Ipswich Town 4 Preston North End 2

/ martinpbrooks / 5 Comments

I first saw Preston North End, or “P’nee” as my wife Paulene likes to call them, back in April 1986, shortly before a part of my world fell down and Ipswich Town were relegated from what is now the Premier League for the first time since before I started school, but a while after the Lady Chatterly ban and the Beatles first LP.   The Preston North End I saw back then were rivals of Colchester United, but not equals, the U’s thrashed them by four goals to nil. Since then, I have seen nineteen matches featuring the once but no longer invincible Preston North End, first ever Premier League champions in 1888 and double winners to boot, but of those nineteen games they’ve only won two.  As an Ipswich Town fan, it is with an optimistic frame of mind therefore, that having bade farewell to Paulene and kissed her goodbye, I step out of my front door and head for my local railway station and the afternoon of delights that await me in that not far off Ipswich.  It is warm, but I carry a light coat because when I sat in the shade in my garden this morning drinking a coffee I thought I detected a cool breeze. ­­­

The railway station is busy with would be travellers, the majority wearing Ipswich Town branded shirts, although three young women drenched in perfume and stood at the foot of the bridge are surely displaying far too much cleavage and sparkly bare flesh to be going to the match.  The train arrives on time, and I find a pair of seats next to a window on the sunny side of the carriage.  The carriage is a noisy place full of chatter and people watching videos on mobile phones. At the first stop the three young women alight and a man boards, he sports a tattoo of a diamond on his neck, he has the demeanour of someone who is probably a ‘diamond geezer’.  He nods furtively at a pair of vacant seats and says to a friend that they could sit there, but he’s got to go to the loo first; they both walk on and never return.  The display above the gangway tells me that the carriage doesn’t contain a toilet, but I can still smell one.

Arriving in Ipswich, I quickly cross the tracks and leave the railway station, pausing only to find my e-ticket on my mobile phone, which I flash at the ticket collector.  I head on to Portman Road. This morning, I found some coins in my bedside table and had thought to use them to buy a programme, but as I queue at one of the blue programme booths from which I think the club should also serve ice creams, I learn that even these no longer take cash.  I could pay by card, but that hadn’t been my plan, so I don’t bother and walk on.  Fate, however, is a curious thing and on the corner of Portman Road and Sir Alf Ramsey an Ipswich Borough councillor and former fanzine editor is selling copies of what is billed as the last edition of the Turnstile Blue fanzine.   “For old times sake” I say as I hand over one of my pound coins to him before continuing on to ‘The Arb’, where the doors are wide open and naturally, I walk in.

 Having purchased a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.60 with 10% Camra discount), I make for the beer garden and share a table with a young man and a woman having first asked if it is okay to do so, it is.  At the next table a man talks a lot and wears an Ipswich Town polo shirt featuring the Powergen logo, a reminder perhaps of the many Town fans now returning to Portman Road after twenty odd years of absence. Today, I am drinking alone because having contacted Mick he called me back to say that he was meeting a friend from London whom he hadn’t seen in a while. I understand, and pass my time reading Turnstile Blue, Ipswich’s most earnest fanzine, which today contains a particularly amusing piece about vloggers and an excellent article about Scott Duncan, the last manager Ipswich Town ‘poached’ from Manchester United before Kieran McKenna.  Sadly, as the last issue it is perhaps one of the best.  The Suffolk Pride is particularly good today and I am soon forced to buy another, and I ask the young man and woman at my table to keep an eye on my coat, fanzine and glasses whilst I’m at the bar.  Upon my return, with a fresh pint in my hand, I am happy to see my possessions where I left them. “I see my stuff’s still here, thanks” I say to the man and woman. “Yeah, a couple of people tried to get it, but I kept them off” says the man, pleasingly getting the joke.

At about twenty to three I depart for Portman Road moments after the last of my fellow drinkingTown fans, who I then overtake outside the museum.  There are queues in Portman Road and behind the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand with less than ten minutes to go until kick-off, an indication that the electronic entry system is still much slower than the old human being based one. I join the comparatively short queue for turnstile 62 behind former BBC Radio Suffolk presenter and usurped stadium announcer Stephen Foster.  Inside the stand, after a quick stop to drain off superfluous Suffolk Pride, I make it to my seat as the teams appear in the corner of the pitch. Ever-present Phil who never misses a game, his young son Elwood, Pat from Clacton, Fiona and the man from Stowmarket who is probably actually from Stowupland, are all here already as I would expect. Pat from Clacton kindly tells me that they’ve missed me whilst I’ve been away in France.  I join ever-present Phil in shouting out the Town players’ surnames as the stadium announcer reads them out.  Phil will reveal to me at half time that he had had a word with today’s announcer, who is standing in for the usual Murphy who is indisposed, to tell him not to run the players first names into their surnames; I think he has taken heed.

It is Ipswich who get first go with the ball which they mostly send in the direction of the goal in front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand; they wear the traditional blue and white.  Preston sport a kit which some might describe as an insipid all pale yellow, with a navy blue oblong below their navels, but I prefer to think of it as being primrose in colour.  The game begins at pace with lots of industrious running about from both teams and slick passing of the ball.  Town’s Brandon Williams is soon clattered by a Preston player and then before the referee gets a chance to blow his whistle he is clattered again; Williams is simply moving too quickly for anyone to keep up with him. “You dirty northern bastards” sing the Sir Bobby Robson stand and I join in, thinking how much I dislike short vowels, soot, mushy peas and talk of ginnels and Northern powerhouses.

Pat tells me she’s going to miss the next two games.  I quickly ask if that’s because she’ll be on her annual whist playing holiday in Great Yarmouth.  But no, she tells me, she’s going to Mauritius. “To play whist?” I ask, but no she’s going to her niece’s wedding.  Along with Fiona we agree it’s a long way to go to get married, or to play whist.  I tell them I just had a day off work when I got married.  Eleven minutes have gone and Wes Burns has a shot blocked almost as soon as it leaves his boot.  “Yellows, Yellows” chant the P’nee fans, unable to admit they’re actually playing in primrose, which considering their club’s nickname is “The Lilywhites” is a little surprising.

Town are dominating possession, but Preston are keeping us at bay. “Set up defensively well” says the bloke behind me sounding oddly serious considering the order in which he has placed the words in his sentence.  The seventeenth minute, Town have a corner, Leif Davis takes it. He strikes the ball low. “What?” I’m about to say, thinking that’s not a very good corner, when Conor Chaplin half volleys the ball just inside the post from about 12metres out, and Town lead 1-0, it’s a cracking goal.  “We’ve got super Kieran McKenna, he knows exactly what we need” chants pretty much everyone, in my imagination anyway.  The Preston fans sing something too, and are in good voice, but I can’t understand their accents.  The woman sat between me and the man from Stowmarket wears a Town shirt but is very quiet, and didn’t leap up excitedly when we scored.

Nearly half of the half has disappeared forever, except on recorded highlights. Nathan Broadhead narrowly misses the goal with an audacious lob from long distance and Brandon Williams surges off down the touchline only to be clattered again spectacularly, and the perpetrator is booked by referee Mr David Webb. A drinks break and an early substitution for P’nee follow and then an up and under drops nastily outside the Town penalty area,  the ball studiously avoids Ipswich feet but presents itself  to Mads Frojaer-Jensen who un-sportingly boots it into the Ipswich goal and Preston have as many goals as the Town do.

It proves to be a set-back for Town, but that’s all.  Two minutes later we think we have scored but we haven’t and shortly after that Mr Webb books a third Preston player, but Nathan Broadhead sends the resultant free-kick shamefully high and wide.  Town are sure to score sooner or later and with ten minutes until half-time Brandon Williams wins the ball off a Preston player, stands up straight and just runs from within the Town half at the Preston goal; he’s a marvellous sight as he charges away with his socks not reaching half way up his calves and his arms punching the air; he reaches the edge of the Preston penalty area and sends the ball towards the far post where it bounces off and into the goal and Town’s lead is restored.  It’s a fabulous goal.

