Angers

SCO Angers 2 Olympique de Marseille 5

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Angers is an historic city in the valley of the River Loire in western France famed for its massive castle, partly built by the early Plantagenet kings of England, which is home to the remarkable fourteenth century Tapestry of the Apocalypse.  Visiting the castle to see the tapestry is one of the reasons why my wife Paulene and I have made the eight hour, seven-hundred- and twenty-three-kilometre drive in our planet saving Citroen e-C4 to be here, but another is that today SCO Angers are playing Olympique Marseille (OM) at the Stade Raymond Kopa in a Ligue 1 fixture.  We have seen Angers play OM before, back in 2015 at the Stade Velodrome in Marseille (Angers won 2-1), but being the type of people who feel strangely compelled to watch football in as many French towns and cities as possible, this is an opportunity not to be missed.  Also, it’s easier to get tickets for Angers v OM than it is get them for Ipswich Town away games, which I have therefore given up on.  Meanwhile, Paulene is the only person in the world to be a fan of both OM and Paris St Germain!

From our hotel near the St Serge University, it’s a two-minute walk to the tram stop where a Ligne A tram takes us to Foch Haras from where we change to an articulated number one bus that makes its way up rue Paul Bert and rue Volney towards Saumuroise, where we alight (fare 1.70 euros) and then take a short walk down rue du Colombier to the Stade Raymond Kopa.  The Stade Raymond Kopa was until 2017 called the Stade Jean Bouin, but since 2019 it has been undergoing its latest upgrade with two new stands being built.  From rue du Colombier Stade Raymond Kopa now looks less like a football stadium and more like a large, perforated, grey metal box, largely because it is. The dark grey reflects the monochrome club colours of SCO Angers but could probably do with a few splashes of white or some groovy signage to jazz it up a little, especially on a grey, cloudy autumn day like today.

It’s about twenty past one and crowds are gathering in the street at the back of the Tribune Saint-Leonard awaiting the arrival of the Angers team who soon step out of a compact black and white coach and skulk into the stadium through an anonymous opening in its grey metal walls.  A crowd of mostly children cheer and wave black and white flags whilst cheerless looking security guards look out from beneath frighteningly short haircuts.  The players are greeted and ushered beyond the grey wall by people in shiny suits wearing huge white plimsolls, which make them resemble the children on the Magic Roundabout.

With the Angers players safely inside the stadium, an air of expectancy still lingers in the street outside and perhaps even increases because the OM team bus is now on its way.  OM are without doubt the biggest club in France but they have no dodgy middle eastern state to bank-roll them and are instead mis-managed by a succession of incompetent owners who ride the football gravy train, sell any decent players, buy in those the top clubs don’t want and build up debts before moving on, leaving in their wake a sort of underfunded, Mediterranean version of Tottenham Hotspur.  But OM supporters are all over France and are faithful to their club, they are also probably masochists.

At last, the blue lights of the police motorcycle escort appear and following behind the OM team bus, which parks up behind the lines of comically grumpy security staff and disgorges its cargo of shifty looking athletes into the grey metal box. We stand next to a man who shouts insults at the players and doesn’t seem to notice the scary looks he receives from a huge security guard standing just a metre away.  With the excitement over, Paulene and I head round the corner to the fanzone, where there is a bouncy castle, a bar, tables and chairs and a trestle table from which an attractive young couple are flogging a limited range of club ‘merch’.  Also here is a collection of balloons arranged in the shape of a heart to promote ‘October Rose’, an annual event in French football to raise awareness of and money for research into breast cancer.  Most clubs produce a special shirt and associated merchandise and have a fixture dedicated to it.  Today, Angers will be wearing their special shirt.  Paulene shows solidarity by buying a pink scarf and we are both given pink ribbons to wear on our coats.  With an hour still until kick off I make a trip to the bar for a 50 cl ‘glass’ of Affligem beer (9 euros for the beer and 1 euro for the re-usable ‘October Rose’ branded cup).  It might be expensive and a bit too cold, but Affligem is a decent enough beer (even if it is now owned by Heineken) which at 6.7% alcohol by volume offers a strength and flavour no one would dare allow football fans in England to enjoy.

