The explanation on the introductory page to this blog tells us (although I already knew) that the blog is largely about me watching football matches and maybe reviewing the occasional book. Good luck in finding the book reviews. But it is summer now, the swifts and swallows are here, I have strawberries growing in my garden, I am regularly eating barbecued food and as I write this I am enjoying the sensation of having bare feet and exposed legs; life is sweet and there aren’t any football matches to go to. Happily, life goes on in wonderful football-free ways and a few weeks ago I went to the Mercury Theatre in Colchester with three friends to see the ‘comedian’ Stewart Lee. I put the word comedian in inverted commas because, as Stewart Lee takes time to explain, he is not like Michael McIntyre or Russell Howard; he is not a populist comedian, his humour is partly jokes about jokes (metahumour) and certainly in my experience some people don’t understand that, but he is critically acclaimed and is perhaps Britain’s ninth best comedian.
Stewart Lee de-constructs comedy, he is able to do this because he is a very clever bloke; he went to Oxford. Of course I went to Oxford too, but to the Manor Ground and Kassam Stadium, Stewart Lee had a place at the university. That last sentence was a sort of a joke; I said I’d been to Oxford like Stewart Lee, trying to make you think that I had been a student at the university; but I then qualified the statement by saying that I had actually only been to Oxford to visit the home ground of Oxford United Football Club. This is a football blog of course, hence the football reference. But my explanation is in the style of Stewart Lee, although he would have first berated you as the audience for not having laughed enough, implying that you are not intelligent enough to understand the joke, hence the need to explain it. Anyway, that’s what Stewart Lee’s humour is like; it is self-referential, comedy about comedy and you might say it’s existential. Existential philosophy is about being and the ‘being of being’ what it means to be, to exist. If you’re not entirely following this now you should probably seek out a different sort of football blog, perhaps one by Gary Neville or Alan Brazil. Haha! That was another bit of Stewart Lee type humour there, did you spot it?
Former footballers who become pundits indulge unknowingly or unselfconsciously and without the necessary irony in a version of Stewart Lee’s style of humour. The likes of Robbie Savage will opine that no one can comment authentically and with real credibility on professional football unless they have played the game like he has, by which he doesn’t mean badly. Robbie Savage and those of his ilk say that you and I don’t understand the game. Of course he is completely wrong; in fact our views are the only ones that are valid because we haven’t been infantilised like he has by making a living and a career by merely playing a game. Playing Doctors and Nurses as a child is nothing like being a doctor or a nurse, but playing football really is just playing football, wherever and whenever.
Last season at Portman Road we could have witnessed some Stewart Lee humour too, as some supporters publicly, and others more privately, condemned manager Mick McCarthy for the poor standard of the football played by his team; “Your football is shit, your football is shit, Mick McCarthy, your football is shit” they sang, to the tune of Sloop John B, possibly the only tune Ipswich football supporters now know although for my money it is one of the more disappointing tracks on the Beach Boys Pet Sounds album. They didn’t seem to understand however that Mick is only out to get results and with the resources he has available, a bunch of not particularly talented players, playing “shit football” was probably going to bring in more points than trying to play attractive football. Mick McCarthy didn’t really say too much, but he was clearly a little exasperated by the ‘supporters’ at times and I like to think that when the team did win, and on one occasion late in the season they managed to win two consecutive games, he was tempted to deliver his post-match press conference as Stewart Lee and to sneer at the crowd for not having understood that his team had won. A regional newspaper review of one of Stewart Lee’s TV shows once stated “His whole tone is one of complete, smug condescension” and that I think is what Mick McCarthy should be aiming for in his post-match press conferences. Stewart Lee used the phrase to advertise his next tour and Mick’s CV would be all the better for his use of it too.
Football is just a game, a laugh, everyone needs to understand that.
Anyway, Stewart Lee at The Mercury Theatre, Colchester was great; I hadn’t laughed so much since ……I don’t know, I really should start to make notes on how much I laugh and when. Finally, if you liked this ‘review’ of Stewart Lee, such as it is, then you have possibly seen him already and if you didn’t you might not want to.
LOSC Lille 3 FC Nantes 0
Lille is in northern France, in Flanders, so close to Belgium that it also has Flemish and Dutch names, Rysel or Rijsel. The city of Lille has a population of about 230,000 but the metropolitan area, or agglomeration as the French call it contains over a million people, making it France’s fourth largest urban area behind Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Lille is only an hour and twenty minutes by car from Calais and it is served by the Eurostar, making it easily accessible from southern and eastern England. I’ve come to Lille with my wife because it is wonderful city full of fabulous things to see and because it’s a good place to watch football.
In its time LOSC Lille has been a half decent football club, winning the league and Cup double as recently as 2011. It was from Lille that Chelsea took Eden Hazard. This season they have struggled and were in the bottom three early on and are now only eight points away from it in twelfth position in the table. Their opponents tonight for the final match of the season are FC Nantes, another big city club with an illustrious past but currently just jogging along. Nantes also flirted with the relegation places a few months ago, but a decent run has seen them climb to seventh in the table.