Preston seek parity again and Osmajic shoots wide following a confusingly unorthodox free-kick routine, and Mr Webb inspires the home crowd to chant “You don’t know what you’re doing” as Conor Chaplin is penalised for falling backwards. Five minutes of added on time follow and Town win a corner which is cleared only for the ball to be crossed back to the far post, headed across the goal and then headed back again by a selfless George Hirst for Nathan Broadhead to knock over the goal line from minimal range.  It’s another fine goal, and following the still recent disappointment of the Preston goal,  it brings a certain sense of relief that Town are now two goals ahead.  The Sir Bobby Robson stand sing a Depeche Mode song from forty-two years ago and that tuneless chant about being on our way to the Premier League and not knowing how we’re going to get there; the woman next to me remains seated and just claps one hand against a knee, hers, not mine.  I turn to her and trying to convey incredulous curiosity say “You’re very calm”; she just smiles demurely.  Perhaps she doesn’t speak English or can’t understand my accent.

With the half-time whistle I decant more Suffolk Pride, speak with a steward with whom I used to work called Dave, and then visit Harrison down at the front of the stand, although his grandfather Ray is sat elsewhere today. Harrison asks how was the Robyn Hitchcock concert at St Stephen’s Church three weeks ago, and I tell him it was brilliant, because it was.  I return to my seat in time to see the names of people on the scoreboard who are attending their first game at Portman Road today; one of whom is called Huckleberry, and I think of the blue cartoon dog from the early 1960’s who Wikipedia tells us was the first TV animation to win an Emmy. 

The match resumes at eight minutes past four and the blokes behind me are late returning from the bar.  Preston are sharper this half, and are keeping the ball most of the time, it’s as if the Town players had mistakenly thought having a nap at half time would be a good idea and they haven’t properly woken up.  Preston win a free-kick, the ball is only half cleared and Benjamin Whiteman strikes the ball in off the far post for a second Preston goal, and all while I’d been hoping for a fourth Town goal.  “Making it a bit more exciting though, innit” says the bloke behind me before carrying on to say  “Them scoring might not be a bad thing… well it is… but it ain’t”.  Fiona and I exchange glances and smirk. “Yeah but, no but” I think to myself.

Preston continue to have the better of the half but whilst neat and methodical lack the vision, flair and inspiration of Ipswich, so they don’t score again.  Nevertheless, Kieran McKenna presumably thinks change is required and the attacking trio of Chaplin, Burns and Broadhead take a rest in favour of Harness, Jackson and Hutchinson, but not necessarily in that order.  The crowd is quieter than it has been all game and it feels like may be we’ll just have to see this one out.  Today’s attendance is announced as being 29,018 with 826 of that number being sat up the corner in the Cobbold stand supporting the away team, which is a respectable number because it’s a mighty long way down a dusty trail from Preston. People applaud themselves for their existence here this afternoon.

The game continues without reaching the heights of the first half and with fiteen minutes of normal time remaining, final substitutions are made by Kieran McKenna, with George Hirst and Massimo Luongo retiring in favour of Freddie Ladapo and Jack Taylor. Three minutes later the game is won as Jack Taylor breaks forward on the left, feeds the ball to Omari Hutchinson and he squares it to a lonely Kayden Jackson who quickly gains over 28,000 friends as he strokes the ball into the Preston goal beyond the despairing, purple clad Freddie Woodman.  Everyone is up on their feet with the exception of the woman sat next to me who slaps her knee gently as if tapping along to a popular song by the likes of Petula Clark or Ed Sheeran.  “I-pswich Town, I-pswich Town FC, They’re by far the greatest team the world has ever seen” sing lots of other people.

Time closes in on the final whistle and Town’s victory seems assured.  “You’ve seen the Ipswich, now fuck off home” chant the Sir Bobby Robson stand unpleasantly and uncharitably in an outbreak of nastiness reminiscent of Suella Braverman.  But still Town come close to a fifth goal as a Jack Taylor shot is parried away by Woodman who also saves a Freddie Ladapo attempt.  Preston have a shot too; “Fucking donkey” says the bloke behind me as Preston’s Ben Woodburn shoots impressively wide.  It’s time to celebrate another win “Brandon Williams, he’s a Blue, He hates Norwich” sing the Sir Bobby Robson stand exultantly.  Four minutes of added on time are added on, and the game ends. Ipswich win again.

If I kept a diary I would record another Saturday afternoon well spent, drinking good beer and watching excellent football beneath warm October skies in which the sun now sits so low that I need autumn sunglasses, my only grouse perhaps would be that I didn’t need that light coat after all.

FC Lorient 0 Montpellier Herault SC 3

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One sunny September afternoon last year, whilst on holiday in Brittany, my wife Paulene and I went to the coastal town of Lorient, to the Stade du Moustoir, to witness the Ligue 1 fixture between FC Lorient  and Breton rivals FC Nantes. It was a fabulous afternoon and before an almost capacity crowd we saw Lorient triumph by three goals to two. Everyone was marvellous, I met the Lorient mascot Merlux the hake, and in a fit of consumer madness powered by a premium bond win that week , I bought a T-shirt, a mug, a fridge magnet, a cuddly hake, and a pennant to adorn my upstairs toilet. I have yearned to return ever since and so has Paulene. Today is the day we fulfil our modest dream.

It’s only a thirty-five-minute drive up the E60 and along the N165 through neighbouring Lanester to Lorient from where we are staying, and being old hands we know where we can handily park our planet saving Citroen e-C4, and so set the controls for the heart of the town.  We find a parking spot beneath an avenue of shady limes in the Boulevard Marechal Joffe and walk to the ground, which is superbly central next to the town hall, handy for buses and trains like all football grounds should be.  In Lorient, the town centre car parks are closed on a Sunday match day which sounds daft, but when you think about it is a pretty good idea to encourage people to travel ‘responsibly’, although street parking is free and plentiful.  Yesterday, I received an e-mail from FC Lorient giving me the pre-match lowdown and inviting me along to greet the team as they arrive at the ground, so that’s what we do, joining mostly children and their parents to cheer the players off the bus and enjoy the sound of Fatboy Slim’s “Right Here, Right Now” played on Breton bagpipes.  Merlux the hake mascot (so-called because the binomial name for Hake is Merluccius merlucciusis and the French for Hake is Merlu) is of course present, and he now has an accomplice called Mini Merlux.  The spawning grounds of the Hake are in the Bay of Biscay, the expanse of water which the south coast of Brittany faces.  I had always thought that seafood-based club mascots were restricted to Sammy the Shrimp at Southend United, but I am very pleased to be able to report that this is not true and I’m now keeping a look out for any clubs with fish, crabs, lobsters or assorted shellfish on their crests.

Having greeted the team, who sport natty Breton-style stripey T-shirts making them look as if they should be disembarking from a ship not a bus, there is still over an hour to go until kick-off at five past five.  Keen to know more of Lorient than just the Stade du Moustoir and the route back to our car, we set off to explore a little, heading over the road towards what my instinct and a possible onshore breeze tells me could be the harbour.  My instinct is correct, and Lorient proves to be a town like Ipswich where if you have a yacht you can sail to matches, with a marina within easy walking distance of the stadium.  Arriving for a match under sail has to be even greener than catching the bus, I cannot think why everyone is not doing it.

