1981

Ipswich Town 2 Huddersfield Town 0

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

After a 10.7 kilometre ‘trip’ on a static exercise bike whilst listening to an assortment of tunes by The Jam, a shower, a shave and a hearty breakfast of sausage, poached eggs, tomatoes, toast, Welsh cakes, tea and coffee I suddenly find myself under azure skies waiting on a railway platform for a train to take me to Ipswich to see Ipswich Town play Huddersfield Town in the last match of the football league season. Courtesy of the ridiculous 12:30 kick-off, it’s not even half-past ten yet. “It’s not the end of the world” says a man to a child stood by the grey concrete bridge over the railway tracks, and something inside me hopes that’s the last time I hear that phrase today.

The train departs three minutes late. Inside the carriage, on the other side of the gangway to me a man stares out of the window grooving to the sounds coming through the headphones clamped over his ears. “The sticks man” he says to himself almost laughing and sounding like the school bus driver Otto in the Simpsons, and we pass by bucolic scenes of farmyards, duckponds and country cottages.  I think to myself that he could, as Marge Simpson once said, be “…whacked out of his gourd”.  But as I get up to change trains at the next stop he calls “Hey, your scarf man!” and I turn to find that my blue and white scarf had fallen on the floor.  I thank him and he tells me it’s cool. 

On my second station platform of the day, I meet Gary who looms, smiling, out of the throng of blue and white attired people also awaiting the next train to Ipswich. It’s been a very blue a white day so far.  The train is packed full, but I get a seat for Gary and one for me by asking two well-spoken young men if they would mind moving their bags of golf clubs from the seats next to them and into the luggage rack above. They are very obliging and as they move their luggage one of them admits to supporting Leicester City; the other wears a garish striped blazer, like a kind of young Michael Portillo, but not as weird.

We look for polar bears as the train passes through Wherstead, but only see Arctic wolves.   Arriving in Ipswich it takes some time to alight from the train, an activity further hindered by stupid people trying to get on it before everyone else has got off.  Our passage to Portman Road is then slowed again by the ‘automatic’ ticket barriers which unhelpfully haven’t simply been left open to let everyone pass through speedily and safely. Eventually however, we find ourselves crossing Burrell Road and Princes Street bridge and Gary asks me if I’m going to get an ice cream; I tell him I am.  Portman Road however, is packed with people, and there are long queues at the programme booths which, because I am an impatient person for whom standing in queues does not align with ‘living in the moment’, I decide not to join. 

Today we are meeting Mick for a pre-match drink, but he still hasn’t returned to full fitness after the operation on his foot and so rather than trekking uphill to our preferred boozer, ‘the Arb,’ we are only making for the Fanzone, because it’s nearby. Having negotiated the muddled multitude of supporters milling about in the shadow of the Sir Bobby Robson stand, and waited in a  short but nevertheless annoying queue, we enter the Fanzone and meet Mick who had arrived moments before us.  With nothing else for three over-sixties to do in the Fanzone but queue for the bar, we queue for the bar having first walked in the opposite direction to discover the end of the queue, like nineteenth century explorers searching for the source of the Nile.  The queue is slow moving today which is because it actually turns out to be two queues, which merge just before the entrance to the beer tent.   By and by we reach the front of the queue and  I generously buy a pint paper cup full of San Miguel Lager for Gary and pint paper cups full of fizzy Greene King East Coast IPA for myself and Mick, it costs me at least double what I would have spent on beer in a week back when Ipswich won the UEFA Cup.   I had told Gary I would ask if there was a discount for Camra members, but out of deference to the pretty young woman who serves us, I don’t. 

Brimming paper cups in hand, we arrange three collapsible chairs in a circle and discuss the health of Mick’s foot and what a “spazz” (Mick’s word not mine) Ipswich ‘s Tory MP, Tom Hunt is.  At about a quarter past twelve a steward asks us whether our seats are in the West stand. Mick’s and Gary’s are, but mine isn’t and she advises that I prepare to leave the Fanzone as there will be queues at the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand.  I complain mildly to Gary and Mick about being hurried along in this way, but Mick admonishes me,  telling me the steward is only trying to be helpful and also that he quite fancies her; as he does so he crushes his cardboard cup in his hand spurting residual beer froth onto the ground like spilt seed. For a moment time stands still.

Never one to argue with Mick when his dander’s up, I bid him and Gary farewell and make my way round to the Sir Alf Ramsey stand along Constatine Road past a man stood with an enormous flag at least twice the size of the tricolour in Eugene Delacroix’s masterful painting “Liberty leading the people”.  The crowds have dispersed now, and I stop to buy a programme (£3.50) at the ice cream booth in the former Churchman’s factory and then Staples’ car park.  I tell the attractive young programme seller that I am surprised there are any left given the queues earlier, and then ponder that Spring really does seem to be in the air.  There are no queues at all at the Sir Alf Ramsey stand, contrary to popular belief, and having passed through turnstile 62, I’m soon greeting the broad smiles of Pat from Clacton and Fiona as I take my seat next but one to the man from Stowmarket (Paul) and two rows behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood.

Like it often is nowadays, Portman Road is noisy today and I struggle to hear stadium announcer Murphy read out all the names of the Town team, and as a result and to my eternal shame I don’t manage to be the consummate French football supporter as I fail to bawl ‘Tuanzebe’ at the right moment; Fiona laughs.  Shouts of “Blue Army, Blue Army, Blue Army, Blue Army” follow the usual singing of the “na-na-nars” in The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” and the match begins with Conor Chaplin playing the ball back to Luke Woolfenden as Town get first go with the ball.  As ever, Town sport their signature blue and white kit, but Huddersfield Town are in a necessary change kit of day-glo lime green, a kit that would not look out of place on a hot day on anyone mending the pot-holes in the roads of West Yorkshire.

