Ipswich Town 0 Newcastle United 4

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I had hoped that I might be able to acquire an extra ticket for today’s game, which I would have given to my friend of forty years or more, Jah, who is a Newcastle United fan.  Predictably perhaps, the slender avenues of opportunity were few and they proved to be culs-des-sacs.  I’m not a member, and having a season ticket continuously for over forty years counts for nothing; I was resigned to my fate.  There are now, no doubt some who having read the above are apoplectic with rage that I should consider buying a ticket for someone supporting the opposition team.  To them I say “Grow up, it’s only a game” and “Yah boo, sucks”.

It’s the Winter Solstice today, a grey day, like most days lately, but the train is on time and I see a polar bear through the window  as we descend into Ipswich through Wherstead, which is better than seeing one inside the carriage.  Gary is not with me again today; after going to previous matches with his brother and then having hurt his chest, which made him unable to make the hike up to the Arb, he has now awoken to find a toenail hanging off and so once again cannot make the trek to the pub.  Alone, but in the company of hundreds of other people sporting blue and white favours, I make my way to Portman Road to buy a programme (£3.50) from one of the booths that I hope will one day also sell ice creams, and observe the gathering crowd.  The Bobby Robson statue sports a “half and half” scarf, which controversially suggests he was what people younger than me call a “plastic fan”, when in fact he’s probably made of bronze.  People are having their photographs taken with the statue and I think of two songs by the Kinks, ‘Plastic Man’ and ‘People take pictures of each other’

At the Arb, I am mercifully served quickly and take my pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£4.14 with Camra discount) into the beer garden where I sit at one of the tables in the shelter, opposite a couple who are probably in their forties and seem pleased that this part of the shelter has the benefit of two electric heaters, even if it’s not going to help save the planet. I am a minute or two early; I’d arranged to meet Mick at 13:45 and an exchange of text reveals he is only now leaving home, so I read the programme I bought earlier and reflect on how the pieces by the manager , CEO and captain are just like every other piece by a manager, CEO or captain I have ever read before , but then, what is there to say?  Today’s front cover, which isn’t the front cover (it’s inside the back page) is by a designer called James Hobson, who if his picture is to be believed, wears 3D glasses possibly as a fashion accessory, or possibly when working or just when having his photo taken. Either way, I decide that I like his design, which is reminiscent of some of the more graphically adventurous programmes of the early 1970’s, of which Ipswich Town’s was sadly not one.  

In due course, Mick arrives and we talk of my wife, our siblings, Mick’s recently deceased neighbour, the smoke detectors in the flat in Felixstowe where Mick’s paramour lives, Christmas, how sentimental people are nowadays, and Gary’s absence.  At some stage I obtain a further pint of Suffolk Pride for me and a Jameson whisky for Mick (£8.80 with Camra discount) and we talk until a quarter to three, by which time we are alone in the beer garden and this makes us wonder why everyone is so keen to not just turn up as the game is about to begin.   After the easy downhill walk to Portman Road, we part at the junction of Sir Alf Ramsey Way and I make it to my seat in time to bawl out the surnames of three of the Town team as the excitable, although today very serious sounding young announcer reads the team line-up to us.  Naturally, Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood are already here.

Ipswich get first go with the ball this afternoon, but you wouldn’t know it, because no sooner has the game begun than Newcastle are one-nil up as a long ball forward, a cross, a very poor clearance and a bouncing shot puncture all our hopes of the sort of straightforward home win we crave.  There is a long wait of over a minute for VAR to dismiss the possibility of offside and predictably it does so.  “ Newcassul, Newcassul, Newcassul” sing the Geordies in the Cobbold stand and then “Haork, noww heeya …” with their accents coming across far clearer than the words they’re singing, in a way that is unmatched by supporters anywhere else in England.  The Town fans fall silent but then a brief chorus or three of “Come On You blues” rings out, before fading feebly into the gloom as darkening drizzle sweeps across the pitch and Newcastle dominate play, seemingly at times just through being bigger blokes.  Fifteen minutes up and it should be two-nil as Anthony Gordon heads down and the ball bounces over the Town bar.  Ipswich are incapable of holding onto the ball for more than a couple of passes, being brushed off the ball by these bigger boys; it’s like watching Under 15s play Under 13s.

The worst of it is that whilst Town are of course in blue and white, Newcastle have not turned up as Newcastle United in their famous black and white stripes, black shorts and stockings; no, they’re in some weird, needless arrangement of white shirts with green sleeves and green shorts, the colour of the Saudi Arabian flag.  “He’s good that thirty-nine” says the bloke behind me.  “He’s always available” .  “It’s Graham Harbey, isn’t it?” says the bloke next to him.   Twenty minutes gone and Jens Cajuste conjures Town’s first shot on goal, one that flies above the cross bar and hits a woman a few rows away.  Sam Morsy makes a saving tackle and is serenaded; I hope he likes Oasis.  “We’ve been a bit more involved, the last five minutes” says the bloke behind me and the drizzle has become rain and has begun sweeping in beneath the roof of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand. My trousers are flecked with spots of rain.

It’s the thirty second minute, Newcastle have the ball, just passing it about around the Town penalty area, then they’re two-nil up.  A bloke with the unpromising name of Jacob Murphy just fires the ball into the roof of the goal net. Apparently he used to play for Norwich City, and Wikipedia tells us he is a nephew of former Town bench-warmer Tommy Parkin.  The goal happened so quickly it feels like Newcastle have scored without even bothering to have had a shot.  Hurt, but not beaten I chant “We’re going to win 3-2”, to the tune of Blue Moon, the 1934 song by Rodgers and Hart, but I feel as if I’m being ignored.  I tell Fiona that I recall Town beating Newcastle 5-4 back in March of 1975 “I remember it was a wet afternoon like this….” I tell her wistfully.  I also recall Town losing 0-3 to Newcastle the following August, but I don’t mention that.

The bloke sitting beside me and the blokes behind me leave for the bar, being two-nil down is evidently more than they can bear without the crutch of alcohol, they may need help.  “Bruno, Bruno” chant the Newcastle fans, and then “There’s only one Bobby Robson”, although in truth there is either no Bobby Robson anymore or there are several of them, all of whom remain, so far, unknown to us.  There are ten minutes until half-time and Conor Chaplin takes his usual sit down on the turf to allow everyone a few moments of remedial coaching on the touchline and to put in their orders for half-time refreshments.