Wishing to visit the club shop again, have a wander inside the ground and sample the refreshments on offer, we return to the stadium having glimpsed the land on the other side of the water from Lorient. Our seats (20 euros each) are in the fabulous Tribune d’Honneur, now known as the Tribune Credit Mutuel de Bretagne, the smallest and oldest of the four stands, having been built when the ground was first opened in 1959.  The Tribune d’Honneur has a marvellous cantilever roof of beautiful, vaulted and shuttered concrete with shiny steel cables to help hold it up. The back of the stand has a series of narrow, angled concrete columns with angular shuttered concrete arches at the top, and metal framed doors and windows at ground level; behind the stand is an avenue of plane trees which cast a lovely, dappled shade over it.  The stand symbolises the renewal and rebuilding of the early postwar period and is a thing of beauty, way ahead of anything built in Britain at the time. Sadly, with grand proposals to upgrade the stadium to make it better suited to cultural events as well as football, the Tribune d’Honneur is likely to be demolished before we all get much older.

Tripping out on 1950’s concrete, I escort Paulene to the Tavarn Morgana bar beneath the Tribune B & B Hotels where I buy her a glass of the local Breizh Cola (4 euros), which she far prefers to the American rubbish, and a 40ml re-usable plastic glass of Lancelot IPA (6 euros), and pretty good it is too, by several country miles the best beer I’ve ever been served beneath a stand at a professional football club ground.  Paulene now holds my beer whilst I pop into the club shop, accessible from inside the ground but not from without at this stage, to purchase a glorious orange T-shirt (25 euros), the last large size one on the rail, which proudly displays a silhouette of the Lorient skyline with its dockside cranes and submarine dock, beneath the name Lorient.  The great thing about Stade du Moustoir is that it is possible to walk right around it beneath and behind each stand in turn, and that is what we do, taking in the sites and sounds and smells.  Last weekend, Breton team US Concarneau played St Etienne at Stade du Moustoir because their own home ground is not of sufficient standard for matches in Ligue 2; I am very excited to find evidence of the match behind the Tribune Lorient Agglomeration in the shape of the ‘ceremonial’ arch through which the teams would have run onto the pitch, I feel for a moment like Professor Alice Roberts discovering some archaeological wonder.

Back in our seats after our tour of the stadium, a ship’s siren or foghorn sounds three times to signal that there are just ten minutes until kick-off,  or coupe d’envoi to the French, and Paulene and I witness the mounting excitement of the build-up with a stirring Breton anthem, pyrotechnics, the Ligue 1 anthem played loudly over the PA system and multiple flag waving as the teams enter the pitch to line up before banners displaying both club crests and the Ligue 1 logo.  When the game eventually begins it feels like a massive anti-climax, just a few blokes tapping a ball about.

It’s Montpellier who get first go with the ball, attempting to send it mostly towards the most inland of the two goals.  Lorient are wearing their signature home kit of orange shirts, black shorts and white socks but Montpellier whose signature colours are orange and navy blue wear a change kit of all jade with aquamarine sleeves; it’s a bit of an odd or at least unusual ensemble and without the different coloured sleeves it would look washed out and awful.  Normally I would say “if you’re going to wear green, wear green” but I like Montpellier, so I let it go.  Although Montpellier’s Akor Adams heads straight at the Lorient goalkeeper after ten minutes, the first decent shot on goal takes eleven minutes to arrive and it’s Lorient who have it, with Vincent Le Goff sending a shot past the far post from an acute angle after a nippy run and pass from Julian Ponceau.  Three minutes later the first corner of the match goes to Lorient too, but the utterly enormous Isaak Toure sends a glancing header down towards the bottom corner of the Montpellier goal only for goalkeeper Benjamin Lecomte to make a spectacular diving save.  Toure wears a ludicrous number 95 shirt, but at 2.06m tall who’s going to tell him not to.

“Allez Lorientais, Lorientais” sing the home ultras off to our right in the Tribune B&B Hotels, fired by the early action but they just keep on singing and chanting without end, regardless of what happens on the pitch.  The game is settling down to a pattern of Montpellier playing slowly and patiently, frustrating eager Lorient who have occasional bursts of activity, racing forward excitingly only to be stopped by judicious interceptions and well-placed out-stretched boots.  It’s Lorient who first provoke referee Jeremy Stinat into whipping out his yellow card (carton jaune to the locals) however, as Ponceau fouls the wily Teji Savannier, a hugely skilful player who has never run about enough to attract the serious attention of English clubs.  Montpellier’s Wabi Khasri quietly goads a Lorient defender and pleads innocence as only Wabi Khasri can, and as he has done previously for St Etienne and Rennes and probably every club he’s ever played for .

Almost half the first half has gone when Montpellier win their first corner, and the ball is half-volleyed wide, and I am suddenly aware of how comfortable my seat is despite having no back, I think it must encourage good posture.  The bloke sat next to me is leaning forward and living every second of the match in a series of gallic shrugs greeting each free-kick and misplaced pass.  A half an hour has gone and suddenly Montpellier’s patience and quiet approach shatters and number 9 breaks away towards goal; he rounds the Lorient ‘keeper and then squares the ball to present Akor Adams with a simple tap in from a few yards. Montpelier lead 1-0 and seem to have just been biding their time.

The goal prompts Montassar Talbi to add to the tally of booked Lorient players as he drags down Adams and although the home team win another corner, Lorient’s Toure only manages to direct his seemingly unchallenged header straight to the waiting hands and gloves of Comte.  Two minutes of added on time don’t seem enough for Lorient to equalise, and despite some unexpected frantic attacking in which Theo Le Bris boots a shot against the Montpellier cross bar, they’re not.

With half-time there is a flood of parents and children to the back of the stand and some return clutching cardboard cartons of chips or re-usable plastic cups of cola; one or two never return, with forty-five minutes of football on a warm September afternoon evidently being enough.  We watch the stewards watching us and ponder whether one who looks a bit like the late actor Geoffrey Palmer, is wearing a wig or just has an elaborate and extensive comb-over; we decide we’d need to see him walking briskly towards the harbour into an on-shore breeze to truly decide.

At seven minutes past six the football resumes and very, very conspicuous by his absence is the gigantic number 95 for Lorient, Isaak Toure, who has surprisingly been replaced by Joel Mvuka, a man who according to the app on my mobile phone is a full thirty-three centimetres shorter and thirty-three kilograms lighter than him.  It seems likely it’s a tactical move by Lorient manager Regis Le Bris and Lorient start the half enthusiastically, pushing forward and pinning Montpellier in their own half much of the time.  The fifty sixth minutes arrives and the PA system suddenly lets out an almighty noise and the scoreboard flashes the word “Encouragement” and the number “56” as the crowd is urged to make a noise and encourage the team simply because fifty-six is the number of the Morbihan departement (like an English county) in which Lorient is situated.  The same thing happened at Brest last Saturday night when I was there, but in the 29th minute, the Finisterre departement, where Brest is, being departement number twenty-nine.

The ultras have been noisily supporting their team from the start, so the fifty-sixth minute hasn’t made much difference to them, but the substitution of Vincent Le Goff with summer signing Benjamin Mendy two minutes later seems to excite the crowd, and Mendy seems like a decent signing for Lorient, even though he hasn’t played a competitive match for almost two years.  Hopefully, the poor treatment he has suffered in those two years will spur him on to repay Lorient for showing the sort of faith in him, which Manchester City apparently didn’t.  Mendy looks a bit larger than when he played for Monaco, but he clearly hasn’t lost his touch.

An hour has gone, and Montpellier pull back a booking with Maxime Esteve finding the sharp end of referee Jeremy Stinat’s pencil for a foul on Mvuka.  The game is still interesting, but neither team is making much of an impression on the other and with twenty-five minutes left there have been six substitutions, four for Lorient and two for Montpellier, who have replaced Wabi Khasri to peals of heartfelt booing from the home crowd.  Lorient win a corner which comes to nothing, and today’s attendance is announced over the PA system as being 13,492, with the scoreboard referring to us as supporters and supportrices.  I like that the French language still acknowledges that there are two sexes, and surmise that the French understand that human existence is all the better for it.   