Having supped the Affligem, we head into the grey box.  There are no turnstiles, just people with scanners to check your ticket or the QR code on the screen of your mobile phone.  Everyone, everywhere, as at all French football game wishes you “bon match” and everyone is given a polythene flag displaying the SCO Angers club badge.  Inside the grey box it is as grey as it is outside, with the steel frame of the stand painted grey or coated with what looks like a hard, grey pulp or even icing.  The perforated metal walls let in a lot of light however and the concourse is spacious, although the toilets aren’t and streams of people made anxious by full bladders snake out of them.

There are two flights of stairs up to our seats in the lower tier of the Tribune Colombier but conveniently our seats are at the end of the row.  Three unaccompanied youths, who look no more than twelve years old sit in front of us but then move to the seats next to me, and a nervous looking man with dark receding hair and a young boy sit in front of us instead; he gives the three boys a slightly quizzical and disapproving look as if to ask, “Vos meres savent-elles que vous etes ici?” (Do your mothers know you are here?)

When the game begins it is OM who get first go with the ball, which they are aiming at the goal in front of the Tribune Colombier, which is the fullest of the four stands and is where Paulene and I are sitting.  Somewhere far behind us is the suburb of Trelaze where the number one bus that we caught was heading.  Today, OM are wearing a change kit of all navy blue whilst Angers are not in their usual black and white stripes that make them look like a classy, Gallic Harwich & Parkeston FC but instead wear their special, all-white with a pink splodge on the front, ‘October Rose’ kit.

The ball is quickly booted into touch from kick off as if OM never really wanted first go with it anyway.  Over to our left in the end of the otherwise mostly empty Tribune Jean Bouin the OM ultras are in full voice, waving banners and jumping about, as they have been since we arrived. “Marseille! Tum de tum, Te dum dum! Marseille!” they chant, according to the scribble in my notebook.   It is OM who have the first shot on goal when after nine minutes Igor Paixo strikes the ball wide of an Angers post at the end of a coherent passing move.  Two minutes later, and as I am afflicted by wafts of body spray from the nervous looking man with a receding hairline sat in front of me, Anthony Lopes the Angers goalkeeper gesticulates unhappily at the players in front of him.  A pattern begins to emerge as another good passing move from OM in the twelfth minute ends with Tochukwu Nnadi also shooting wide.

Angers haven’t featured much so far but this of course means that in the fourteenth minute a cross from the left sails over the head of Angers’ Lilian Raolisoa only for it to strike an OM defender deflect back onto Raolisoa and into the goal knocking Raolisoa over in the process.  It’s a comedy goal as many that OM concede are, but it gives Angers a surprise one-nil lead, nevertheless.  “Allez Angervins” chant the home crowd and the nervous looking man in front stands up to wave his polythene flag and jump up and down, and he encourages the boy to do so too. Perhaps he’s not so nervous after all.

A goal down, some of the OM players begin to roll around on the floor when the opportunity arises but the referee Monsieur Jeremie Pignard ignores them quite brilliantly and as the first half of the first half fades into the past OM shoot wide again and then do nothing memorable with the game’s first corner before Angers make an inevitable quick break away, only for Amine El Ouazzani to shoot spectacularly high and wide of the OM goal.

The first third of the match is over and to mark the occasion Raolisoa slices a clearance to give OM a second corner, but OM only proceed to miss a couple more chances and Paixao has a header easily saved by Lopes when he probably should have scored. Another OM corner is then easily cleared before finally, with seven minutes left until half time, a cross from Timothy Weah is headed firmly but simply into the Angers net from close range by bearded OM captain Himad Abdelli.  “Ole, Ole, Ole” chant the OM fans to the tune of the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine”. In all the stands OM fans stand up to cheer and unlike in England where people are outraged when an “away” supporter sits in the “home” end, no one seems that bothered, but then unlike the English, the French like to save their anger for the things that matter, like liberty and equality.

Three minutes remain until half time and OM up the corner count again when Lopes saves another shot, this time from Amine Gouiri. From the resultant corner, despite being 1.83m in height Nouhoum Kamissoko seems to go un-noticed by the Angers players and he heads firmly into the middle of the goal and OM lead 2-1.  A minute of added on time is added on but nothing changes except for a lot of cheering from pre-pubescent voices; Paulene suggests that someone has just found a stash of sugar.