With play resumed and half-time fast approaching, Muric makes a flying save from a shot by someone metaphorically draped in the Saudi flag. The approach of half-time is then slowed down as four minutes of added on time are announced and Sam Szmodics replicates Jens Cajuste’s earlier shot over the cross bar, meaning Town have at least now had two attempts at scoring.  But seeing a goal not scored at the far end, Muric then seemingly decides to try and create one at his own end as he suggests belief in the infallibility of Jens Cajuste by passing to him when there is a Newcastle player directly next to him.  Sadly, Jens is not infallible, and an outstretched leg robs him of the ball which runs to Alexander Isak who has the embarrassing task of scoring from a just a few yards out.  Now trailing three-nil, Town win their first corner of the game and I chant “Come On You Blues” with decreasing enthusiasm as hope is sucked from me by the aura of gloom all around. Inevitably the bigger boys get the ball away.

Half-time is a relief as I get to jettison excess Suffolk Pride, look at the half-time scores and eat a Nature Valley Crunchy Oats & Honey bar.  It is six minutes past four when the match resumes with Ali Al-Hamadi having appeared in place of Omari Hutchinson; within four minutes a busy Al-Hamadi has a shot blocked.  A glowing advert for Hawk Express Cabs makes its way along the front of the North Stand offering a number to call for anyone lacking the mental strength needed for Premier League football and seeking a means of escape.  Fortunately, none of the Town players’ shorts look large enough to conceal a mobile phone inside, except perhaps Jack Clarke’s, but he’s only a substitute today.

The situation nearly worsens as Bruno hits a post with a header in the fifty-first minute, but this  is a mere stay of execution as three minutes later Isak completes a hat-tick  of goals, unexpectedly stabbing the ball into the net past Muric as Town defenders flounder all around him. “Damage limitation now” says the bloke behind me, although I’m feeling that the damage is already done.  Over in the Cobbold stand, the away fans go all folksie and start singing  the Blaydon Races and Fiona says “ I can’t hear you singing we’re going to win 5-4” .  Perhaps because we’re not going to.

Town substitutions are made in the sixty-second minute as Cajuste and Chaplin wish good luck to Phillips and Taylor.  A minute later Wes Burns gets down the wing and puts in a deep cross, or is a shot? Either way it evades the far post, but is worth a round of applause before Newcastle make their own substitutions and Sam Morsy is booked.  “Is it worth getting Monkey out? “ asks Pat from Clacton, hoping to revive the Town via the mystical properties of a key ring from Vietnam featuring a masturbating monkey.  “He’ll have his work cut out” I tell her “it’ll exhaust him”.  But it’s Newcastle who win a corner and when it’s passed, I ask Pat what she’s having for her tea.  The answer is a baked potato with chicken in sticky sauce from Marks & Spencer.  Fiona doesn’t know what she’s having for her tea yet, and I don’t either. 

Twenty minutes left until we can go home and Town win a second corner of the game, Leif Davis holds the ball above his head before he takes it to indicate that it’s one which a Newcastle player will boot clear.   Six minutes on and Al-Hamadi is booked before Town’s final substitutions bid a farewell until next time to Szmodics and Wes Burns, and “Hello” to Ben Johnson and Nathan Broadhead, who is soon having a shot saved by the diving Newcastle goalkeeper, which possibly makes Nathan our man of the match in an attacking sense.  Today’s attendance is announced as 29,774 with 2,991 being potential extras for TV series such as ‘Vera’, ‘Spender’, ‘Our friends in the North’, When the Boat Comes In’ and ‘The Likely Lads’.

“Na Na, NaNa, Na Na” sing the Newcastle fans to the tune of the 1969 hit “Na Na, Hey Hey, Kiss Him Goodbye”, just as Bob Ferris and Terry Collier might have done at the time had they been real people.   Less than ten minutes of normal time remain and Al-Hamadi shoots high and wide and the advert for the Hot Sausage Company makes an appearance between the tiers on the front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand, but the power of advertising is waning because of a mass exodus from the stands as people believe that missing the final whistle will help them deny they were ever here.

Before we all finally slope off into the night, four minutes of added on time produce another goal for Newcastle, for a short while anyway, but this time VAR is the Town supporters’ friend as the messy goal line event is deemed to have been an offside incident.  This is a rare good thing on an afternoon of mostly bad things, and I may cherish the memory of it for some time.  My friend Jah will later send me a message to say that he was glad he wasn’t at the match because despite Newcastle being “imperious” (pfft) it’s not nice being present at the death of hope.  What he doesn’t know is that I’ve witnessed the death of hope dozens of times at Portman Road and it’s not dead yet.

Stade de Reims 0 AS Monaco 0

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When planning a long weekend trip to France, ostensibly to enjoy a Christmas market, it is important to ensure that there will also be a convenient football fixture to attend, there’s only so much mulled wine, churros and roast chestnuts that one can imbibe after all.  So it is that with Amiens away to Laval and Lille in Marseille, I find myself with my wife Paulene in Reims (pronounced Rance but without really saying the ‘n’), city of Champagne, art deco architecture, Gothic splendour and the place where Clovis, the first king of what would become France, was baptised in about four ninety-seven.  Coincidentally, in two night’s time this very same Clovis will be the answer to a question on University Challenge about which king was baptised in Reims in about four ninety-seven.

The dramatic concrete shapes of Stade Auguste Delaune, home of Stade de Reims are a twenty-five minute walk from our hotel according to Google maps.  With kick off at 9pm local time we set off well before eight o’clock to allow for my wife’s short legs and asthma, and getting lost.  The last time we went to a match in Reims we caught a tram, but that night our hotel was near a tram stop; tonight it’s not and it’s probably just as well because I don’t think the trams are running, something about an earlier “perturbation” (disturbance) and a “greve” (strike).  It’s a marrow chillingly cold evening, so a walk will keep the circulation going, and it is warmer than it has been during the afternoon, when it rained; an hour away to the north there are reports of snow.

Two of the satisfyingly avant-garde, pointy floodlights of the Stade Auguste Delaune eventually hove into view like a seven or eight centuries late alternative to the Gothic spires that the magnificent cathedral of Notre-Dame de Reims was meant to have, but never did; cancelled like a medieval HS2.  The whole stadium then appears before us as we reach the busy Boulevard Paul Doumer and cross over the Aisne-Marne canal and Voie Jean Tattinger, which run side by side.  Eventually, we reach the stadium and the short queue to negotiate security who pat us down thoroughly. It is strange how at French football matches, despite much tighter security than in England, someone, and often several people, always seem to be able to sneak in some flares or smoke canisters.

