Bob Dylan

Ipswich Town 0 Manchester City 6

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This morning, I read that Pierre de Coubertain, the Frenchman who founded the modern Olympic Games had said, in French “The important thing in life is not the triumph but the fight.  The essential thing is not to have won but to have fought well”.  Such a view seems rather out of date nowadays, but to his credit he was born in 1863 and when he was a lad the high ideals of amateurism and the Corinthian spirit still flourished.  I have a lot of sympathy for such views because if winning is important then some people will cheat, and when that happens we might as well pack up our goal nets, deflate our footballs, give the referee his bus fare and just go down the pub.

To save time, I haven’t put up nets or inflated any footballs today but I will soon be in ‘the Arb’ with Gary and Mick.  Although beneath cold, grey skies, Gary and I had a largely enjoyable train journey to Ipswich, talking humourously, I think, about Memorial Matchdays, last wills and testaments, and postmen working in the afternoons as pall bearers.  But best of all, we saw two polar bears, one of which was almost pulling the classic Fox’s Glacier Mints pose, even if it did look like it had also been rolling in his own excrement.   On Princes Street bridge a middle-aged Manchester City supporter asked us (Ipswich Town) to go easy on them (Manchester City) today and I felt somewhat resentful of his probable sarcasm.  “Are you being sarcastic?” I enquired, unable to think of anything in the least bit clever to say, and I still haven’t.   In Portman Road we each buy programmes (£3.50) in the modern cashless manner from a bloke with a little blue trolley, and to make up for my electronic ticket having worked first time at the railway station, the technology fails and I have to type in my PIN number.  Leaving the programme seller to his trolley, we speak of how dull and uninspiring the front covers of the programme is compared to the poster design inside the back page.  Town’s kit manufacturer Umbro reportedly objected to the posters because they don’t flaunt the Umbro logo,  and I tell Gary I dream of a fans’ rebellion a bit like Mai ’68 in Paris, but with a boycott of replica kits under the slogan of “You can stick your Umbro up your bum Bro”.

The Arb is predictably busy when we get there and it takes a short while for Gary to kindly buy me a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride whilst treating himself to a pint of Lager 43 too.  Mick is already in the beer garden, sat alone at the sort if wooden table Yogi Bear might have known, but he’s soon released from his isolation as we arrive to talk about the new Bob Dylan film, which Gary has seen and Mick and I haven’t and whether Mick has drunk the Calvados I gave him before Christmas (he has).  More conversation, Suffolk Pride, Lager 43 and a Jamieson Whisky for Mick follow (£13 something for the three), before most if not all of the other drinkers have departed for Portman Road and then we do the same, parting ways within earshot of Sir Alf Ramsey’s statue, if only Sir Alf’s bronze effigy could hear.

The queues for the turnstiles are much shorter today than they were on Thursday evening, and seemingly cured of my need to always use turnstile 62, I enter by turnstile 59, that number corresponding to the year I was conceived.  As ever, Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood are all here before me, lapping up the loud music and pyrotechnics that crowds of 29,000 people demand.  I smile broadly as Pat from Clacton takes my photograph before the excitable young stadium announcer tells us today’s team and I attempt to bawl out their surnames in the manner of a Frenchman in the tribunes of  Stade de la Mosson or Stade Geoffrey Guichard.

Death however, stalks every football match nowadays like the smell of frying onions used to, and after Thursday’s Memorial Matchday, today we have a minute’s silence for the very recently deceased Denis Law.  But there is no silence, as the Manchester City fans , musical and loud as they are, like the ugly Gallagher brothers, won’t stop singing some song or other to which the words are completely unintelligible, and so the silence isn’t a silence, it becomes an  applause, and it doesn’t seem like it lasts a minute either, but I don’t suppose Denis is bothered.

Finally, after the na-na-nas of  The Beatles’ “Hey Jude”, the match begins and Manchester City get first go with the ball, which they mostly pass in the direction of the goal in front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand.  The Town are of course in their signature blue and white kit, and therefore Manchester City are in a change kit of all burgundy or claret, like eleven fine wines but minus the bouquet of damson, truffle, chalk and damp fur.  These footballers probably smell of eau de parfum by Chanel or Guerlain.