“Leeds, Leeds are falling apart again” sing supporters of both teams in a touching display of unity and schadenfreude, and then Town fans launch into a song about Sam Morsy to the thirty-year-old tune of “She’s Electric” by Mancunian ‘Brit-Poppers’ Oasis; I particularly like the lyric “He’s fucking brilliant” which I think says all anyone needs to know about the Town captain.  Eight minutes pass and clearly unaffected by my earlier faux-pas, Axel Tuanzebe delivers the first shot on goal which results in a comer to Town which begets another, before two minutes later a low Wes Burns cross results in yet another corner and a header wide before after yet another three minutes Town win another corner and two minutes after that Conor Chaplin shoots wide. There is no doubt, Town are on top.

Nineteen minutes are history now, joining the preceding billions of years in spent eternity and news arrives that Leeds United are losing, which if it became a result would mean Town could happily lose too and still be promoted. “Leeds, Leeds are falling apart again” sings the crowd to the tune of Mancunian miserabilists Joy Division’s forty-four year old hit “Love will tear us apart”.  I  briefly wonder to myself why back in 1980 we never re-worded the hits from the mid to late 1930’s such as ‘March winds and April showers’ or ‘I only have eyes for you’.   Interrupting my reverie, Wes Burns shoots hopelessly over the angle of post and bar before the dirge version of “When the Town going marching in “ drifts slowly from the stands as if relegation rather  than promotion was the likely outcome of the afternoon.

The half is more than half over and Conor Chaplin puts Wes Burns through on goal; agonisingly he rolls his shot wide of the target, but like a man with three goes at  a single dart finish, that shot was just a marker and three minutes later, receiving a pass from Conor Chaplin,Wes makes amends ramming the ball between post and goalkeeper.   “E-I, E-I, E-I, E-I-O” chants the home crowd, and Huddersfield substitute their No 8 for No 21.  Six minutes later and Conor Chaplin falls to the turf inside the penalty area. Several supporters bay for a penalty. “You bald cunt” shouts a bloke somewhere behind me, presumably at referee Simon Hooper, but no one really knows.

Five minutes until half time and I sing “Allez les bleus, Allez les bleus “ a couple of times on my own, which I like to think inspires Omari Hutchison to shoot wide, and then the Huddersfield goalkeeper fumbles the ball but catches it at the second attempt.  “At least we haven’t got to  go to the play-offs” says Pat from Clacton, clearly feeling confident. “I think we’re alright” she continues “We can have a nice holiday now”.  Three minutes of additional time are announced by announcer Murphy using his important announcement voice, and Massimo Luongo shoots over the crossbar  before Huddersfield have their very first shot of the game,  as number 44 Rhys Healey shoots wide.  With the half-time whistle, I travel to the front of the stand to talk to Ray and his grandson Harrison. Ray talks about not believing in a god or gods, I’m not sure why, but I tell him that at least if you worship the sun,  or the  trees,  you can be sure they exist even if popular song says they don’t listen to you.

The second half begins at twenty-six minutes to two and I notice that the Huddersfield goalkeeper is called Maxwell, and I think to myself that if he’s got a silver hammer, we should get a few penalties.  Looking up, I see the clouds have changed shape, with towering cumulus being replaced by just a smear across the sky. Three minutes into the half and Omari Hutchinson runs at goal, he is forced to run across the face of goal but he’s too quick for the Huddersfield defence and makes space to shoot; the shot is too hard for the Huddersfield goalkeeper and Town lead 2-0.  That’s Ipswich promoted, surely. “Stand up, if you’re going up” is chanted from the stands, and people stand up. What more proof is needed?

For twenty minutes it’s like being present at a concert of Town supporters’ greatest hits of the 2023-24 season. “Are you watching Norwich scum?”, “Carrow Road is falling down”, “One Marcus Stewart.” punctuate corners and a shot over the bar from Leif Davis.  The usual double or triple substitutions on the hour aren’t really needed today, so  are delayed until the seventy-third minute and serve only to draw ovations for a season’s efforts from the departing players.  Announcer Murphy announces today’s attendance as 29,011 and even the seat next to me is occupied, by an extremely tall youth who neither says nor sings anything.  “Small Town in Norwich, You’re just a small town in Norwich” chant the Huddersfield fans bizarrely, or at least those who’ve never seen a map of Britain do. But “The Town are going up, The Town are going up” is the carefree response to the intended sleight.

Huddersfield don’t seem capable of threatening Town’s two-goal lead, let alone overhauling it, although their No21 gets Alex Matos himself booked for a foul on Jeremy Sarmiento, perhaps in an attempt to at least show willing.  But their supporters know the truth and happily and pleasingly sing “We’re  on our way, To Division One, We’re on our way” .  With the game entering the final ten minutes, stewards and police begin to surround the pitch and a helicopter circles above. Surely they can’t be hoping to prevent a pitch invasion, and I begin to wonder if Rishi Sunak is going to have us all machine-gunned as punishment for Thursday’s Council election results; he does after all hope to place Britain alongside Russia and Belarus as  one of just three countries in Europe not signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights. After the game, the man from Stowmarket (Paul) will tell me he would have felt happier if the helicopter  had been being tailed by an Apache from nearby Wattisham.  