My wife and I are staying on the other side of the city centre and therefore catch a Metro train out to the Stade Pierre Mauroy which is located in the suburb of Villeneuve d’Ascq. Lille’s Metro only has two lines but it is fully automated with driverless trains. Whilst most of our Metro journey is underground, towards the end there are outdoor elevated sections and somehow it reminds me of the monorail in Francois Truffaut’s film of the Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451; I sigh and think of Julie Christie before I am shaken from my reverie by our arrival at the end of the line.
It’s a ten or twelve minute walk from the Metro station to the Stade Pierre Mauroy, a massive structure with a closable roof it is a multi-purpose venue. Originally, and rather unimaginatively, it was known as Le Grand Stade, but subsequently and somewhat controversially it was re-named after a local politician. The stadium is like a lot of French stadia, a grand statement. It is sheathed in fluorescent tubes
that are capable of changing colour and a little like the Allianz Arena in Munich it resembles an enormous rubber dinghy, or may be a slug. The walk from the Metro station is through a university research park; the final approach is impressive across a broad pedestrian bridge over the ring road and into a huge open area around the stadium where fans meet, mingle and munch on chips and baguettes from the food stands; there is beer too.
My wife heads impatiently for our seats at the other side of the stadium whilst I uncontrollably linger in the club shop. I just can’t help popping into club shops, there is something fascinating about them, it’s may be the fact that they are full of people eager to advertise their football allegiance through the clothes they wear, the mug they drink from, the magnet on their fridge, the pennant hanging from the rear view mirror in their car and the teddy bear they hug in moments of doubt.
Having left the shop I get thoroughly patted down by security and wished ‘Bon Match’ before heading through the automated turnstiles. Just inside I pick up a copy of the match day programme; sixteen pages of glossy A5
which is absolutely free and tells you all you need to know about tonight’s teams and happily stops short of telling us anyone’s favourite holiday destination, whether they prefer tea or coffee or would read Camus rather than Stendahl or de Maupassant. Once again French football shows its superiority to English, reasonably priced seats (20 euros tonight) and free match programmes, which gives you more money to spend in the club shop. The programme has the title “reservoir dogues”; partly because LOSC Lille are known as the les dogues, a type of enormous dog, and partly it would seem because LOSC Lille can’t resist a not very good pun.
Up in the stand there are more freebies to be had; a smiling young woman is giving away giant foam hands, whilst under every seat is a red flag on a stick bearing the club crest. It may be the last match of a disappointingly unsuccessful season, against a team ranked as the 4th least entertaining in Ligue 1 by the sports paper L’Equipe, and it may be a meaningless match, but it will be fun! That is the point, because there are new owners at Lille and they have a vision for the club and they want to sell season tickets (abonnements). I buy a small low alcohol (0.5%) beer (Kronenbourg Malt), which I cannot recommend and take my seat.
As kick-off approaches the words of the club anthem appear on the giant screen set into the front of the roof
and a good number of the 28,390 crowd sing heartily to the tune of Amazing Grace whilst waving their flags and giant hands; it’s almost moving. Nantes is in the far west of France some 600km away by road, so not many Nantoises have made the trip and the few that have are high up in the corner of the stadium; they mostly don’t bother to take their seats but stand at the top of the stairs, as if preparing for a quick getaway at the end of the match. From where I am sat their contribution to the match atmosphere is nil. The teams come on to the pitch behind large banners displaying the two club crests, as happens for all Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 matches. Lille wear their red shirts and navy blue shorts, whilst FC Nantes are in their traditional kit of all yellow with green trim, for which they are known as the Canaries (les canaris) and for this reason I can’t help disliking them slightly, even though to my knowledge they have nothing else at all in common with Norwich City. Whatever, I am supporting Lille tonight and have the fridge magnet to prove it.
The match kicks off and for fifteen minutes or so it lives down to expectations and not much happens. But gradually Lille start to look the better team. The crowd, who after that initial pre-match burst of orchestrated enthusiasm had begun to sound a bit lost amongst the cavernous spaces around the other 32,000 unoccupied seats, start to find their voices which fill those voids. The Ultras below our seats call to the support at the far end of the ground and they call back and the atmosphere builds. Thirty-six minutes gone and a through ball finds Nicolas de Preville who advances and passes the ball beyond Dupe to put Lille ahead. Yes! Not only am I seeing a team called the Canaries lose but I had spotted de Preville
playing for Reims last season and picked him out as ‘one to watch’. So I’m pretty pleased with myself. Lille continue to be the better team and retain their 1-0 lead as Monsieur Desiage the referee (arbitre) blows for half-time.
During half-time the entertainment switches to a shoot-out between a couple of boys teams and there is also a performance by some dancing girls with pom-poms, which is more or less in the tradition of French Saturday night TV where variety, which in France includes bare-breasted show girls, is still popular. For all its philosophy and sophistication France often still seems oddly sexist. I take a trip downstairs to the gents’ and enjoy the figure painted on the door
of a male in a baggy shirt and shorts with knees bent and fist clenched, which is probably meant to convey that he is celebrating a goal, but he looks like he may be just farting loudly, it is a toilet door after all.