Excitement reigns in the opening minutes as the home fans chant “Addy-Addy, Addy O “ and City fans chant “City, City, City, City” as if  people have become incapable of singing verses, being  mesmerized by the incantation of endless choruses.  It works for Town, who inside three minutes win a corner when Omari Hutchinson shoots goalwards, and then win another. “Come On You Blues” is my mantra.  “Good start” says the bloke beside me appreciatively and perhaps with a hint of surprise.  “Who the fook are Man Uni-ited”  sing the City fans to the tune of “Glory ,Glory, Allelujah” and Erling Haaland the Norwegian sky-blue shoots over the Town cross-bar and then the City number eight does so too before City win a corner as they dominate possession, but don’t  seriously look any more likely to score than the Town do, and fifteen minutes have already disappeared for ever.

O’Shea heads at the City goalkeeper from a free-kick after  a rampaging Liam Delap is fouled, and I realise I’m not noticing the adverts on the Sir Bobby Robson Stand, I’m watching the match.  “At least we’ve had a shot on target” says Fiona.  But then something goes wrong on the Town right, de Bruyne is behind the Town defence, he passes and Foden scores, hovering in mid-air to control the ball before flicking it into the Town net.  It feels a bit like our best chance of not losing has just gone. Confirmation comes three minutes later as short, quick passing ends with a low hard shot into the corner of the Town goal from the edge of the penalty area, and we’re losing 2-0.

“Down with United, you’re going down with United” chant the City fans to the Cuban folk tune Guantanamera, as if our losing brings more joy to them than their winning.  I suspect it’s a result of low self-esteem, like a lot of things in England; and they are from ‘Up North’.   Half-time is approaching and de Bruyne and Foden do pretty much what they did for the first goal and the score is three – nil.   Usually, with Town losing like this I would have been distracted by player’s with funny names or what the team managers are wearing, but despite the pain tonight I’m strangely absorbed by the football.

I speak to the man from Stowmarket (Paul) and then Dave the steward and Ray and his grandson Harrison.  The mood is one of cheery resignation; everyone thinks we’ve played quite well, it’s just that Manchester City are out of our league; they’re backed by the 34th richest nation on the planet, while we’re backed by a firemen’s retirement fund. They have players worth as much as our entire squad, and to think I can remember when City were like a northern Tottenham Hotspur or West Ham United , clubs with a decent history but now seemingly playing mostly for laughs.  Despite his status as  a convicted sex offender, former radio summarizer Stuart Hall accurately referred to Old Trafford as the Theatre of Dreams and Maine Road as the Theatre of Base Comedy.

At twenty-five to six, as much of the  nation sits by roaring log fires tucking into toasted crumpets and Battenburg cake as they watch Country File, the second half begins. Almost immediately, and I think four minutes later can probably be called ‘immediately’ in the context of a lifetime, Town almost score, as a flowing move ends with a shot from Ben Johnson being saved by the City goalkeeper Ederson,  Moments later however, Doku who hopefully has a sister called Sue, runs down the Town right hand side into the penalty area and scores with a lucky deflection.   Nine minutes later, with Pat from Clacton quietly singing “We’re gonna win 5-4” to the tune of Rodgers’ and Hart’s “Blue Moon”, Erlong Haaland scores a fifth goal after Jack Clarke spoils an otherwise tidy performance by passing directly to the player he should have probably taken most care not to pass to, Jeremy Doku.

Town do win a corner,  and make lots of substitutions, but then so do City.  Kevin de Bruyne, whose haircut is clearly an homage to that of former Town legend Ted Phillips is replaced by Jack Grealish, a man whose transfer fee was at least as much as the entire Town team added together and whose large calf muscles seem to have piqued the interest of Pat from Clacton.  I resist telling her that I think I’ve got quite an impressive set of calves myself, and shapely with it.

Just beyond the hour both Town players with the initial JC ( Jack Clarke and Jens Cajuste) are substituted, and perhaps because this is some sort of blasphemy, it’s only seven minutes later that a sixth goal is conceded as two of City’s players move on a different plane to everyone else with a high diagonal pass being met with a looping header as everyone else looks on.

