Ipswich Town 2 Reading 0

December 18, 2017 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s another cold, clear, cold, bright and cold December day. Today is Ipswich Town’s last home game before Christmas. As I walk to the railway station I fear breathing too deeply because that can cause a heart attack in a man of my age. But I enjoy the pale blue sky, decked with fuzzy white lines like a somewhat anaemic Mark Rothko canvas. It’s odd how the noxious, condensed exhaust fumes from jet airliners can be beautiful.
At the railway station a small dark haired and excitable man is shouting into his mobile phone; he’ll be ‘there’ about 1.30 apparently because the train is running late; with his phone call over, he proceeds to laugh girlishly and talk loudly to a man with a fashionable haircut and beard and a checked grey coat. A third man arrives wearing a Rupert Bear scarf and I can’t shake them off as they board the same carriage as me when the train arrives eight minutes late. On the train another man asks me if this train stops at Manningtree “Er yes, yes it does” I tell him, growing in confidence through the course of my short sentence. The excitable man is talking loudly to Rupert Bear; he squints because the sun is shining into his eyes, which makes him look worried as if he expects Rupert Bear to tell him some bad news; Badger Bill has been gassed.
Approaching Ipswich the train stops and a bored and world-weary sounding driver informs us that a train has broken down so another train has had to return to Ipswich and as a result there is no room in Ipswich station for our train. It’s like the Christmas story all over again; if there is a pregnant woman on this train her child might have to be born in a railway cutting. But this doesn’t come to pass and a slow descent into Ipswich precedes an amusing apology from our driver who sounds ready to cut his wrists as he tells of “…strange things happening and trains breaking down all around us as we continued on our course” before wishing us joy in whatever we are doing this afternoon.
It’s about twenty to two and the train has arrived a good fifteen minutes late. Leaving the station and crossing the road outside, a strange looking man in Ipswich Town shirt, tracky bottoms and a huge coat that looks like a bivouac breaks into a run. Time is less pressing for me so I simply stride purposefully across the bridge opposite the station and on towards Portman Road. On the opening day of the season the lampposts on the bridge were adorned with blue banners in support of the Town, but today they are bare and skeletal like the winter trees, as if the banners fell with the autumn leaves. In Portman Road the turnstiles are open; a man eats a banana, people queue for burgers, stewards crowd around the ‘Search Dog’ who barks, some very ordinary looking people enter the Legends Bar and Hall of Fame and the six-wheeled Reading team bus sits secure behind sturdy steel gates, looking like a cross between a juggernaut and a 1950’s Cadillac. Behind the North (Sir Bobby Robson) stand The Salvation Army band take five. Competing fast food stands try to attract custom with staff dressed up as St Nicholas and as some rather conspiratorial looking elves. There are signs on the back of the North Stand directing the way to the ‘Fanzone’, arrows point skywards suggesting a heavenly place, but I know it’s just a big tent on the practice pitch, serving insipid Greene King beer. I would love to use the ‘Fanzone’, but my good taste won’t allow me.

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As I head on beyond the stadium the Salvation Army strike up, delivering a rendition of one of the most joyless of all Christmas carols, Once in Royal David’s City; probably a Town supporters’ favourite. As ever I soon arrive at St Jude’s Tavern and today take solace in a pint of the “Football Special”, St Jude’s Elderflower (£2), which happily does not smell like elderflowers, but is nevertheless light and slightly floral. The pub is busier today because much of the population seem to rediscover pubs near Christmas, which is

