Bromley 1 Ipswich Town 1 (Bromley win 5-4 on penalties)

August 16, 2025August 17, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

These are the dog days of summer. So named, Wikipedia tells us, because it’s the time of year when Sirius the dog star rises in the night sky. These are hot, humid days and the portent of ill-luck to some apparently, It’s an appropriate time therefore to start the domestic football season, although I count myself lucky enough to have already dabbled in the exotica of the European Conference League back in July when I witnessed Haverfordwest County take on Floriana Malta in cosmopolitan Llanelli.

The Football League and FA Cup have already staged a staggered start over the past two weekends, but I eschewed them in favour of applying satin finish emulsion and gloss on the upstairs landing. Today however, I have knocked off work a little early and now feel myself gently melting into the moquette on the 15:48 to London Liverpool Street as I embark on the epic journey to the deepest suburbs of southeast London, specifically Bromley. It’s a journey that has been in the planning several weeks since Ipswich Town drew Bromley in the Football League Cup, which I believe is now known by younger people, duped by the concept of ‘energy drinks’, as the Carabao Cup. Whatever happened to Milk?

I have had a difficult few weeks since the draw was announced, wondering whether to travel by planet saving electric Citroen e-C4, or to reduce traffic on the roads and catch the train and risk being stranded in the big city if the game went to extra time and penalties. But having learned that extra-time is now consigned to the dustbin of football history along with Dickensian sideburns, ‘dolly birds’ and the teleprinter I gained the confidence to sign up on the Bromley FC website, along with my friend of forty-seven years Chris (aka ‘Jah’ because of his love of Reggae) and acquire two tickets for the North Terrace (£19 each for over 65’s).

I meet ‘Jah’ by platform 4 at Victoria Station, which today is doubling as a greenhouse. By twenty to six we are on the packed train to far away Ramsgate which fortunately stops at South Bromley. On the train, it seems like we are the only two people talking to one another, which is a good thing because my hearing isn’t what it was. We quickly get the subject of the ‘Bromley contingent’ out of the way and share memories of having seen Siouxsie and the Banshees respectively in Durham and at the Ipswich Gaumont, but ‘Jah’ gains the greater credibility because he probably saw them in 1978, about the time ‘Hong Kong Garden’ was released, whereas I had waited until at least 1980.

Arriving at South Bromley railway station we emerge onto the broad high street and look up and down expectantly in the manner of Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly on shore leave in New York. But they had twenty-four hours, we only have two before kick-off at Hayes Lane. We are drawn towards two policemen stood at the edge of the pavement, presumably on the look-out for “football hooligans”. We ask where to find the best of Bromley and they point us back towards the railway station implying that the best thing is the train out. Eventually, they direct us up the high street to “plenty of pubs and restaurants” and down the road to the “Bricklayers” which is the pub for away supporters.

Bromley is apparently the only town with a Football League team to also have a tory MP and from the comparative absence of empty shops on the High Street it certainly looks like the kind of place that can afford to say “we’re alright, we don’t care about you”. Eventually arriving at a large Fuller’s pub called The Partridge, formerly a rather grand branch of the National Westminster Bank, we drink pints of Butcombe Rare Breed pale ale and reminisce about girls we once knew, a record player Jah owned when we were students and how his wife played pool with a family of Irish butchers in a Stockport pub.

Time moves on and so must we, to the Bricklayers Arms pub, which is much closer to Bromley’s Hayes Lane ground. Pints of Shepherd & Neame Whitstable Bay and Master Brew accompany packets of plain, and cheese and onion flavour Kent Crisps for about fourteen quid and we search out seats where we can hear each other above the noise of the television, which is belting out Sky Sports pre-match coverage from just down the road, which might explain why it’s so loud. Very soon however kick-off is a mere twenty minutes away and we must up-sticks again, with Jah not even having managed to finish his pint.

We make it through the turnstiles at Hayes Lane just as flames erupt into the evening sky from what look like darkly painted tea chests, and the two teams take to the field. I look in vain for a programme seller, but the game is about to start and so screwing up my disappointment into a knotted ball of resentment I head with Jah towards the partly open North Terrace. “Don’t worry” says Jah, like a reassuring parent “You’ll probably find one on the floor on our way out at the end of the game.” We make our way across the front of the stand and up the steps past the inevitable youth with a drum to a secluded spot beneath the shallow roof at the back of the terrace from where only one corner flag is obscured from view by the scaffolding tower atop which sits a Sky Sports television camera. I convince myself that karma will reward me for sacrificing my full view of the pitch so that unknown couch potato subscribers to satellite television across the world may see all. Jah and I are stood behind a man with impressively well-conditioned, clean, brown, almost shoulder-length hair, which Sky TV viewers will probably not see.

