gone twenty-five to four that Billericay win a corner of their own, but the Sheppey goalkeeper is the first to the ball when is sails into the box. The sight of groups of home and away fans side by side behind the goal has me reminiscing about the North Stand at Portman Road back in the 1970’s.

With half-time approaching I decide to make my way to what I think is a tea hut, but is actually another bar, situated in the corner by the turnstiles. I pause and watch the last action of the half from near the bar as Billericay gain another corner. The ball is not cleared and to end the archetypal goal mouth scramble the Billericay number 10 jabs the ball into the net from close range and the scores are level. I’m a bit disappointed. After a minute’s worth of added on time it’s half-time, and hiding my disappointment that Sheppey are no longer winning I step away to the bar to get a tea (£1.20) and worry that the woman who serves me is eyeing me suspiciously because I seem to be the only person who isn’t buying beer.

Having previously felt too warm, by the end of the first half I was beginning to feel too cold, so for the second half I return to the terrace that’s in the sun at the north end of the ground, which reminds me of the old ‘Popular’ side at Layer Road, Colchester, but without the rust and with a better rake on the terrace. The football begins again at six minutes past four.

“Get into ‘em and fuck ‘em up” chant the Billericay fans repeatedly and rather unpleasantly and their team responds with an early shot high into one of the Oak trees. The afternoon’s attendance is announced as being 1,241 and the announcer thanks everyone for their “fantastic support”. Billericay have the ball most of the time still and the football is neat and thoughtful, only occasionally punctuated by agricultural clearances from the big blokes at the back. In front of my terrace fat blokes continue to ferry beers. It’s nearly twenty-five past four and Billericay win a corner. “Come On You Blues” chant the home crowd from the other end of the ground. A minute later Sheppey make the game’s first substitution and have a creative spell, which first sees number eleven volley the ball against the Billericay goalkeeper’s chest , before number six is booked and then number seven has a rising shot blocked by the up stretched arms of the Billericay ‘keeper. Meanwhile, the Sheppey fans chant “Come On Sheppey” and in a quieter moment a pied wagtail flits across the pitch, confused perhaps by the synthetic grass.

Twenty-five to five slips by and Billericay make a substitution. “Blue Army, Blue Army” chant the home crowd like a scratched record. “Come on you Ites” chant the Sheppey fans, suddenly remembering their team’s slightly odd nickname; Ites being short for Sheppeyites. Their team earns a corner and number four heads over the cross bar. It’s now almost a quarter to five and as Billericay make a double substitution I notice two advertisement boards on opposite sides of the pitch; one for Greenlight Insurance, the modified car insurance specialists, and the other for Bumps Away Minor Body Repairs; the symmetry appeals to my cliched picture of south east Essex as the home of the boy racer and his souped up Vauxhall Nova.

Only a few minutes of normal time remain but away to my right two young blokes return to their friends with more beer and two polystyrene trays of chips for which a blue recycling bin makes a convenient table. On the pitch, Sheppey’s number seven joins the list of cautioned players and the Sheppey supporters regale the referee with chants of “You don’t know what you’re doing”. It’s ten to five when I decide to head towards the exit, making my way along the front of the main stand in instalments before resting near where I ended the first half. With time running out and a midweek replay back in Kent looming, both teams make final desperate efforts to win. Billericay hit the Sheppey cross bar with a free-kick and then inside the four minutes of time added on Sheppey also have a shot that unexpectedly strikes the cross bar too. But then it’s all over and amidst applause, relief, disappointment and appreciation I make my way back out into Blunt’s Wall Road and the short walk back to my planet saving Citroen e- C4.

The lesson learned today is that the FA Cup is still a wonderful thing, which at non-league level in particular still excites and enthuses, because it is all about the glory. This afternoon’s match has done the old competition proud, and I can now go back to my hedge trimming to reflect on an afternoon well spent, to wonder about who Billy and Ricky would have supported, and to bask in the self-satisfaction that I have at last seen Sheppey United.

Further reading: ‘How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers won the FA Cup’ by J L Carr.