A minute into the second half and Lille fans have every reason to fart loudly in the direction of les Nantoises
and celebrate as my protégé Nicolas de Preville scores a second goal, a simple tap-in, for les dogues. Les canaris are looking suitably sick as parrots. Seven minutes later and de Preville claims his hat-trick after Lima holds back a Lille player in the penalty box and a penalty is awarded. Lima is sent off. FC Nantes have developed into a full-blown surrogate Norwich City for me with les canaris 3-0 down and with a player sent-off, it’s the sort of thing I dream of seeing.
Just past the hour Lille replace Benzia with Naim Sliti a skilful Tunisian international midfielder and another player who I have to take the credit for spotting last season, this time when he was playing for Ligue 2 Parisian team Red Star. This evening is getting better and better. Apparently however, Sliti is in dispute with Lille because they are not giving him enough games and he has said that if “a door opens” for him he will move. I hope you are you reading this Mick McCarthy.
It looks like it could be a complete rout, but Lille don’t press home their advantage and it’s Nantes who have some half decent chances on the break, but the score remains unaltered. Nine minutes from time Monsieur Desiage books Nantes substitute Kacaniklic with style as some time after he commits a foul he calls him over, speaks with him and then in one very swift and quite angry movement brandishes his yellow card at him.
There’s very little additional time to play, what’s the point? Lille’s win sees them rise a place to eleventh in the final table, leapfrogging Toulouse who play out a goalless draw at home to Dijon; Nantes remain seventh as both St Etienne and Stade Rennais, their nearest rivals in the table, also lose. So that’s it for another season, or is it? We are asked to stay in our seats and meanwhile as the Lille players milk applause for their season’s work a tractor and trailer drives on to the pitch, sheets are laid across the turf and boxes and things are heaped up on the sheets. The players thank the Ultras
and the bloke who stands on the step ladder
in front of the Ultras to orchestrate their chants makes a short speech to the players. Applause follows, so he evidently hasn’t told them what a useless bunch of overpaid gets they are, or maybe he has. No one seems to take offence however, and as the celebrations die down we sit and wait. Suddenly the stadium lights go out; then begins the loud beat of Euro-disco, the flash of lasers and then the explosion of fireworks. Quite a spectacular display follows and goes on for the next twelve minutes or so. If this is how they celebrate the end of the season when they finish top of the bottom half of the table, what do they do when they actually achieve something? But it’s great; this is what football clubs should be doing, thanking their supporters at the end of the season. I had only seen Lille once before this year, but they seem to care that everyone here has bothered to come to the last match of the season.
We finally leave the stadium at about 11.20pm and head for the Metro which is of course still running; night buses begin to run in about an hour’s time. It has been a fun night at the Stade Pierre Mauroy with defeat for a team called the Canaries, a sending off, a hat-trick for a player I had ‘scouted’, a fireworks display and a free flag. I shall hopefully return some time next season. As it says on the illuminated destination blinds of the buses outside the stadium Allez Lille!
Racing Club Lens 3 Chamois Niort 1
Lens is a town of about 37,000 people and is just an hour’s drive from Calais; as a town it’s not much to look at, but then it was virtually annihilated during World War One, although that had an upside as it now has a fabulous 1920’s art deco railway station
featuring four beautiful mosaic friezes depicting the heavy industry made possible by the coal that was hewn from the ground below this town and those around it. This is the land of Emile Zola’s Germinal, a fabulous book which you should all read when not reading this blog. Staying with the arts, Lens is now possibly more famous for having an outpost of the Louvre museum, built to help regenerate the area, the economy of which was devastated by the closure of its coal mines in the 1980’s. Although we can’t blame Thatcher for these mine closures, she probably would have gladly taken the credit seeing as she didn’t seem to care much for coalminers or the French. But most of all, Lens has a football club with a large and fanatical fanbase. Racing Club Lens is in Ligue 2 and this season their average home attendance has been 28,966, making them the fifth best supported club in France behind only PSG, Marseille, Lyon and Lille, all of whom are Ligue 1 clubs.
Tonight is the last match of the league season and Lens, along with RC Strasbourg, SC Amiens, ESTAC Troyes, Stade Brestois and Olympique Nimes have a chance of getting into the promotion/relegation play-off with the team placed third from bottom in Ligue 1, or they could get automatic promotion by finishing second or as Champions. Lens are currently fourth in the league table or classement, two points behind first placed Strasbourg, but they must win and hope that at least one out of Strasbourg, Amiens and Troyes does not. Tonight’s opponents at the magnificent Felix Boleart Delelis stadium are Chamois Niort, placed 10th in the league and as journalistic cliché tells us, they have “nothing to play for but pride” and are likely to be “at the beach already”; but they are a half decent side having hauled themselves up to mid-table after occupying the bottom places earlier in the season. This is surely the most exciting end of season scenario of any professional league in Europe.