As the edge of the pitch fills up with people in day-glo jackets, it starts to become difficult to distinguish the Huddersfield players from our would-be murderers, but reassuringly there will be only three minutes of additional time and I think with promotion now assured, our lives may yet be saved.  With the final whistle Ipswich Town are indeed promoted, having secured second place in the league, six points clear of the team in third, Leeds United, who have apparenrtly fallen apart again, but may yet be able to put themselves back together in the play-offs if they can beat Norwich City, who finish twenty-three points behind Ipswich.  As my friend Pete will remind me later this evening as he congratulates me, from now on Town will be in the “best league in the world”, a world within a world of Sky hype, obscene amounts of money, gambling responsibly and no three o’clock kick-offs on a Saturday – or very few.  As happy as I am that Town are successful after years of misery, and as much as a surfeit of beer, Cremant and red wine will result in my falling asleep early in the second half of Stade Brestois v FC Nantes as I watch it on the telly, I still can’t help but think of the words of Mick McCarthy “Be careful what you wish for.”

It is possible this will be my last blog for a while that features Ipswich.

Further reading: The man who hated football by Will Buckley

Word of the week: Ambivalent

Ipswich Town 3 Swansea City 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

This morning at about half past one I suddenly awoke from what had been a deep sleep, and as I tried to return to my dreams my mind began to race and I was thinking of the first time I saw Ipswich Town play Swansea City, almost exactly forty-two years ago, on 7th November 1981.  Swansea, enjoying a very good start to their first ever season in what some people now call the Premier League, went on to win by three goals to two.  I was only twenty-one years old, and recall being royally pissed off at what I think was the Town’s first home defeat of the season.  The following March, I drove down to the Vetch Field, Swansea with my friend Tim in his 1968 Morris Minor 1000, and despite the best efforts of referee Clive Thomas, who awarded the home team a highly dubious penalty, we witnessed Town exact revenge as we won by two goals to one.  We stayed the night in Swansea, and spent an evening crawling the city’s pubs. Sadly, all I really recall, apart from correctly pronouncing Cymru Cenedlaethol on the side of a bus,  is playing pool in a pub and leaning down to look along my cue and seeing beyond it and the cue ball and the cushion and up the dress of a young woman sat on the other side of the bar, opposite the pool table. I was a shy, single, young man so I probably blushed, but shamefully I cannot deny that the sight of this young woman’s red pants has stayed with me ever since.  In their early twenties my grandfathers and my father had all been tasked with killing Germans, but I just had to cope with the freedom they helped win.

Since that guilty, intoxicated evening in South Wales, I have seen Swansea City a further fourteen times, but only half of those matches have been against Ipswich Town. The other seven matches were at Manchester City (one), Portsmouth (one) and Colchester (five), and Swansea didn’t win any of them.  In all the intervening years I have never seen another Welsh woman’s pants and even though Ipswich are once again playing Swansea City, I do not expect to do so today as I step from my front door beneath a clear blue sky and head for the railway station.  I have been looking forward to today’s game after no home match for three weeks, and in an early morning trip to the shops even bought two packets of Welsh cakes by way of celebration; I ate a couple for breakfast. I was born in Wales see, albeit in Haverfordwest.

The train is on time and not particularly busy.  At the first stop I am joined by Gary who is wearing a bright orange jacket over his Ipswich Town home shirt. We talk of whether we are sat in a carriage or a car, when Gary is likely to retire, the sort of people who ‘go postal’, and on which train journeys to watch football matches it might be possible to see a Polar Bear from the train window; surprisingly Swansea to Ipswich is one of them.  It seems unlikely there are trains to Svalbard, but hopefully there is football even if only with seal skins for goalposts.  Arriving in Ipswich, my exit from the station is annoyingly delayed by being unable to display my e-ticket on my phone, I eventually manage to create a glimpse of it for a split second and fortunately the ticket collector seems happy with that.  I will later learn of an “update”.

Gary and I stroll up Princes Street and Portman Road towards ‘the Arb’, pausing only so that I may buy a programme (£3.50) from one of the blue booths, the appearance of which tempts me to ask for a choc ice as well, but luckily I resist. At ‘the Arb’, Mick is already stood at the bar about to order a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride.  Now aware of our arrival, Mick generously buys two pints of Suffolk Pride, and a pint of Lager 43 for Gary, who to my knowledge never has drunk proper beer.  We repair to the beer garden to talk of the horrible Suella Braverman, the ‘A Load of Cobbolds’ fanzine, the Covid enquiry and the lies of Boris Johnson, and last night’s Ligue 1 encounter between Montpellier Herault SC and OGC Nice, which despite being an open, attacking match, ended goalless. I return to the bar to buy myself a further pint of Suffolk Pride, a Jameson whisky for Mick and a half of Lager 43 for Gary (£10.40 including Camra discount). We continue our conversation, which unusually does not involve reference to death or illness today, although we do talk of remembrance poppies and Mick recalls how his father was responsible for distributing them in the Orford area and how in the days when the ‘stems’ were made of wire the poppies first had to be assembled.  At about twenty-five to three we depart for Portman Road.

The queues at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand are shorter today and seem to be being managed by stewards.  I go to queue at the illustrious turnstile 62 but am ushered towards a side gate where my season ticket is scanned by a woman using a hand-held device which looks like one of those things you use to find hidden electrical wiring in walls. I arrive at my seat moments before the two teams parade onto the pitch. Naturally, the man from Stowmarket, Fiona, Pat from Clacton, ever-present Phil who never misses a game and his young son Elwood are all already here, although it’s Pat’s first game in a while as she’s been in Mauritius to attend a wedding.  Ever-present Phil and I attempt to bawl out our players’ surnames in the French style as stadium announcer Murphy reads out the line-up, but as ever Murphy is in far too much of a hurry and has finished before the players’ faces have stopped appearing on the large screen; he really is useless, bring back Steven ‘Foz’ Foster I say.