Half-time is a time to vent some spent Affligem, buy a bottle of water (3 euros) and see the Angers mascot, Scoty the Panda swagger onto the pitch in a somewhat surly manner with feet at ‘ten to two’, perform some perfunctory task and then frighten a couple of children and swagger back into the stand.  My father, a naval man, would have said he walks like a “dockyard matey”.  We had hoped to meet Scoty in the fanzone but we’re not so disappointed that we didn’t now, he just looks like a fat middle-aged bloke in tracky bottoms with a panda head on; added to which the pink splodge on the front of his October Rose shirt makes him look like he’s been stabbed or is coughing up blood.

It is a minute past four when the football resumes, and OM are now sending the ball towards the cathedral and castle in the city centre and the Angers ultras in the Tribune Coubertin. OM quickly win another corner and Lopes saves from Nnadi, before with the new half twelve minutes old Angers make a first substitution, swapping the wonderfully named Louis Mouton (it means Louis Sheep but sounds like Louis Vuitton) for the equally wonderfully named Prosper Peter (just nice alliteration).   The impact is immediate as Amine Gouiri runs at the Angers defence and into the penalty area and has his ankle tapped by Yassin Belkhdim and Monsieur Pignard awards a penalty.  Gouiri’s penalty is saved but Lopes can only parry the shot and Gouiri scores from the re-bound. It’s 3-1 to OM.

The game moves into its final third and Paulene and I resign ourselves to the nervous looking man with the receding hair and child not returning, he left at the end of half-time and hasn’t been seen since. I didn’t like the smell of his body spray anyway, so am quite pleased.  Prosper Peter is looking alert for Angers as his name suggests to me he should be, and as the game moves on through the sixty-fifth and sixty-sixth minutes he heads wide and then delicately flicks a cross onto the OM cross bar.  Angers’ Emmanuel Biumla then fouls Gouiri and consequently sees Mr Pignard’s yellow card before the OM ultras embark on a chorus of “Aux Armes, Nous Sommes les marseillais, Et nous allons gagner, Allez l’OM!” (To arms, We are the Marseillais, And we are going to win, Go OM!) and the OM fans scattered throughout the rest of the stadium attempt to echo the chant.

More substitutions are made by Angers and this time the effect is positive as three minutes later they win a corner and in defending it Nnadi wrestles Carlens Arcus to the ground and Mr Pignard awards a penalty to Angers, which Amine El Ouazzani quickly and confidently despatches past Jeffrey de Lange, who effectively steps out of the way of the kick, and the score is 3-2. Nnadi is booked.  “Lo lo lo, Allez les SCO’s” sing the home supporters optimistically, and then sing it again  and again, and again. “Faites du bruit” (Make some noise) announces the scoreboard simultaneously advertising a barbers’ shop called ‘Point-Cut’, and they do.

The final ten minutes approach and there is hope for an unlikely Angers comeback as OM make a couple of substitutions. “Allez les SCO’s” continue the home supporters but once again the substitutions seemingly have instant results and a square ball across the edge of the penalty area from Nnadi is soon expertly stroked into the Angers goal beyond Lopes by Amine Harit to make the score 4-2 to OM. A minute later and the score is 5-2 as a lobbed ball forward from Egan-Riley is headed back by Weah and drops to Paixao who strokes the ball into the net in a similar manner to Amine Harit but from about five metres nearer to the goal.

It doesn’t seem likely that Angers will make any sort of comeback now although OM have often shown themselves to be more than capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in the past.  Both teams eke out the remaining five or six minutes or normal time with more substitutions and another six minutes of added-on time are added on too, but with a steady rain now falling the score remains unaltered.

With the final whistle the OM players go over to their ecstatic ultras to share a rare success and milk the moment in the likely knowledge that disappointment and frustration are never far away.  It’s been an entertaining game in terms of the number of goal scored and OM games are always fun if only for the presence of their fans who Paulene as a Pompey fan considers she has a strong affinity with.  Happy therefore, Paulene and I steal away into the deepening gloom of the damp October evening and walk back up rue Volney and rue Paul Bert to the tram stop and the ride back to our hotel.  Tomorrow we return home.