The match begins and Bromley get first go with the ball, booting it towards the southern end of the ground where the Ipswich supporters are assembled to one side of a modern stand which looks like a very large grey shoe box that has had one side cut-off. On the rear wall of the shoe box neat letters spell out ‘The Glyn Beverly Stand’ which only in my mind is an anagram of ‘Clarks Kickers’. In reality, it simply seems that Bromley FC like to name the architecture of their ground after people who only supporters of Bromley FC are ever likely to have heard of. The John Fiorini Stand looks out on the tea chests whilst a little nearer to us just by the turnstiles is the Dave Roberts tea hut. All along the eastern side of the pitch is a building site, one half of which shows recognisable progress with steel girders and concrete blocks arranged in the form of an embryonic but as yet disappointingly nameless stand.

Back on the pitch, Bromley are in an all-white kit with black trim, whilst Ipswich sport a cheap looking all red number, which closer examination reveals has blue scribble on the sleeves. Bromley have very hastily won a couple of corners, and whilst the home crowd off to our right are noisy and excitable, the football shows room for improvement. Ipswich are keen on the flanks but lack accuracy with crosses and presence in midfield. Town’s Jack Clarks moves nicely but mostly runs diagonally like a stray dog. Bromley are organised and alert and that’s about it. Just as my thoughts are that it would have been nicer to have stayed in the pub, Jah distracts me by asking how I would define the beard on the face of the steward stood at the front of the stand. The same steward also inspected the contents of Jah’s bag before we came through the turnstiles, when Jah had asked him if he was South African. It turns out he is French, but this doesn’t influence me in my decision that his beard resembles that of Ming the Merciless, who with the fall of his empire is now reduced to stewarding midweek matches for lower league clubs.

Half-time approaches with the memory of Ali Al-Hamadi having failed to make more of being put through on goal with just the ‘keeper to beat, Conor Chaplin whipping a shot narrowly over the cross bar and Jack Clarke having a not particularly hard shot stopped with a diving save. For those around me one of the highlights of the half seems to have been receiving texts from friends and loved ones at home watching Sky Sports TV telling them that Ed Sheeran is in the crowd. The chants of “Ed Sheeran, your music is shit” to the tune of Sloop John B would be understandable anywhere but are particularly so from inhabitants of a town where someone used to be next door neighbour to David Bowie.

The half ends with a corner to Bromley from which their second tallest outfield player, Deji Elerewe, scores with a header from improbably close range. What had been a neutral half of inaccurate football, abusive chants and a shoe box has taken on a new level of disappointment for me, which I can only hope to assuage by obtaining a programme. Jah fancies eating a pie, which doesn’t surprise me given the size of his stomach, but he foolishly says he’ll wait until I get back. I return to a point close to the scene of my entry into the ‘stadium’ but can see no hint of a programme seller, only a couple of queues of thirsty, or hungry Bromley fans snaking away from the Dave Roberts tea hut. I ask a young steward who is guarding the John Fiorini stand where I might find a programme and am surprised when he directs me to the tea hut. Excitedly I join the shorter of the two queues but there I stand for at least five minutes without progressing any closer to the hatch where I had expected to see a busy exchange of teas, programmes, cash and card payments. Looking back towards the pitch to check that the second half hasn’t started yet I see Jah has now joined the other queue and having not seen anyone depart the tea hut hatches with a programme I decide they must be sold out and I abandon the queue to stand with Jah. Eventually, Jah reaches the hatch only to discover that the pies (and indeed the programmes) have all sold out; unsure of what foodstuff can adequately compensate for the lack of meat, gravy and pastry in his diet this evening, Jah buys a Twix.

The players are by now back on the pitch and play has re-started as we head back to enjoy our slightly obscured view of the second half. Jah eats his Twix, only to find that the chocolate coating has mostly melted, which is why Twixes will never replace pies. The football is much the same as the first, but my spirits are raised after about ten minutes when substitute Ben Johnson scores for Town, although I do also start to worry that a draw and resultant penalty shoot-out will risk my missing my train out of here. In truth, it is probably fourth division Bromley who have the better chances to score in the remainder of the game, despite Ipswich eventually introducing the players more likely to be considered ‘first choice’.

There is something inevitable about the game descending into a penalty shoot-out, but that’s probably just because neither side looks capable of scoring another goal. Our over-65 tickets now prove particularly good value as the penalty shoot-out takes place in the goal right in front of us, rather than at the far end where our obviously failing eyesight would render events somewhat mysterious. Hopes for catching the first available train home quickly receive a filip as Town’s top striker George Hirst strikes the first penalty poorly and it is saved, although in my heart of hearts I’d rather it hadn’t been. But a penalty or two later Bromley’s Ashley Charles, who to my out of date mind has the name of an actor rather than a footballer has his penalty saved too and I’m once again checking the time of the next train. The first ten penalties pass into history with both teams scoring four and then the hopeful release of “sudden death” or “Mort Subit” as the French and Belgians call it arrives. Death is indeed mercifully sudden as Bromley score their next penalty, but Ali Al-Hamadi doesn’t and for the umpteenth time this century Ipswich are knocked out of the League Cup by lower league opposition. I can’t decide if Ipswich are consistently careless, uninterested, over-confident or just useless, but whatever it is, Town’s record in the League Cup has now become so atrocious that it is no longer embarrassing, it’s just what happens and there is no point bemoaning it. We can but look forward to next season’s defeat to Colchester, Swindon, Cheltenham, Newport, Wimbledon, Crawley, Newport, Bristol Rovers, Reading, MK Dons, Stevenage, Northampton Cambridge, Exeter, Leyton Orient, Barnet, Gillingham, Peterborough, or Bromley again.