Kick-off is not until 8.30 but my wife and I arrive at the stadium at about five o’clock where there are oceans of free car parking, which also serve the Louvre museum. Already the place is busy with bars and food stalls doing a good trade, but not as good as the club shop which is absolutely heaving. I can’t resist getting a T-shirt and scarf
to help me join in with what could be a momentous evening; my wife rolls her eyes. Leaving my purchases back in the car along with the wine and beer I’d already bought from a nearby Intermarche supermarket, we make the short walk into town to take a look at that marvellous railway station. On the way we pass Chez Muriel, a small bar decorated with red, black and gold balloons, the colours of RC Lens, it’s a popular pre-match haunt for Lens fans and there are several people stood out on the pavement drinking beer. Opposite the station another bar also already seems to have standing room only. Having taken my fill of those mosaics rather than any beer, I watch a TGV (Train Grand Vitesse) pull away and think how much like the HS2 it probably is, the only difference being it actually exists and has done for years; French Republic 1 British Monarchy 0.
Strolling away from Gare de Lens we head for the town hall (Hotel de Ville) and then turn left along the main street, which leads down directly to the Stade Felix Boleart and provides a perfect view of the top of Le Stade
. That’s another thing the French understand, vistas at the ends of streets. There are more bars along the length of the main street, particularly at the stadium end. Many of the bars are decorated in club colours, most of the drinking is taking place out on the street. Some tables have ‘beer engines’ on them
clear towers of beer with a dispenser at the bottom that looks like a football; this is beer drinking that is dedicated to football. This is France, but it is northern France, and it shares the beer drinking culture of Belgium, Germany, Scandinavia and Britain; we are all northern Europeans together, but your dumb Brexiteers wouldn’t have known that. Lens and the towns around it could have been transposed from the coalfields of South Yorkshire or Nottinghamshire or the Ruhr valley in Germany. For a boy from Suffolk some of this lot seem a bit rough and they probably are, brutalised as they or their forefathers were by that hard industrial heritage. Football was the escape from the brutality of the mine and along with a belly full of beer it still is the escape from whatever gets us down, life for instance.
Close to the ground amongst some trees a bunch of blokes who look old enough to know better are setting off some very loud firecrackers, people flinch but take no notice; the police aren’t bothered and four of them on massive white horses
that look like their antecedents were at Agincourt (it’s not that far away) just stroll on by up toward the main street. If this was Alderman Rec’ in Ipswich there would be pandemonium “Oooh, you can’t do that here.”
There is still plenty of time to go until kick-off and we return to the car for me to slip on my pristine RC Lens T-shirt. We finally head for our seats, which cost just 17 Euros each and are at the far end of the stadium behind the goal, in the stand called Trannin. We wend our way through the ever increasing crowds. As I walk on I am handed a political leaflet about forthcoming local elections . At the top of the steps that lead to the Trannin there is a promotion by the Pasquer bakery company and attractive young women hand us little packets containing a small brioche roll
with a stick of chocolate stuffed through the middle. It’s a new product from Pasquer called “Match” and the packaging tells me it’s given away free and is not for re-sale; another business plan down the tubes. Having acquired a dessert I need a main course and there is a big friterie truck right in front of me at the back of the stand, so chips and beer it is
. Like I said, this is northern France, chips and beer is what these French people want and it’s what they get. Also, weirdly, the beer outside the stadium is alcoholic, inside it’s not; no wonder it’s busy out here. I go back to get some mayonnaise to put on my chips, as is the custom in these parts. I pump the dispenser and nothing happens, so pump it five, six, seven times more and then it sprays out all over the place accompanied by a nasty farting noise. I get mayonnaise on my sleeve, but there is some on my chips too so it’s not all bad and the bloke stood next to me doesn’t seem to notice that he has mayonnaise splattered down the side of his coat. Sniggering stupidly, but at the same time apologetically, I make a strategic withdrawal.
Full of chips and beer we enter the stadium through the automated turnstile and I pick up a copy of the free match programme; it’s just a folded A3 sheet but it gives you the two squads, the table and the permutations that will see Lens promoted, and that’s all anyone needs; save the vacuous interviews for the football papers. We climb up to our seats in
the the second tier from where the view is fantastic because the stadium is fantastic. The Stade Felix Bolaert Delilis consists of four steep stands that tower over the pitch, they are all painted white, with white metal mesh cladding at the back and sides. When I last came to a game in Lens in 2005, as big as they were some of the stands had amazing wooden roofs; a lesson in sustainable construction, but the refurbishment for the 2016 European Championships sadly did away with those, although the result is nevertheless breath-taking. Each corner of the ground is marked by a soaring spike which looks like it might be a floodlight pylon, but isn’t, the spikes are there to unify the four stands. Once again the French demonstrate their clear ability and desire to make an architectural statement with a football stadium, something desperately lacking in Britain; although Ipswich’s Sir Bobby Robson stand is a happy exception, they just need to tie the other three stands in with it.