After a minute’s silence and the last post and occupation of the centre circle by various personnel from the armed forces, things never seen or heard at football matches until comparatively recently, the game begins, with Ipswich in traditional blue shirts and white shorts getting first go with the ball,  and sending it mostly in my general direction.  Swansea City are today wearing an un-necessary away kit of reddish shirts, shorts and socks.  Unfortunately, the reddish colour of their kit reminds me of the young Welsh woman’s pants from 1981, so I try to imagine them all with just one leg each and no heads, to make them look like a team of Lyons Maid Raspberry Mivvis.

“I do, but I don’t” says the bloke behind me about I’ve no idea what, and after three minutes Town win the game’s first corner. A couple of rows in front of me a young man is topless and the waist band of his Calvin Klein pants is visible to all.  Suddenly I can smell meat and gravy and assume that someone nearby has bought a pie; it’s either that or the Army personnel in the centre circle were from the catering corp.  “Blue and White Army” chant the section of the crowd up in the corner of the Cobbold Stand before a wider congregation strikes up with a chorus of “We’ve got super Kieran Mckenna, He knows exactly what we need…”.   The Swansea goalkeeper, whose name, Carl Rushworth, would be ideal in a match with ‘rush goalies’ is all in orange, so looks like a Wall’s Solero Exotic.  “Ipswich Town, Ipswich Town FC, By far the greatest team the world has ever seen” chant some of the crowd and there’s every chance I sang the very same at the Vetch Field back in 1981.

Seven minutes are almost up and rather disappointingly Swansea City score, a dinked cross from inside the penalty area being nodded into the corner of the goal by their number four, a bloke called Jay Fulton. “Who are ya?” chant the Swansea fans having presumably forgotten where they are and being too idle to look at their match programmes or tickets.  “One-nil to the sheep shaggers” they continue, in more revelatory mood, and suddenly I don’t feel quite so bad about having once accidentally glimpsed a young Welsh woman’s pants in a public bar.

Town win another corner. “Come On You Blues” I shout and from a low cross, a shot goes curling over the cross bar. “Der, der, der, Football in a library” chant the Swansea fans imaginatively, getting in as much gloating as possible whilst they still can.   Omari Hutchinson shoots straight at Rushworth and for the third time in the last few minutes a Town player is flagged offside, raising doubts about the parentage of the linesman with the chequered flag.

Town are giving Swansea a hard time, but all of a sudden the world is restored to its axis in truly spectacular fashion as Jack Taylor strikes a magnificent 20-odd metre shot against the inside of Rushworth’s left-hand post and the ball hurtles and spins into the back of the net.  Quel but! (What a goal!) as they didn’t get to shout in Montpellier last night.  From my position in the cheap seats, I have a thrilling head-on view of the ball as it speeds towards the goal.  All the best goals strike the wood work as they go in; that final split-second diversion adding a thump of confirmation to the event, like having your passport stamped or hearing the pop of a Champagne cork.  As Fiona observes, today’s goal is the polar opposite of Taylor’s goal at Rotherham earlier in the week, which spun in off his leg from close range, almost without his knowing it.

Ipswich Town are now almost unstoppable. Conor Chaplin shoots over the bar and Omari Hutchinson has a shot saved despite having seemingly dribbled around Rushworth.  “Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, the Norwich ran away” sing the Sir Bobby Robson stand getting all festive and nostalgic at the same time, and just five minutes after Taylor’s goal, George Hirst heads the ball down and Conor Chaplin spins on his right foot and hooks the ball inside the near post with his left from a few metres out. The Town lead two-one.  Presumably, the Swansea fans up in the Cobbold stand now answer their earlier question “Oh, it’s you lot” .

Town now just need some more goals to confirm their superiority, but instead there is a bit of a melee with players either squaring up to, pushing away or pulling apart their team-mates and opponents, perhaps depending on how zen they are feeling today.  Conor Chaplin and Swansea’s Liam Cullen are booked by referee Mr Sunny Singh Gill, presumably as the instigators.  In the stands there is almost the burst of a song, but then it all goes quiet, with even the away fans feeling too crushed by the turn around in scoreline to sing “Two-one, and you still don’t sing”.   If there was a corner of the ground occupied by fans of a musical and literary bent, now would be the time for them to sing “ We all agree,  Britten is better than Thomas”.

With ten minutes of the first half left Omari Hutchinson breaks down the right, but his low cross is just an overly long stud’s length away from being diverted into the goal by Nathan Broadhead.  A couple of minutes later the blokes behind me clear off to the bar, whilst Mr Singh seems to take far too long to allow Conor Chaplin back onto the field after receiving treatment, perhaps he has been influenced by Suella Braverman and sees receiving treatment as a ‘lifestyle choice’.

In the final ‘normal’ minute of the half Sam Morsy gives George Hirst the chance to score, but Hirst’s shot is saved and as we progress into four minutes of additional time Jack Taylor surges into the box and might or might not be tripped and Portman Road reverberates to the sound of the question “Who’s the wanker in the black?  Encouragingly, I don’t hear any references to Gunga Din, Gandhi or corner shops, although Mr Singh is roundly booed as he leaves the pitch.