Disconsolate but accepting of our fate I leave Hayes Lane with Jah and together we head back to South Bromley South railway station past the backs of people lauding their team at the front of the stand. The one plus is that as I leave, as Jah predicted, I find lying on the concrete of the North Terrace a discarded or dropped programme which, after enquiring if it is the property of the people standing nearest, I claim as my own. Life is never all bad I conclude.

Haverfordwest County 2 Floriana Malta 3

July 21, 2025July 21, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

When life does not have us locked into the dull, repetitive cycle of getting up, going to work, going to bed, getting up, going to work, going to bed, getting up, going to work, going to bed, getting up and so on then it occasionally brightens our existence with unexpected events and happy coincidences which almost make the rest of time worth trudging through.

In the late summer or early autumn of 1962 (what is September?), my team Ipswich Town were reigning Football League Champions of England and were in the European Cup, what is now known as the Champions League. Even back in 1962 there was a bias against teams that weren’t called Madrid or Manchester and despite Ipswich being genuine Champions and not some bunch of also-rans that had limped into third or fourth place in their country’s league, they had to play in a qualifying tie in which they were drawn against Floriana Malta. Sadly, despite living locally, I was only a couple of months beyond my second birthday and so I didn’t make it to either match of the two-legged tie. That was just my luck, because Ipswich won 14-1 on aggregate and consequently ever since I was old enough to understand this, I have regretted not being about ten years older than I actually am.

But life and football are, as popular culture seems to have it, ‘funny old games’, and sixty-three years on Haverfordwest County, the football club from the town of my birth and therefore another of ‘my teams’ have qualified for the first qualifying round of the European Conference League and have drawn the very same Floriana Malta, proof of a sort that time is round. All I need now is for Haverfordwest to win 14-1 on aggregate, although being already 2-1 down from the first leg in Valletta, this is going to be a tall order.

The wonder of Google maps tells us that it’s about 425 kilometres from my home to Parc y Scarlets in Llanelli, home of Llanelli rugby club. The match is to be played in Llanelli because Haverfordwest’s Ogi Bridge Meadow ground does not meet the exacting standards UEFA president Gianni Infantino requires to ensure he doesn’t sully the bright white tennis shoes that the strange, bald-headed Italian thinks match his dark suits. But my step-son lives in Basingstoke from where it is a mere 274 kilometres to Llanelli, so to reduce travel time on the day of the match my wife Paulene and I arrange an overnight stay with him in the town which claims to be where Jane Austen was born, the price of which is merely that I have to read a bed-time story to the grandchildren. Unable to find my stepson’s copy of Northanger Abbey, I read them “Oi Dinosaur.”

It’s a smooth, carefree journey down the M4, except for the occasional pothole and strip of patched tarmac, with just one toilet stop and one stop to top up the battery of our planet saving Citroen e-C4. Once in Llanelli, a town which used to have its own trolleybuses, from our carefully chosen but affordable hotel where the mattresses on the beds used to be endorsed by no less a comedian than Sir Lenny Henry, it is but a ten-minute walk to Parc Y Scarlets. Having struggled through the surprisingly busy Llanelli traffic back to the hotel following a brief visit to the beach, it is now only about 45 minutes until kick-off when we set off through the adjacent retail park in the company of seven Maltese men in green t-shirts and several Haverfordwest fans. The evening is warm and humid, and shorts and T-shirts abound. Parc y Scarlets is a modern, but rather boring looking stadium, all white steel girders and grey corrugated sheet metal, but with a ‘grand’ main entrance reminiscent of an out-of-town 1980’s cinema or a car show room, all in the setting of an expansive car park.

Disappointingly, there are no match programmes on sale this evening; perhaps there is one on-line but probably due to my age I prefer the real world, where everything can be held in my hand or stuffed in a pocket, and not a virtual one. Craving a memento of the day however, beyond the pay and display ticket acquired from Lanelli beach car park, and wanting something specific to the match, I buy a T-shirt (£20) from a collection of blokes stood behind a trestle table outside the stadium. Had I bought a club shirt for £45 I could have had a free one, but I don’t need a polyester shirt (who does?) and am a bit sniffy about football shirts that advertise betting companies.

Once inside the stadium, having surprised myself by successfully negotiating the turnstile with tickets that are on my mobile phone, and blushing slightly after being called ‘my lovely’ by the lady turnstile operator, along with Paulene I investigate the food and drink available. It’s mostly the usual slightly unpleasant stadium fayre and we come away with just a bottle of water without a lid, and a plastic 500ml cup of Felinfoel IPA (£7.40) chilled to a temperature capable of inducing a painful headache, but at least it’s a locally produced beer.