After a brief visit to the club boutique, where I decide 29.95 euros is too much for a T-shirt, we make our way to the other side of the stadium, past statues and murals of Raymond Kopa and Juste Fontaine, who were the French Ted Phillips and Ray Crawford in 1962, to the turnstiles and our seats  (35 euros each) in the  upper tier of the tribune Francis Meano.  We take it in turns to use the facilities and as I wait for Paulene I stand and watch two men looking very pleased with themselves as they drink champagne and photograph themselves at the back of the stand.  Sadly, I haven’t spotted any programmes, and with our tickets being on our phone I will have no memento of this game only memories, unless that is I rip my seat off its concrete base and hide it under my coat on the way out..

Stade Auguste Delaune is an exciting looking stadium, the work of architect Michel Remon. It was completed in 2008 and is on the site of the ground where the club has always played.  Weirdly however, there is perhaps less to it than meets the eye, as it is skeletal with no enclosed landings or concourses, only the vaulted, cantilevered roofs over the four tribunes.  In contrast to most similar sized English stadiums (21,684 capacity) however, it is a triumph of rakish angles, steps, curves and concrete, not a defeat to painted metal sheeting and tubular steel.

On arrival at the top of the final flight of stairs, we stand a moment to get our bearings and look about to try and spot our seats amongst the lettered rows.  Immediately to our right sits a line of six men and women in late middle age and one much younger male; all of them are, not to put too fine a point on it, very fat.  Like Michel Platini or Zinedine Zidane about to take a free-kick over a defensive wall into the top corner of the goal, our brains and eyes quickly and instinctively make a  calculation and conclude that we will not be able to squeeze past these enormous people to our seats, and nor would we want to.  Instead, we opt for a short free-kick, walking unopposed along the row behind, which fortuitously is completely vacant.  We sit in the seats directly behind where we should be sitting and hope no one has bought them. As  we await kick-off, we take in the sights and sounds of flashing floodlights and a bullish stadium announcer, who although annoying in almost every way imaginable, reads out the first names of the home team wonderfully, providing the perfect cues for the home crowd to bellow the players’ surnames; and what surnames they are, Agbadou, Atangana Edoa and Nakamura to name just three.  Who wouldn’t enjoy shouting those out?

When the game begins it is Monaco who get first go with the ball, aiming it mostly in the direction of the goal to our left, which stands before the tribune Albert Batteux and the turnstiles through which we entered the stadium.  Monaco wear an all bottle green kit, looking like and yet looking nothing like a more chromatically subdued Yeovil Town or Gorleston.  Reims parade in their signature home kit of red shirts with white sleeves and shorts, like a sophisticated Rotherham United, albeit from a city steeped in Champagne and the historic coronation of French royalty rather than scrap metal.

To our right, behind the other goal, but confined to a corner are the Monaco fans, about 900 of them and they are in fine voice, chanting “Monagasque, Monagasque” and “Allez, Allez, Monaco” to the constant rhythm of a drum, the beater of which hardly ever looks up at the match, it’s as if he’s here in a wholly professional capacity, just to beat the drum.  I like to think he’s on the payroll of Prince Albert, the Monagasque sovereign.

Since the game began, the seats to our right have become occupied, the three closest to us being a temporary home to three impossibly smart and neatly presented young people, a man and two women. The man sits between Paulene and the taller of the two women, who is dressed in white trousers over which she wears a long white fur coat; she probably spent more time applying her make-up and doing her hair than she’ll spend at the match.  On the pitch, eleven quite dull minutes pass before the first shot of the game arrives, an effort which goes both wide of and above the goal.  The shot is by the usually pretty reliable Aleksandr Golovin, a player who for some reason I consider to be a Dean Bowditch lookalike.

Golovin’s impressively inaccurate goal attempt will unexpectedly prove to be representative of the whole match and ten minutes later Monaco’s Eliesse Ben Seghir is through on goal but smashes a terrible shot over the cross bar.  Seven minutes after that Monaco’s Takumi Minamino is all on his own in much the same position and succeeds in winning the game’s first corner.  Although hopeless in front of goal, Monaco have been marginally the better side until Reims breakaway, win a corner and Marshall Munetsi glances a header over the Monaco cross bar.  The Monaco supporters continue to chant and sing however, undeterred by a line of half a dozen stewards who cover some of the area in front of the stand , like a sort of human Maginot line, which would inevitably be easily breached if anyone made it onto the pitch.

The descent towards half-time brings the worst miss yet as Reims’ Keto Nakamura appears to be set up perfectly at the far post after a break down the right , only to despatch the ball in almost the completely the wrong direction in the manner of someone who has no idea what he is doing, or if he does, he doesn’t want to do it.   Another type of entertainment is soon provided by Monaco’s extravagantly numbered Soungoutu Magassa (number 88, but still not the highest numbered player on the field) as he is pointlessly booked for tugging at Junya Ito before Ito himself joins the ranks of players intent on blazing the ball as high and wide of the goal as possible.  With the final minute of the half and then added on time, Ben Seghir and Golovin shoot straight at Diouf the Reims goalkeeper and Reims ruin a promising looking  break from defence with an awful cross.

Half-time comes as a welcome break from the frustrating performances on the pitch and the girl in white fur embarks on her own personal telephone photo shoot as she explores how, through pictures she can tell the world of social media that she is at a football match.  In front of us the tubbiest people in the ground all up and leave, presumably for a re-fuel at the buvette; they are joined by another even larger , but younger woman from the row in front of them whose clothes fail to cover up a large expanse of what must be cold flesh where her top was meant to meet the top of her trousers.  On the pitch, we are entertained by three people attempting to kick a football through holes in a sheet hung across the face of one of the goals.   One of them fails to lift the ball off the ground in three attempts, but another scores one out of three, which everyone seems to agree is a decent effort.

At ten o’clock the football resumes and the Monaco fans unfurl a tifo which reads Daghe Munegu, which, if the Monagasque dialect is as similar to the Ligurian dialect as Wikipedia says it is, possibly means something like “Give it a chance”.  Sadly, as to why this makes any sense as a slogan at a football match, I have no idea, but it all adds to the colour, even though on this occasion the words on the tifo are in black type on a white background. Back on the field of play, the pattern of the first half more or less continues as Ito runs down the wing, cuts inside and sets up Diakite to shoot against the cross bar for arguably the best shot of the game so far.

Monaco have improved on their first half display and win three corners in quickish succession as the first hour of the match slips away into history.  Just to prove his increased commitment Kassoum Ouattara also gets himself booked.  The increasing cold is penetrating deeper into our bones and Paulene puts a blanket over her knees whilst the seats directly behind us are filled by teenagers who all seem to be supporting Monaco, as does the young woman in the white fur, who has begun squealing excitedly when Soungoutu Magassa gets anywhere near the ball.  In front of us, the weight watchers on a night out have returned to their seats and have colonised the places that are really ours, with buttocks straddling two seats at a time.  Monaco are the first to make substitutions, perhaps as the team of whom more is expected because they sit second in the Ligue 1 league table to Reims’s middling ninth.