Ipswich Town 2 Middlesbrough 2

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It’s been a difficult week of a shingles vaccination, which made me feel so ill I was only capable of falling asleep watching the telly,  a televised away defeat at Portsmouth, through much of which I wish I had slept, and a Saturday in which I was tasked with wrestling artificial stone paving slabs  into some sort of path around a recently refurbished garden pond.  Now, to cap it all the Town are having to perform at midday on the Sunday at the behest of some evil, global media empire, and I am having to forego every person’s human right to a lie-in on their actual or nominal sabbath before enjoying a leisurely breakfast.

More cheerfully, it is a bright sunny morning, albeit tempered by a chilly breeze, as I make my way to the railway station where, arriving on the ‘Ipswich bound’ platform I engage in conversation with the man who very often stands here with me on match days.  Today, we continue our conversation on the train and not only does he meet Gary, who as ever boards at the next station stop, but he reveals that his name is Gareth, his grandfather was chairman of Braintree Town Football Club back in the 1970’s and 1980’s when they were in the Eastern Counties League, and one of his earliest football related memories is of his grandmother running the players’ baths at Cressing Road just as the game was about to end, because presumably at that time in Braintree the brand names Mira, Triton and Aqualisa were still unknown.

Being Sunday, the train is busy with faithful pilgrims, all bound for Portman Road, who regrettably seem largely unable to talk quietly, making it difficult for considerate people like Gary, Gareth and me to hold a conversation without raising our voices too.  In Wherstead we lean towards the train window, searching the landscape beyond for polar bears; a grubby looking one close to the tracks glances up trying to spot any Middlesbrough fans who she might recognise from the frozen wastelands of the North or from episodes of Noggin the Nog.

Arriving in Ipswich, Gary and I bid adieu to Gareth and make for the Arb as fast as Gary’s dawdling gait will allow. Impatient for beer, despite it not yet being eleven o’clock, I am first through the door, but Gary offers to buy the drinks and I let him.  The pub is pleasingly not as heaving as it usually is before a match, although a man tries to form a queue behind us at the bar and I have to tell him that queuing is not required in pubs, it’s why they have bars and not hatches, and bar staff not tellers.

Pint glasses of Lager and Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride in our respective hands Gary and I proceed to the beer garden where Mick is already ensconced with a pint of Blackberry Porter and a packet of cheese and onion crisps.  Our conversation begins like an episode of Rumpole at the Bailey; but it’s Gary at Crown Court, as he proceeds to tell us a story of every day criminal folk beating each other up on the mean streets of an Essex town beneath the gaze of CCTV cameras.  Gary’s stint as a juror ended this week but the denouement is that all the accused were found guilty of a range of offences and await sentencing. 

Another pint of lager, a pint of porter and a double-whisky later Gary, Mick and I are victoriously the last drinkers in the pub when we head downhill to Portman Road where there are queues for the Cobbold Stand. We go our separate ways somewhere close to the statue of Sir Alf Ramsey uncertain whether the final home match of the season is on a Saturday or a Sunday but relatively confident that it will again be stupidly early in the day.

At the back of the Sir  Alf Ramsey stand the queues to be checked for weapons, explosives and scrap metal are blissfully short and although the sacred turnstile 62 is temporarily afflicted by a man trying to gain entry using petrol coupons and a Tesco club card,  I am soon stood next to Pat from Clacton waiting for her to finish photographing the flames leaping into the midday air in  front of the Cobbold Stand so that I can sit down next to Fiona, 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.  I think to myself that it’s nice that everyone is present after a few absences for the previous match. Today, I have mysteriously arrived in time to hear the excitable young stadium announcer (EYSA) announce the whole team and I do my best to be like a Frenchman at Le Stadium in Toulouse or the Stade Raymond Kopa in Angers by bawling out the players surnames as EYSA reads them out , but with variable success because he is a beat or two ahead of the scoreboard

Eventually, through an atmosphere of dissipating smoke and fumes the game begins, with today’s guests Middlesbrough, known as The Boro’ to their friends getting first go with the ball, which they are mostly kicking in the direction of the Sir Bobby Robson stand and the Smokehouse live music venue in South Street. Very agreeably, both teams sport their proper kits, with the Town of course in their signature blue and white and The Boro’ in all red with a white band across their chests making them look unmistakeably like Middlesbrough.  The only pity is that The Boro’s white band is besmirched with the name of an on-line betting company when it should read ‘Geordie Jeans’.  