Paulene heads up to the seats whilst I sink the IPA which is not allowed sight of the pitch and which I don’t really enjoy because it is so cold and fizzy. I re-join Paulene just as the Haverfordwest male voice choir, who are stood on the pitch in front of the main stand, deliver a stirring rendition of Cwm Rhondda and it’s not long before they’re exercising their larynx again with the Welsh national anthem (Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau) as the teams file onto the pitch. The choir are magnificent, but I am ashamed to admit that I do not know the words to the National Anthem and the electric piano accompaniment makes me think of Terry Jones as the nude organist in Monty Python’s Flying Circus, despite this evening’s keyboard player being fully clothed.

When the game begins, Haverfordwest, all in blue, get first go with the ball, sending it in the general direction of our hotel, whilst Floriana Malta, wearing a very fetching outfit of green and white striped shirts with green shorts and socks are kicking roughly in the direction of Swansea. The Floriana supporters are at the far end of the stand and have a massive banner, the Haverfordwest support has a drum which regrettably is just a few rows behind us.

The opening minutes belong to Haverfordwest, who sensibly look keen to delete the one goal deficit from the first leg as soon as possible. The understandably more sun-tanned Floriana players however, look like they are taking time to acclimatise to west Wales and soon concede a corner, and then another from which the ball is headed back at the far post and at the second attempt an unmarked Greg Walters boots it conclusively into the Floriana goal net. The match is barely more than ten minutes-old and the aggregate scores are level. I remark to Paulene that I think Walters, as well as being the goal scorer, has the best hair on the pitch, it being reminiscent of former Ipswich and Arsenal player Alan Sunderland, but fluffier.

Haverfordwest continue to dominate and six minutes later score again, this time through the rangy Ben Ahmun, who successfully pursues a ball ‘down the left channel’, cuts into the penalty area and then instinctively launches a spectacular shot inside the far post from an oblique angle. Sixteen minutes gone and two-nil to Haverfordwest already, and with a bit of the right imagination and perhaps a change to the rules, the hoped-for 14-1 aggregate score is looking like a possibility.

Sadly, the second Haverfordwest goal seems to awaken Floriana from their torpor as if they could live with being one goal down, but not two. An attack down the left, a corner and the good fortune of a deflected shot by Carlo Lonardelli quickly sees the aggregate score level at 3-3 and daydreams of exotic destinations awaiting in future rounds quickly melt away to be replaced by penalty shoot-out induced anxiety.

On balance, Haverfordwest remain the better team as half-time looms, but then out of the blue, disaster strikes. A harmless punt forward is collected by Luc Rees in the Haverfordwest goal, but as he does so the referee adjudges defender Alaric Jones to have fouled Floriana’s gangly Mustapha Jah, a player who seems to find standing up difficult at the best of times. Not only does the referee award a penalty, but he also sends off Jones, presenting him with a second yellow card to accompany the one he showed him as early as the seventh minute. From where I’m sat I can’t see how it’s a foul, let alone one worth a second booking and the resultant sending off. But the penalty is easily scored by Jake Grech and from being ahead on aggregate and dreaming of possible future fixtures in Azerbaijan, Lichtenstein or Moldova, Haverfordwest are now looking like being confined to the principality for another year at least. Six minutes of added on time fail to alter the course of history. To make matters worse the stadium announcer insists on telling us the score even though we’re here in the stadium with him and he also reads it back to front, as if Haverfordwest are the away team, and he gives added emphasis to Haverfordwest’s score as if they are winning, which of course they are not.

Half-time is a period for quiet reflection before the game resumes. Down to just ten players and losing, Haverfordwest never re-capture the urgency of the first fifteen minutes. There are a couple of chances, a couple of bursts of potential score altering passing play from Haverfordwest and Ahmun hits a post early in the second half, but mostly it’s a tale of frustrated anticipation and blokes in stripey green shirts falling over. Some of the Haverfordwest supporters don’t do themselves any favours either, chanting “You dirty Maltese bastards”, which as well as being racist is also inaccurate as of Floriana’s starting eleven, three are Argentinian, two are Brazilian, one is Gambian, one is Tanzanian and one is Serbian. Then, in the sixty-seventh minute Floriana score again as Charles M’Bombwa (the Tanzanian) lashes the ball high into the net past Luc Rees from an improbably acute angle. We tell ourselves there’s always hope, but there probably isn’t and things just fall apart a little more with manager Tony Pennock having been sent to the stand even before the third goal, and in time added-on Rhys Abbruzzese is also sent off after being booked for a second time.

After the glory of Cardiff two years ago, the disappointment this evening is palpable, as disappointment always seems to be. With the final whistle, supporters file out quickly, many not lingering to applaud the laudable but ultimately unsuccessful efforts of the Haverfordwest County players. Paulene and I turn and leave too, and my last memory of the inside of Parc y Scarlets is a glimpse of Sgorio presenter Sioned Dafydd stood in a short red coat on the far side of the pitch. I don’t think I find Sioned attractive but there is something strangely alluring about her, I suspect it’s because when I see her on Sgorio she mostly speaks Welsh and I have no idea what she’s saying, although I can’t say I feel the same about Dylan Ebenezer.

