Cardiff

Cardiff Met’ 1 Haverfordwest County 0

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(Met Caerdydd 1 Hwlffordd 0)

I cannot help but think that I have been waiting all my working life just to retire. Despite a university education, I have never been ambitious or really interested enough to ‘progress’ or have a career.  I’ve earned enough to buy a house and sufficient beer, football tickets, books and long-playing records to keep myself amused, but sadly I have had to wait until the state is prepared to pay me a pension before I can afford to retire.  Finally, however, after forty-four years of unbroken public service my time has arrived, and I feel reborn.  Symbolically perhaps therefore, today I am on a pilgrimage in my planet saving electric Citroen e-C4 to the place of my original birth, Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, and whilst there I will fulfil a typically modest ambition to visit the Bridge Meadow and see Haverfordwest County play at home in the Cymru Premier League. 

It is a discouraging 500 km journey from our house to Haverfordwest, but with no restraints on time, except the ultimate one, my wife Paulene and I have broken the journey up into manageable pieces, staying last night with my stepson and his family in Basingstoke, before today driving on to Cardiff . Conveniently tonight, as a sort of hors d’oeuvre to seeing them playing at home this coming Saturday, Haverfordwest County have a Cymru Premier match in Cardiff versus Cardiff Metropolitan, a university team.

After an early dinner of grilled salmon and steamed vegetables, washed down with a pint of S A Brain’s Barry Island IPA (strapline: ‘Fresh, Hoppy, Tidy!’) in the Cardiff Novotel ‘Customs Shed’ restaurant, where waitress Evie looks after us brilliantly, we allow time for digestion before setting out for the Cyncoed campus of Cardiff Metropolitan University.  The Citroen’s Satnav leads us on a complicated, five-and-a-half-kilometre path through the Cardiff suburbs of Roath and Pen-Y-Lan down both narrow, terraced streets of parked cars and along more opulent tree lined avenues. The 52 bus runs from the city centre to the campus but heaven knows how long that would take or when the last bus leaves, and bizarrely in the United Kingdom our English bus passes aren’t valid in Wales.  On arrival, the Cyncoed campus reveals itself as a campus as dull as the word campus suggests it might be, but we are able to park up in the first car park we come to and then look to the now darkened skies for the glow of floodlights. 

I always enjoy the walk to the match, even when only from a nearby car park; I think it’s the anticipation.  This evening is warm and finding our way between what might be student residences, we embark on a walk of discovery.  “Do you know where it is?” asks a man on his own who has the air of an anxious groundhopper about him.  He hurries off towards a second glow in the sky before we get much of a chance to reply. The glow in the sky that we have just arrived at has proved to be an athletics track, but beyond that and something that looks like a massive white tent is another rectangle of not quite heavenly light; this we will discover is the 3G pitch that passes as the home ‘stadium’ of Cardiff Met.

It was possible to pay for our admission online but logging in and typing out personal and account details is a ridiculous faff when all we want to do is watch a football match which will attract a crowd of less than three hundred.  A well-built bloke directs us to the gate where a middle-aged woman in a red and white jumper says: “Ten pounds please”.   “Two over-65’s please” I reply.  “Oh, twelve pounds then please” smiles the woman, and I dare to think that she probably doesn’t think I look old enough.  I hand over a ten-pound note and two one-pound coins, which seems to please her because she won’t have to mess about giving me change. Disappointingly however, Cardiff Met’ FC do not produce a programme, which is surprising because I would have thought it could have been a module in some sort of media studies degree.  Just as surprisingly, Cardiff Met does not seem to have a bar or even a hut or hatch from which burgers, chips and bacon rolls are dispensed.  The only catering facility seemingly being the serving of coffee from the back of a muddy-coloured Bedford Rascal van, which if the sign writing on the side is accurate belongs to a smug looking bloke with glasses called Donald.  I speculate that Donald is studying for a master’s degree which combines catering, graphic design, sports management and vehicle maintenance.  To his credit, Donald charges a very competitive 30 pence less for a double espresso than Marks & Spencer do for a single at the Leigh Delamere services on the M4.