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a bit annoying for us all year round pub users who enjoy a quiet drink. Having consumed my first pint I return to the bar (where else?) for a second. A full-faced man who has just been served is picking up a glass of a dark looking beer, I ask him what it is; he doesn’t know. I fancy something dark, because it’s winter, something that tastes like Christmas pudding. I ask the barman for a dark beer and in exchange for £3.40 he brings me what he says is a new amber beer from Nethergate brewery, but it’s quite a dark amber and full of flavour. I sit at a small round table and look about the bar full of mostly men, middle-aged and older. In front of me stands a man in a ‘retro-style’ Reading shirt; he seems to be listening to a pod-cast through ear phones, either that or he is profoundly deaf, it’s difficult to tell nowadays. His shirt has a rather attractive badge that features three trees and I ask him if these trees are the elms of Reading’s former Elm Park ground; it turns out they are. We talk more, reminiscing about Elm Park and moving onto our dislike of modern football and not really wanting our respective teams to get promotion. He tells me that Reading currently play a sort of ‘anti-football’ whereby they just pass it around endlessly across the back four. I say that Ipswich let the opposition have the ball and play on the break, and on the basis of this he predicts that Ipswich will win. This Reading fan lives in Brighton and doesn’t go to home games, but just picks away trips that appeal to him, and Ipswich is such a trip. He says he likes Portman Road, knows there is good beer here and now that Ipswich Town have dropped the away tickets to a sensible price (£24 instead of £40) that’s enough. I feel pleased that an away supporter likes to come to Ipswich, and he’s right, we are truly blessed in Ipswich, it is fine town with a perfectly situated football stadium, close to both the railway station and the town centre; possibly the best located football ground in the whole of Britain.
Eager to avoid strange men who come up and talk to you about your shirt, the Reading supporter sups his beer and leaves, but not before we shake hands and wish each other well; now alone I sit down to finish my dark amber beer. One of the bunch of older blokes on the next table starts to talk to me; we discuss school reunions, Harvey’s brewery of Lewes and Whitehawk football club, which we agree is like having a Chantry football club in Ipswich, although to our shame we strangely forget Whitton United.
I seem to have crammed a lot into my 45 minutes in the pub today. Outside the cold air is invigorating and it’s a lovely walk down Portman Road, with the floodlights revealing themselves one by one as I draw closer to the ground. The ‘Turnstile Blue’ fanzine sellers on the corner in front of Sir Alf Ramsey’s statue are waving fanzines about enthusiastically, and selling some too. I always buy a copy, although it can be a bit sanctimonious and earnest at times, with too few articles about footballers’ haircuts. The Cobbold stand is looking good today, it’s row of white painted concrete struts producing a fine repetitive rhythm along the street, above people waiting, looking at their watches and heading for the turnstiles where there are no queues today.
Inside the ground I buy a programme (£3) and drain my bladder, then go to my seat. The teams are on the pitch and Reading kick-off towards the Sir Bobby Robson (North) stand wearing orange hi-vis and black shorts; they look like they should be out gritting the roads of Berkshire on a day like today, not playing football. In the third minute Ipswich add to the possibility that we are watching Ipswich Town v Berkshire County Council Highways Department by scoring easily with their first attack, Callum Connolly placing the ball inside Italian Vito Mannone’s near post. Thereafter, Reading just pass the ball amongst themselves, as the Reading fan in the pub had forecast, and then they do it some more. Despite being a goal ahead the Portman Road crowd are as quiet as ever; they probably get more animated watching Strictly Come Dancing on the telly than they do here. As all visiting fans do, the Reading fans ask through the medium of la donna e mobile from Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Rigoletto if this is a library. Arts Council money is never wasted. Reading do succeed in missing a few opportunities to score and Ipswich are having to defend, but then a bit before half past three a corner is headed on and Joe Garner heads a second goal. It’s as if someone has tried to leave the library without checking their book out and the alarms have gone off. But the excitement is temporary and Reading keep passing the ball.
Half-time comes as a relief for the ball which has visibly shrunk with all that constant Reading passing. Having used the toilet facilities I take a wander about; down on the concourse beneath the stand strings of lights dangle from above as Ipswich Town embraces the festive season. I eat a Fairtrade cereal bar, which I brought with me from home, because the football club does not sell such things. On the pitch a small brass band play Christmas carols. I flick through the programme in which club captain Luke Chambers tells us that “You never know in life what is just around the corner. What grenade can hit you”. He goes on to add “I think most people would have taken where we are if it was offered to us at the start of the season, especially with the injuries we’ve had”. It makes me think “Blimey, shrapnel wounds”. Also in the programme there is a feature on Town’s Grant Ward who I like to confuse with the twentieth century American artist Grant Wood, famous for American Gothic. Grant Wood attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and wonderfully the article tells us that Grant Ward played for Chicago Fire in the MLS. Incidentally, why did the Americans name a football club after a disaster that befell the city? It’s like the Japanese having a club called Hiroshima Bomb.
I decide to change seats for the second half and go to the other side of the goal and nearer the pitch to join super-fan Phil who never misses a game. I speak with Pat, the secretary of the Clacton-On-Sea branch of the supporters club who sits a couple of rows behind Phil; apparently only sixteen people have travelled on the supporters’ bus from Clacton today. She tells me how a fastidious female steward always carefully searches her bag each week as she enters the stadium, whilst people in big coats are not even patted down. There are no security searches entering the ground from Portman Road, just signs saying there will be. Pat asked the steward what she was looking for; the answer was “wires”. Marcus Evans is probably fearful of being tapped but Pat now carries her grenades on a belt under her coat; she’s been coming to Portman Road since the 1960’s.
It’s dark now and the floodlights shine through the translucent roof of the stand above

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me. Being closer to the pitch lends this position an atmosphere not present at the back of the stand. In front of us is the disabled supporters enclosure and a boy with Downs Syndrome puts everyone to shame with his enthusiastic shouts and clapping; he gets what this being a football fan is about.
The second half is oddly compelling given that Reading continue to pass the ball ceaselessly but pointlessly and Ipswich just give the ball back to them whenever they win it. On 52 minutes Reading’s Paul McShane is booked and I recall one of several reasons why I never liked Hi-de-hi. Reading are hopelessly ineffective; Bart Bialkowski in the Ipswich goal catches or punches away several crosses, but doesn’t have a shot to save. The highlight of the half is the 67th minute applause for Dick Murphy, the kitman and caretaker at the club academy who died during the week. A piece in the programme pays tribute to Dick who is described as a “loyal servant of the Blues”. I had never heard of Dick Murphy before today and think it’s an awful shame I have now only heard of him because he is dead.
There is a kind of tension about the second half as the home fans wonder if Town will hold on without actually touching the ball which gives the game its name. Occasionally this tension translates into some crowd noise; based on the experience of the first half if Town do manage to keep the ball long enough to make four or five passes they could score again. It fools us all into thinking we’re being entertained.
Despite five minutes of added on time for a number of real and imagined injuries the match doesn’t seem to drag on and at about five minutes to five referee Mr Bankes closes proceedings in the customary shrill manner. As the stands empty a serious looking steward wearing a large head set watches on; I like to think he’s listening to the classified results. It’s been a strangely enjoyable afternoon, possibly only because Town have won; the football was largely forgettable.