A short while later back at our hotel, I will meet a Haverfordwest supporter wearing an Ipswich Town shirt, although as he will explain, he does not support Ipswich Town, but he bought the shirt when he went to see Ed Sheeran at Portman Road. I wonder to myself if anyone ever bought a Tranmere Rovers shirt when going to see Half Man Half Biscuit or a Real Madrid shirt when seeing Julio Iglesias. I will also meet a ‘groundhopper’ from Nottingham, although he doesn’t like the term, and a man who has travelled to the match from Lincolnshire with his son because like me his son was born in Haverfordwest, which all go to prove that although they lost, Haverfordwest playing Floriana Malta in the European Conference league has been a good thing; sadly I can’t always have my teams winning 14-1 on aggregate.

Ipswich Town 1 West Ham United 3

May 26, 2025May 26, 2025 / martinpbrooks / 2 Comments

It’s a blustery, disturbed, impatient day as befits my mood. At last, Ipswich Town’s long, drawn out season in the Premier League is drawing to its long, drawn-out conclusion, having all been a bit pointless since as far back as February. After the first match of the season against Liverpool, as I walked up Princes Street to the railway station and my train home, a visiting supporter said to me “You’re going down, aren’t you?” With the benefit of hindsight, I almost a feel a bit embarrassed that I replied that I thought it was a bit early to say. Now I just can’t wait to get this season over and done with. But typically for the Premier League, the pain has been extended just a little bit longer still, with the game not being on the traditional Saturday at three o’clock, but a day and an hour later and whole week after the FA Cup final, the mark of the end of the season in civilised countries, has already been played. Like Donald Trump, it seems the only thing the people who run football care about and know anything of is money.

I walk to the railway station beneath skies so blue and bright I decide to wear sunglasses. The railway station platform is surprisingly thinly populated, but I discern one Ipswich supporter, who is unhelpfully stood at the foot of the bridge over the tracks, and what I deduce from his colour scheme to be a West Ham United fan, although he could be a disorientated Burnley fan who doesn’t have Google maps on his i-phone. The train arrives a minute late, in keeping with the prevailing theme of the afternoon, and is predictably half full of blokes talking about jellied eels and their love of Mary Poppins. Gary joins me at the first station stop and I share with him my sneering pleasure that this Premier League season is at last going to finish. Gary shares with me some statistics on which players have been responsible for most opposing teams’ goals. Ipswich’s Aro Muric is apparently top of the list with five goals to his ‘credit’, although he has actually conceded fewer goals per game than Alex Palmer. The highlight of our journey, as ever, is spotting a polar bear as the train descends through Wherstead. It seems to be other people’s highlight too.

Arriving in Ipswich we stride out for ‘the Arb’, pausing only for an imaginary ice cream and a match programme (£3.50) at one of the blue booths that look like they should sell ice creams but don’t. I was hoping that as a thank you for our ‘incredible support’ the club might share some of the Premier League largesse and perhaps dole out free programmes today, but I realise I am a hopeless dreamer. As we continue along Portman Road I reminisce to Gary about the last match of the 1974-75 season when Town beat West Ham 4-1 and Kevin Beattie ran from the half-way line through what seemed like the whole West Ham team to score. Two girls walking along in front of us turn around to see what someone who can remember 1975 looks like. At ‘the Arb’ Mick is turning away from the bar, brimming pint glass in hand, as we walk through the door. Gary buys me a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride and a pint of Lager 43 for himself and we head for the beer garden, where Mick has found a Yogi bear-style picnic table beneath a large umbrella and is sat at it with a schoolteacher he knows called Steve, who commutes from Swilland to Holbrook every day on an electric bicycle.

We talk of the artwork that should have been on the front cover of the match programme today, but which has been relegated to inside the back page because of the philistines who run Umbro and want to see blokes wearing their shirts on the cover instead. Today’s design is reminiscent of the work of Jackson Pollock and its ‘splatter’ and ‘drip’ effect and defiant scrawled message to “Follow the Town up or down” seems to sum up Town’s season. Mick speculates as to how many Town fans would know who Jackson Pollock was and Gary accuses him of being ‘a bit snobby’. Mick accepts that he probably is, although there is no ‘probably’ about it. Steve leaves early because he’s meeting someone at Portman Road and Mick buys another round of drinks, because it’s his turn. By twenty to three we are the last people left in the beer garden, which we accept as a badge of honour before making our relaxed, not very bothered way to Portman Road.

Somewhere near Alf Ramsey’s statue we bid one another ‘adieu’, perhaps until next season, and I make my way to Alf’s stand, where the queues are reassuringly short. I join the queue for turnstile number 62 and am scanned by a steward as I do so, but at the front of the queue the bloke now there inevitably fails to work the bar code on his season ticket, so impatiently I switch to turnstile number 60 which now has no queue at all. Panic stricken that I appear to have dodged the security cordon for turnstile 60 another steward scans me retrospectively from behind for firearms and explosives as I pass through the turnstile.