The final twenty minutes witness a Reims corner which is headed away, but otherwise it is Monaco who come closest, but never particularly close to scoring.  Minamino gets past a defender only to shoot wide, substitute Elio Matazo scoops a shot over the bar and Ben Seghir shoots high too.  But it’s all grist for the Monaco fans who happily  sing  “Na Na, Nana, Naa, Naa, Wey hey hey, Monaco” to the tune of the 1969  single “Na na, Hey hey, Kiss him goodbye” by the made-up band Steam.  In the final ten minutes Henrique and Minamino add to the catalogue of missed goal attempts for Monaco and in time added on play ebbs back and forth in vain, whilst the young woman in the white furs, and her friend continue to yelp and shriek.  The final whistle confirms what had become increasingly likely, that neither team would score.  As we go to leave, the young man raises his eyebrows and possibly almost rolls his eyes. I’m not sure if his gesture is made in reference to the game or his accomplices, or all three.

The walk back to the hotel will prove to be long, cold and gently uphill,  and there still won’t be any trams.  As enjoyable as tonight has been tomorrow evening I think we’ll go back to the mulled wine, churros and roast chestnuts.

Ipswich Town 1 AFC Bournemouth 2

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It was a dark and stormy night, but luckily today is just grey and stormy…and wet.  The illuminated reindeer in the garden over the road, which actually looks more like a somewhat effete ‘Monarch of the Glen’ has fallen over, and I think its head might have come off too.  But life is not all good, and sadly I have to venture out on this inclement Sunday afternoon to watch Ipswich Town play AFC Bournemouth at the very un-footbally time of two o’clock.  I imagine the kick-off time is dictated by the match being broadcast on some obscure subscription tv channel owned by a billionaire, who likes to tinker with the lives of us little people.

Before AFC Bournemouth were AFC Bournemouth, this happened in 1972, they were Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic and had a club crest featuring birds, fish, lions, and a tree, all things I like to think were commonplace in the two seaside towns.  The crest also featured the Latin motto ‘Pulchritudo et Salubritas’, which isn’t a pithy line from the Catholic mass but rather translates as ‘beauty and health’, and sounds a bit like the name of a magazine for nudists, much enjoyed by schoolboys in the 1960’s and 1970’s, called Health and Efficiency.  As well as changing their name for the worse in an attempt to at least be top of an alphabetical league of football clubs, if not top of one based on footballing merit, AFC Bournemouth then changed their club crest to one in which a football hovers above the head of man with a receding hairline, who looks a bit like Ron Futcher, the former Luton Town and Tulsa Roughnecks centre-forward. The 1970’s would also see AFC Bournemouth provide a manager to Norwich City in the form of John Bond; such is their place in history.  I think Bournemouth was also possibly the only town in Britain where I ever rode on a trolleybus, but I can’t be sure. 

The train to Ipswich is on-time, but the journey is dull like the weather as the high-backed seat in front of me shields my eyes from glimpses of fellow passengers, but at least I see a polar bear through the train window,  albeit a rather grubby looking one.  I guess it’s difficult staying a whiter shade of pale when you should be in a snow field, not a muddy field.  Emerging from Ipswich railway station, I am met by wind and rain and murk.  I hurry across the bridge over the river and down to Portman Road, where I buy a programme (£3.50) from one of the blue kiosks, which look they should sell ice creams.  Reaching ‘the Arb’ I swear under my breath at the throng of people just inside the door who are between me and the bar.  One of them it turns out is Mick and he buys pints of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride while I head outside into the beer garden to find seats. Mick’s eventual arrival outside with the beers more or less coincides with the departure of another group of drinkers and we take their places in the shelter to discuss defeat to Crystal Palace, Syria, ultra-processed food, a forthcoming trip to Reims, what it’s like in Monaco and a text from Gary telling me he’d pulled a muscle in his chest and wasn’t going to make the walk up to ‘ the Arb’ today.  Another pint of Suffolk Pride and a Jameson whisky for Mick follow before with everyone else having left for Portman Road, we do too.  We part on the corner of Sir Alf Ramsey Way.

Unexpectedly, I make it to my seat alongside Fiona and next but one to 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 before the excitable young stadium announcer in the cheap looking suit has read out the teams, and I am therefore happily able to bellow out their surnames in the manner of a Frenchman.  “What a match we have for you this afternoon” witters the gangly announcer ridiculously, “Bournemouth”.   “Super Kieran Mckenna” chant the North standers, and Town get first go with the ball, kicking it towards me and my fellow ultras.  The Bournemouth fans up in the Cobbold stand sing the ‘Red Flag’ perhaps in solidarity with the Tolpuddle martyrs who would probably have been Bournemouth fans given the chance, being only 35 kilometres away.    Sam Morsy wins an early corner.

“You got here on time today then” says Pat accusingly. “Only by accident” I tell her. But now Bournemouth head towards the Town goal and their fans reveal that they probably bought their SatNavs from a dodgy looking bloke down the pub as they sing “Small Town in Norwich, You’re just a small town in Norwich”.   Liam Delap is booked for the sort of foul that school bullies commit, and I imagine him smirking as the referee tells him off; he is the Nelson Muntz of the current Ipswich team.  Bournemouth earn a corner of their own, but Ipswich have started the game very well and Sam Szmodics now wins a corner for Town after a flick at goal is deflected away.  “Come On You Blues” I bellow, just like everyone seemed to years ago.

It sounds like the Bournemouth fans are singing “Down with the Palace”, which I don’t think is some republican protest to accompany their singing of the ‘Red Flag’, but rather a reflection of where they think Ipswich will finish in the league table. I realise later that they’re not singing “Palace” either, but rather “Scummers”, because seemingly everyone on the South Coast hates Southampton.  The Bournemouth No15, who very peculiarly given his team’s fans singing of the Red Flag is called Adam Smith, is rolling on the ground whilst the crowd serenades him with a chorus of “There’s nothing wrong with you”.  It’s an enjoyable interlude, but although we don’t know it, the football will soon be more so.

Almost twenty minutes have gone when Cameron Burgess heads an Omari Hutchinson cross over the bar in the aftermath of a corner, “Come on you Blues!”. Then Hutchinson shoots over the bar himself.  If this was a wrestling match Town would have Bournemouth in a headlock, and a minute later the ball is pulled back from the left for Conor Chaplin to despatch into the goal net with his customary aplomb, and Town lead 1-0.  “Conor Chaplin, Baby” sings the other end other ground to the tune of the Christmas number one record from 1980.