The half-time break brings a chat with the man from Stowmarket who Pat from Clacton later discovers is called Paul.  I syphon off some spent Suffolk Pride and enjoy the almost theatrical display by the pitch sprinklers before the football resumes at ten past four and Town set about getting the goals that they should have and almost did, but ultimately didn’t score in the first half. Immediately things are different as the seat next to me, which was empty in the first half, is occupied by a woman with obviously dyed hair, who might be the mother of one or more of the blokes sat behind me.  Ipswich quickly win a corner after some argument, and predictably once the kick is taken a free-kick is then awarded to Swansea.

Mr Singh further endears himself to the crowd as Leif Davis is cynically shoved into the advert hoardings as he tries to run past a Swansea defender, but no yellow card is shown.  Seven minutes into the half however all is forgiven, for a while any way, as Mr Singh awards Town a penalty.  No one sat near me has any idea why,  but we’re not too bothered, particularly when George Hirst steps up to score and Town lead three-one.  There is a feeling of contentment around me and it seems like we will be happy if the score stays like this, although further Town goals will not be turned away.

The action on field follows the pattern of a team closing the game down and Swansea enjoy more possession but to little effect. There are however occasional moments of anxiety. Swansea break forward, but Leif Davis calmly first looks for the offside flag, and then realising it isn’t coming makes a perfectly timed sliding tackle inside the penalty area. Five minutes on and the first substitutions are made for Town as Marcus Harness and Wes Burns replace Omari Hutchinson and Nathan Broadhead.  Pat from Clacton shares with us how much she loves Marcus Harness’s ‘lovely blue eyes’ and can’t hold back from telling her that even I had noticed those too.  Harness immediately intercepts a Swansea pass and draws appreciative applause.

There are twenty-five minutes of normal time remaining as Town win a corner and the sky darkens behind the floodlights as one of the first early winter evenings descends and I can feel the chill of the air as I breathe in. “Carrow Road is falling down” chant Town fans in the furthest top corner of the Cobbold stand, but where I’m sat no one can understand what else they’re singing or whether it’s witty, abusive or stupid.  Four minutes later and Mr Singh stops his charm offensive as he sends off Swansea’s Liam Cullen, we think following a second yellow card after a foul on Leif Davis. “Cheerio, Cheerio, Cheerio” sing the Town fans sympathetically.

Surely the three points are now safe with only ten men to play against, and the optimism in the stands   is expressed in chants of “Ole Ole Ole” from those Town fans who just won’t let the memories of holidays on the Costas fade away.  Would that Keiran McKenna, as wonderful as he is, was as colourful, as he stands in the technical area in his dull grey trousers and black car coat.  If promotion to the First Division is achieved, I’m hopeful that the budget will then stretch to a stylist for Kieran.  Town win another corner and the attendance is announced by Murphy as 28,929 with 634 from Swansea, although to be fair to the Welsh it is a very long way from Ipswich; four-hundred and forty-three kilometres in fact.  “Thank you once more for your incredible support” says Murphy, stretching the definition of incredible.

The final ten minutes of normal time see Marcus Harness booked by Mr Singh; the bloke behind me asks “ Is he dead?” of the player Harness fouled. Town win a corner and Mr Singh walks patiently over to the dug outs to raise his yellow card towards someone on the Swansea bench.  Freddie Ladapo replaces George Hirst. Swansea win a rare corner and we are told that there will be a minimum of nine minutes of additional time, which in percentage terms when added to the four in the first half is greater than the Camra discount on beer at ’the Arb’. 

I am thinking that added on time is just something to be endured, until the right-hand side of the Town defence gets a puncture and Jamahl Lowe rather embarrassingly skips past Luke Woolfenden and around the excellent Vaclav Hladky to make the score three-two from very close range.  Pat from Clacton is suddenly nervous, and Hladky makes a late challenge for the title of Man of the Match, even though it has already been awarded to Jack Taylor.  But Town survive and victory is ours yet again, and it’s been yet another rollicking match; Kieran Mckenna and his team continuing to make up for  fifteen years of mediocrity and worse, in fifteen months.

It’s gone five o’clock as Pat from Clacton and Fiona hurry away to buses and trains, but I stay for a short while to applaud, although the game has finished so late that I can’t linger long either, as my train leaves at nineteen minutes past.  When I eventually head into the cold, damp evening I wonder if this afternoon’s match will live in my memory like my trip to Swansea of forty years ago, I hope so.

Ipswich Town 0 Colchester United 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It took me several days to get around to buying a ticket for this season’s annual August Tuesday evening embarrassment, otherwise known as the League Cup first round, but when I finished work on Monday afternoon I logged onto the ITFC website and characteristically, due to the difficulties I have with technology, printed myself off four tickets, fortunately all for the same seat. Fifteen quid is a lot to watch Col U, especially when twelve months ago it only cost a tenner to see the 1981 European Cup Winners Cup quarter-finalists Newport County, but sixty quid would have been beyond the pale, whatever that means.

I recall being quite excited at the prospect of Newport last year, but despite it being a much more local derby than our recognised derby versus Norfolk’s finest, this game tonight is not doing a lot for me.  My enthusiasm had been further sapped during the afternoon by being serenaded as I sat in my office by the raucous and vacuous chants of Colchester United supporters.   If my productivity took a tumble this afternoon, I’m not surprised.  “How do you think, we’ll do tonight” says the bloke in the club shop as I buy my programme (£2.00).  “I have no idea” I tell him honestly, “We don’t seem to do very well in the cups”.  Well call me Nostradamus; or on a Friday night Cassandra.

Regardless of my lack of enthusiasm and optimism I am compelled to follow the usual pre-match ritual at what was once known as the Arboretum. Parking up my trusty Citroen C3 just around the corner, because it’s gone 6pm, I step in off the dusty street to order a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.90). Tonight, with time to kill and the need for sustenance I also have a Scotch Egg (£4.50) and a portion of hand-cut chips (£4.00), and after a respectable interval, a pint of the appropriately named Lacon’s Encore (£3.80). An hour later, stuffed and bloated I head for Portman Road.