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Coggeshall Town 6 Fakenham Town 1

December 12, 2017November 8, 2021 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

If I had remained completely true to my existential, celebrate-the-mundane self, this piece might be entitled “Halstead Town versus Swaffham Town match postponed due to a frozen pitch” and would be a description of how I came to follow Halstead Town football club on Twitter and discovered that the match I had intended to watch this afternoon would not take place. It would not have been a long piece and I might even have just written it. But games get postponed and life goes on and so I looked for another game to watch and the nearest one to my home address is in West Street, Coggeshall, also known as ‘The Crops’, although I will be disappointed to discover that the sign announcing that no longer adorns the side of the changing rooms.

It is a cold, still December day; not bitterly cold, more penetratingly cold, although my hearty optimism and excitement at the thought of going to a match easily quench the thought of getting a little chilly as I set out on the three mile drive from my house. Diving off the A120 into Coggeshall I motor past the Co-op where later I will buy some corned beef, milk, beer, Muscovado sugar and dairy free chocolate, the latter being for my dairy intolerant spouse. In the centre of town a bus is turning right to head past the ground on its way to Braintree; a pang of guilt hits me; I could have used public transport, there is a bus stop at the bottom of my garden; but then I couldn’t have popped into the Co-op. Emerging from down-town Coggeshall and its fine collection of timber-framed buildings, the football ground is on the left and I park up at the front of the site taking care not to back my Citroen C3 into an Audi behind me, despite my dislike of ostentatious automobiles.

There seem to be few if any people heading towards Coggeshall Town football ground this afternoon, although it is barely twenty to three, and entering the ship-lap clad wooden turnstile block is a lonely experience. But the turnstile operator is a cheery fellow and greets me like a long lost friend, almost to the extent that I want to ask, “Do I know you?”, but that would seem a bit rude and to be honest I have a very poor memory for faces. I join in with the bonhomie therefore and then offer a fresh ten pound note for the admission and a programme (£1). “Are you, are you…….er, normal?” asks my new friend clearly struggling desperately for the right words to ask if I might qualify for the concessionary price. “Yes, I‘m normal” I say hopefully, understanding that he means I pay the full price (£6). He apologises, explaining that some people get upset if you ask them for the full price when they qualify for the concession because they are old bastards. I reply that I understand, and I do. The bloke at the turnstile goes on to tell me that the clubhouse is open and so is the tea bar at the side; he is not just a turnstile operator he’s a concierge.

Having paid my entrance money I linger just beyond the turnstile taking in the view of the pitch and countryside beyond from the concrete path that leads to the club house. It’s a beautiful sight. I move on and recovering from the disappointment that ‘The Crops’ sign is no longer on the side of the changing rooms I find that the clubhouse has been renovated since I was last here, the exterior having been covered in modish cladding and there are glass doors adorned with the club crest; the interior is updated in similar fashionable materials, there is also an area of decking outside; it all seems a bit like a holiday village rather than a football ground, but then I grew up in the 1960’s and fondly recall pubs having outside toilets, as did my grandmother’s council house. Stepping outside again I explore the low stand behind the goal and look at the pitch side

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advertisement hoardings; it seems that everywhere I go an undertaker sponsors the local club. I am also impressed that there is an advertisement for a maker of sash windows; no doubt a busy man given Coggeshall’s many old buildings. I then meet my next door neighbour’s son Sam who is here with a bunch of mates from school; he tells me his dad his here too and he’s not having me on. Paul my neighbour is enjoying a hot drink and after watching the teams file down on to the pitch and saying hello to a man called James, who plays guitar and used to work for Crouch Vale brewery, I join him as we wait for the first half to begin. As the teams line up and the coaches occupy their benches, he tells me that one of the track-suited blokes in the dug-out is Ollie Murs, who I understand is a singer, popular with modern day teeny boppers. I’m sure he is no Johnny Hallyday nevertheless. Repose en paix Johnny.

Coggeshall kick off the game in the general direction of Braintree, wearing red and black striped shirts with back shorts whilst their guests from faraway Fakenham wear white shirts and blue shorts and have the name Macron above the numbers on the backs, sadly not because they all share the surname of the French president but because the shirts are manufactured by a company called Macron. Coggeshall look very much like the home team, by which I mean they dominate the attacking play, which is no surprise given that they are second in the league table and Fakenham fourth from bottom. My neighbour tells me that Coggeshall’s star striker gets £300 a week and £50 a goal; I have no way of knowing if this is true, but if it is it doesn’t seem right or fair in a league in which most clubs struggle to attract an average crowd of one-hundred; but apparently he‘s not playing today anyway.