There are twenty minutes still to go and the home crowd is subdued, but still happy in their resignation.  Some leave, perhaps because they think they’re too good for this, but they’re really not, and many who remain sing, not defiantly or sarcastically but appreciatively, because as the bloke next to me says, two years ago we were losing at Oxford United but now we’re losing to that season’s European Cup winners.  Ever since relegation to the third division in 2019, Town fans seem to have understood about supporting a losing team.

I can’t pretend I’m not happy as the final whistle blows, not with result of course, but because the ordeal is over and at least Pierre de Coubertin would have been impressed.

Robyn Hitchcock 17 Norwich 0

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When I win a large amount of money on the Premium Bonds and the biographical film of my life comes to be made, many of the best bits of the soundtrack will be to the music of Robyn Hitchcock who has provided much of the soundtrack to my adult life.  When my good friend Mr Goold told me therefore that Robyn would be performing at Norwich Puppet Theatre, a venue a mere 24 kilometres from Mr Goold’s abode, I was obviously quick, well in truth not that quick, to buy a ticket (£18, plus £2.30 to anonymous middle men) and invite myself to sleep on my good friend’s floor for the night.  My other good friend Pete decided he would also like to come along on what his consumption of American popular culture and resultant outlook on life told him would be a road trip in the style of Hunter S Thompson.

It’s a dreamy drive through the Norfolk countryside on a September evening in Mr Goold’s golden 2004 Nissan Micra, the sun is setting to our left casting long shadows.  Reaching Norwich, having been driven for the first time in my life through Poringland, I am struck by how much like a proper city Norwich is, from its riverside roadways, medieval cathedral and monumental County Council building to its elevated four lane highway; a pity about its football club. Mr Goold’s Nissan Micra comes to rest in Magdalen car park in the shadow of a concrete flyover, our ultimate destination less than 200 metres away.  We walk through the fading light to the 15th/16th century church of St James the Less, now re-purposed as the Norwich Puppet Theatre.  I muse on St James the Less being appropriate given that puppets are like miniature people. At my behest Pete poses with the cathedral as a backdrop; I photograph him but fail to make the spire give him the appearance of a man wearing a tall, pointed hat; I can’t helping thinking that it’s an opportunity missed.  My life is full of regrets.

Inside the theatre we drink at the bar, Mr Goold drinks coffee, Pete drinks Adnams Ghostship, I down Adnam’s Broadside. We check out our fellow audience members; people in late middle age like us, Norwich’s arty set and younger people dragged along by their elders against their will. I make assumptions about people.  Eager to get ‘good seats’, when we see the first people departing the room we follow, hoping we’re not just pursuing them into the toilet. The auditorium has been dropped neatly into the nave of the church, and the interweb tells me it has over 150 seats, my eyes tell me these are split either side of a central gangway; it is steep giving a good view of the stage.

At 8 o’clock the support act, Jessica Lee Morgan and Christian Thomas play a set of unfortunately forgettable songs very competently indeed and they seem very nice.  Jessica is the daughter of Mary Hopkin and Tony Visconti and she tells us so in case we didn’t know.  After the set, as we wait for Robyn Hitchcock to appear I tell Mr Goold that from now on I might begin telling people that my mother is Daphne Brooks and Reg Brooks was my father.  In spite of the snidey implications of the previous sentence the support act are alright.

At nine o’clock Robyn Hitchcock appears, being helped onto the stage and to a seat at a Clavinova digital piano, a product of the Yamaha company.  Robyn explains that the previous evening he fell over and whilst not damaged in terms of breakages to bone and sinew, he is clearly in pain and standing up and moving about is a problem for him.  In an unfortunate way however, this is a good thing for his paying audience as we receive the rare treat of hearing Robyn playing piano and sounding not unlike the Plastic Ono band.  I can’t now wholly remember which four songs are played, but ‘Ted, Woody and Junior’, a song about three men lathering each other with soap is one, and by way of an apparent insight into this song Robyn tells us about his grandma’s Ray-Bans, which were comparable in a competitive way to those owned by Andy Warhol, and how her wearing them at home on the Isle of Wight was concomitant to and therefore related to the meeting of Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan and Brian Jones in New York.  Many of Robyn’s songs are about moments in time such as this.