Early exchanges are fast and erratic as if the game was being played by startled spiders.  Waiting for the game to ‘settle down’ I ask Pat from Clacton how her knee is and she tells me it still hurts but nothing like it did and of course she can now walk on it and didn’t, as I suggest therefore, need to be lowered into her seat from a helicopter.  “I wouldn’t mind, but I was only getting in my car to go and play whist” moans Pat.

Back on the pitch, the first seven minutes have evaporated like the paraffin fumes, and Town are already starting to dominate to the extent that the smog monsters up in the Cobbold Stand (for that is what people from Teesside are called), are plaintively chanting “Come on Boro, Come on Boro”.  The atmosphere is tense.  “Shall we sing, shall we sing, shall we sing a song for you?”  enquire the Smoggies (short for Smog-monsters) through the medium of song, but happily the half-expected medley of works by Chris Rea doesn’t materialise.  Looking up into the gap between the roofs of the stands billowing white clouds tower above us in an otherwise clear blue sky.   The seventeenth minute heralds Town’s first corner, as the result of a shot from Ivan Azon, but it is all too easily dealt with by the Boro players despite mine, Fionas and ever-present Phil’s chants of “Come on you Blues”.  Four minutes on and again our chants are as ineffectual as Nunez’s next corner kick.

With a quarter of the game having faded away into our pasts Town almost score as a low McAteer cross is sent wide of the goal by an unexpectedly far forward Darnell Furlong, who I don’t think I had ever seen have a shot before.  Somewhat typically, within a minute Middlesbrough take the lead, predictably perhaps from the Town left where the improbably plainly monikered Alan Browne appears unmarked to cross low for David Strelec to tap the ball in from close range.  “Tingly Teds hot sauce by Ed Sheeran” read the neon lights of the Sir Bobby Robson stand not making matters any better.

 A deathly silent pall of gloom, which the home crowd always keeps close at hand for such occasions hangs over the stands and consumes all hope for a full five minutes.  But then, a bit of space in front of the Boro back four, a pass, a dinky back heel from Ivan Azon, and the re-born Kasey McAteer is drilling the ball into the corner of the Boro net from outside the penalty area and twenty-seven thousand odd people believe again.  “By far the greatest team the world has ever seen” sing the Sir Bobby Robson standers. “Well may be not the World, perhaps Suffolk” says Fiona, and Norfolk of course.  Town win a third corner and again at least three of us bellow “Come on you Blues”.  As the ball is again cleared, I wonder to Fiona whether our chants put the players off rather than encourage them.  Meanwhile up in the Cobbold Stand the Smoggies are chanting “You don’t know what you’re doing” to referee Mr Jarred Gillett, who has made or not made some or other decision to annoy them, even though he appears to have also awarded their team a free kick; you just can’t please some people.  Boro’ goalkeeper Sol Brynn takes the free-kick and I momentarily think of Uncle Bryn in tv’s Gavin and Stacey.

Half-time is only about seven minutes away and Jaden Philogene has a rare shot on goal which gives Town a fourth corner and a handful of us another opportunity to encourage the team vocally.  Town have been the better team this first half, but the Smoggies are blaming Mr Gillett. “You’re not fit to referee” they sing, like chapel-going Welshman and then more experimentally, and as Brynn takes the inevitable goal-kick following Town’s corner, “Shit referee, Ole, Ole, Ole”.  The goal-kick skews out into touch and I tell Fiona “I don’t know about the referee, but the goalkeeper’s not that good either”.

After Middlesbrough win their only corner of the half, which they don’t seem very keen to take, a minute of added on time is added on and then it’s time to applaud the team off before going to the front of the stand to chat to Dave the steward, Ray and his grandson Harrison and son Michael.  Today Ray tells me how he used to get free tickets for both home and away games when his father drove the team bus in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.  On my way back to my seat ever-present Phil who never misses a game tells me how yesterday he went to watch Kings Park Rangers at Cornard and how this very blog came in useful, fore warning him that Cornard United’s Backhouse Lane ground is a real ale desert, so he drank elsewhere.