The early part of the game is not brilliant to watch and I am as interested by the sky, the trees, an old man poking his head into the tea bar and the lads lined up behind the Fakenham goal as I am by what happens on the pitch; my neighbour refers to the lads behind the goal as ‘herberts’, doubtless because his son is amongst them, although his son’s name is Sam. Coggeshall ought to score because they clearly have the better players, but at about twenty minutes past three a cross drops at the far post and the ball is side-footed high into the Coggeshall goal net to give ‘The Ghosts’, for that is their nickname, an unexpected lead. Predictably perhaps the goal shames Coggeshall into action and within five minutes they equalise; an unchallenged header drifting past the static goalkeeper and inside the post. Thereafter Coggeshall dominate and play some pretty passing football, but ultimately a lack of true team play prevents them from registering the goals their superior ability suggests they should score. I take a walk around the pitch seeking a different perspective. Fakenham move forward and from behind the Coggeshall goal I overhear a conversation between Coggeshall’s number two, a big man with blond highlights in his already blond hair and the goalkeeper: “ I nearly put it out for a fucking corner” says the full-back “ I Know, fuck me” Says the goal keeper. Half-time arrives and the score is 1-1.

I head to the tea-bar and buy a pounds worth of tea in the hope that it will fortify me against the deepening chill. Where I have not worn my gloves in order to snap photos, my hands now feel like pins are being driven beneath my finger nails. The cold has recognised that my thermal socks are a worthy opponent and has by-passed them to go up my trouser leg beyond the top of the socks to penetrate my shin bones. My neighbour eats an enormous sausage roll (£3.50) that Captain Scott would have coveted and the tea possibly saves my life or at least prevents frost-bite. I check the half-time scores and am disappointed by the news from Middlesbrough that Ipswich are losing 1-0, although the fact that the Danish, former Toulouse striker Martin Braithwaite scored the goal, softens the blow because I spotted him as a talent a few years ago,

Half-time over, I take up a seat in the low main stand because my back is aching and also because, frankly, I sometimes enjoy my own company. To my right five blokes in their late sixties or seventies discuss the score. One of them, a jowly man wearing a bobble hat is adamant that the score is 2-1and the others don’t seem confident enough in the memory of their own observations to tell him he is wrong. Eventually, a young woman wearing large glasses confirms that the score is 1-1 and I back her up. Oddly, within seconds, Coggeshall score a second goal to really make the score 2-1 and then quickly add a third as Fakenham fail to successfully make the transition from the dressing room to the pitch.

With not an hour gone, the game is as good as won for Coggeshall, nickname The Seedgrowers, which gives the opportunity to appreciate the beauty of the disappearing daylight. A bank of cloud on the horizon denies us a spectacular sunset but instead gives the appearance of a mountain range looming up in the distance like the Pyrenees over Languedoc. Whilst waiting for a fourth Coggeshall goal the old blokes behind me discuss the imminent changes to the fifth and sixth steps of the non-league pyramid and I ponder the fact that Coggeshall’s number eleven appears to have one white leg and one black leg. This is no doubt due to a knee brace, but it leads me to imagine the implications of mixed race people literally being half black and half white. The number eleven is a busy, energetic little player but embarrasses himself by finding space on the flank and calling to a team mate with the ball “Feed me, feed me”. I am reminded of the plant in the ”Little Shop of Horrors”, but the number eleven has the good grace to glance into the crowd looking a little embarrassed.

Above the glow of the floodlights the sky is midnight blue, but It’s only just gone twenty past four. Coggeshall add a fourth goal, and then at four-thirty the Seedgrowers’ number ten scores the best goal of the game as he lofts the ball in a graceful arc over the goalkeeper from just outside the penalty area. Fakenham respond with some substitutions and bring on a large bald man who looks like a Turkish wrestler and two much slimmer and younger players, one of whom looks like his shirt number is the same as his age, fourteen. Despite there being no doubt about the eventual result, the match remains competitive, which manifests itself in sustained shouts and calls amongst the players which ring out coarsely in the cold winter air. There are also some very entertaining tackles, which the frighteningly clean-cut referee Mr Farmer rewards with yellow cards, but they give the crowd and players something to bray about. It’s now five minutes to five and everyone is thinking about going home as a low cross finds the Coggeshall number ten Ross Wall free at the far post and the ball is slammed low into the net, thumping the board behind the goal with the hollow thud more usually heard when the ball misses the goal and hits the advertising hoardings; I find it slightly disorientating, but heck, it’s 6-1 and Ross Wall has a hat-trick.

Mr Farmer soon blows his whistle for the last time today and a sated crowd of 108 disperse into the club house or out into the car park and the early evening. Having zig-zagged my way through the emptying seats of the stand I pause and speak again with Jimmy who is now with his wife, and then head for the Co-op.

Ipswich Town 4 Nottingham Forest 2

December 5, 2017 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s a beautiful walk to the railway station today. Meteorologically speaking winter began only yesterday, but today is a fine winter’s day, cold, bright and clear with a pale blue sky. Across the bare, brown, damp fields seagulls float on the gentlest breeze and in the distance a sparrowhawk hovers, there is a smudge of blue-grey cloud on the horizon.
At the railway station I meet up with a friend whose partner’s parents had, for his birthday, bought him a ‘bundle’ of six tickets for matches at Portman Road between now and the end of the season. Today’s match is the first of ‘the bundle’. A good few people board the train to Ipswich and some of them might even be going to the match like us. It’s still bright and clear as the train pulls into Ipswich pleasingly ahead of schedule. The plaza in front of the station makes for an attractive welcome to Ipswich and crossing the bridge over the river towards the town the cold and clear blue sky lend the town a feel of Scandinavia, I imagine we’re off to watch Malmo FF or GIF Sundsvall or perhaps this is an unseen episode of The Bridge.
In Portman Road it’s not yet one-thirty, a line of blokes in hi-vis jackets, one of them mysteriously manoeuvring a wheelie bin, insert metal bollards to close the road off from traffic.