It’s a beautiful warm evening and my senses are treated amongst other delights to dappled sunlight dancing through the trees in Great Gipping Street, screeching seagulls, the smell of frying onions and the warm glow of the brickwork at the back of the Magnus Group stand.  I’m almost glad I made the effort to get a ticket after all. My seat tonight is up high in the shady interior of block N but on arrival I find somebody already sat there, I have to explain to him that his seat is actually in Block Y, a few seats away to our left; with his three chums he shifts along. I tell them I’ve done them a good deed because Block Y are the better seats.  I hope in vain that the seats next to me will now remain empty, but it’s not long before another three blokes, all nursing meat pies and plastic cutlery arrive.  “Excuse me” says the youngest brushing past.  I should have blocked his way and asked for the password – “Please”.

In the blink of an eye, or perhaps a little longer, the teams are on the pitch, knees are taken and applauded and Col. U, in rather boring red shirts and black shorts have kicked off defending the goal in front of what was Churchman’s cigarette factory the last time Col U won at Portman Road, which was on 13th October 1951; although in truth they have rarely had the opportunity since then. The noise inside the stadium is possibly the most I think I have ever heard made by 11,654 people at Portman Road. The Col U fans are giving it their all and the Town fans in the Sir Bobby Robson stand (lower tier) are answering back.  For now at least, I am at last glad I printed that ticket, albeit four times.

On the pitch, the Town are soon on the attack and the blokes beside me, who are possibly from the ‘professional classes’ are concentrating deeply.  Behind me a couple of young women seem less enraptured and are having a bit of a ‘catch-up’, although of course women are known for their ability to multi-task.  Seven minutes pass and Col U’s  magnificently monikered number 17, Ossama Ashley dives spectacularly to head a cross away for Town’s first corner. A minute later and Town’s Greg Leigh runs on to a fine Luke Woolfenden pass and shoots across goal, but his shot is saved.  Up in the Cobbold stand the Col U fans are reduced to cheering when they get a goal-kick or throw, before coming over all sullen and spiteful by chanting “Your support is fucking shit” in the time-honoured manner of visiting away fans.  Ten minutes have passed.  Fifteen minutes have now passed and the Col U fans are still singing the same Welsh hymn, pronouncing “fuckin’” with a passion and feeling that only an Essex accent can produce.

Eighteen minutes have passed, Town are dominating but getting nowhere much and I’m ashamed to say I am getting a little bored. I notice the bright new concrete between the Cobbold and Sir Alf Ramsey stands beneath the new scoreboard;  I notice Kieron McKenna’s bright white jacket, which looks like it might be made of Nylon; I notice the fat bloke in front of me whose shoulders are moulding themselves around my knees and I notice a faint fusty smell and can’t decide if it’s the middle-aged woman sat next to me or the fat bloke.

The twentieth minute shakes me from my reverie as a fine move down the right tees up Cameron Humphreys with time and space for a shot on goal from 12 metres or so; he must score. Humphreys blazes the ball so high and wide of the goal I find it hard not to jeer along with the Col U fans. “Bloody Hell” I say to myself as those around me groan despairingly. Five minutes later and Humphreys does the same thing again.  Soon Col U’s Frank Nouble (pronounced Noublay as in Michael Buble) conveniently stays down after a challenge so everyone can have a drinks break. 

In a rare foray into the Town half by Col U, Town fans mystifyingly chant “Who are ya?” at some Col U player or other;  I can’t work out why they would be interested unless he has never previously played for Ipswich.  The ball stays down the Ipswich end for a short while and it looks just a matter of time before  Ipswich are on the attack again. But Rakeem Harper decides to pass the ball onto the penalty area to Col U’s Luke Hannant who is simply unable to miss the enormous target he has been given, and Col U lead 1-0.   There have been some terrible goals given away by Town players in recent seasons and this is up there with the very worst.  I don’t want to cry, so I laugh a stifled, sad laugh, a sort of “Ha!”

In the last third of the half Col U win a corner and then Town do. The bloke beside me says in exasperated tones “We could, should be three-nil up by now”. Kane Vincent-Young heads over the Col U cross-bar and Humphreys completes his hat-trick. “His confidence is just going to go” says the bloke beside me worriedly.  On the opposite side of the ground the Col U fans have at last got round to asking “ Is this a library?” I can only think they had been wracking their brains trying to remember the tune, most of them presumably not being ‘into’ Italian opera.

Half-time brings the reward of a somewhat soft Nature Valley peanut and chocolate protein bar and little else; even Norwich are winning at half-time.  The one enjoyable thing is the glowing reflection of the setting sun on the strip glazing of St Clare House and the AXA building; twentieth century office buildings rule.

At nine minutes to nine play resumes and having remembered La donna e mobile the Col U fans just can’t get it out of their heads.   The match resumes the pattern of the first half, although Town never again produce the sort of chances that Cameron Humphreys so capably fluffed in the first half.  Tyreece John-Jules launches a shot into a low orbit and falls over quite a bit.  Around me, increasingly frustrated Town supporters try to encourage their team with some clapping that gently peters out, but they can never quite summon the courage to shout and holler, chant or sing.