The bloke sat next to me has been growing increasingly exasperated, groaning a turning away from the pitch as Lorient players dither on the ball or fail to spot the incisive passes.  Monsieur Stinat is not helping matters, but then it’s not really his job to do so, although he does make them a whole lot worse when in the seventy-first minute he awards Montpellier a penalty having seen Mousa Tamari fall to the ground as Igor Silva brushes against him.  It looks a bit harsh, or alternatively soft from my seat in the old Tribune d’Honneur, but after a small delay, in which the Lorient players surround Mr Stinat, presumably in an attempt to send good vibes through his earpiece to the VAR officials, the VAR officials however, confirm that it is a penalty.  Teji Savannier nonchalantly makes it 2-0 to Montpellier.

Lorient are mildly stung into action by the second goal and win a succession of three corners as they once again keep Montpellier in one half of the pitch, although Montpellier don’t ever look too bothered about it.  Lorient desperately make their fifth substitution whilst Montpellier make some substitutions too, but more just because they can, it takes time, and it⁹ breaks up the game.  Teji Savannier is one of the players to be substituted for Montpellier, and he looks like he could do with a bit of a rest.  Lorient make their own penalty claim as Sirine Doucoure falls to the ground alongside Montpellier’s Kiki Kouyate, but instead Mr Stinat awards the free kick to Kouyate.

A minute of normal time remains, plus any added on for administrative reasons.  Out on the right, Joris Chotard looks up and plays an angled pass through and behind the Lorient defence, which only Akor Adams reacts to; he runs on, takes the ball past the Lorient goalkeeper, checks back to dodge a defender and then rolls the ball into the unguarded Lorient goal. The bloke beside me groans in despair. Seven minutes of additional time is announced and almost all of it is played, and Montpellier win 3-0.

Montpellier deserve their win; they’ve played coolly and economically, and Lorient have not been good enough.   As many of the Montpellier supporters as can, balance themselves on the top of the steel fence that pens them in the corner of the stadium away to my left, most of them aren’t wearing shirts; they hail their conquering team.  At the other end of the ground the Lorient supporters hail their losing team as if they had won.

Once again Paulene and I have had a fab September afternoon at the Stade du Moustoir, it is a truly great place to watch a football match.  There has been so much about our afternoon that we have enjoyed from Lancelot beer and Breizh Cola to shuttered concrete and the last ‘Large’ orange T-shirt in the cub shop, but I think best of all is that Lorient’s club mascot is a Hake.

Garde St Cyr Moreac 1 Vannes OC 3

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Whilst the disadvantage of spending two and a half weeks in France during late September is that I am missing three Ipswich Town home games, this is offset to some extent by having tickets for two Ligue 1 matches, and is then offset quite a bit more by having the opportunity to see a game in the fourth round of the Coupe de France, a knockout cup competition every bit as much fun as England’s FA Cup and possibly even better on account of it not having been won for the last two years by the all-conquering pet team of some dodgy middle eastern emirate.

Having discovered that the weekend of 1st October was ‘cup weekend’, I struggled a little bit at first to discover the fourth-round draw, and then a little bit of further work was involved to find out which home teams were a reasonable distance from where I am staying in Carnac.  Unhappily for me, as I trawled through the fixtures it seemed that most games are being played on Sunday 1st October, when my wife Paulene and I shall be watching Lorient play Montpellier, and of the Saturday games most are in the area around Brest, which is a good two-hour drive away.  But then the fixture list on the footbretagne website came up with the rather grand sounding name of Garde St Cyr Moreac and Google maps quickly confirmed that Moreac is just 33 kilometres north of relatively nearby Vannes, and about the same distance from where my wife Paulene and I are staying as Framlingham or Leiston is from our house back in blighty, and I’ve driven to watch them before, more than once.  Moreac of the third tier of the regional league (Step8 – the same as Ipswich Wanderers, Stowmarket Town and Felixstowe in England) would be at home to Vannes OC of Ligue National 3 (Step5).

The drive to Moreac takes a little under an hour and the roads are quiet because it’s lunchtime. The countryside changes as we travel in land from the flatness and long straight road just in from the coast, to the greener, rolling countryside where the road twists and turns and rises and falls through valleys populated by grazing cattle and not much else, it feels miles from anywhere, not unlike Framlingham and Leiston.  At Locmine we pass a huge factory belonging to the Jean Floc’h company, a major producer of meat products in France, although being France the sign outside refers to charcuterie and not pies.  Jean Floc’h is nevertheless a massive purveyor of processed food.  Moreac is just a few kilometres beyond Locmine and is an attractive village built around the focal point of the large church of St Cyr, from which the football club takes its name.  Wikipedia tells us that in 2020, Moreac had a population of 3,703. The Stade Alfred le Biavant, home of the football club, is just a street or two away from the centre of the village and has a large, surfaced car park where Paulene and I rock up in our planet saving Citroen e-C4 with a bit more than an hour to go before kick-off at 3 pm.

The entrance to the stadium has an elegant if small gate, and a guichet from which a middle-aged lady is selling tickets; today entry costs 5 euros for me but is free for Paulene and indeed all women, which is nice.   Even better, I get a little green ticket too as a souvenir.  The stadium has one small stand with seats on the far side and opposite that a very small bank of terracing, just two steps high but very steep; it’s a bit like a sea wall.  The  site also contains a huge sports hall, which looks like it could double as a barn to house some of the animals destined for the Jean Floc’h factory, a changing room block, a bar with glazed walls overlooking the pitch, a second full size grass pitch and a very smart plastic pitch, on the fence to which is a sign which tells us it was built with money from the local Morbihan Council. France, unlike the UK, is a country which despite problems with pensions seems to a large degree to be still run for the benefit of its general population.  Adding interest, in the corner between the sport shall and the car park is the village cemetery.

With time to spare until kick off, we watch the teams warm up and I take the opportunity to invest 2 euros in a small glass of Lancelot beer, considerately served in a re-usable plastic ‘glass’; why don’t all football clubs  do that?   The crowds are now streaming in and it feels like the whole village is turning out, a man in a club tracksuit top greets friends and neighbours and kisses on cheeks are being exchanged everywhere, although the younger men tend to only shake hands.  The French seem much more sociable and comfortable with each other than the English. A bunch of blokes in their twenties wearing faded green football shirts appear to be the Moreac ultras, and they parade along the path leading from the gate to the pitch following a bloke banging a drum, and holding aloft red distress flares.  If this happened in England they’d probably be arrested, but here no one bats an eyelid, although one or two people take photos for posterity.

As three o’clock approaches the public address system gets tested with a few bursts of sound of gradually improving quality.  Eventually the ubiquitous 1983 rock anthem ‘Jump’ by Van Halen is played, but it ends abruptly as it’s still not quite time yet, although the teams can be seen lining up behind the referees at the door of the dressing room block in the corner of the ground.  The referee eventually gives the nod, and the teams parade on to the pitch attended by several small children as proud parents point mobile phone cameras at the event and Van Halen get to do an encore in full.  Over on the terrace the ultras light more flares, chant enthusiastically and unfurl a tifo which declares ‘La casa de Mourieg’ and displays a picture of what looks like a pale faced Salvador Dali in a red hoodie.  Mourieg is the Breton name for Moreac but casa is Spanish for house, so I it’s not clear to me what they’re trying to convey, although of course Dali was Spanish, perhaps they’re just being surreal like him. (Postscript, the next day, driving out of Lorient after seeing Lorient lose at home to Montpellier in Ligue 1, we passed a pizza restaurant in Lanester called Casa del Pizza which had the same Salvador Dali face for its logo. The surrealness continues)

At exactly three o’clock the game kicks off with Vannes getting first go with the ball, kicking it towards the sports hall and dressing room end of the ground. Moreac are all in red and Vannes all in blue; this reduction of team colours to blue and red is normal in the early rounds of the Coupe de France as is two common shirt sponsors in all games; today the Credit Agricole logo adorns the red shirts and Betclic the blue. Pleasingly both teams are numbered 1 to 11 and no one is wearing anything silly like a number 98.