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Already some people are here waiting for the turnstiles to open, a woman has parked her shopping back in one entrance as if to reserve her place at the head of any possible queue. Seemingly oblivious of his hi-vis coat, a steward inside the ground looks like he is trying to hide behind the metal gates. The search dog is here searching for whatever it is that ‘the authorities’ fear people might smuggle into a mid-table, second division football fixture. There is a cameraman filming people who are just standing about, waiting. My accomplice heads for the ticket office to ‘upgrade’ his tickets. Because his partner’s father is over 65 the bundle of tickets he bought turn out to be for an over 65 too, but my accomplice, who I will call Roly because I always liked that poodle in Eastenders and it is his name, is only forty. Predictably upgrading the tickets is not simple and ‘the system’ won’t allow it today. A complimentary ticket is issued for today’s game but the guy in the ticket office takes the other five tickets and tells Roly to phone on Monday to sort it out. Like a fool Roly agrees to this and doesn’t even get a receipt. Roly has a bad feeling about this.
St Jude’s Tavern is host to the usual selection of ageing Town supporters and some slightly younger ones. We drink pints of today’s Match Day Special, which is Cliff Quay Anchor bitter (£2.00 a pint) and then my accomplice has another pint of Anchor, whilst I have a pint of Shortts Farm Skiffle (£3.40). Roly gives me a tenner he has owed me since the end of October, I feel guilty for having had to remind him about it. Because I am older than him I feel somehow like I’ve bullied him out his school dinner money. We discuss Ipswich Town and reminisce about fat players and their regrettable absence from modern professional football. Roly suggests that Ipswich’s last fat player was Ryan Stevenson, who in 2012 was signed from Hearts of Midlothian, played just eleven times, but scored the goal of the season. I had forgotten all about him, but then I’m not some sort of football nerd.
We head off to Portman Road a little bit earlier than I would usually depart because Roly wishes to buy a burger and in the car park behind the Sir Bobby Robson stand he does. His cheeseburger costs £4.00 and whilst he stands and folds it into his face I tell him of the food stand behind the Tribune Nord at Nice where the food is prepared by a short order cook and the burgers come with salad.

Back in Portman Road a man buys a programme from one of the kiosks which looks like it would make a good Tardis. There are short queues at the turnstiles. A group of Nottingham Forest fans are having their picture taken in front of the statue of Sir Bobby Robson; I like to see away fans enjoying their day out and it’s satisfying to think that Ipswich has something people want to be photographed in front of. Inside the ground a man in a red coat sells Golden Goal tickets almost apologetically and people queue for last minute ‘match essentials’.
Bored with my usual seat and the quiet brooding people who populate the seats around it, today I decide once again to sit next to the man called Phil who never misses a game. Phil’s seat is near the front of the stand in a row, which apart from Phil and a couple at the far end is completely empty. Phil has a bit of a cough today and is wrapped up well against the chill of the afternoon. The view of the intricacies of the match isn’t the best from here but the stands tower above us and there is a sense of occasion and almost of being a part of it. Bluey the mascot walks past just a few feet away pitchside, and if I were to shout abuse at him he would probably hear me, but of course I don’t, even though he looks more like a baby’s soft toy than a mascot to rally the people of Ipswich into raucous support of their team.
After the usual pleasantries, Nottingham kick-off the match. The scene looks like a basic Subbuteo set with one team in red and one in blue; sitting almost behind the Nottingham Forest goal I wish I could move their goalkeeper with a long stick. It’s a full fifty seconds before Ipswich get a touch of the ball, but when they do have it they make much more efficient use of it than Nottingham and after only seven minutes Ipswich score. Formerly beloved of Ipswich supporters for his goal scoring prowess, 34 year old Daryl Murphy very kindly commits a foul and the free-kick ultimately results in the satisfyingly alliterative but on-loan Callum Connolly scoring.
Twenty minutes pass and it’s not a bad game, probably because Ipswich are winning, but as ever the crowd aren’t really in celebratory mood. There are a few muffled chants rolling down the pitch from the lower tier of the stand formerly known as the North Stand but the majority are quiet. The 1,224 Nottingham Forest fans aren’t much noisier and I wonder if this a symptom of clubs whose best days were thirty five years ago, have the supporters just lost heart in the intervening years?
Nottingham Forest dominate possession and nearly score and then at about half past three they do score, from a precisely flighted free-kick by the wooden sounding Kieran Dowell; the beautiful game lives in its careful geometry. Eight minutes later and there is more beauty as Ipswich move the ball swiftly from one end of the field to the other and into the Nottingham goal off the head of Dominic Iorfa. In the outfall from the goal a steward approaches me and asks me to stop taking photographs, I ask why and he tells me I am not allowed to, which seems odd given all the mobile phones people are taking pictures with all around the ground. Phil is surprised, he thought the steward would caution me for being too noisy; I have been blowing a sort of sound-a-like klaxon which I bought last May from the club shop of Racing Club Lens in France. Feeling like a plane spotter in North Korea and pondering over the location of the local Gulag I then witness another beautiful goal as Nottingham equalise for a second time, this time with a volley from an acute angle by a man whose name sounds like that of an erstwhile pub chain spoken in a West Midlands accent, Tyler Walker.
Half-time soon follows and I speak with the steward and his supervisor. Photography in Premier League, Football League and Scottish League grounds is restricted to licence holders who pay for the rights to it, so in theory individuals are not permitted to take photographs with their mobile phones unless licenced, but obviously they do. The supervisor admitted that the club would not stop people taking photos with mobile phones; I was using a camera with an automatic zoom lens. Apparently Norwich City stop people taking pictures with mobile phones; it’s nice to know that Norwich City are even more mean-spirited and small-minded than Ipswich. This is all about the protection of intellectual property, but you have to ask where is the harm in individuals taking photographs at a football match. Football is supposedly the people’s game; the football authorities in their greed are simply selling us back our own game; it’s a very good reason to not watch the professional leagues at all. The revolution will not be televised.
Darkness falls and although the floodlights have been on since kick-off their glow is now visible against the night sky. Ipswich score only eight minutes into the new half as Martyn Waghorn robs a Nottingham defender and strikes the ball across the goalkeeper into the net and fourteen minutes later the Nottingham defence takes on the properties of the lace for which the city was once known and through one of the holes Bersant Celina scores from close range. Nottingham Forest do not score. Phil and I discuss whether the Nottingham Forest number 24 David Vaughan is Archie Gemmill, mainly because he has a receding hairline. The crowd make a little noise intermittently, but not much and despite a late rattling of the Ipswich cross bar by a Daryl Murphy header, which is then cleared off the goal line, it’s a fairly comfortable win for Ipswich.
The sun is long gone from the winter sky and it’s now quite cold as referee, Darren Bond, blows his whistle for the final time and having applauded the team sixteen thousand, eight hundred and eight of us disperse into the December night. It’s been a lovely winter’s day, the team I support has won, I’ve seen six beautiful goals, but I cannot be happy.