Once inside, predictably the stadium is rocking; it is full with the attendance announced as 37,700. From every stand the thrill of the occasion is palpable. Scarves are held aloft and the club anthem is sung with gusto
. Flares are lit amongst the ultras who occupy the lower tier of the Marek Xerces stand at the side of the pitch; they wave banners and flags ceaselessly. We all have coloured A1 paper sheets beneath our seats which we hold aloft and the stadium is a sea of red and gold; the blood and the gold (le sang et or); it’s loud, very loud and it’s bloody brilliant, like blood and gold, naturellement. The stadium announcer tells us the team, announcing each player’s first name and then pausing as in unison the crowd shout back his surname. Lens are kicking towards Trannin and at 37 minutes past eight they are top of the league as the brilliantly named Kermit Erasmus
(middle name Romeo) smashes the ball home after an initial shot is blocked. Man, this is good! The railway line from that marvellous station runs behind the main stand and the trains hoot their horns as they go past,
sounding “Allez Lens” as best they can. Five minutes later and it’s not quite so good, the word is Amiens have scored at Reims and are now top, although Lens remain second and therefore still in line for automatic promotion. At a quarter to eight the mood shifts a little again, a corner is nodded on at the near post and Cristian barges through to head in a second goal for Lens, but as he does so Strasbourg score at home to Bourg-en-Bresse and Lens are knocked back in to the play-off (Barrage) position. But Erasmus and Cristian are the goalscorers, God must be on Lens’ side tonight.
Despite having dropped from top to third Lens are still better off than they were at the start of the night and a bit after ten to eight our mobile phones tell us that Troyes are losing at Sochaux and by half-time they are losing 2-0. The mood remains confident, 2-0 up and even if that means a play-off match, what team is going to fancy coming to Lens? This is the most fun I have had all season, this is football as it should be with a slightly lairy, almost insanely passionate crowd doing their all to support their team, willing them to win. I remember football like this in the 1970’s with scarves held aloft and twirled above our heads; Lens fans still do this and a banner at the far end reads “ Magic Fans”, that is so 1970’s, the age before things were awesome or cool, when they were “Magic”. Bringing things up to date however, one banner reads “Bollaert Boys” whilst a short distance away another reads “Girls 2009” showing that sexual equality has reached the spectators. Mai ’68 wasn’t in vain. Incidentally, the French clubs take their women’s teams much more seriously than we seem to in Britain. Nevertheless, sexism still seems to be alive and well as dancing girls adorn the pitch at half time and an all-male shoot-out takes place, although sexual politics don’t seem to affect the raffle of a new Nissan car amidst a minor display of non-gender specific pyrotechnics.
The fervour of the crowd remains strong as the second half begins and a pair of rather drunk young lads make a spectacle of themselves whilst trying to urge even greater support from the crowd. A female steward instructs them to go and sit down and obediently they walk away, but as soon as she is gone they joyously and amusingly return, skipping with puckish delight.
They stagger and wave and entertain looking like a pissed-up Ant and Dec whilst the rest of the crowd hurl screwed up programmes and those coloured pieces of paper at their heads.
Back on the pitch and within a quarter of an hour Kermit Erasmus alarmingly tries to cancel out his goal as his under hit back pass leads to a penalty for Niort; the team from the far west of France score to add further to the tension and then they begin to show some of the form that took them away from the relegation zone and Lens start to look nervous. Lens manager Alain Casanova doesn’t hang about and makes changes, the first one of which is to replace Kermit Erasmus with Abdelrafik Garard. But then a wave of joy crashes through the crowd as we learn of a Reims equaliser against Amiens and Lens are back into second place; and there they sit until just three minutes before full-time when the news is that Troyes have come back from 2-0 down to lead 3-2 at Sochaux and Lens are once again in the play-off position. It’s not ideal, but it will do and Cristian adds another goal in the second minute of time added on just to be sure that Niort won’t be emulating Lazarus. A minute later the referee Monsieur Letexier calls time on what has been an enthralling game and we are left to wait for the final score to come in from Reims. All the other teams in the top six have won but Amiens are drawing at seventh placed Reims, which leaves Lens in third and the play-off. The Lens players remain on the pitch.
Noooo! The man in front of me holds his head in his hands and curses incomprehensibly. Jaws drop all around, there is sadness, there is anger, there is disbelief. In the sixth minute of time added on Emmanuel Bourgaud has scored for Amiens pushing them up into second place, sending Troyes down in to the play-off place and condemning Lens to another season in Ligue 2. Mon Dieu! I am shocked,although I had half wanted Amiens to go up having seen them earlier this year, I feel like I have been folded into the heart of the Lensoises tonight; I have cheered and gasped and drank and eaten chips with them, I have worn the T-shirt and squirted mayonnaise at them; I feel their pain, their numbness. Je suis un Lensoise! This is awful. How can something that was so good so quickly feel so hollow?
Most of the crowd stay in the stands to applaud their team, in spite of their disappointment. These people are true supporters. They show no need for recriminations, they love their club. We leave them to their grief, we were Lensoises for an evening only and a Pompey fan and an Ipswich fan cannot authentically share that grief, we are frauds really; they have our sympathy but we must leave them to it. We slip away, back to our car. It’s 10:30 but we are staying 40 minutes away in Lille and we have another match to go to tomorrow night and it’ll take a friggin’ age to get out of the car park. Stay tuned for the next not quite as exciting instalment, Lille v Nantes.
Colchester United 2 Yeovil Town 0
It is the last Saturday of the football league season, well sort of; in fact it is one of two last Saturdays of the football season and a last Sunday. Thanks to the need to create a television extravaganza out of the resolution of the promotion and relegation places the third division finished last Sunday, the second division finishes with noon kick-offs tomorrow and the fourth division finishes today with all the games kicking off at five-thirty, a time when most civilised people should be thinking about what they’re having for tea. The first division (I think they call it the Premier League nowadays) finishes I don’t know when and I don’t care; I don’t suppose Leicester will be winning it this year though, it’ll be back in the oily grasp of one of the usual cartel no doubt.