The gulf of three divisions is soon apparent as Vannes begin to dominate possession.  Moreac manage to win a free kick wide on the right early on but Vannes earn a corner.  “Aux Armes” chant the ultras, and incidentally “Aux Armes et caetera” was the title of Serge Gainsbourg’s thirteenth studio album, but he didn’t then sing “Nous sommes les Moreacois, Et nous allons gagner, Allez GSC” (“ We are the Moreacois, and we will win, Go GSC”.)  Sadly, the chant will prove overly optimistic and Vannes score their first goal after just eleven minutes, their No9 being left in enough space in the middle of the penalty area to steer a half volley in off a post.  “Allez Moreac, Allez Moreac” sing a group of children undeterred by the early goal.

Vannes continue to dominate, but Moreac have the occasional foray forward, usually on the basis of a free-kick.  Twenty-two minutes gone and the Moreac goalkeeper has to make a decent diving save to keep out a low shot.  “La la  la, la la, la, la la, la la,  Allez GSC” sing the ultras celebrating small victories.  Three minutes later and Vannes’ number eleven doubles his team’s lead as he is left all alone on the left and he passes the ball across the goal into the far corner of the net.  It might be a matter of how many goals Vannes can get.  

The home crowd, which seems to make up a good ninety per cent of those here don’t’ show their inevitable disappointment and their attention is still gripped, although that doesn’t go for all the dogs in attendance. A Labrador has a lie down, albeit almost on the pitch whilst a mongrel looks the wrong way. Only a sort of Yorkshire Terrier is concentrating on play, and when any player comes near he strains at his leash and yaps ferociously.  As for the away support, I’ve only seen a couple of the sort of grizzled old fanatics who tend to follow amateur teams away from home.

With almost a third of the game gone and lost to history, Moreac have their first shot on goal as their number 10 cleverly beats a man and then shoots optimistically from twenty-five metres out.  The prevailing, uneven balance is restored soon after however, as the Vannes number nine has a shot well saved and then shoots over from very close range. It’s enough to make the Stade Alfred Le Biavant as quiet as it has been all afternoon.  It doesn’t get any louder as the Vannes number seven has a shot deflected onto the top of the Moreac bar.  The lull is filled by Paulene revealing to me that she is always fascinated by young women at football matches on their own, as a smartly and alluringly (she has an off the shoulder top) dressed girl watches the game briefly a few metres away from us, before walking on towards the main stand.  I suggest that perhaps she’s just a lonesome WAG.

Fortunately, football is never entirely predictable and three minutes before half time Moreac attack down the right.  Surprisingly, the Vannes defence is drawn across the penalty area leaving Moreac’s number seven free to run onto a wide expanse of grass into which the ball is played.  The Vannes goalkeeper saves seven’s first shot, but can only parry it, and the number seven then strikes home the rebound.  It’s just a short run to the ultras for number seven and his teammates who form an impromptu human mound of celebration.  The game restarts. but it’s the last kick of the half.

During the first half, we have watched as a barbecue has smoked away in the corner of the ground and now there is a human tide flowing towards it, attracted presumably by the promise of a mid-afternoon snack of a lamb and beef sausage (Merguez) and a chip butty for 3 euros. 

The match begins again promptly at four o’clock and the familiar pattern of Vannes passing the ball about too quickly and smartly for Moreac continues.  It is Vannes however who have the honour of being the first to have a player booked as their number seven hauls an opponent to the ground.  But Vannes press forward still. Numbers eight, eleven and nine combine cleverly but nine shoots over the goal again, then number ten does the same.  My attention is taken by the number eight, a tall creative midfielder who passes the ball well and makes me think of both France’s Adrien Rabiot and Arsenal’s Graeme Rix, although that it is entirely down to his mop of curly hair.

At a quarter past four Vannes score again, this time number ten tidies up as the ball runs loose and wellies it into the net from about 10 metres.  I watch as the number two on the scoreboard is unhooked and replaced with a three.  Moreac had had some hope at half-time thanks to their unexpected goal, but the game has settled down now, and the score will remain unaltered, despite a series of substitutions by both teams.  The substitutions are overseen by the Delegue Principal, a sort of fourth official in overall charge of the fixture, but in a shiny blue suit; he has his own designated seat at pitch side midway between the two team benches. From a distance he is unfortunate enough to look a bit like Norman Tebbitt, but it’s probably just because he’s bald.

I see out the game by wandering around and enjoying it from different angles from both sides of the ground and behind both goals.  Clouds and sunshine swap about altering the mood of the backdrop of trees, fields, houses and headstones.  Number three for Moreac evens up the score for bookings but there’s never any malice in the game.  The worst that happens is that the ultras take a dislike to the Vannes number ten who I think they perceive is a diver, so they boo him whenever he gets the ball.  With the final whistle, the ultras release a final salvo of flares and the victorious losers of GSC Moreac gather in front of them to give and receive appreciative applause.  It’s been a decent match on a  warm afternoon of late summer sun mixed with early autumn clouds and breezes and everyone has had a lovely time.  Just like in England, local football in France is a wonderful thing, there really is no need for professional football or the Premier League.

Stade Brestois 1 Olympique Lyonnais 0

/ martinpbrooks / 2 Comments

Finistere is the most westerly departement or ‘county’ of metropolitan France, with its name translating pretty much as ’the end of the earth’.  Not far east of the most westerly point of the most westerly department is Finistere’s largest town, Brest, an historic port and naval city, which was almost totally flattened by allied bombing during World War Two because the Nazis occupied it and made it part of their strategic ‘Atlantic Wall’.  Today, having been rebuilt in the 1950’s with an emphasis on space and layout rather than impressive or pretty architecture, although the church of St Louis de Brest is a notable exception, Brest has a population a little larger than that of Ipswich, but serves a metropolitan area of twice as many people, and is home to Stade Brestois 29, a football club in their present incarnation now enjoying their longest spell in the French first division since the 1960’s. Tonight, Stade Brestois who are currently third in the first division table, play Olympique Lyonnais who are third from bottom and I will be there. A win for Brest will put them top of the league above OGC Nice who won 1-0 away to previous leaders AS Monaco last night.

My wife Paulene and I are staying in a city centre hotel, which proves very handy indeed for the Liberte tram stop, where I just manage to extract two tickets (€1.70 each) from the vending machine and jump aboard a bright lime green Ligne A tram before it shuts its doors and begins a gentle, whirring, electricity-drinking ascent up Rue Jean Jaures towards Place de Strasbourg, from where it is just a short walk along Rue de Quimper to Stade de Francois Ble, home of Stade Brestois 29 (the 29 is the number of the Finistere departement – for some reason the mainland departements are numbered from 1 to 100, although weirdly Corsica gets to be 2A and 2B).   A gathering crowd is plainly in motion as we alight from the tram, and there is no difficulty finding the stadium as we are consumed by the human tide being drawn by the glow of floodlights shining out through the Breton dusk, and the promise of beer from the bar immediately behind the ground.  There is something about the approach to the ground and its relationship to the street that reminds me of the old Dell in Southampton, but I don’t let it worry me and not seeing any indication of a club shop I follow Paulene into the stadium after the usual ‘patting down’ by a huge, friendly man of Franco-African origin, who ensures I am not smuggling flares or other unfashionable trousers into the stadium. 