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Ipswich Town 2 Sheffield Wednesday 2

November 29, 2017November 29, 2017 / martinpbrooks / 1 Comment

An evening match at Portman Road and it’s not worth going home after work, so I stay a little later, but not that late and then take ‘tea’ in St Jude’s Tavern. My walk to St Jude’s takes me past Portman Road where the scene is being set for later in the evening. It’s half past five so darkness already shrouds the streets, but the bright white strip lights inside the Bobby Robson stand already illuminate it, and a silent expectation spills down in to Sir Alf Ramsey Way. Isn’t it daft that the Sir Bobby Robson stand is in Sir Alf Ramsey Way and the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand is at the other end of the ground? In Sir Alf Ramsey Way and Portman Road three burger vans are set-up; like the lights inside the stand they spill out a neon glow and with the absence of diners they possess a harsh, stark sadness, like paintings by Edward Hopper.

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A gaggle of stewards head for their evening’s work of standing about in hi-vis jackets and the local newspaper ‘goodie bags’ are being lined-up on the pavement.
I pass by quickly and have soon ordered a chicken a mushroom pie (although the barman said it was steak and kidney) and a pint of Cliff Quay Powder Monkey, a bitter, for a fiver. I sit and read for a short while as I eat and sup my beer before I am joined by a friend who buys me a pint of Cliff Quay Anchor (£3.40) which I prefer to the Powder Monkey. As usual the St Jude’s is being patronised by pre-match drinkers, but not packed out by them, which is good because it’s not a very big pub. My friend and I discuss the scandal that is Universal Credit, the Budget, living in France, my friend’s heart condition, and haircuts; I order another pint of Anchor and my friend, whose name is Mick, as in Mills, Hill, McCarthy and Jagger has a half.
Glasses drained and farewells said I find myself in Portman Road, it’s not very busy, but then the game is on the telly and Ipswich ‘supporters’ are quick to abandon their club when the going gets tough, even though prices are reduced to a very reasonable £15 all over the ground tonight; as a season ticket holder I feel a little cheated by that. Entry into the ground offers nothing of note tonight, but the stand is pitted with empty seats, it seems likely that many deserted the cheap seats tonight due to that special offer. There are plenty of supporters from Sheffield, well over a thousand and despite being from the city of the Arctic Monkeys, Pulp and The Human League they hit on Depeche Mode’s “ I just can’t get enough” as their anthem from the start; frankly I am disappointed.
The match kicks off and the ball is soon in the air and the game isn’t as beautiful as the publicity or Pele say; there’s a lot of pushing and shoving. There’s not too much to excite and therefore the Ipswich fans are quiet, whilst the more effusive people of South Yorkshire continue to show no regional loyalty moving seamlessly from Depeche Mode to Jeff Beck with a rendition of “Hi Ho, Sheffield Wednesday…” although without ever finishing the lyric; they must just like the fact that those four words scan so neatly. With the Ipswich supporters typically silent, it takes just fourteen minutes before the Wednesdayites appropriate a bit of opera to sing “Is this a library”, as all but the very smallest and quietest gatherings of away supporters do at Portman Road, and justifiably so.
Eventually, after twenty minutes or so, Ipswich have a couple of shots which inspire their supporters to launch into a few dull, atonal chants of “Blue Army”. Sheffield Wednesday dominate possession, as most teams do against Ipswich, but in the English second division that counts for nothing as few teams are capable of converting possession into goals. Ipswich are doing okay. Then it’s half time and I wander dispiritedly beneath the stand, worried as ever by the ageing demographic of Ipswich’s supporters. I toy with the idea of sitting somewhere else for the second half, but my enthusiasm has been sucked from me by the stiflingly silent attitude of the home crowd and I return to my own seat amongst the living dead to continue this passionless marriage with the club that once moved me.