With nothing else to entertain us, Paulene and I take a stroll around the ‘stadium’ to the strains of various 1980’s disco ‘hits’ including “Oops upside your head” by the Gap band.  I take in the architecture, which amounts to two low stands (one either side of the pitch) and the high, green metal fence on three sides.  We settle in the back row of the four-seat deep stand on the far side of the pitch from the entrance, between four youths in hoodies and an earnest looking man who is on his own.  Time moves on and after a burst of Fatboy Slim’s “Right Here, Right Now” the names of the Haverfordwest team are announced over the public address system before the announcer perhaps takes a gulp of one of Donald’s double espressos and launches much more excitedly into the names of the Cardiff Met team; his doctorate on the art of stadium announcing in a postmodern context will be a doddle.

At seven forty-four the game begins, although the large digital clock on the side of the adjacent sports hall is trying to convince us that the time is only 18:36. The undergraduate who has been asked by his tutor to provide a practical demonstration of horology, sport and the built environment is contemplating re-sits. It is Haverfordwest County who get first go with the ball, which until half-time they will mostly attempt to send in the direction of the huge white tent and the athletics track beyond.  Haverfordwest sport an away kit of white shirts and black shorts, whilst Cardiff Met’ model burgundy shirts with a blue and yellow band like a bib up the front, and navy-blue shorts.

Early exchanges are tentative.  A bunch of pre-pubescent ultras in the corner of the ground by the big white tent chant “Archers, Archers”, not because they are fans of the wireless soap opera, nor because they have been tasked with advertising brands of peach schnapps, but because Archers is the nickname of Cardiff Met sports clubs and the club badge depicts a stylised rendition of a bloke with a bow and arrow.  After five minutes, Cardiff record the first shot on goal, which is easily collected by the Haverfordwest goalkeeper Ifan Knott.

The match settles down into a dull contest only brightened by the orange shirts of the referee and his assistants, and the bald head of the referee as occasionally the glare of the floodlights reflects off his naked scalp.  At ground level the players kicks are met with puffs of tiny rubber balls leaping up from the artificial playing surface.  After twenty-one minutes another Cardiff shot fails to trouble the Haverfordwest goalkeeper as this time it travels over the surrounding fence and high into the trees that back onto the road outside. Five minutes later Haverfordwest’s Ricky Watts claims the first yellow card of the evening, although I’m not sure why.  Met’s Toby Raison levels the score in this regard a bit later because of a push or a shove or perhaps a bit of both.  As a highlight of the half it’s a poor one and as the half-time whistle is blown, I reflect on a half in which Met’ looked a little but not much more motivated than Haverfordwest and their number twenty-nine showed himself either to be a delicate boy or to be studying dramatic arts, although no one took much notice.  But as the half wore on Haverfordwest had begun to dominate possession although without looking like they knew why they were doing it.

Half-time is as dull as the first half had been and looking for excitement Paulene and I walk to the other side of the ground, and I vent some spent Barry Island IPA.  We take up a position for the second half in the back row of the three-seat deep stand behind the dug outs, which I will later discover backs onto no less a structure than the National Indoor Athletics Centre.

The football resumes at sixteen minutes to nine (19:21 by the stadium clock) and is as unprepossessing as it was in the previous forty-five minutes. But then, all of sudden, the referee Mr Kenny awards Haverfordwest a penalty.  Again, I’m not sure why because I wasn’t really paying attention; I think it was for a foul rather than handball, but I can’t be sure.  There then follow minutes of doubt and uncertainty because the Cymru Premier, a league of all round similar standard to step four or five of English non-league has VAR!  So, we and the players hang about until Mr Kenny inevitably goes to look at the tv screen at the side of the pitch and decides it’s not a penalty after all. “Fuck VAR, fuck VAR, fuck VAR” chant the Haverfordwest fans with the most limited sex lives. The football resumes again, Cardiff launch a cross to the far post and their somewhat lumbering, top heavy looking number thirty six, Sam Snaith heads goalwards, Ifan Knott blocks the effort but as he tumbles to the ground the ball drops to the feet of Snaith who has a simple task of rolling the ball into a now unguarded net. From thinking they had a penalty kick just moments before, Haverfordwest County are now losing one-nil.  “Sods law” says a grizzled, grey-haired man in the row in front of us “Better side all night” he adds, bending the truth a little but not too much.