I get to my seat next to Fiona, next door but one to both Pat from Clacton and the man from Stowmarket (Paul), and two rows behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood as the players stream on to the pitch and balls of flame burst into the air to incinerate the more nonchalant amongst passing seagulls and pigeons. The excitable young stadium announcer, sporting a jewelled earring and slightly crumpled blue suit announces the Town team and I attempt to bawl out the players surnames in the style of a Frenchman at the Stade de la Liberation, Boulogne or Stade du Roudourou, Guingamp, but the young announcer is too excitable and is not in sync’ with the names on the screen. The knee is taken by the players to muffled boos from some of the more cliched, Reform voting members of the visiting support and the game begins with the Town getting first go with the ball, which they are aiming at the goal just in front of me and my fellow Ultras.

The noise in the ground today is cacophonous with both sets of supports merrily chanting and singing at the thought of the Premier League season finally ending after ten months of ceaseless, hyperbole, VAR and added on time. “We are staying up” chant the Hammers fans, and then “ You are going down” as if they’ve waited to fulfil a season-long desire to make public information announcements which states the bleeding obvious. Ten minutes pass and Jacob Greaves flashes a header comfortably wide of the West Ham goal from a free-kick.

I have noticed that the West Ham goalkeeper is called Fabianski, a name which sounds like he might have played electronic dance music in the 1990’s. Omari Hutchinson has a shot at goal when he might have had done better to cross it. He’s not playing well, as the bloke behind me says, he’s playing like he’s got someone else’s size 11 boots on. “De-de, De-de-de, De-de, Nathan Broadhead” sing the Sir Bobby Robson standers to the tune of Depeche Mode’s top ten single from 1981, “I just can’t get enough”. Then Fiona tells me that Crazee the Town mascot is retiring, and we discuss whether the mascot is retiring, or just the person inside the costume. We speculate as to whether there will be a position available at Portman Road, and I tell Fiona I might be interested, and that I have previous experience.

Back on the pitch, as the first sixth of the game fades into history, Conor Chaplin receives treatment and everyone else has a drink and gets remedial coaching on the touchline. The result is a period in which there are a lot of passes, but not much else, and I feel like I’m just sat here waiting for something to happen. In time it does and unusually in a good way as ten minutes later Town are enjoying a period of sustained pressure on the West Ham goal, the like of which we haven’t seen in over a year. Nathan Broadhead has a shot saved and Sam Morsy shoots wide before the first player to be booked is West Ham’s Maximilian Kilman, and I can’t help wondering if the referee didn’t just want to hear him say his name because it sort of rhymes.

The descent to half time sees Christian Walton have to make a save as Town’s period of dominance recedes like an ebbing tide, but the prospects look good for the game being goalless at half-time and West Ham couldn’t really complain if Town scored. It’s unfamiliar territory for Town and as if to prove the point Sam Morsy passes the ball to a West Ham player near the edge of the Town penalty area and a square pass and a shot later Town are losing. “We’re winning away, we’re winning away, how shit must you be, we’re winning away” sing the West Ham fans to the tune of ‘Sloop John-B’ but two minutes of added on time don’t produce an answer.

Half-time couldn’t and didn’t come soon enough for Town, or me as I now enjoy a Slovakian Horalky wafer courtesy of the World Foods aisle in Sainsbury’s. Having drained off some spent Suffolk Pride, I briefly speak to Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison before ever-present Phil tries to convince me that a decrepit looking old bloke a couple of rows behind me is my dopple-ganger. I take no notice, but begin to wonder if I might have offended ever-present Phil in some way.

The second half begins as it inevitably does most weeks and as Crazee the mascot wanders by in front of us, a spontaneous round of applause breaks out amongst a few people. I’m not sure if this is a response to his apparent forthcoming retirement or whether people just think he’s had a good season. I prepare myself to never know, but soon all thoughts of Crazee are forgotten as the West Ham defence parts like the Red Sea supposedly did and Nathan Broadhead moves into the gap before shooting cleanly beyond Fabianski and his array of keyboards to put Town level. “The goal scorer, OUR No 33, Nathan Broadhead” announces the excitable young announcer to make it clear to the hard of thinking and those who haven’t heard of Jackson Pollock that it wasn’t the West Ham No33 who just scored for Town.

This is more like it we all think, and visions of greater glory and a second home win of the season hove into view for about three minutes until Jarod Bowen decides to run more quickly than the Town defenders near him, which allows him to execute a swift “one-two” with some team-mate or other before hitting a stonking shot past Christian Walton from the edge of the penalty area. Out of the blue,Town are losing again and it all feels horribly familiar, even though overall West Ham are not discernibly any better than the Town.

Town continue to play reasonably well, winning a corner of two but not ever tearing the West Ham defence to pieces as they did back in April 1975. Substitutions follow substitutions, the attendance is announced as 29,771 with 2,991 being of a ‘Gor Blimey, apples and pears, love a duck’ persuasion, and then with everyone still hoping for an equaliser, West Ham break forward not particularly quickly, too much space is given to a little fella called Mohammed Kudus and he scores a third goal. “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose” we all think, unless we’re the sort of people who haven’t heard of Jackson Pollock, and the last three minutes of normal time and seven minutes of added on time turn in to a love-in of fond farewells to Town’s Massimo Luongo, who replaces Sam Morsy for a final ten minutes, and West Ham’s Aaron Creswell who is appreciated by home fans too recalling his one-hundred and thirty-two games and three goals for the Town between 2011 and 2014.