The goal is followed not by Bournemouth pressure and an equaliser but by two more Town corners, the second one of which is headed imperiously into the net by Cameron Burgess to give Town a 2-0 lead for a second or two until it is disallowed by referee Mr Salisbury, whose name suggests to me some sort of Wessex conspiracy.  VAR confirms that it was Liam Delap’s fault because he fouled someone, but no one really believes it. 

The disappointment of the disallowed goal is followed by more anguish as  a Bournemouth shot strikes a post, but fortunately rebounds back out, and to make us feel a little better Mr Salisbury conducts a long distance booking of someone on the Bournemouth bench.  “Wanker, wanker” chant the Bournemouth fans at Mr Salisbury and then “Down with the Scummers” as they struggle to find anything nice to chant about anything.  Bournemouth win a corner and the words “Hot Sausage Co” shine out in lurid, illuminated lettering progressing across the front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand as if it’s a seaside pier.

The last ten minutes of the half belong more to Bournemouth than to Ipswich as a brilliant last ditch Cameron Burgess tackle saves Sam Morsy’s embarrassment after he loses the ball, and  Bournemouth win a succession of corners, but still the home fans sing “Blue and White Army”.  Three minutes of added on time are added on but cause no pain or joy.

Half-time, and it’s time to talk to Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison,  and Dave the steward.  So deep is our conversation that I leave it a bit late to visit the facilities and by the time I have adjusted my attire and come back up the steps into the stand again, the match has already re-started.  “At least you’ve managed to miss the start of the second half today” quips Fiona, although ironically this afternoon we will all live to regret not missing the end of the half.

Nine minutes gone of the second half and Leif Davis wins a corner for Town, but then mysteriously his team-mates go to pieces allowing an admittedly busy, hyper-active Bournemouth team to run all over them causing mayhem on the grass right in front of us.  Only the ball going into touch and Conor Chaplin having a sit down on the turf until everyone has calmed down and received some remedial coaching prevents footballing catastrophe.  When order resumes Bournemouth make two substitutions and win a corner all in the space of three minutes, and we start descending into the final fifth of the game, and like characters in a Thomas Hardy novel unknowingly towards our terrible fate.

Sixty-nine minutes lost,  another Bournemouth corner and a shot straight at Muric the Town ‘keeper. But Town have a chance too as Szmodics shoots and Delap can’t get to the re-bound off the Bournemouth ‘keeper.  I wonder to myself if Pat from Clacton has had her lunch today or will she eat when she gets home, but I’m too engrossed to ask.  “I—pswich Town, I-pswich Town FC, the finest football team the world has ever seen” sing the crowd with earnest belief.

Seventy-four minutes closer to a Town victory and Bournemouth make more substitutions, including David Brooks, who makes me think of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Mrs Brooks the owner of the stylish lodging house in Sandbourne (Bournemouth) where Tess murders Alec d’Urberville.  This afternoon’s attendance is announced by the excitable young stadium announcer as 29,180 of whom 2,144 are crusted characters from Hardy’s Wessex.  “Thank you so much…” gushes the fawning young announcer.  “Your support, your support, your support is fucking shit” sing the Bournemouth boys, perhaps ironically, perhaps not.

The seventy-eighth minute is here with a Bournemouth corner and then Town’s first substitutions, Al-Hamadi and Jack Clarke replacing Delap and Szmodics.  Eighty-three minutes, and Bournemouth have another corner. Surely, we will win now, we haven’t really looked like conceding, as nippy and nimble as Bournemouth are.  Eighty-six minutes and Bournemouth replace someone called Ryan Christie, a relative perhaps of Julie Christie who played Bathsheba Everdene in the 1967 film of Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding  Crowd, with James Hill. Surely we’ll win now with Bournemouth resorting to bringing on Jimmy Hill.

A minute later, a punt forward, Muric rushes out, the ball goes over him and is bundled into the goal at the far post as for once Cameron Burgess can’t get his foot to it to clear.  Bugger. Bugger Bournemouth as King George V should have said.   Perhaps we’ll score again, we’re good at scoring late goals, aren’t we?   “Who are ya?” chant the Bournemouth supporters, seemingly having lost their memories in all the excitement.

Our depression is barely relieved by six minutes of added on time, time to win, time to lose.  We lose after three Town players are attracted to the man with the ball, another runs past un-noticed and rolls the ball into the six-yard box where legs flail and one with a black sock on strikes it into the roof of the Town net.  I’ve not felt so bad in a while.  Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory has seldom been so unpleasant because victory was so sorely wanted and for the most part deserved.  The truth about the Town team bus running over a whole cattery full of black cats will surely make the papers any day now.

The game ends and  I forget what happens next. I can’t even think of any tenuous links to Thomas Hardy.

Ipswich Town 0 Crystal Palace 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s been one of those days. At work there have been time-wasting e-mails to answer about things over which I have no control from people who seem to have suddenly flipped from ordinary rational beings into marauding psychos.  There isn’t a full moon, so it must be all the early Christmas decorations sending people potty.   I was going to meet Gary on the train to Ipswich for tonight’s match versus Crystal Palace and a pre-match pint, but he’s cried off to go to the game with his brother because evidently blood is thicker than Lager 43.  Mick is going to be a bit late getting to the Arb he told me in a text, but I blame the trains for not running at the times when I most want them to, which isn’t two an hour but fifty minutes apart.

After a ‘dinner’ with my wife Paulene of roast chicken breast, potatoes, parsnips and carrots at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, there’s time to relax with a small coffee and a Speculoos biscuit before donning my fat coat and gloves, and giving the Ipswich Town branded ‘bronx’ hat a first outing of the season.  It’s cold out, but the train is on-time and warm and busy with folk returning from London.  A small, elderly woman sits opposite me; I have to ask a bloke to shift his feet off the seat opposite him so I can sit down.  On the other side of the gangway a man wearing a T-shirt adorned with pictures of mushrooms has hair like John Peel circa 1971; he’s with a woman with curvy, plump lips and metal rimmed glasses.  Standing by the doors a man has tassels of straggly ginger hair falling down over an unevenly shaved scalp, he’s with a woman who looks like Caroline Aherne, they have a baby and strike me as good castings for an up-dated re-make of “Some mothers do ‘ave’em”; they wouldn’t be Frank, Betty and Jessica though, they’d be Jordan, Shannon and Ava.