A goal down, Haverfordwest begin to dominate the match as they desperately search for a goal. Number ten Dan Hawkins is probably the best player on the field, but he can’t do it on his own and for the most part County are playing a game of hit and hope in which their crosses are mostly too deep and no one quite seems to quite know what anyone else will do next.  The group of Haverfordwest supporters behind the goal with their flag tied to the high fence begin to pass the time exchanging ‘banter’ with some home fans.  My wife Paulene gets her entertainment from the interaction between a group of teenage girls stood down the front and a group of teenage boys sat a few seats along from us.  One of the lads appears with what looks like a cardboard box containing a quite pungent shepherd’s pie, suggesting that there is food available, but it’s not burgers or chips.

A couple of head injuries, one for each team and multiple substitutions add on time such that the final count for time added on is eight minutes.  But tonight, Haverfordwest probably wouldn’t score if Mr Kenny added on eighty minutes.  The eight minutes slide away, taking with them the result and the three points which go to Cardiff Met’.  I had been looking forward to tonight, probably for several years, but the match and the result have both been disappointing.  So much for feeling re-born. All I can do now is to enjoy the drive back to our hotel through the dimly lit streets of Cardiff, drown my sorrows in another pint of Barry Island IPA, and look forward to Saturday at the Bridge Meadow .

Stade Malherbe Caen 1 AC Ajaccio 0

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When travelling, in no real hurry, the 670 kilometres from Calais to Carnac in Brittany, the fine city of Caen is the perfect place to break the journey in two, particularly if SM Caen are playing at home.  So it is that I find myself with my wife Paulene on a Friday evening stood at the Bellivet bus stop in the centre of Caen, waiting for the free shuttle bus (navette) out to the Stade Michel d’Ornano in the suburbs of the city.  The bus is due at seven o’clock, but it’s barely six forty-five yet; we weren’t sure how long it would take to walk from our hotel on the Quai de Plaisance, not long it turns out.

We stand on the pavement outside the bus shelter, which is well populated with people who don’t look like they’re going to a football match, but then, the stop is served by several other bus routes. A man in his early thirties turns to us and asks if this is the stop for the navette (I think he must have deduced from the Ipswich Town badge on my T-shirt that we are football fans).  We tell him that’s what it says on the football club website, and we believe it.   The man is from Caen but has never used the navette before; he is going to the match with a friend who is also Caennais, but has lived in Paris and has never even been to any game before; they are taking the bus so they can have a drink before and after the game., which seems to be the main point of the exercise. The man who has lived in Paris reveals that when he was a teenager, he stayed in Ipswich on a student exchange scheme; they were good times he says, even though he never made it to Portman Road.

Time passes.  Seven o’clock passes. Several buses stop, passengers alight and others get on.  A ramp slides out from under one bus and a woman in a powered wheelchair backs along it onto the pavement.  “Oi Ipswich, my friend here is a Norwich fan” says a rich Welsh voice. “No I’m not, I’m from Cardiff” says the tall grey-haired man standing next to me.  “Have you got your match tickets?” asks the first Welshman.  “Yes” I tell him “But I don’t reckon you’ll need them for the bus, the driver isn’t going to want to check everyone has got one.”  The first Welshman asks if we had been to the ground earlier to buy them, but we tell him we bought them on-line.  “See, I told you we could have got them on-line” says Welshman number two to Welshman number one. “Well, I looked” says Welshman number one, “But it was all in French.”

We talk some more and tell the Welshmen how we were in Cardiff last year to see Haverfordwest (Hwlfordd in Welsh) play their two European Conference League qualifiers. They ask why, and I tell them I was born in Haverfordwest. “You’re Welsh then” they say.  Welshman number two then tells us he’s obsessed with going to new football grounds and after asking us to guess how many he’s been to, he reveals that he’s visited over seven-hundred.   It’s about a quarter past seven now, and an articulated single-deck bus hoves into view bearing the destination “Allez le SM Caen”, At last, it’s the navette, and about forty of us pile on before the bus lurches and twists off up the street, past William the Conqueror’s castle and on past the eleventh century l’Abbeye aux hommes, the Hotel de ville, and the palais de justice all of which miraculously survived allied bombing in World War Two.  On the bus ploughs, on a stop start journey past the more recently built palais des sports, and through the heavy traffic heading for the Caen international fair (Foire International de Caen), which begins tonight.