Fifty-six minutes have gone never to return and Col U replace the player with the most controversial first name, Ossama Ashley, with the player who has what I adjudge to be tonight’s best surname, Ryan Clampin.   In a magnificent display of time wasting Ossama is booked as he dawdles from the pitch pausing first to turn and applaud the away supporters,  and then to remove his shin-pads.  If some of the people around me in the stand had guns and stealth helicopters, Ossama would have suffered the same alleged fate as his near namesake.  One of the blokes behind me is so apoplectic with rage he can no longer form sentences that do not have the word ‘fucking’ in them.

The excitement subsides as Town revert to their relentless, patient, unrewarding pressure.  Former Town hero Cole Skuse is substituted by Col U to general applause from Town fans, although he looks a little confused by it, which perhaps as a member of one of Town’s most derided teams is understandable. With twenty minutes left, Town substitute a third of the team with Harness, Chaplin, Burns and Evans replacing Vincent-Young, Jackson, Aluko and Harper.  The game does not change, Town are no more incisive,  although Conor Chaplin does produce a spectacular overhead kick which goes wide of the goal.  Idris El-Mizouni usurps Cameron Humphreys with five minutes to go until the calling of five minutes of time added on.  In that time added on Lee Evans unleashes a powerful drive, but straight at the Col U goalkeeper and Luke Woolfenden is booked for fractiousness.

When full-time is called, the inevitable boos resound through the stand but if people aren’t used to Town being beaten by lower league opposition in cup competitions by now they never will be.  I now believe it is simply our fate to provide early season joy for the ‘little teams’, in the same way that people donate tins of beans for the needy at harvest festival; and then in November or December we hand out early Christmas presents.  No doubt somewhere it is being said, given our 78% possession and our tally of shots on goal that ‘on another day we would have won’.  Sadly, at the moment it feels like that day will either be a cold day in hell or 30th February.  Good luck in the next round Col U.

Ipswich Town 1 Nostalgia 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

On a damp May evening three years ago, I recall thinking to myself that it feels like 1978 and Ipswich Town have won the FA Cup all over again.  With my Portsmouth supporting wife Paulene, I had gone to see the Wolsey Theatre’s production of ‘Our Blue Heaven’, the music-backed play that celebrated the fortieth anniversary of Town’s FA Cup win. I can honestly say it was the most enjoyable Ipswich Town related evening I had had in nearly twenty years, since that season in the sun at the start of the third millennium when Town did things like beating Liverpool and Manchester City at their own grounds, having finally managed the previous May, to win a play-off semi-final and victoriously tread the turf at the old Wembley stadium for the last time. 

Fast forward to October 9th 2021, and in the spirit of celebration of Town’s winning the UEFA Cup forty years and five months before, which the club itself has seen fit to mark with the sale of a wallet, luxury boxed badge, and travel mug, the New Wolsey Theatre is staging the final performance of its production ‘Never Lost at Home’, the story of the 1980-81 season, but mainly the winning of the UEFA Cup, something no ordinarily lovable, small town football club will probably ever do again.  Not keen on spending an evening in an enclosed space with about 400 other people, most of whom will probably not be wearing a face mask, I have opted to cough up the £20 to watch the two- and a-bit hour performance on-line from the safety of my living room.

Forty and a bit years ago in May of 1981, I had just finished my final exam at the University of Sussex and I was now just wasting my time, until the lease on my shared student house was up, by playing football, going on pub crawls, walking on the Downs, visiting friends at the other end of the country and taking days out in an aged, bright orange, Dutch registered, left-hand drive Fiat 600 which my friend Chris (mainly known as ‘Jah’ due to his love of Reggae) had borrowed from a woman on his Social Anthropology course.  A lack of available cash and the demands of academia had sadly meant that in Town’s run to the final of the 1981 UEFA Cup final, I had only seen two home games, those against Aris Salonika and FC Koln.  Of the other games, I mostly remember the nervous anticipation of waiting for the result on the radio or television news.  The away matches I recall most are those at St Etienne and Koln.  I remember learning that Town were a goal down in St Etienne and was very chuffed to hear they had equalised as I headed off to the Student Union bar that March evening.  When I discovered Town had won 4-1, I could hardly believe it, and indeed it was a performance that has gone down in history as one of the best-ever by a British club in Europe and possibly Ipswich Town’s greatest performance ever.  As for the game in Koln, I remember that my friend Stephen went to the game on a supporters’ coach from Shotley and I remember seeing Terry Butcher’s winning goal on television, having been fearful that the one goal lead from the first leg would not be enough.

On the morning of 20th May 1981 my sister dropped me and my father off at Ipswich railway station where we caught a chartered train to Parkeston Quay and a chartered ferry to the Hook of Holland before boarding a chartered coach to Amsterdam.  Everyone travelled with the Ipswich Town Supporters Club and Anglia Tours back then, and I still have the pennant to prove it.  I wouldn’t enter Holland again for another 35 years, until I drove through a small corner of it on my way to Dusseldorf for a pre-season game in 2016, but I recall it being very neat.  In Amsterdam my father and I spent the time before the game in a small bar where we drank Amstel, a beer rarely seen in Britain back then, thankfully.  My father had encountered it before in foreign ports when in the Royal Navy and had warned me that it was gnats’; he was right, but it was all there was, they didn’t have any Tolly Cobbold Original.    Amsterdam was beautifully warm that May evening, which was just as well because terraces of the Olympic Stadium were open to the elements, which given that it was built for the 1928 Olympics isn’t that surprising; stadium builders weren’t always big on rooves back then.  In 1987 the Dutch government designated the Olympic Stadium as a National Monument, obviously because Town won the UEFA Cup there, but also because of the fine brick architecture by Jan Wils, an exponent of the Amsterdamse School.  It’s good to know that there is a corner of the Dutch capital that will forever be imbued with the memory of the presence of 7,500 Town fans.