At Ipswich railway station the QR code on the ticket on my phone fails to open the automatic barrier as two surly blokes with “Revenue Protection” printed on the backs of their day-glo gilets look on disdainfully.  When I turn I to them for assistance one tells me a woman stood on the other side of the barriers “might” let me through. “Well, I flippin’ well hope she does” I tell them grumpily “seeing as I have paid for a ticket”.   “Unhelpful, ill-mannered bastards” I think to myself, momentarily turning into my late father on a bad day.

Incredibly, given that it is December,  this is the first evening match of the season at Portman Road and the first opportunity to see the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand lit up magnificently in blue with huge, white, illuminated letters announcing ‘Ipswich Town Football Club’.  I buy a programme (£3.50) from the blue booth where once stood an office supplies store, the name of which I can no longer remember.  In Portman Road metal barriers form a snaking path to the entrance to the back of the visitors’ section of the Cobbold Stand. Two plastic buckets are labelled “Amenesty Bin”.  “What’s an amenesty bin then?” I ask a passing steward, pronouncing amenesty as it has been printed.  “It’s for cans and bottles and prohibited items” she says informatively.  “Oh, it’s spelt wrong then,” I tell her. “There’s only one ‘e’ in amnesty” and she hurries off like someone with a fear of spelling tests . 

I look at the time and see it’s still only twenty to six.  I doubt if Mick will be at the Arb until gone six, so I take a detour along Westgate Street towards Cornhill. In Westgate Street there is a phone shop called iCrack and I can’t help but wonder if they sell more than just phones.  The town hall and  former Post Office look fantastic, it’s just a shame more people aren’t here to see them.  The Arb looks good too when I get there, and it’s heaving with customers, so I have to wait for my pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£4.14 with Camra discount) although I refuse to join what looks like a nascent queue at one end of the bar.

Conveniently, I’ve almost finished my first pint by the time Mick appears, and so he buys me another before we sup together and talk of films, living a useful life, age differences, tonight’s team line-up, political illiteracy, French colonial atrocities and how neither of us ever liked Gregg Wallace. I go to find a third pint of Suffolk Pride, but it’s all gone, so I have to make do with something I can’t remember the name of (£4.41with Camra discount); but it was possibly brewed by Moonraker Brewery. Mick is waiting for a vegetarian burger, which eventually arrives but he has to eat it quickly as typically the match is on some obscure tv channel and therefore kicks off at the now uncommon time of 7.30pm.  Pointlessly nostalgic, I remember when all evening kick-offs were at 7.30pm, but oddly Mick says he doesn’t.

In Portman Road there are long queues to get in the ground and the same is true at the back entrance to ‘Sir Alf’.  I can hear the excitable young puppy of a stadium announcer going through the teams and I hear ‘Hey Jude’ and I’m still queuing, although I can’t hear any crowd noise.  There was a time when missing kick-off would have really irked me, but I don’t really care anymore. I believe I’ve only ever missed one Ipswich goal; away to Northampton Town in the League Cup (7th October 1987). The supporters’ bus was late.

Tonight, I miss the first five minutes of the game but no goals, and I am in time to witness what turns out to be a rare Ipswich corner.  “Did you come by car?” asks Pat from Clacton, who along with Fiona, ever-present Phil who never misses a game and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) is naturally already here.  Pat no doubt think I have been delayed in traffic.  “No” I tell her brazenly, “I’ve been in the pub” and she looks at me disapprovingly.

I’m still settling in when the bloke behind me says “He looks like a flippin’ albino” of the Crystal Palace number 19, Will Hughes who has bleached hair.  But he reminds me more of Sick Boy in the film of Trainspotting.  Hughes and his Crystal Palace chums are all in primrose this evening and kicking towards Handford Road and the Burlington Road Conservation Area beyond. Of course, Town are in blue and white and kicking the other way. The North Stand sing about Sam Morsy to the tune of an Oasis song as Crystal Palace ‘set out their stall’ by falling over a lot to win free-kicks courtesy of the gullible Mr Craig Pawson, who unusually is all in black, like referees used to be when beer was 25p a pint.

Crystal Palace’s tactic of falling over has blunted the Town because it’s difficult to play when the opposition is having free-kicks all the time and this has allowed Palace to dominate, albeit in a second division sort of a way, which fortunately involves not really threatening to score goals.  And so the crowd becomes quiet.  “Addy, Addy-O” sing the Town fans. “We forgot you were here” reply the visiting suburbanites of Croydon, masquerading as south Londoners.  When Jens Cajuste is fouled and Town are awarded a free-kick, the home crowd cheers ironically.  A booking for Dara O’Shea is quickly evened up by Mr Pawson with one for  Palace’s Doucoure a minute later.  “Is this a library?” sing the Palace fans and it’s like being back in the second division all over again, before they cleverly trick all the home fans by singing “Sit down if you love Norwich”. I look forward to reminiscing about tonight far away in the future, what larks.

Crystal palace win a couple of corners and I notice that it’s possible to still read the word “Pioneer” on the front fascia of the west stand before Pat from Clacton tells me she’s already eaten today, she had dinner down at the Greensward on Marine Parade West, and she won’t have anything when she gets in after the match. It’ll be gone half past ten I tell her,  “and the  rest” she says.  Feeling increasingly disappointed with life I bawl “Come on Town, it’s only Crystal Palace, they’re rubbish” and then “They’re the team of the 80’s, they must all be about sixty-five.”  This is what the Premier League does to people.  But despite three minutes of added on time nothing changes.

I talk to Ray at half time as usual, and bump fists with his grandson Harrison and sense we’re all depressed but hopeful.  At twenty-five to nine the football returns and the same pattern of play as before more or less continues as Crystal Palace close Town down, and we largely do the same to them, but  they have a more precise outlet with their forward Jean-Philippe Mateta seeming to have more of a plan than Liam Delap, I think it’s because Mateta is French.

O’Shea shoots over, Palace win a corner, Sick Boy is booked and then a Town attack falls apart  and Palace quickly move forward through Eze, who places the ball with precision in front of Mateta to run at goal; Greaves is with him but stumbles ,slips and falls over, and Mateta lifts the ball over Muric to give Croydon the lead; it’s a fine finish.  “Who are ya?” chant the visiting pseudo-Londoners as if to say whoever you are you can’t be much good if we scored against you.  All of sudden the Palace supporters seem very loud indeed, and I gain a sense of a release of the pent-up frustrations of their boring suburban lives; this is the sound, the sound of the suburbs I sing to myself, remembering 1978 as I often do.