It’s gone twenty to eight by the time the bus disgorges its load at the oddly named  ‘Silicon Valley’ bus stop, directly opposite the Stade d’Onano, and Paulene and I head for the club shop to add to the pointless collections of cuddly club mascots, fridge magnets and T-shirts that clutter up our home back in blighty, although I do wear the T-shirts.   After then joining a queue for Gate 7, six flights of stairs take us to the top of the Tribune Caen from where we have to descend the steep gangway to our seats (24 euros each) in the front row of the top tier of the stand.  Within moments of our sitting down the game begins, tonight’s visiting team AC Ajaccio from Corsica getting first go with the ball, which they succeed in keeping to themselves for much of the first minute of the game. Ajaccio are wearing red and white striped shirts with white shorts, reminiscent of Stoke City and Signal toothpaste.  Caen meanwhile are kitted out in blue shorts and blue and red striped shirts, but the stripes are wavy, reminding me of the sleeve of the Cosmic Roughriders LP ‘Enjoy the Melodic Sunshine’.  Caen are kicking from right to left, back towards the city centre, whilst Ajaccio are aiming more in the direction of the Bayeux tapestry.

Unexpectedly, the ground seems very quiet as the game begins, possibly because in four matches in Ligue 2 so far this season, Caen have not won, only succeeding in losing three times.  Whenever a Caen player crosses into the opposition half however, I think I can hear a muffled murmurs of “Allez, allez, allez” all around me, and when Caen win an early corner rhythmic clapping breaks out.  With not much happening I take the opportunity to visit the buvette back at the top of the stand where I buy a bottle of water (2 euros) and a merguez sandwich (6 euros).  I return to my seat in time to witness a twelfth minute shot from a Caen player strike the Ajaccio cross bar. Before three minutes later a blizzard of paper planes rain down on to the pitch from behind the Ajaccio goal, possibly as part of the ongoing protest against Ligue 2 matches being moved to Friday nights this season at the behest of Bein Sports tv.  Banners behind the goals read “Le foot le Samedi pour des stades en vie” (Football on Saturdays for lively stadiums) and “Boycott Bein”.

To our left, I count thirteen Ajaccio supporters in their enclosure behind the goal and I think of the Last Supper, before noticing that the Ajaccio number twenty Mohamed Youssef is so short that his socks meet his shorts, creating the effect that he is wearing puttees.  The first half is half over as Caen build a move down the left before wasting all the effort with a shot over the crossbar.  Nine minutes later Caen’s number seven flicks the ball up inside the penalty area before crashing a spectacular volley directly at the Ajaccio goalkeeper, who is in two shades of green.

The game is one-sided with Caen monopolising possession and attempts on goal until six minutes before half-time when Ajaccio have their first shot at goal, a curling effort from number 99, which nevertheless curls straight into the arms of the Caen goalkeeper who admittedly is not easy to miss because he is all in orange.  The first booking of the game follows soon afterwards when Ajaccio’s number thirty-one chooses to tug at the Caen number nineteen’s shoulder rather than attempt to tackle him in the conventional manner.  Two minutes of added on time are added on, to little effect, and at half-time the score remains blank. In a sense therefore, Ajaccio are winning.

Paulene and I move seat during the break because I have been having to duck my head whenever the ball has been in the Caen half due to a large, blue, metal safety rail at the foot of the steps, which extends in front of my seat.  The half-time break passes with people trying to kick a ball into a box for money, and two teams of children in red and blue kit taking a shoot-out competition. The red children all seem about twice the size of the blues and predictably they win, although the only girl in the competition is a blue and she scores her goal.

Now, with a clear view of the whole pitch we see the game re-start at nine o’clock and suddenly the stadium is full of enthusiasm and chanting. For no apparent reason the home supporters are singing “Allez, Allez, Allez” to Verdi’s Triumphal March from his opera Aida.  The effect is almost instantaneous as a ball into the box results in claims for a penalty, albeit somewhat specious ones. But a corner satisfies the more realistic supporters, which leads to a shot and another corner and more urging chants of “Allez, Allez, Allez” as the Caen fans loudly live up to what one would expect of their mascot, Vik the Viking.