My memory of the match that night in Amsterdam is one of anxiety and tension, despite taking an early lead that put us 4-0 up on aggregate and then gaining a second away goal.  AZ 67 Alkmaar were a bloody good team, but happily not quite good enough, despite Town being visibly knackered at the end of a colossal sixty-six game season. Forty years is a long time, and I’m not sure now what I remember from being there and what I remember from having seen various tv clips since.  I think I remember being frustrated that in the second half we couldn’t keep the ball away from Alkmaar, but I know I do recall wishing away the last twenty minutes of the game, and constantly checking my watch; willing Alkmaar not to score again and the Town defence to hold firm.  I remember nothing of the journey home, although I think my father might have invested in the luxury of a two-berth cabin in the hope of a couple of hours of sleep.

Tonight, “Never Lost at Home” picks up the story of the fictional Coombes family who followed Town to Wembley in “Our Blue Heaven”, and the story very much has the feel of being a sequel, which of course it is.  This time the tale begins with the family vowing to have someone at every game for what promises to be the greatest season in the club’s history as it vies to win an unprecedented treble.  Once again, the story is set against the background of the events of the times, in particular the high rates of unemployment resulting from the Thatcher government’s monetarist policies and indeed Scott loses his job to create some jeopardy in the story as it inevitably hinders his ability to get to games. Once again also, the story and the season unfold to a soundtrack of popular tunes of the time, although just like in ‘Our Blue Heaven’ it doesn’t, because several of the songs are from as much a four years later, which rankles somewhat because songs such as Tears for Fears ‘Everybody wants to rule the world’ (1985) were actually the soundtrack to avoiding relegation, not seeking glory.

Despite the failure to use the actual music of 1980 and 1981 (what a pity we never played Rapid Vienna or IK Start), rather than just generic 1980’s hits, there is nevertheless an authentic feeling of nostalgia for a time and a place.  I can’t fully explain why, but I had tears in my eyes in the first part of this production.  It might have been because I was reminded of how awful some of the music of the 1980’s was; I always hated ‘Eye of The Tiger’ (1982) and have consequently never seen any of the ‘Rocky’ films, but more likely I was mourning my lost youth and my lost football team, both of which seemed to go missing at much the same time.

 One major departure from the mostly repeated formula of “Our Blue Heaven” is the introduction in “Never Lost at Home” of one of the players as a recurring character, that player being the now legendary Arnold Muhren.  The choice of Arnold was, if not inspired, then obvious, because perhaps more than any other player, even his fellow Dutchman Frans Thijssen, Arnold somehow personifies that 1980-81 team, despite having actually joined Town three years before in September of 1978.  Again, the story employs a little artistic license as it almost implies that Arnold and Frans joined for the 80-81 season, but that is easily forgiven and does add to the mythology of that remarkable season.  I can only think that in casting actor Dan Bottomley as Arnold Muhren, one of the main considerations must have been his legs, because these have the same straight up and down shape of Arnold’s.  Not for Arnold the meaty thighs of Mick Mills or Paul Mariner; Arnold was a sinewy thoroughbred, built for the measured pass, the clever change of pace and direction in a single stride, the sort of footballer who simply danced through midfield and no longer exists in a game where speed, strength and bulk has usurped grace and subtlety.

The greatest triumph of ‘Never Lost at Home’, as it was of ‘Our Blue Heaven’, is the performance of Peter Peverley as Bobby Robson.   Not only does Peverley, with his gently hoarse County Durham accent, and perfectly observed Robson-esque mannerisms create a wholly believable vision of the Town manager, but he also delivers the great man’s words as he sends his team out in search of glory.  So stirring and convincing are Peverley’s words it might be an idea if the current Town management employed him to give Paul Cook’s team talks.

Oddly perhaps, ‘Never Lost at Home’ tails off towards the end, in contrast to the prequel which had something of a grand finale as the stories of the characters all came together on 6th May with a birth, a marriage and the Cup Final itself.  This time the characters don’t have their own stories to be resolved other than what happens to them as they travel across Europe in the rounds leading up to the final. We all know the ending, and although Town ultimately win the UEFA Cup, sadly mine and a lot of people’s memories of 1980-81 are probably tinged with a feeling of ‘what should have been’ with the loss of the FA Cup semi-final to the hugely inferior Manchester City and the loss of the ever-elusive League Championship to Aston Villa, a team we beat no less than three times over the course of the season.  But as one of the characters in the play points out, we had already won the Cup and the League before, so if it was to be only one out of three, best that it was the UEFA Cup.   Reassuringly however, it’s good to know that we only lost out in the Cup and the League because none of the characters in the play could get to the Cup semi-final or the penultimate League game of the season at Middlesbrough.

In truth, ‘Never Lost at Home’ wasn’t quite as good as ‘My Blue Heaven’, although my seeing it through the television screen rather than in the flesh is doubtless a factor in that. The story doesn’t have the drama of its predecessor and by drifting further into 1980’s the music is not so much ‘not as good’, as ‘worse’. Nevertheless, it was still massively enjoyable all the same, bringing back those memories of what genuinely was a marvelous time to be a Town supporter and which seems even more so given all that’s happened since. I can only hope that both ‘Our Blue Heaven’ and ‘Never Lost at Home’ are both resurrected in ten years time, not only to celebrate the fiftieth anniversaries of the FA Cup and UEFA Cup wins, but also their own 10th anniversaries; or perhaps we could have a musical about going to a musical about winning the FA Cup and UEFA Cup; I’d watch it.