It’s a bit of a grey uninteresting day for the time of year, but with the occasional burst of sunshine, which conveniently is how I would sum up the season I have just witnessed following mostly Ipswich Town and Colchester United. I take the train to Colchester sitting across the gangway from of a man in a sports jacket and jeans and neatly coiffured hair and his female companion who is dressed similarly, but her jacket is more tailored and the jeans more tapered and a bit too tight if I’m honest; it’s not a look I would endorse for either of them, if asked. I sneeze from the effects of their perfume and body spray which mingle poisonously.
Arriving in Colchester I make the short walk to the Bricklayers Arms and drink £7.30’s worth of Adnams Oyster Stout, which sounds a lot when written like that. I drink one pint indoors and one in the garden, where I risk lung disease from the smokers. The pub is busy and I joke with the bloke on the table next to me about how long he is going to have to wait for his mate to come back with another beer. Eventually everyone is drinking and talking football. “He’s a good player that Alves”… I like that Spanish football”…. “Still a lot of diving though”…”That Luiz, wasn’t he good at free-kicks?” …”Yeah, he scored a good one earlier in the season” ….” Who’d he play for before then?” ….”PSG and Benfica”. Worn down by the conversation people clear off to get the bus to the Weston Homes Out In The Middle of Nowhere Stadium. As I leave the pub a bill board of Pierce Brosnan
makes me laugh out loud as I recall his Texan accent from a trailer I saw for his new BT TV epic serial; but with his bushy grey beard he just looks a bit of a twat too.
As I get to the bus stop I’ve just missed one bus, but having parted with £2.50 I get to choose whatever seat I want on the top-deck of the next one. 
This bus soon fills up and then we’re off and then we’re there; it’s not far. A young lad in the seat behind me is incredulous as the bus draws up outside the stadium and he sees the car park and crowds beyond. “Cor! That’s really good for League Two” he says with the enthusiasm of youth. “Yeah, but it’s all glory hunters today innit” replies his slightly older and more worldly wise friend and indeed the older boy is right. Having struggled by on gates on three thousand for most of the season , there are more than twice as many here today (6,565 is the official figure) as Colchester have a chance of making the play-offs, along with about half the other teams in the division.
After purchasing a programme (£3) I join one of
four long queues into the South Stand, standing behind a fat man with a very growly voice. At the back of the stand on the way from the bus stops a man in uniform with a little green Land Rover is recruiting for the Army. It seems a bit unfair to try and recruit from Col U fans who it seems are already an endangered species without actively putting them in harm’s way. I don’t suppose we will be hearing “Billy don’t be a hero” played over the public address system this evening.
The queue moves slowly, and finally at the third attempt my bar-coded ticket unlocks the turnstile. After using the minimalist, almost “Scandi-style” stainless steel and breeze-block urinals I take up my seat not long before the game kicks-off. The game begins, I watch the opening exchanges carefully, intently even, but then see a steward I know who is peering up into the stand, looking for ‘troublemakers’ most likely . She sees me too and we give a little wave diffusing the intensity of the start of the game. Phew.
The atmosphere today is atypical of a Col U match; I can’t hear those echoing calls from lone voices abusing the opposition and giving quirky encouragement; if they are here they are lost in the murmur of an additional three and half thousand voices, 
people unfamiliar with the etiquette that demands you sound off at football. It’s not a bad game though and Col U are looking the better team and with a half hour gone that provokes one spectator, presumably anxious about a play-off place and therefore frustrated that the U’s haven’t scored yet, to break ranks and shout critically “we’re going backwards”. In England the concept of just keeping possession of the ball is still one that a lot of people struggle with.
Then, at about five past six, a space appears, enough to allow No 31 Tarique Fosu-Henry a clear sight of the Yeovil goal; he shoots, he scores and Colchester are winning and for the time being are in 7th position in the league, and in the play-offs.
“Layer Road” is all of a quiver now and a few people are on their feet whilst the stewards gather at one end of the stand to quell any over-excitement. 
Fifteen minutes later and the voice from the public address system still sounds unfeasibly excited as he announces that the fourth official has indicated there will be at least 2 minutes of added on time to be played before it’s time for a cuppa.
With the half-time whistle I dash back to the Scandi-lav just in time to have to avoid a collision with a woman turning around and rushing out in a state of sheer panic. She’d taken a wrong turn, I guess, I hope. Having left the khasi and then spoken to my steward friend I return to my seat to peruse the programme, enjoying a couple of the names in the Yeovil squad, starting with their number four who rejoices under the name of Bevis Mugabi, which is wonderful and beautifully reminds us that the odious president of Zimbabwe is Butthead Mugabe. Two other fine names belong to Brandon Goodship and Ollie Bassett, Bertie’s brother.