With the full-time whistle, the majority of people seem to be staying for the usual end of season parade around the pitch by the players and increasingly their families, because we all like to cheer the players’ wives and girlfriends and assorted toddlers and babies. But I’ve had enough for this season and am soon heading for the railway station just as I did after that first home defeat back in August. As good as promotion felt at the end of last season, the reward has for the most part felt like a complete waste of time .

Ipswich Town 0 Brentford 1

May 11, 2025May 12, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It seems to have been a week of looking back on momentous events, with the 80^th anniversary of the liberation of Europe, my own twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and also the forty-seventh anniversary of Ipswich Town winning the FA Cup. Today however, I am returning to the present and am preparing to see Ipswich play Brentford, a club which back in 1978 had just won promotion from the fourth division, which perhaps helps explain why I always think of them as a ’lower division’ team, like Colchester United or Newport County.

For the first time this year It is warm enough not to need a coat, and I walk to the railway station beneath a clear blue sky. It’s a pleasant walk, disturbed only by the loud, wailing sirens of four ambulances and a police car, which careen past me slaloming between lanes of traffic. The train seems on time, but I don’t really know if it is, only that it smells unpleasantly of the on-board toilet. The carriage is mostly empty and surprisingly seems devoid of Brentford fans. Gary joins me at the first station stop and we talk of nothing much in particular, although the polar bears of Wherstead inspire a brief conversation about whatever happened to the soft drink known as ‘Cresta’, a beverage which was possibly at the height of its popularity in1978. The fur of one of the polar bears looks very clean today and we speculate briefly about polar bears and shampoo.

In Ipswich, we head for ‘the Arb’ as quickly as Gary’s dawdling gait will allow, pausing only to buy a programme each (£3.50) at one of the booths that look as though they might also sell ice creams. As ever, I am disappointed that they don’t and that the programme seller doesn’t wish me ‘bon match’. Today’s front cover design, which is not the front cover of the programme thanks to the evil capitalists of the Umbro sportswear company, is an ITFC version of Peter Blake’s sleeve design for The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album. You can’t beat a bit of Pop Art, and for a moment I find myself daydreaming of seeing Ray Crawford, Ted Phillips or Sir Alf Ramsey as they might have been portrayed by Andy Warhol, Pauline Boty or Roy Lichtenstein.

At ‘the Arb’, there is literally a queue at the bar, which I think I succeed in jumping because in my world people don’t queue at pub bars because the bar staff always know who’s next. Happily, it’s not long before Gary and I are soon in the beer garden clutching pints of Lager 43 and Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£9 something for the two with Camra discount) and looking for a place to sit. Mick appears from the back gate and while he is getting himself a pint of Suffolk Pride, Gary and I share a table with a man and a woman and two small dogs who are on a pub crawl of Ipswich’s dog friendly pubs; they’ve already been to the Woolpack and the Greyhound and have five more pubs to visit, when the dogs will qualify for ‘free’ bandanas. I take their photo for them to record the event for their Facebook friends, and reminisce about visiting numerous Tolly Cobbold pubs in the early 1980’s in order to acquire a ‘free’ T-shirt advertising Tolly ‘Original’.

After Gary has bought a further round of drinks and Mick has promised that it will definitely be his round next time, we eventually find ourselves with empty glasses and nothing else to do but head downhill to Portman Road and the afternoon of delights that awaits us. I bid Gary and Mick farewell somewhere near the statue of Sir Alf Ramsey, which isn’t in the Pop Art style, and this is probably a good thing. The queues at the turnstiles to the Sir Alf Ramsey stand are short, but it still takes longer than expected to gain entry because of zealous use of scanners by the security staff, although I get the impression that they are losing heart because no one seems to be trying to smuggle in firearms or explosives; it can’t be good for their morale never discovering anything.

By the time I am reacquainting myself with Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood, the teams are on the pitch, balls of flame have burst into the sky, and a pall of smoke is drifting across the pitch as if all the explosives the security staff had hoped to find, but hadn’t, had been let off at once. The excitable young stadium announcer, whose grey suit looks as if he’s only just got it back from Sketchley’s reads out the teams and I bawl the Town players’ surnames as if I was in the tribunes of the Stade du Moustoir, Lorient or Stade Gabriel-Montpied, Clermont Ferrand.

Ipswich, sporting their usual blue shirts and white shorts get first go with the ball and are mostly trying to kick it towards the goal just in front of me and my fellow ultras. Meanwhile, Brentford sport their traditional red and white striped shirts and black shorts, although closer inspection reveals that the black of the shorts bleeds into the red of the stripes and there are black bits underneath the armpits of the shirts too, as if the players were all using an experimental pitch or creosote-based under arm deodorant.