The second half begins as the stomping “Singing The Blues” fades from the tannoy and the Sheffield Wednesday fans take up the tune with a gusto unknown in Ipswich, though for their own wicked purposes of encouraging their team. But within three minutes Ipswich score; Joe Garner tapping the ball simply and easily into the net at the far post after a corner is headed across goal. Now that Ipswich are winning, Ipswich supporters in The Bobby Robson Stand can be heard supporting their team and things are looking up; Ipswich are playing pretty well. It’s all a bit a shock therefore when fifteen minutes later Ipswich’s Jordan Spence mindlessly, needlessly and almost invisibly handles the ball to gift Sheffield Wednesday a goal from the penalty spot. Happily Martyn Waghorn restores Ipswich’s lead with a looping header about five minutes later and Ipswich continue to be the more effective team, even if they still don’t possess the ball as often as Sheffield.
The mood is uncharacteristically upbeat although of course you couldn’t say the stadium is reverberating to the sound of passionate support; “The noise, the passion, the sense of belonging” that Bobby Robson said defined a club remain elusive in the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand . Portman Road will never rival St Etienne’s Stade Geoffrey Guichard as “The Cauldron” ; not so much Le chaudron as le cemetiere.
The final twenty minutes see substitutions borne of desperation from Sheffield and fear of losing from Ipswich. Sheffield resort to an enormous bearded Kosovan, Atdhe Nuhui, who is 1.96m tall. Ipswich resort to trying to keep the ball in the far corner of the pitch rather than continuing to play proper football, which could bring a third goal. In the final seconds of the match Ipswich lose the ball, Wednesday break away, cross the ball and the giant Kosovan heads the ball into the top corner of the goal. The game finishes and the Ipswich ‘supporters’ break their Trappist vows to boo, forgetting most of the previous ninety four minutes and preferring to concentrate on the final disappointing seconds. It does feel like defeat but heck most of the people here are old enough to have seen this all before; I am.

Braintree Town 1 Truro City 1

November 25, 2017October 30, 2021 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s a mild and blowy Tuesday night in November and there’s a ‘top of the table clash’ just eight miles down the road from my house as Braintree Town play Truro City in the Vanarama National League South. It might not be far from my house, but Braintree is a bloody long way from Truro, 343 miles apparently and as far as any club has ever travelled to play a league match against Braintree Town. In awe of such a statistic I am inexorably drawn to witness the occasion.
I could get to Braintree by train, but I’d have to change at Witham and I don’t want to do that. So I take the easy option, which is to drive. Parking up near the end of Clockhouse Way at about ten past seven, the streets are quiet, with no one heading for the match,

drawn by the eerie glow of the floodlights through the now mostly skeletal boughs of the trees. L S Lowry would never have made much of his painting ‘Going to the match’ if he’d lived and painted in Braintree. Entering the car park of the Ironmongery Direct Stadium (formerly and more prosaically known as Cressing Road) I stop to snap a photo for this blog. “How many pictures of grounds have you got then?” asks a man heading for the turnstile. He thinks I’m a ground hopper. I am a bit embarrassed, but say “Oooh, not many, a couple of hundred”.
The admission price this season at Braintree has very sportingly been reduced from £16 to £14 following relegation and similarly the programme is 50p cheaper too, although it’s no longer glossy, I like it all the more for that. I enter the stadium to the strains of Amen Corner: “If paradise is half as nice as being here with you…” which makes me feel wanted. Sadly the welcoming choice of music does not last until kick-off as the two teams enter the field to Emerson Lake & Palmer’s “Fanfare for the common man”. I say Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s; but it was only their arrangement of a piece written by American composer Aaron Copland, which your common man might possibly not know. It’s no less appropriate for work-a-day Braintree but it’s a bit naff too. But there’s nothing very exotic about the Vanarama National League South,

as its name perhaps suggests; like a lot of non-league football it is the haunt of builders and ‘White Van Man’, which is possibly why Vanarama, purveyors of commercial vehicles, thought it worth their while to sponsor it.
I take up a position at the end of the low metal roofed terrace on the east side of the ground, known as The Shed. Three Truro fans are attaching flags to the back wall of the stand, one of which refers to Truro being the Tin Men.