The start of the second half witnesses mental flip-flopping from the two teams as Colchester seem to switch from thinking “Yay, we’re winning” to “No, we have something to lose” whilst Yeovil switch from “Oh crap, we’re losing” to “We’re losing, that is an affront to our sporting sensibilities”. Hence Yeovil, or the Glovers as they are known, take the upper hand, gloved presumably and metaphorically they throw a few punches or lay down the gauntlet. It doesn’t last long though and Colchester’s Drey (yeah, like the squirrel nest) Wright is sent through on goal with just the goalie to beat. But Jonathan Maddison’s gloves, hopefully made in Yeovil, are not tested as Drey simply misses the goal.
The excitement subsides a bit as the scoreboard tells us about forthcoming Status Quo and Bon Jovi tribute acts and the man next to me folds his arms across his chest because it’s getting a bit chilly, or perhaps because he doesn’t like tribute acts. I notice that Yeovil are playing up to a West Country stereotype by advertising the name of Thatcher’s cider on their shirts and then the scoreboard tells us that we could “Get close to the action for as little as 10p a day”, which makes me wonder if there is £36.50’s worth of stuff I need or even want to know about Col U in the course of a year. At the edge of pitch an advertising board says “Macron” ;
it’s good to know that we’re not supporting that dreadful Le Pen woman in tomorrow’s French presidential election.
Col U are still in the play-offs but not too much is happening and on 72 minutes some supporters desperate to cheer something celebrate a goal for Accrington Stanley at Stevenage, another team with a chance of qualifying for a play-off place. But there is a better reason to celebrate four minutes later as the ball is pulled back across goal leaving Tarique Fosu-Henry in sufficient space for a second time to score for a second time. A lairy looking character runs onto the pitch and is hauled away by stewards.
Everything is going swimmingly for Col U or is it? Word arrives that just before Colchester scored their second goal Carlisle United had taken the lead away at Exeter City, pushing Colchester United down into 8th place, outside the play-off places. A pall of near silence falls over “Layer Road”. It’s now quiet enough to hear an anxious voice shout “tackle him”, although he’d better advised to try and cheer on Exeter City. The dream is fading and the part-time supporters first drift and then flood away, 
leaving a row of empty seats in front of me along with a pile of empty sweet wrappers but taking with them the promise of tooth decay, obesity and type two diabetes.
With the final whistle I head post-haste for the bus back to the railway station. Col U played well and deserve their lap of honour in front of their fans, but stuff that I want to get home. My wife has been keeping me updated about her team Portsmouth, who have won the Division Four championship this afternoon and champagne is once again in the fridge just waiting for me to open it for her. Play Up Pompey!
Later that evening I fall asleep on the bed fully clothed.
Ipswich Town 0 Sheffield Wednesday 1
I am on the train to Ipswich for the last home match of the season at Portman Road. My fellow passengers are mostly male. Opposite me is a man who looks like he’s about eighty, he has thin blue lips and a white moustache, but it’s nature that’s done that to him, he hasn’t dressed up for the football, he’s not regretting that he didn’t have any face paints. Another man, probably in his seventies shares the hamster like facial features of Kenny Jacket, whilst another has to ask people to excuse him as he passes down the train to and from the lavatory because of his rotund figure; he wears a T-shirt that says “Weekend Offender”, he is probably a Sheffield Wednesday supporter; we know that northerners drink too much beer and are therefore obese. His northern accent is the clincher.
At Ipswich station there are two policemen in the foyer and three over the road outside the Station Hotel and another two guarding the path down to the car park beyond the bridge over the river. Are they expecting trouble or are they just there to tell people the time? The sun is shining warmly on this bright spring day and there aren’t many people about, although several of the ones that are about are wearing football shirts. Portman Road is a tad busier than usual for half past one on a match day as people stand about waiting for the turnstiles to open. A man wrestles wide-eyed and open-mouthed with a tomato sauce smeared sausage in a bun, which looks like it could slither from his grasp at any moment. The burger concessions, programme dealer
and souvenir seller aren’t busy and a car park attendant
sits down on the job. Up round the bend in St Jude’s Tavern the usual football Saturday clientele are there, mostly world weary , white haired and balding, one of them shouts “McCarthy Out” as he gets up to go. After two pints of very tasty Earl Soham Victoria Bitter (£3.20 a pint) and a chat with a friend called Mick which covers football, politics, street-drinkers and getting old, I get up and go too. The season finale beckons like a bin bag that must be put out for the morning refuse collection.
In Portman Road a late arriving coach disgorges Wednesdayites onto the pavement as
two policeman look on; I like to think they have individually welcomed everyone on that bus to Ipswich and wished them a pleasant stay. Northern voices chant about going somewhere and not knowing or caring how they are going to get there; the somewhere it transpires is the Premier League. They should be careful what they wish for. Three Star Wars storm troopers walk past.
Inside the ground the atmosphere builds amongst the Sheffielders who are in high spirits anticipating clinching a place in the promotion play-offs; there are 2,003 of them in a reported crowd of 19,000. A mooted boycott of the match by Town fans who don’t like Mick McCarthy doesn’t seem to have happened; or not so as anyone would notice. The Ipswich crowd look on impassively. It’s the fag end of the season, the empty husk that once contained hopes and dreams now dashed on the terraces like the guts and brains of a piece of roadkill. There should be a minute’s silence in its memory or seeing as it’s football where the crowd aren’t trusted to shut-up, a minute’s applause; but that would smack of irony which is a bit sophisticated for us football fans.