After four songs on the piano, Robyn shuffles out from behind it to a stool, where he is handed his acoustic guitar by Chris Thomas of the support act who has been pressed into the role, hopefully only temporarily, of carer.   Again, the audience is in luck as a less than satisfactory pick-up on the guitar causes Robyn to come to the very front of the stage to perform un-plugged and un-miked.

The first of five songs Robyn plays on his acoustic guitar is ‘I’ve got the hots for you’, a tune dating back to 1980 when Robyn existed in a previous incarnation as member of the Soft Boys, but still wrote excellent songs.     ‘Hots’ as I have stupidly decided to call it here for the sake of brevity, although these words of explanation have of course taken longer to type and read than the full title is on the life-enhancing LP ‘Underwater Moonlight’, and is a song of which I have always been especially fond. My fondness for ‘Hots’ is in a good part due its reference near the end of the song to “a piece of Hake”.  I have always enjoyed this lyric, ‘Hake’ being such a fine word and few artists ever mention fish in their songs. Tonight this song has extra poignancy as I have recently returned from Brittany where I had a particularly good time watching FC Lorient, a football team who call themselves Les Merlus, and have a mascot called Merlux; Merlu is the French word for Hake and Merlux therefore translates approximately as Hakey.  Incidentally, Lorient beat FC Nantes, a team known as the Canaries just like the local team in Norwich. I don’t think Robyn has any knowledge whatsoever of football or its mascots, but it’s as if he knew. It’s a situation not unlike that of Andy Warhol and Robyn’s grandmother.

Also within the acoustic set, Robyn plays a new song entitled ‘I am this thing’, a song which has appeared on-line but is so new it has not been played live before.  Robyn tells us that this song has been requested this evening and after the show Mr Goold tells Pete and me how he was particularly taken with the track when hearing it on-line, and it was he who had asked that Robyn play it tonight. Whilst secretly grateful to Mr Goold, we don’t let on too much and I admit to thinking the song sounds a bit like another of Robyn’s songs, although typically I can’t remember which one, but obviously it’s a good one.

After the five acoustic tunes, Robyn hobbles back to be handed his electric guitar on which he plays four more songs including a reverberating version of ‘I often dream of trains’ and the almost-title track from his new album Shufflemania, which is entitled ‘The Shuffleman’.  Robyn remarks how his fall has resulted in his becoming the Shuffleman himself, although alternatively, given the venue, his movements could be said to be puppet-like , as if Thunderbirds had had a member of the International Rescue team who just sat about and rescued people by playing groovy music.

The final quarter of the gig sees Robyn joined on stage by Jessica and Chris for another four songs, with Robyn managing to stand up to play his electric guitar. After a beautiful rendition of ‘Queen of Eyes’, which almost brings a tear to my eye as it again takes me back to 1980 and my lost youth, Robyn advises that these songs are the encores, which whilst disappointing is understandable unless Robyn can somehow be magically lifted up from the stage and then set down on it again like some sort of over age Peter Pan.  The ‘encore’ also comprises the stonking ‘Brenda’s Iron Sledge’ which includes the lyric “Please don’t call me Reg, It’s not my name”, the galloping ‘Oceanside’ and finally ‘Airscape’, probably a favourite of Robyn himself.  

Applause for Robyn and his band is not thunderous, because there aren’t enough of us in the puppet theatre for that, but it is heartfelt and enthusiastic and barely ends before the lights go up confirming that that was indeed the encore. It has been a fabulous evening and possibly a unique one, what with Robyn both playing piano and going doubly unplugged.

As a final act before departing the puppet theatre, which has been an excellent venue, I purchase a copy of a seven-inch single entitled ‘Mr President’, which I like for the picture on the cover of Robyn on the telephone against a back drop of overhead trolleybus or tram wires.  Such records and CDs along with his weekly shows on-line will now have to suffice until we can see Robyn play live again, and driving back to Mr Goold’s abode our happy reminiscences of the evening inspire us to resolve to get tickets for Robyn’s seventieth birthday concert at the Alexandra Palace next February.