My fears about being unable to source club merchandise are quickly allayed as I spot a small wooden hut which looks like it could double up for use at a Christmas market.  I‘ve done my homework on-line, and know that for a bargain €9.90 I might be able to obtain a T-shirt bearing the club crest and the slogan Marree Rouge  (Red Tide). I point at a box of red T-shirts which bear the markings described and ask if there is one in ‘Large’ size.  The helpful young woman searches, examining the labels in collar after collar, one by one, but without success.  Eventually, sensing my desperation she holds up XL and XXL shirts as if suspecting that I am the sort of bloke who looks capable of putting on several kilos in weight if it suddenly proves necessary.  Optimistically, believing that I can fool the world by holding my stomach in, I ask if there is not a medium sized shirt instead; there is, but then, as she delves into the cardboard box just one more time a miracle happens, and she pulls out a ‘Large’; very possibly the last one in existence that isn’t already being worn by a well-proportioned Breton.

Clutching my precious T-shirt, I head for stairway five of the Tribune Foucauld and having climbed three flights of concrete steps I find myself looking over the brilliant green, floodlit pitch; all that remains is a further climb to row X and our seats, which I bought on-line a couple of weeks back.  Stade Brestois operate a loathsome ‘dynamic’ pricing system in which the club acts like a tout and the price of a seat changes, according to how much they think they can get for it.  When I first looked, tickets were €80 each; I eventually scored two of the few remaining ones for €45.  The club says the system means that people playing top price for seats allows less well-off fans to get cheap seats, but presumably this is only if these poorer fans have nothing to do with their time but be permanently logged onto the club website, waiting for a ticket price they might be able to afford.  The stadium has a capacity of not many more than 15,000 and is almost full for every Ligue 1 game. We sit in our over-priced seats and enjoy the view, which includes, through fading light, sight of the wide inlet from the Atlantic Ocean, which gives Brest its advantage as a port and naval dockyard.  Opposite us, the Tribune Credit Mutuel Arkea has five thick tubular stanchions set at a rakish angle to hold up the roof; atop the stanchions and the roof are floodlights, although the ground also has lights in all four corners.  To our right is the open Tribune Atlantique, a metal temporary stand a la Gillingham, and it’s where the away supporters are inevitably penned into a corner, they don’t even get seats, just metal benches.  Behind the stand, the occupants of a block of flats get a free view and can be seen crowding around windows and Juliet balconies. To the left is the small but freshly renovated Tribune Quimper; the ‘home end’ where the majority of the Brest Ultras congregate.

Whilst Paulene stays put to get maximum value from her seat, I soon take a wander to see what I can see and to find a programme, which is as ever free, and tonight is of the newspaper variety; it tells me the squads and who the referee and linesmen are and that’s it, which is all I need to know.  On the mezzanine level one staircase down from our seats is a bar, above which is a banner advertising the Breton Lancelot brewery.   Expecting one of Lancelot’s tasty beers, I invest 5 euros.  The beer is sweet and nasty and probably non-alcoholic; I tell the barmaid so and ask if it is Lancelot, because it doesn’t taste like it.  She doesn’t know but thinks it’s probably Carlsberg.  I’ve been poisoned.  At either ends of the stand are what look like private members bars, “Le Caban” and “L’esprit des Legendes”.  Spectators entering these bars do so only after having received the nod from people dressed intimidatingly all in black; presumably that’s where they serve the good stuff.  I’m guessing those spectators aren’t in the cheap seats.

I return to my seat, and in the company of Paulene time passes quickly as we watch Zif, Brest’s pirate mascot, parade before the stand, and enjoy the arrival of the people in the seats around us, most of whom seem to be blokes in their seventies who all know each other.  The man next to me wears a beret and seems very clean, like Paul McCartney’s grandad in A Hard Day’s Night, but French. When the teams at last come onto the pitch, it’s to the fanfare of the Ligue 1 ‘anthem’, leaping flames, and the presentation of the match ball on a shiny plinth in front of banners displaying the two club badges and the Ligue 1 logo.  The public address system seems loud enough to make my ears bleed, but happily it doesn’t, although I do check.

When the game begins it is Lyon, generally known as OL in France, who get first go with the ball which they try and aim in the direction of the ocean whenever they can.  OL wear a frankly hideous, and annoyingly unnecessary away kit of all blue with red trim, whilst Brest are in their signature red shirts with white shorts and red socks. It’s been a warm day, but now a strong breeze blows up the hill from the dockyard and towards the OL goal. From the start, the slogan on my recently purchased T-shirt proves accurate as Brest sweep forward with wave after wave of attacking intent.  A shot goes way, way over the Lyon goal and then another soon earns a corner.  Brest are easily the better team but can’t find the final pass or the final touch that counts.  In midfield for Brest, Pierre Lees-Melou is brilliant, despite having previously played for Norwich City, and I imagine that the Canaries simply had no idea how to integrate a player into their team who can pass accurately, tackle, shoot, run with the ball and generally be quite good.  Fortunately, Lees-Melou seems to have suffered no ill-effects from his thirty-odd games wearing  yellow and green., but he’s probably receiving counselling.

All around the ground, the crowd brays with indignant disapproval whenever a Brest player is fouled. When referee Thomas Leonard books OL’s Ernest Nuamah for fouling Lees-Melou, the cheers sound like a goal has been scored.  I enjoy the wonderful name of Kenny Lala for Brest and the terrible haircut of Maxence Caqueret of Lyon, a player who looks like he was born 120 years too late and should have been the singer in a 1930’s dance band. On twenty-four minutes Lees-Melou has a shot tipped onto the cross bar by OL goalkeeper, the excellent Anthony Lopes, and then Brest’s Jeremy Le Douaran curls the rebound around the angle of the post and the bar.  “Allez-Allez-Allez” chant the home crowd from every stand.  A minute later OL get the ball into the Brest penalty area for the first time, but it comes to nought and instead all around is the noise of Brest fans urging their team on to score the goal the balance of play says they deserve.  The Ultras in the Tribune Quimper call out and the rest of the stadium answers back.  Mahdi Camara, a recent signing from Montpellier, dribbles deep into the OL box but again, there is no goal, only anticipation and excitement.  In the corner of the open end, the OL fans seem oblivious to their team’s ineffectiveness, other than in defence, and have sung and chanted all through the first half, prompted by two blokes perched astride the high metal fence that separates the supporters from the pitch.  Both blokes wield loud halers, but I don’t know if it’s the effect of the strong on shore breeze blowing away most of the sounds of their voices, but they both sound like Rob Brydon’s small man trapped in a box.

The fortieth minute is a milestone in the game as OL win their first corner, but of course it doesn’t result in a goal, and it’s the Brest supporters who remain in ebullient mood, holding their scarves aloft in the Tribune Quimper as the first half draws to a close in a sort of 1970’s tribute that suits the architecture of the stadium and the old blokes all around me who were themselves probably the Ultras of fifty years ago.  In front of me, a bloke wears double denim, and succeeds in accentuating the feeling, as if he’d come to a game in 1973 and never went home.

With half-time, the seats to our left are nearly all vacated, revealing the fact that they all sport red covers and suggesting perhaps that their occupants are now all enjoying some form of hospitality somewhere, perhaps in Le Caban or L’Esprit des Legendes. I will read later that the club owners wish to build a new stadium at the end of the tram line at the edge of the city, but that it will still only have a capacity of 15,000, no doubt because they want to be able to still charge top prices for the comfortable few and forget about the sweaty oiks who may be don’t wear shirts, and chant and light flares and drink too much beer containing alcohol in the bar across the road.