The football resumes at two minutes past one and soon it becomes evident that this is going to be a ‘game of two halves’ and it seems that it is Middlesbrough’s turn to dominate.   Like some meteorological portent of doom, the sky has clouded over, and the breeze seems even cooler than before. Middlesbrough win a corner.  Three minutes later a state of confusion in the Town box has the ball rebounding off a post and Christian Walton saving the ball from crossing the goal line.  Things are looking a bit grim and as a diversion I look for poetry in the Boro team names, but Ayling, Browne, Fry, Gilbert and Morris can’t compare to Boam, Brine, Craggs, Spraggon and Woof from the Boro team of the 1970’s.

Brief respite and enjoyment arrive on fifty-three minutes as the afternoon’s first booking goes to Boro’s Matt Targett who has fouled Jack Taylor.  I speculate that a matt target is easier to hit than a glossy one which might produce awkward reflections and that he perhaps has a sister who is formally known as Miss Targett.  As the game descends into its final half an hour the first substitutions see former Town loanee Jeremy Sarmiento applauded by the home supporters who may never forget his last-minute goal versus Southampton in 2024, before Ivan Azon hurriedly shoots over the Boro cross bar.

As in the first half, Town’s  spurning of an opportunity is soon punished and two minutes later the Town defence is as ever penetrated on its left hand side and again a low cross is pulled back allowing  little Tommy Conway to score from close range with the Town defence well and truly dissected and pinned out like a frog in a school biology lab. Boro lead 2-1 and substitutions for Town are immediate but not necessarily related, with Mehmeti and Clarke usurping Nunez and Philogene.  But Town’s defence doesn’t improve much as Sarmiento’s shot is saved and then another three are blocked in quick succession before Middlesbrough have a corner.

Eighteen minutes of normal time remain when Eggy replaces McAteer, fourteen when Mehmeti shoots straight at Brynn, and Town begin to claw their way back into the contest with a corner seven minutes later and then two more substitutions with George Hirst and Dan Neil saying ‘hello’ and Ivan Azon and Azor Matusiwa saying ‘goodbye’.  Six minutes of normal time remain when the excitable young stadium announcer thanks us for our ‘incredible’ support, which numerically speaking today amounts to 29,684. Incredible.  Two more minutes have elapsed when a low cross from the right looks to be too far ahead of George Hirst for him to threaten the Boro goal but Adilson Malanda doesn’t make the same judgement and with the sort of slightly violent, gung-ho spirit he might have been infected with whilst playing in the USA, he pulls Hirst back and gifts Jack Clarke a shot at goal from the penalty spot.  Clarke scores the penalty and despite another eight minutes of added on time being added on, and two more players for each team being booked, the game is drawn.

The final whistle sees Pat from Clacton departing as quickly as she can and Fiona leaves too for her train.  My train leaves in not much more than ten minutes time too, so I don’t linger either.  But this has been a good match, not very much use as a result to either team really, but not a disaster either and worth the entry money as a spectator.  The Smoggies up in Cobbold stand seem bitter however, and Mr Gillett is the target of their ire as they advise him that he is not fit to referee nor perform other tasks requiring snap decisions and good eyesight presumably, like racing driver and fighter-pilot.  It makes a welcome change though for opposition supporters to be singing this particular song, long may it continue.

Ipswich Town 1 OGC Nice 0

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As far as I can recall, the last time Ipswich Town played French opposition was forty-three years ago when ‘Les Verts’ of St Etienne visited Portman Road in the second leg of a Uefa Cup quarter final tie.  For me, as someone who feels certain the world would be a better place if only Napoleon had won the battle of Waterloo, this is nothing short of a personal tragedy, but one I’ve tried to make up for by watching French football whenever possible.  I can now boast (and I do) having been to every stadium in Ligue 1 except Stade Meinau in Strasbourg and Stade Raymond Kopa in Angers, having seen more than half of the teams in  Ligue 2 and scores of those in Ligue National and the regional leagues below, and I’ve been to the final of the Coupe de France at the Stade de France.  When I heard therefore that Ipswich would be playing Olimpique Gymnast Club Nice (known as Le Gym or Les Aiglons – The Eaglets) in a pre-season friendly I was as happy as a Frenchman with a fresh baguette and a 2 litre bottle of Pastis. But, as someone who thinks access to pre-season friendlies should ideally be free, I also immediately regretted having already forked out a stonking twenty quid for a ticket for the pre-season friendly versus German second division club Fortuna Dusseldorf, and with good cause as it turned out, because that match was a stinker.