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There is a larger group of Truro fans stood behind the goal at the end of the ground that the teams appeared from; they have a big Cornish flag. Truro City kick-off the game towards those supporters, wearing all blue, whilst Braintree make it a colourful spectacle by wearing all orange. The three Truro fans immediately make one helluva racket repeating “Truro, Truro, Truro” over and over and over again to the tune of Amazing Grace. A larger bunch of Braintree fans stood just a few yards away look on slightly bemused or perhaps impressed; eventually they respond with some chants of “Iron, Iron, Iron” , but not any old iron, the Iron that is Braintree Town’s nickname. They soon give up in the face of Truro’s Amazing Grace however, which eventually ends abruptly with a little cough. The Truro fans then start to sing ”Come on Truro, come on Truro” to the tune of Auld Lang Syne which is predictably answered with “Fuck off Truro, fuck off Truro” to the same tune; the concept of terrace wit is grossly exaggerated.
Meanwhile, jet airliners from Stanstead soar overhead, the noise of their engines blotted out by three blokes from Cornwall under an echoing tin roof. On the pitch, Braintree look sharp from the start with their diminutive number seven darting about on the wing just in front of me and the Cornishmen. Both teams seem to be made up of three or four enormous blokes; at least two at the back and one up front. The remainder of the team look tiny by comparison, it’s as if the Vanarama National League South imposes some sort of combined height quota on its teams; the aggregate height of the team not being allowed to exceed the length of seven Transit vans placed end to end. Truro’s number four is possibly the most enormous man on the pitch, he sports a beard and although he is absolutely massive he doesn’t really deserve the ‘fat bastard’ epithet the Braintree supporters inevitably award him.
The three Cornishmen embark on an acapello rendition of “Come On Truro” in what is rapidly becoming an evening of K-tel’s greatest hits from the terraces . The Truro supporters behind the goal break into a rare song and the vocal threesome sing “We forgot that you were here” to Bread of Heaven. Intrigued by this I ask one of the Cornishmen why they aren’t they with the others behind the goal. He tells me it’s because they wanted to be under the roof. I ask if there isn’t some split between Truro supporters, “Don’t ask” he says, so I don’t. One of their flags is for the Truro City Independent Supporters Club so I just speculate that may be there is some sort of great Cornish schism much like the one that afflicted the Christian Church in the middle of the eleventh century. (1054).
Meanwhile it’s not a bad match, the blend of big blokes and smaller ones is an even one and the teams are well matched, but to the extent that the ball is rarely in danger of hitting either goal net. I am conscious that a man in a hi-vis jacket has been stood next to me for several seconds and I turn slightly to my right to face him. He’s a steward, and it’s as if he’s been waiting for me to acknowledge him, “Could you stand behind there please sir” he says, gesturing towards the chunky orange crush barrier. “Okay” I say cheerily, not wishing to cause a scene, although I had been quite happy where I was. The Beatles “Hey Jude” is now the vehicle for the latest chants of “Truro” whilst Braintree supporters weirdly and somewhat mournfully appropriate “Sloop John B” to chant “We know who we are, We know who we are, There’s one team in Essex, We know who we are”.
It’s about twenty past eight and suddenly the Braintree Town defence mysteriously melts away allowing Truro’s number ten Cody Cooke to run through and score a goal. The Truro fans are very pleased and inevitably have a song to celebrate the occasion as they tell us “ Cody Cooke is one of us, he loves Truro” although I thought it sounded like he loves Jesus, which of course he might. Half-past eight arrives and brings with it half-time and I move to the terrace by the players tunnel.

The tannoy treats us to a rarely heard hit from 1970, Blackfoot Sue’s “Standing In The Road”; tonight at Cressing Road is proving to be a musical wonderland.
The second half begins and Braintree quickly hit their first decent shot on target and then they score as Roman Michael-Purcell easily turns in a cross from Phil Roberts who had made an exciting run forward. Restless as I am I am now sat in the box like main stand. Behind me a man who probably has a mental illness provides an occasional commentary announcing players names and incidents. His voice reminds me a little of the late John Arlot; he has a slight burr which lengthens the players’ names. He seems to have a love for the sounds of the names and is familiar with them all; he repeats some of them often such as Marcel Barrington and Christian Frimpong, who he calls Ping Pong. His ‘commentary’ is in in the style of John Motson as he announces substitutions for both teams but then Truro’s Andrew Neal flattens Frimpong in full flight. “Refereee, refereeee!” our commentator calls and then adds “Fucking cunt” . Then, to close this episode he says “Yellow card, Andrew Neal, the cheeky little fellow”.
The wind is getting stronger and swirls of willow leaves spiral down in front of the stand onto the edge of the pitch. More substitutions are announced behind me as is the fact that Matt Baxter does not come off the bench for Braintree, “ Not Matt Baxter, not Matt Baxter” is the refrain. The game remains tight and interesting as both teams play to win but don’t really come that close to getting a second goal. Truro substitute Tyler Harvey likes to run at the Braintree defence and creates a couple of half-chances and with his long tied back hair he looks like he might be found surfing on Newquay beach when not turning out on a Tuesday night for Truro City. I like to think there is a VW campervan somewhere in the club car park.
The match draws to a close with both sides going for goal unsuccessfully. It was tight at the top of the Vanarama National League South table when this game began and now when it ends at a bit after half past nine, it still is; a point for each team alters nothing. The home crowd are perhaps more disappointed not to have won than the travellers from Cornwall who have at least had a road trip and a jolly sing-song; and me, I’ve had a lovely time.