Sixty-five minutes will never been seen again because time travel is impossible and it would potentially render Rothman’s Football Yearbooks pointless, but substitutions now seem necessary and Burns, Cajuste and Clarke (J) depart, usurped by Taylor, Chaplin and Broadhead But Palace win more corners and Muric saves as Mateta fails to complete the same finish twice in the same match.  Pat asks whether she should bring on the masturbating monkey lucky charm, but decides against it for animal welfare reasons; it is a very cold evening.   Town win possibly only their second corner of the game before the excitable young stadium announcer thanks us for our “incredible support”, which amounts to 29,539, of whom 2,339 could own a privet hedge and greenhouse somewhere in Surrey, but I might have misheard the figure.

“We’re not playing particularly badly, they’re just better than us” says the bloke behind me as straight-forwardly intuitive as ever, and Crystal Palace begin to make substitutions too, probably to ensure they hold on to their slender lead.  We know Keiran Mckenna is making a last roll of the dice as Ali Al Hamadi replaces Liam Delap. A minute later Sam Morsy shoots over the Palace cross bar.  An atmosphere of quiet resignation punctuated by moments of hope and a memory of belief pervades.  The illuminated advertising hoarding between the two tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson stand reads “Home of the XL vent shipping container” and I wonder what it would cost me to have half a dozen random, silly words run around the stadium in lights.

There are four minutes left of ‘normal’ time and a deep cross is headed back onto the far Palace post by Jacob Greaves before predictably deflecting away from the in-coming Nathan Broadhead and out for a goal-kick. Three minutes of not-normal time will be added on, but they don’t prove that unusual, although Jean-Pierre Mateta is booked for ignoring the ball and just looking at his feet when Mr Pawson and the Town players want to get on with the game.   Mateta feigns annoyance but I doubt he really cares because a minute later the game is over.

Pat from Clacton and Fiona bid me farewell as they and the majority of the home crowd make a sharp exit into the cold night, keen to get home and catch the latest news about Gregg Wallace.  A few of us with nothing better to do, because our train doesn’t leave for another twenty minutes hang about forlornly and applaud our beaten heroes much as any remaining Trojans might have done as Hector’s dead body was dragged through the streets of Troy. It’s been one of those days.

Ipswich Town 1 Manchester United 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

When I was young, so much younger than today I would often travel to Layer Road, Colchester on a Friday night to see the U’s engage with the likes of Torquay United, Darlington or Aldershot, and then on Saturday afternoon I would watch Ipswich Town in the First Division.  The days of ‘Col U’ playing on a Friday evening are sadly gone, as is Layer Road, but this weekend I had the opportunity to see two games in two days once again, taking my pick from an extensive menu of local non-league matches on Saturday afternoon and then catching the Town on Sunday afternoon with a wholly unwelcome four-thirty kick-off.  As it turned out, I didn’t bother,  but stayed indoors and courtesy of a ‘Firestick’ watched Paris FC play Annecy in French Ligue 2, and then Ligue 1 RC Lens play Marseille on the telly. I sometimes think I have lost my joie de vivre.

Today is Sunday and it is blowing a gale as I waste away a whole morning and much of an afternoon waiting to go to Portman Road. I tried drilling some holes in a wall to put up some shelves, but I think the party wall in my house must be made of granite and all the time I’ve been wondering if the trains are going to be disrupted, some have been cancelled already.  Mick has been in touch to see what time I might be at the Arb’ but the Sunday train times either get me there earlier than I’d like or with not enough time for a couple of drinks.  I should be able to sue Sky TV and the Premier League for the inconvenience.  The pre-match tension is palpable.

In time, I decide that it would be best for everyone if I simply spent a bit longer at the pub before the game and so after a train journey on which Manchester United supporters sing ‘Eric Cantona’  endlessly to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas and on which I don’t see a single polar bear, I buy a programme in Portman Road and finally arrive at the Arb’ to purchase a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£4.14 with CAMRA discount).  Mick has already texted me to say he is ‘on the bench in the beer garden’ and that is where I join him to discuss Gary’s absence, houses of multiple occupation, local non-league football, how Mick has been seeing ‘someone’ (a woman), newspapers,  religion, today’s Town team and what time we go to bed; Mick is a bit of ‘night owl’ it seems, and if I didn’t get up at twenty past six each morning I think I’d quite like to be able to watch Newsnight too.

A good hour and twenty minutes drift by in a sea of words and more Suffolk Pride, and we realise that everyone else in the pub beer garden seems to have left, so we do too not wishing to miss the kick-off, although happy to forego the leaping flames and tiresome, over-excited young stadium announcer with his elongated vowels and slightly cheap-looking suit.   There are no queues to get into what used to be Churchman’s and I arrive at my seat as ever to find ever-present Phil who never misses a game, his son Elwood, Pat from Clacton, Fiona and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) already here.  There’s a lot of noise as the two teams process onto the pitch and I don’t know why, but I can’t help feeling rather bemused, so much so that I suddenly notice Pat from Clacton looking at me a bit quizzically because the over-excited young stadium announcer is reading out the Town team and I’m not bawling out the players’ surnames in the manner of a Frenchman.  It’s been so long since Town were last at home that I’ve forgotten what to do and I’m lost in idle reverie. Returning to Earth, I try to make amends but find that the over-excited young stadium announcer is not in -sync with the score board and I therefore have no idea which surname comes next; it’s like a bad dream in which Murphy has returned but years younger and taller, and in a shiny suit

Kick-off comes as a relief with Town getting first go with the ball and aiming it in the direction of me and my fellow ultras. Town are of course in blue and white whilst Manchester United are in red shirts and black shorts, a bit like Stade Rennais,  but messily the shirts are two shades of red and the shorts have red flashes on them.  The relief is short-lived as within eighty seconds Manchester’s number 16 skips past a Town player, puts in a somewhat limp looking low cross and their number ten nips in to tap the ball past Aro Muric, who looks as if he was expecting to simply casually pick the ball up.   My hopes that VAR will have spotted some invisible infringement in the run up to the goal are dashed, largely because there simply wasn’t enough time for anything to have happened. 

The game resumes over a minute after the goal was scored and we all feel a bit shocked. The current Manchester United team is widely believed to be pretty useless I believe and here we are losing already. I thought we were going to win two-nil and had told Mick as much.  Five minutes are almost gone however, as Town win a corner.  Eleven minutes disappear and Sam Szmodics has a decent shot that the goalkeeper saves and in terms of attacking intent at least, Town have drawn level.