After ten days or more of mounting anticipation, today is the day of the match.  Resisting all temptations to have croissants and champagne for breakfast, it’s not long before I’m on the train to Ipswich with my wife Paulene and friend Gary looking out for polar bears as we descend past Wherstead, the A1214 and into town; we see three, two of whom are stretched out on the ground like a big game hunter’s fireside rug.  Arriving at Ipswich station there are the inevitable queues at the gates as two trains disgorge in quick succession and people struggle with QR codes on phones before eventually, a wise ticket collector simply opens the ‘sluice’ gates to prevent the human tide backing up into Greggs, a brand which I imagine any French person on the station concourse would instinctively keep a safe distance from.

Gary and I cross the road to the Station Hotel whilst Paulene makes straight for Portman Road because she wants to watch the players of OGC Nice warm up before the game; she has a particular interest in the forty-year old Brazilian colossus Dante, former Olympique Marseille players Morgan Sanson and Jonathan Clauss and the attractively monikered Gaetan Laborde. Unfortunately for Paulene, Nigerian forward Terem Moffi isn’t in the squad today because of a cruciate ligament injury.  Meanwhile, back in the Station Hotel, Gary buys me a pint of Abbot Ale and some heavily advertised lager or other for himself.  As we sit down, Mick arrives , and once he has a pint of Abbot Ale too, we talk of the Olympic games, the complicated cycling events such as the Madison and Omnium, how Gary might buy programmes for the home matches this season and the local Nicois or Nicard language or dialext of Nice as we struggle to hear ourselves talk above the noisy family who are enjoying a pre-match drink on the other side of the room.  They annoy me a bit, but Mick thinks it’s good to see families out enjoying time together.  Mick is very resaonable man. Mick also has plans to be in Nice (Nissa in Nicois) for a jazz festival a fortnight today and I quickly interrogate the interweb to discover that OGC Nice will be at home to Toulouse that weekend too.  I advise him that the Ligne 3 tram will take him to the magnificent Stade de Nice or Allianz Riviera as it is also known.

Resisting temptation for a second time today, I don’t have another pint of Abbot Ale; the first one wasn’t that great, and it also seems that today in the Station Hotel is a dress rehearsal for hosting the supporters of Liverpool next week because we are having to drink from plastic glasses.  Liverpudlians are also only allowed to use scissors if supervised by a responsible adult. Mick and I briefly discuss oxymorons before heading off for Portman Road; Gary has left already because he is making a visit to the club shop to collect one of the bright pink third choice shirts which went on sale recently and when worn will cause many a Town supporter to look like a raspberry blancmange.  Weirdly, the club has allowed Ed Sheeran to advertise one of his many bland tunes on the shirt by scrawling an impression of Framlingham Castle across the front. It would make sense on a Framlingham Town shirt, but with its high-Victorian Town Hall, Italianate Customs House, brutalist St Francis Tower, Orwell bridge, Meccano-like dockside cranes and a Corn Exchange which wouldn’t look out of place in any French city, Ipswich has more than enough interesting architecture to conjure up a skyline of its own for a Town shirt. 

Mick and I don’t quite get as far as Portman Road itself because we end up approaching the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand across the site of the former Staples store in Ruseell Road and I remark that the wide tarmac approach to the stand would be a tree-lined avenue in France; both Mick and I buy programmes (£2.50) from the ice cream booth which is situated where the first London Plane would be.

Once onto the lower tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand it seems odd not to be greeted by Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket and most strangely of all ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood.  I’m not sure if ever-present Phil counts pre-season friendlies in his long back catalogue of games he has not missed, but if he’s not here today I for one think he risks losing his epithet, and no one wants to see that.  I am however re-united with Paulene and together we ‘go down the front’ to talk with Ray and his grandson Harrison.  Paulene asks Ray about his solar panels, and he tells us that they are very successful although British Gas don’t seem to be paying him the money for the electricity his system puts into the grid. We tell him to dump British Gas and sign up with Octopus.  