The game has only just begun, but already I’m thinking that Conor Chaplin is looking different today. At first I think it must be his haircut, but then decide he has a beard, although such thoughts are suddenly swept away as Omari Hutchinson crosses and Liam Delap heads towards the goal, but Mark Flekken the Brentford goalkeeper, who is Dutch but has a French tri-colour against his name on the back of the programme makes a neat but not overly difficult save. ‘Edison House Group’ reads the electronic billboard at the far end of the ground, and although I try not to, I hear ‘Love grows where my Rosemary goes’ playing in my head.

Ten minutes pass and Brentford begin to hog the ball, and then they win the game’s first corner. “Football in a library” sing the Brentford fans perhaps expecting us to cheer their corner, and Pat asks who the well-known Brentford players are so she can photograph them. But Fiona and I don’t really think any of them are well-known, although Fiona has heard of Mark Flekken. I tell Pat I expect they’re well-known in Brentford. With fifteen minutes up, the referee Mr Barrott, whose surname pleasingly rhymes with carrot decides it’s time Brentford scored from a corner and keeps giving them corners until they do. Part way through the catalogue of corners the match is paused for VAR to check for a possible penalty due to over-enthusiastic grappling. “Place your bets” I tell Fiona and Pat from Clacton, but surprisingly no penalty is awarded, although Jack Taylor and Christian Norgaard are both booked. From the next corner however, Brentford score as Kevin Schade, who in his spare time also plays for Germany, rises unopposed at the near post and heads just inside the far post.

Ten minutes elapse after we rapidly come to terms with the likelihood of another home defeat, and Town then win a corner of their own. “Come On You Blues” I bellow, hopefully, but the ball doesn’t even get past the first Brentford defender, who is stood at the near post. “Gotta beat the first man” says the bloke behind me censoriously. The familiar sound of ironic cheers follows two minutes later as Omari Hutchinson wins a rare free kick for Town, but two minutes later Brentford have the ball back and Alex Palmer is making a decent save to prevent a goal.

The final seven minutes of the half witness corners to both sides, more chants of “football in a library” from the Brentford supporters, Jack Taylor shooting wide of the goal and Pat from Clacton complains about the bloke behind her constantly talking (and swearing), most weeks as Pat tells us, there’s a “…nice, quiet older man sitting there”.

After two minutes of added on time, half-time arrives as expected and the disappointments of the first half are forgotten as I go to the front of the stand to talk to Ray and his grandson Harrison, applaud the promotion winning women’s team, see Harrison’s 21^st birthday announced on the big screen and finally enjoy a Polish Przy Piatczku chocolate wafer bar courtesy of the World Foods aisle in Sainsbury’s. Unfortunately, the chocolate on one side of the wafer has melted in the warmth of the afternoon, and through being in my pocket , so after I’ve eaten it I have to ask Fiona if I’ve got any chocolate around my mouth; I haven’t and I think she’s pleased she’s not going to have to dab anything off with a hanky as if she were my mum.

The second half brings the usual misleading, renewed hope, and after ten minutes Jack Clarke, or “Jack Claaarke” as the excitable young announcer calls him replaces Conor Chaplin. Pat from Clacton shifts her attention away from the constant talking of the bloke behind her to the Brentford manager Thomas Frank, who apparently is “always chewing” and with his mouth open too, yuck. More substitutions follow just five minutes later as Jens Cajuste and George Hirst replace Jack Taylor and Liam Delap. Alarmingly, George Hirst has dyed his hair blond and now looks like a cross between a Midwich cuckoo and Sick Boy in the film of Trainspotting.

The game is a little more than two-thirds over and I’m beginning to feel a bit annoyed like Pat from Clacton, but my irritation isn’t down to talking and chewing, but down to the Brentford players who, when not charging at the Town players ( I think it’s called ‘pressing’), seem a whingy, whiny lot who are constantly running to the referee, ‘pressing’ him to give them free-kicks. I begin to wonder if Brentford aren’t called The Bees because they’re always buzzing around the referee, although having grown up in the country I’d be tempted to liken them more to flies around a cow’s arse.

Another Brentford corner brings another VAR check for a possible penalty, which is again turned down, this time with the explanation that there had been ‘mutual holding’, which in the privacy of one’s own home sounds quite appealing and probably explains why no one was booked this time. Less appealing is a somewhat reckless overhead kick by Yoane Wissa which makes contact not with the ball, but with Jacob Greaves’ face, although fortunately he is not hurt and manfully he carries on despite the taste of dubbing.

The closing fifteen minutes of the match play out in a way that cruelly allows Town fans to retain hope of an equaliser, which of course never comes. Sam Morsy shoots over, George Hirst bursts through and shoots powerfully wide, Omari Hutchinson shoots beyond a far post too and Town win more corners. Today’s attendance is announced by the now unctuous sounding but still excitable young stadium announcer as 29,511, of whom 2,953 are here for ‘the Brentford’ and indeed “You’re only here for the Brentford” is what they touchingly sing to one other. Five minutes of added on time produce another shot on goal for Town which I think is saved, but before it was it had me off my seat almost thinking it was a goal.

The final whistle is greeted with applause for the Town players today and the realisation that with a bit more luck we might have got a draw and we would have deserved it, and so perhaps, like the season as a whole, it hasn’t been a complete waste of time.

Ipswich Town 0 Arsenal 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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