“United, United, United, United” chant the Mancunians and their friends from London and the Home Counties up in the Cobbold Stand, separating each ‘United’ with three quick claps.   A little slow to catch on, the Blue Action group belatedly shout “Shit, just like people did in the 1970’s, but usually before the visitors had stopped shouting ‘United’.  The football is quite good though. Lots of passing is going on and Ipswich are probably doing more of it than Manchester.  The half is half over and finding himself next to Sam Morsy, the Manchester number seventeen falls to the ground and rolls over and over and over and over to both the anger and amusement of the home crowd.  “Get up, ya great pussy” I tell him loudly.  “That’s Garnacho” says the bloke in front of me. “Yer what?” I ask him. “That’s Garnacho” he says again.  A bit confused being unfamiliar with the names of any footballers unless they play for Ipswich Town I say “So it’s not Pussy then.”  “He’s a funny looking bleeder” says the bloke behind me of the aforementioned Garnacho and the bloke next to me momentarily reflects on how children don’t get called ‘little bleeders’ nowadays, and sadly I think he’s right.  Amusingly, to me anyway,  ‘ya little bleeder’ was probably the polite version of ‘ya little bugger’ which is how my grandfather affectionately knew me.

Another Town corner unexpectedly inspires a warm booming chant of “Come On You Blues” and Liam Delap earns a free-kick on the edge of the penalty area as United’s captain Jonny Evans looks bothered; having only this week watched a version on the telly, I think of Evans The Death, the undertaker in   Dylan Thomas’s  ‘Under Milk Wood’.  The free-kick is neatly taken, but goes straight to the goalkeeper Andre Onana for whom I am amazed the United supporters do not sing KC and the Sunshine Band’s ‘Baby Give It Up’. Sensing my disappointment when Town don’t score, Pat from Clacton tells me that she’s already had her dinner today – a Marks & Spencer roast turkey ready meal.  “It’s not even Christmas yet” I tell her and Town win another corner from which a shot is blocked after the ball had been headed back across goal.  United breakaway up field,  but Sam Morsy slides across to sweep the ball out for a throw with the sort of tackle that takes the Manchester player as ‘collateral damage’ and which the home crowd loves, especially against a rather ‘poncey’ team like this one seems  to be.

With five minutes until half-time,Town produce the move of the match, tearing the Manchester defence apart as Leif Davis chases a raking long pass, checks inside and plays in Liam Delap who has a whole goal to aim at , but somehow Onana gets a hand or an arm or a shoulder in the way of the goal bound ball.  Within sixty seconds, another move opens up a view of goal for Jens Cajuste, but he shoots over.  The momentum is with Ipswich however and Omari Hutchinson claims the equaliser very soon afterwards with a shooting star of a shot from outside the penalty area which loops gently off a Manchester head on its rapid journey into the top right hand corner of the goal net, at last beyond the reach of Onana.  Three minutes of added on time follow without incident and we are relieved not to be losing anymore, but also feeling like we could be winning.

With half-time I dispose of excess Suffolk Pride and then speak with Ray, to whom it seems I haven’t spoken in months.  We speak of car parks and Kemi Badenoch, whose surname Ray pronounces as Bad Enoch, which for those like us who remember Mr Powell seems worryingly appropriate.  On the way back to my seat I congratulate ever-present Phil who never misses a game on having recently completed his quest to see a game at every one of the ninety-two League grounds in England and Wales.  I tell him I got to around seventy-eight grounds about fifteen years ago but have never managed to get any further.  I don’t tell him it’s a metaphor for my entire life.

The football resumes at twenty-four minutes to six when people without a subscription to Sky Sports TV are watching Countryfile and eating buttered teacakes. I notice the moving advertisement for Aspall cider which reads “made in Suffolk since 1728” , words that fosters images in my romantic mind of misty orchards, wooden vats and apple presses, horses, carts and crusted rustic characters, and then the illuminated display says “now available in a can”.

“Come On Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” we chant a good three or four times because Manchester are keeping the ball more than we’d like.  The encouragement works and Town get the ball,  Wes Burns whips in a low cross and Onana saves brilliantly again from Liam Delap and Town have another corner.  Manchester break again and Jens Cajuste chases back to make a perfect tackle inside the Town penalty area and now Manchester have a corner.   Not an hour has been played and Manchester are making substitutions as Evans the Death and some bloke who is so good he only has one name goes off and some other blokes I’ve not heard of come on.  Up in the Cobbold Stand the away supporters sing songs about Roy Keane and Eric Cantona, perhaps because like me they don’t know who their current players are either.

Then Ipswich make substitutions; Sam Szmodics and Jens Cajuste departing and Jack Taylor and Jack Clarke arriving. “For me, Burns ain’t done nothing” says the bloke behind me clearly thinking he should have been substituted but perhaps not having noticed his pass to Omari Hutchinson for the goal, that cross for Liam Delap, or his defensive play.  Twenty-three minutes are left and Manchester have another corner before a couple more substitutions; a bloke called Zirkzee comes on. “Sounds like a cleaning product” say the bloke behind me.  This early afternoon and early evening’s attendance is announced by the over-excitable young stadium announcer in the shiny suit as being 30,017 with a very nicely rounded 3,000 of that number being here to sing about Eric Cantona.

Manchester United are mostly the team with the ball in the second half, but despite some grace and speed and long accurate passes they aren’t threatening the Town goal much, they just look like they could if they thought about it a bit more.  Perhaps they just have too much confidence and and self-love for their own good.  The good thing is it means Town look more likely to score,  but as Pat from Clacton says to Fiona “You can feel the tension” .  Eventually, the bloke behind me gets his wish as Wes Burns is replaced by Conor Chaplin, and the match rolls on into the final ten minutes of normal time. Ali Al-Hamadi shoots and Onana saves, again. Conor Chaplin shoots, but pretty much straight at Onana.

Only four minutes of added on time are added on and I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Do we need more time to score or less time so we don’t concede?  “Oh when the Town go marching in, Oh when the Town go marching in“ drone the home crowd mournfully as if they’ll be following a coffin when it happens. Manchester United win a corner and the ball is booted clear to create maximum distance between it and the Town goal and then the match ends.  Fiona and Pat from Clacton are quickly away, but not before Fiona says “See you next Tuesday”- it’s when Town play Crystal Palace.

It’s been another fine game, perhaps not as exciting as some of the others this season, but despite not dictating enough of the play in the second half there is no doubt Town can claim they deserved to win more than Manchester did, and Onana is clearly Manchester’s ‘Man of the Match’, although they probably won’t admit it.   Leaving Portman Road for the railway station I think back to the first time I ever saw Town play Manchester United, in December 1971.  That game ended in a draw too, a goalless one, and Best, Law and Charlton were all rubbish.