Back in our seats, the Town line-up is announced, I think, but I’m not sure because the public address system is completely unintelligible, which is shame on today of all days when I imagine everyone will want to pretend to be French and call out the surnames of the players after the announcer reads out their first names.  The stadium announcer seems not to read out the names of the Nice team at all, perhaps for fear of embarrassing himself with poor pronunciation, not that it would matter when no one can understand a word he says anyway.  Eventually, the teams appear and I recall how for home games in Nice, the pre-match ritual includes ‘Mefi’ the eagle flying around the stadium; perhaps Town should have a Suffolk Punch rolling the pitch. When the game begins it is Town that get first go with the ball and aim it mostly in the direction of the goal almost in front of me, Paulene, Mick and Gary in the Sir Alf Ramsey stand.  Town wear their signature blue and white kit today, whilst Nice wear an unnecessary away kit of all-white, which is huge shame because their red and black home shirts and black shorts are a visual treat.

After almost eighteen minutes I glance up at the scoreboard and say “Is that all? It feels like we’ve been here far longer.” The game has so far displayed a dullness to rival the thoughts of Michael Owen or that of the Dusseldorf game.  But after an impromptu drinks break, when a Nice player receives treatment for acute boredom, the game miraculously perks up and both teams venture forward by means of neat passing and winning corners.  “Allez les Bleus, Allez les Bleus” I chant at an appropriate moment, and Paulene tells me later that people gave me funny looks as a result.  Liam Delap runs through on goal for Town and has a shot saved by the Nice goalkeeper and everyone starts to think that may be the new season might be ok after all, except for Paulene who supports Portsmouth and so doesn’t really care.  Then, with half-time approaching like a motorway service station on a not overly long journey but one where it’s probably as well to stop, it looks like George Edmundson and Axel Tuanzebe both make a bit of a lunge on Evan Guessand, a player with whom incidentally, Debbie Harry,  Alan Sunderland and I share a birthday, albeit not in the same year. Presumably unaware of Guessand’s star sign, not that it makes any difference, referee Mr James Bell awards Nice a penalty.  Mohamed-Ali Cho takes the penalty kick for Nice, but unusually the laws of physics are defied in Town’s favour for once and the ball strikes the inside of Muric’s right-hand post and deflects out of rather than into the Town goal.  It’s a lucky escape for Town and after only literally seconds of added-on time Mr Bell says it’s time for a cuppa and the opportunity to reflect. 

Half-time permits a thorough read of the match programme, because we don’t get much for £2.50, and for some unfathomable reason the text incorrectly, but consistently, refers to OGC Nice as OGM Nice.  I wonder what the half a dozen Nice supporters up in the Cobbold stand think of this poor journalism, particularly given that they are used to match programmes being free. 

Beneath oppressive grey skies the second half begins and carries on where the first half left off.  Both teams pass the ball tidily, but Nice possibly have a bit more flair, and in keeping with both teams’ respective country’s geographies, Nice’s passing is more expansive whilst Town’s is tighter; l’hexagone against Little England.  Napoleon would have understood.

Early second half action sees George Edmundson clear a shot from Jonathan Clauss off the Town goal line, but then the thirteenth minute of the half proves unlucky for Nice as a goalmouth melee is abruptly ended by Axel Tuanzebe lashing the by now disorientated ball into the net from inside the six-yard box. Town lead, but less pleasantly four minutes later Omari Hutchinson suffers the ignominy of being booked for a foul in a friendly match, although to his credit he does look sorry.  A minute later and mass substitutions are made, and the hopeless PA system sounds off to full effect, like a malfunctioning foghorn.  The Town players who are replaced gather in the corner by the Cobbold and Sir Alf stands presumably to warm down, causing us to speculate on whether the gym is full of building materials or whether this is just a PR exercise and the players are merely getting close to their public.  I suggest that they are going to form a cheerleading troop, but no one is overly surprised although they may be disappointed when events prove me wrong.

The highlight of the final seventeen minutes is a low shot from substitute Freddie Ladapo which strikes the inside of the far post and predictably deflects out of the goal, not into it, and Marcus Harness is arguably a little too careful with his follow up shot, which consequently is booted clear by a retreating defender. When the time comes, the final whistle is blown promptly by Mr Bell (Monsieur Cloche in French) with no un-necessary added-on time, and we all agree that it has been an enjoyable game full of free-flowing football.  Paulene and I bid farewell to Gary and Mick at the railway station as Gary catches an earlier train and Mick collects his bicycle.  We look forward to seeing the Polar bears again on our journey home and I reflect on how if only Town were in Ligue 1 we might be playing Olympique Marseille next week, not Liverpool.