The second half begins and nothing changes, although encouragingly the block of seats to our left is soon re-populated, proving either that the occupants are genuinely interested in the match or that the hospitality isn’t free or unlimited. After just seven minutes however, OL roll the dice by replacing Ernest Nuamah, Diego Moreira and Paul Akounkou with Mama Balde, Tino Kadeware and Ainsley Naitland-Miles, who tonight wears a silly number 98 shirt and a few seasons ago mostly failed to excite when on loan at Ipswich from Arsenal.  The change sort of works for a short while and Alexandre Lacazette finds space to launch a thirty-yarder which flies over the Brest cross bar, but then a weak Caqueret pass is intercepted by Lees-Melou who dribbles away from his own half and to the edge of the OL penalty area before frustratingly shooting beyond the far post.  An hour has gone and Brest miss another chance, probably the best yet, as a low cross is somehow steered wide of the OL goal by Jeremy Douaron from just a couple of yards.  Whilst clutching their collective heads the crowds shout “Aye-Aye-Aye” and I find myself joining in with swelling chants of “Allez les Rouges! Allez les Rouges!”  Paulene, a Pompey fans says the atmosphere is like that of Fratton Park. “The same sort of people” she says. “What? All dockyard mateys” I reply, thinking of my dead father, a one-time Pompey based matelot who I know would have said exactly the same thing.

The game enters its final twenty minutes, and to mark the occasion tonight’s attendance is announced as being 14,636, and Brest substitute number seven, Martin Satriano for number nine, Steve Mounie.  But it’s OL who, still against the run of play, now come closest to a goal as Lacazette sends a decent low shot goalwards from the edge of the penalty area which Brest ‘keeper Marco Bizot dives to his right to stop and then jealously grab.  Lacazette lasts five minutes more before being replaced by Rayan Cherki, a man whose distinctly bushy facial hair and short back and sides give him the look of an Edwardian naval captain.

Three minutes of normal time now remain.  A move down the right produces a cross from Brest’s Kenny Lala, which Steve Mounie heads against the foot of Lopes’s left hand post.  As the crowd gasps in thrilled disappointment the ball runs back to Lala who crosses it again and Mounie, who has back-pedalled judiciously, this time hurls himself forward to head the ball past Lopes into the near top corner of the net, and Brest have the goal they deserve.  The crowd is on its feet, but OL defender Tino Kadewere is on the ground having been barged out of the way by the hurtling Mounie, although there was no real suspicion of a foul.

“Allez, Allez, Allez, Allez” we all sing triumphantly, Billal Brahimi shoots, Lopes saves, and Brest have a corner and five minutes of added on time in which to retain their clean sheet or even score again.  The very clean old bloke in the beret, next to me, leaves early, but very few others do.  Jonas Martin shoots and misses for Brest, and Naitland-Miles has a shot saved for OL, but there are no more goals and as the clock ticks towards eleven o’clock Monsieur Leonard blows his whistle for the last time.  Brest are top of the league, or more accurately given our geography, a la tete du classement.  We stay a short while to applaud before heading off into the night and back along Rue de Quimper to the tram stop, and a journey back to our hotel on the most crowded tram I have ever ridden on. It’s been a fantastic evening and still with our minds whirring excitedly, in our hotel room we celebrate Brest’s success by cracking open a small bottle of Cremant that had been cooling in the mini-bar, and unwind by watching the game all over again on Canal Plus tv. Allez les Rouges!

Ipswich Town 3 Cardiff City 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Recently, I have come to rather like Cardiff or Caerdydd as it’s known in Welsh; the place more than the football team admittedly, but a liking for one does almost inevitably lead to a softening of views regarding the other.  I spent three nights, and then a fortnight later, two nights in the Welsh capital as I made a double pilgrimage to see the team from the town of my birth, Haverfordwest County, play in the first two qualifying rounds of the European Conference League.  I have as a result developed a taste for Welsh cakes and Brains, the local beer that is, not the bodily organ; I’m not a zombie.

Back in 1962, Cardiff City were relegated from what is now the Premier League as Ipswich were winning it.  They didn’t return to the top division for over fifty years and despite themspending most of the interim in Division Two, for some reason I always think of them in the fourth division during the 1980’s at Layer Road, Colchester.  I try and ignore the Premier League and it seems odd to me therefore that of the two clubs it is Cardiff who have most recently been in the top division. It’s funny what age does to you.

It’s been a grey morning of heavy cloud and humidity, but as I set off for the match the sun is breaking through as if some deity has turned the celestial floodlights on.   I’m struck by how few Town fans there are at the railway station today compared with last week for the Leeds game.  It’s a somewhat boring journey, with no overheard conversations to intrigue or amuse.  Arriving at Ipswich, I have to pause and search for my rail ticket on my phone rather than just pull a piece of card from my wallet, but I master the technology on this occasion and head off up Princes Street for ‘the Arb’.  By way of a change, I don’t turn left into Portman Road today, but continue across Civic Drive and up into Museum Street and High Street.  I pause only to view the Cobbold Stand across the wasteland and surface car parks where once stood The Sporting Farmer pub, Mann Egerton’s garage and the livestock market.  Banners on the lampposts advertising the Cardinal Wolsey exhibition at The Hold remind me of Ipswich’s rich history and heritage. Ipswich is fab, don’t let anyone tell you different.

Arriving at ‘the Arb’ I buy a pint of Nethergate Honey Gold Festivale (£3.60 with 10% Camra discount), because I like bees and the work they do.  I retire to the beer garden to wait for Mick who has texted me to say he is “slightly on the drag”.  I reply to say I shall amuse myself by listening to other people’s conversations.  After about ten minutes Mick eventually  appears and avails himself of a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride and we talk of why he was delayed (he left his phone somewhere and had to go back to get it), what he was doing this morning ( he had to check the temperatures at some morgues) and his trip to Scotland to see his sister, when he also saw Glasgow Rangers play PSV Eindhoven.  Mick has even brought me back a Glasgow Rangers fridge magnet.  What a great bloke. Apart from mention of the morgues, our conversation is unusually free of death and disease, although we do manage to strike a pessimistic note with talk of humankind’s obsession with economic growth rather than prioritising the preservation of the planet; something which will inevitably end badly.  But most people don’t seem to care, as long as they can have a cosy coal fire or free parking for their car at the shops.

After another pint of Nethergate Honey Gold Festivale for me and a single Jameson whisky for Mick (£8.25 for the two), we depart for Portman Road where Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket , ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his young son Elwood are ready and waiting for kick-off.  I have arrived in time however, to try and shout out, in the manner of a French football crowd, the surnames of the Town players as stadium announcer Mark Murphy reads them out.  I succeed to a degree, but new man Murphy isn’t a patch on his predecessor Stephen Foster and reads the names too quickly, running first names into second names and not leaving the necessary gaps between.  Bring back Stephen Foster, I say.

When the game begins it’s Cardiff City who get first go with the ball and they attempt to aim it mostly in the direction of the Sir Bobby Robson stand, Cardiff are dressed today in a slightly washed-out-looking all burgundy or claret kit.  I wonder at the meaning of this, because all kits are imbued with meaning nowadays, but can only come up with it being the colour of the congealed blood of injured miners and dockworkers, or the fine wines consumed by the wealthy pit and port owners.   The first Cardiff player I notice is centre-back McGuinness and I think of the IRA. “We’ve got super Keiran McKenna, he knows exactly what we need….” chant the vocal occupants of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand.  The Cardiff fans are singing too, but I can’t work out what, and that’s not because they’re singing in Welsh, nobody speaks Welsh much in Cardiff I was told by a Cardiff City supporting woman when I was there back in July. She knew enough to get by, she said, but that actually meant she didn’t need to know any.