The match begins. Sheffield Wednesday are wearing black shirts and day-glo orange shorts which look like they would be useful in case of floodlight failure or to council highway workers in warm weather. The pitch is well watered and some players slip over. After eight minutes in an apparently unrelated incident 
two men with buckets and mops walk along the front of the stand towards a sign that says Exit & Toilets. Sheffield press the Ipswich goal in the manner of the wolf in the story of the the Three Little Pigs and cause few problems for the Ipswich defence and fewer for goalkeeper Bartosz Bialkowski. Ipswich in turn cause even fewer problems for the Wednesday defence and goalkeeper, but aren’t playing too badly in the context of the season as a whole. A beach ball that looks like an oversized football 
almost makes it onto the pitch, but a steward takes up the challenge of chasing it along the pitchside and then having caught it squeezing it between himself and the perimeter wall to deflate it. It takes 25 minutes for the Ipswich drums in the Sir Bobby Robson Stand to strike up, but they could only have been passing through as they soon stop and are not heard again. The Wednesday fans are enjoying themselves indulging in some schadenfreude as to Joy Division’s tune they sing “Leeds, Leeds are falling apart, again”. At about twenty to four Ipswich’s Cole Skuse, who will be played by George Clooney in the film of the season, is cautioned for some arm grabbing by referee Mr Coote whose surname makes up a fine threesome with his two lugubrious sounding assistants Mr Lugg and Mr Blunden.
Half-time arrives as it always does and I scan the programme (£3.00) in which Chief Executive Ian Milne amusingly dismisses the season 
in his opening paragraph by saying “I am not going to repeat the reasons or mitigating circumstances for a disappointing season”. Oh go on ‘Milney’, please do. Elsewhere good luck is wished to the club’s PR manager Jade Cole, who is departing Portman Road after ten years. From her picture she looks like she must have been about twelve when she got the job. Did she jump or was she 
pushed? She didn’t do much of a job with that 500% season ticket price rise for the Under 11’s or the overnight change in the qualifying age for concessions from 60 to 65 did she? But with policies like that may be her position had become untenable? Doing PR for President Assad might be easier.
The second-half begins with renewed vigour from Sheffield Wednesday who barely let Ipswich have the ball at all now. On their right, number 33,the compact Ross Wallace ‘prods and probes’ and from the far end of the pitch he looks like a poor man’s Mathieu Valbuena, the Olympique Lyon player, about whom incidentally, French TV & Radio journo Guy Carlier has written a book called “Qui veut tuer Mathieu Valbuena” (Who wants to kill Mathieu Valbuena”). Wallace hits a post with a shot which deceives Bartosz Bialkowski into thinking he can reach it.
From an Ipswich perspective the second half is absolutely awful, they do nothing of any note or which could be deemed entertaining and are dominated by the council road men from South Yorkshire. Is a lack of spending in the transfer market by owner Marcus Evans to blame? Sheffield Wednesday meanwhile clearly have money to burn as two men with holdalls containing wet sponges, rather than just the usual one run on to the pitch to treat Ross Wallace when he is down injured. There are seventeen minutes left and a muffled “Come On Ipswich” is heard, but it is only fleeting and I ask myself if it was real or just a ghostly memory of better days carried up the steps and across the seats on the cold breeze blowing down Portman Road from the shade behind the Cobbold Stand.
This looks like it is going to be a goalless draw, but then with thirteen minutes to go Sheffield Wednesday number five, Kieran Lee deftly flicks the ball into the Ipswich goal from close range to make the assembled northerners very happy and make the Ipswich public probably do nothing more than roll their eyes, if they react at all. To the tune of ‘Knees Up Mother Brown’ the Sheffield Wednesday fans sing “ We are Wednesday, We are Wednesday, Carlos Is our King”, a song first heard on the streets of Madrid in 1975 with the accession to the Spanish throne of Juan Carlos the first in the wake of the Franco regime. It won’t be a goalless draw after all I muse, it will probably be a 1-0 win to the away team, and so it proves.
Between that goal and the final whistle I ponder whether the advert for Greene King IPA
beer on one landing on the stairs in the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand and the instruction that alcoholic drinks are not allowed in view of the pitch
on the next is symbolic of the sense of promise followed by disappointment that prevails at Portman Road. Just to compound that, as the match ends and as the half-hearted Suffolk boos are booed the stadium announcer tells us that the Town players will come back out from the dressing room to do an end of season lap of honour around the ground, but then adds that of course it is an offence punishable by death for supporters to enter onto the pitch. Thinking back, he may not have mentioned punishment by death, but nevertheless it’s as if those who run Ipswich Town can’t just concentrate on the positive things, they have to put you in your place as well; miserable bastards, sucking the life and the love from the game.
Unsurprisingly, I don’t wait for that lap of dis-honour and am rewarded by getting the 5.00pm train from which I stare out of the window and watch Ipswich receding into the distance, forgetting a forgettable season and remembering a not-that-faraway place where it is permitted to consume alcohol in view of the pitch, but drunks probably plot to murder Mathieu Valbuena.
trippingovertheball 