Early action sees Nathan Broadhead head the ball firmly into the arms of Cardiff ‘keeper Runar Runarsson, who not at all surprisingly is Icelandic and whose goalkeeper’s kit would be ideal for wearing to a funeral.  Wes Burns is penalised ridiculously as he chases down the ball and the player in front of him stops dead and then bounces off him.  It’s an incident that draws my attention to the referee Mr Gavin Ward, who is blond and a bit weedy looking.  “Blue and White Army, Blue and White Army” chant the home crowd and the bloke behind me, making my right ear hurt slightly.

The football hasn’t reached any great heights yet with the highlight so far being Kieran Mckenna’s almost petrol blue jumper, which is an improvement on his usual dull greys and blacks, but still not exactly colourful. It’s ten past three and the Cardiffians sing “Is this a library?”.   Somebody must confirm that it is indeed a library, because moments later they are chanting “Der-der-der, Football in a library”.  Having apparently hit a reach seam of taunts, the Cardiff mob then proceed to ask, “Shall we sing, shall we sing, shall we sing a song for you?” just like they might if they were at an Eisteddfod.  They’re regular Harry Secombes and Aled Joneses the lot of them.

After fifteen minutes Cardiff have a corner and ‘score,’ but it is offside.  At the front of the stand a cameraman is blocking the view of a spectator in the third or fourth row and is asked to adjust his position, which he does but with a grim face and a complete absence of grace as he throws his bag to the ground and generally stomps about like a petulant two-year-old.  At half-time when I speak to Ray, he will refer to him as Bill Oddie, but I think his curly hair has more than a hint of the Max Boyce about it.

Twenty minutes are up, and Conor Chaplin has a sharp shot on the turn which elicits a corner, and then Massimo Luongo wins another. Five minutes later Cardiff win one too. “Oh please don’t take, my Cardiff away” plead the Cardiffians to the tune of ‘You are my sunshine’. I don’t know what we’d do with it if we did, although the Senedd building or Millenium Centre might look good down West End Road.  From the row in front of me, a lad with the name Adam printed on the back of his shirt turns round to tell Pat that Norwich are losing. Within a few moments sadly, Ipswich are too as a sweeping move through the wide open plain in front of the Magnus West Stand ends with a precise low cross and a neatly clipped pass into the Town net by former OGC Nice player Aaron Ramsey.    “Aaron Ramsey Baby, Aaron Ramsey, Oh-oh-oh” sing the elated Welshmen, to the tune of the Christmas number one from 1981, the Human League’s ‘Don’t you want me’.  Apparently, before signing for Cardiff, Ramsey was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar.

Five minutes later and Town’s George Hirst pulls up lame and is replaced by Freddie Ladapo.  People applaud Hirst off, but I don’t because I’m bitter that he didn’t score a short while before when through on goal.  “In your Swansea slums” sing the Cardiff fans, either confused about where they are and who they’re playing, or how good the hearing of the population of Swansea is.  The first half has not been overly enjoyable if you’re not from South Wales, and even Cardiff’s first booking, for Ollie Tanner, brings little satisfaction as it’s just for a high boot rather than a heinous foul or something amusing like dissent.

As time descends towards half-time, the home crowd chant “Blue and White Army” again, in an act of defiance and once again the bloke behind me joins in, and it almost works as Freddie Ladapo turns and shoots narrowly past the far post and Conor Chaplin has a shot blocked on the goal line by Runarsson. Four minutes of added on time give hope for parity by half-time, but Cardiff selfishly keep hold of the ball and even win a corner for themselves to leave me feeling disappointed as the whistle is blown and I sprint away to syphon off the remnants of the Nethergate Honey Gold Festivale.  I return to talk to Ray and his grandson Harrison and to a steward called Dave.  Ray’s assessment is that Cardiff sit behind the ball and deny Town any space and then break way very quickly; we need to get in behind them.  Ray has no doubt Kieran McKenna knows what to do.

The game begins again at seven minutes past four and the home crowd remain chipper, singing “Ole, Ole, Ole” for reasons unknown. But life is strange, and depression soon descends as in the fifty second minute Massimo Luongo falls backwards, haphazardly making space for Joe Ralls to shoot just inside far post and give Cardiff a two-nil lead.  “No urgency is there?” complains the bloke behind me to his neighbour.  “Two-nil to the sheep-shaggers” sing the Welshmen, which is disarmingly honest of them if true.  “The way I see it, this is what our season’s gonna be” continues the bloke behind me obliquely. “Oh Ingerland, is full of shit” chant the self-confessed zoophiles; sheep shit presumably, from sheep seeking sanctuary over the border.

Town win a free-kick close to the Cardiff penalty area but the ball is despatched hopelessly wide of the goal by Nathan Broadhead. Pat from Clacton rolls her eyes “Thank you” she says “But that’s not quite what we’re looking for at the moment”.  But only moments later Sam Morsy plays the ball forward to Broadhead, who jinks left and right and then smites the ball into the goal from the edge of the penalty area in the style of Eric Gates, and Town are only trailing two-one.  Pat’s sarcasm clearly worked.

Cardiff substitute some players I’ve never heard of for some more players I’ve never heard of.  Someone fouls Nathan Broadhead and is booked. Town win a corner when a Conor Chaplin shot is blocked.  Corner kicks where the ball is launched into the penalty area from above are not much use against teams like Cardiff City whose players could all take up basketball if the football doesn’t work out. A low cross to the near post however presents the unexpected delight of a deft finish from Freddie Ladapo and Town are suddenly no longer losing.  “Shall I get Monkey out for the winning goal?” asks Pat from Clacton threatening to release the magical powers of the masturbating monkey charm she acquired on holiday in Cambodia.  “Two-nil and you fucked it up” chant the home crowd, as ever revelling more in Schadenfreude than the joy of their own team’s success.  Murphy announces the crowd as being 28,011 with 951 from the valleys and banks of the River Taff.  “Thank you for your amazing support” he says, showing himself to be a man more easily amazed than I am.  Bare torsos, drums, flares, flags and a pitch-length tifo in the Magnus West stand would be amazing support in my view. “Oh when the Town, Go marching in” sings the crowd in a fractionally more up-beat manner than usual, but even that’s hardly amazing.

Less than twenty minutes of normal time remain, and Vaclav Hladky saves the day with two marvellous saves, one just moments after the other.  Fifteen minutes remain and Town make mass substitutions with Burns, Clark and Luongo waving goodbye and Jack Taylor, Omari Hutchinson and Bradley Williams joining the fray. Four minutes later and Hutchinson gets to the by-line and crosses the ball low to the near post. Runarsson dives to divert the ball away from the goalmouth, but diverts it up onto the head of the incoming Freddie Ladapo from where it rebounds into the net.  Town lead three-two, and Pat is set to win the final-score draw on the Clacton supporters’ coach.

Happily, Town look more likely to score a fourth than concede a third, although Fiona admits to now feeling nervous because we have something to lose.  Jack Taylor launches a precise cross field pass. “He’s a fucking good player” says the bloke behind me to his neighbour, but I think he’s talking about Omari Hutchinson because he then says something about him taking players on “…like Wes Burns used to”.  Town win a couple of corners and Pat confirms that she’s having chicken drumsticks for tea again, because the ones she had last Saturday were lovely.

Normal time fades away and Sam Morsy leaves the pitch having received a knock, but unusually not a booking. Perhaps Mr Ward the referee wasn’t so bad after all.  Six minutes of additional time take us almost to five o’clock, but Cardiff give us no cause for real nail biting and I’m feeling quite relaxed when the whistle sounds and Town pull off the fabulous trick of coming back from the grave of being two-nil down to win.  “Two nil and you fucked it up” chant the Town fans, mindlessly enjoying other people’s misery more than their own team’s success.  It’s a win to savour and one worth the pain of conceding those initial two goals.  If we can’t win six-nil most weeks like we did last season, then coming back to win from two-nil down is the next best thing, and it does mean I can continue to like Cardiff a little bit more than I did before. Break open the Welsh cakes!