Only five minutes of the half have gone and now number seventeen Kyheremeh is shooting straight at the Ajaccio goalkeeper before number nineteen heads over the cross bar from a corner.  Sadly however, the score remains blank and for a while the game descends into a Keystone Cops style knockabout with players falling over and colliding with abandon.  Paulene and I begin to notice the advertisements around the ground for the likes of Entreprise Bacon, Calvados the departement or County, as opposed to Calvados the apple brandy, and the interestingly named Twisto, the local transport company who brought us here this evening in one of their articulated buses.  Off to our left, I can only count eleven Ajaccio fans now and wonder if two have had to leave early to catch a ferry, or whether they just gave up hope.

Only twenty-five minutes remain as Caen’s Kyeremeh is through on goal, but he chooses to run wide and cross low to the near post where the ball is saved at the expense of a corner.  “Allez, Allez, Allez” sing the home fans again, but this time to the tune of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, not Verdi.  Thirteen minutes remains and Caen’s number four has come on as a substitute only to quickly get booked as he struggles to influence the game.   Three minutes later however, comes the decisive moment. Caen’s number ten, Bilal Brahimi, who has been neat but nothing more for most of the game, suddenly has space outside the Ajaccio penalty area from where he unexpectedly launches a shot into the top right-hand corner of the Corsican goal; Caen lead one-nil.  “Bilal, Bilal” chant the Caen fans as his picture appears on the scoreboard and the stadium announcer tells us who scored.

Ajaccio have made little effort to score themselves and now they might have left it too late.  Ajaccio substitute number twenty-one Ivane Chegra is brought on to add flair by the look of his Marc Bolan style coiffure, and number twenty-two Moussa Soumano succeeds only in getting booked as the match rolls on into five minutes of added on time.  The added-on time is of no consequence however, and with the final whistle the relief for Caen’s supporters having won their first match of the season is plain to see.

With a bus to catch we don’t linger to join the ensuing love-in, and that bus is almost full and ready to leave as we board it.  Down the streets beyond stadium vivid, sudden flashes of light appear and soon there are spots of rain on the windows of the bus as it weaves its way through the post-match traffic.  By the time we reach the city centre a heavy downpour is drumming against the roof of the bus and the streets are awash.  With the bus windows steamed up and streaked with rain I have to ask a fellow passenger to tell me when we’re back at Bellivet bus stop.  It’s a dramatic end to the evening and an uncomfortably wet walk back to the hotel, but I don’t think we’ll forget our night in Caen.

Ipswich Town 3 Cardiff City 2

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Recently, I have come to rather like Cardiff or Caerdydd as it’s known in Welsh; the place more than the football team admittedly, but a liking for one does almost inevitably lead to a softening of views regarding the other.  I spent three nights, and then a fortnight later, two nights in the Welsh capital as I made a double pilgrimage to see the team from the town of my birth, Haverfordwest County, play in the first two qualifying rounds of the European Conference League.  I have as a result developed a taste for Welsh cakes and Brains, the local beer that is, not the bodily organ; I’m not a zombie.

Back in 1962, Cardiff City were relegated from what is now the Premier League as Ipswich were winning it.  They didn’t return to the top division for over fifty years and despite themspending most of the interim in Division Two, for some reason I always think of them in the fourth division during the 1980’s at Layer Road, Colchester.  I try and ignore the Premier League and it seems odd to me therefore that of the two clubs it is Cardiff who have most recently been in the top division. It’s funny what age does to you.

It’s been a grey morning of heavy cloud and humidity, but as I set off for the match the sun is breaking through as if some deity has turned the celestial floodlights on.   I’m struck by how few Town fans there are at the railway station today compared with last week for the Leeds game.  It’s a somewhat boring journey, with no overheard conversations to intrigue or amuse.  Arriving at Ipswich, I have to pause and search for my rail ticket on my phone rather than just pull a piece of card from my wallet, but I master the technology on this occasion and head off up Princes Street for ‘the Arb’.  By way of a change, I don’t turn left into Portman Road today, but continue across Civic Drive and up into Museum Street and High Street.  I pause only to view the Cobbold Stand across the wasteland and surface car parks where once stood The Sporting Farmer pub, Mann Egerton’s garage and the livestock market.  Banners on the lampposts advertising the Cardinal Wolsey exhibition at The Hold remind me of Ipswich’s rich history and heritage. Ipswich is fab, don’t let anyone tell you different.

Arriving at ‘the Arb’ I buy a pint of Nethergate Honey Gold Festivale (£3.60 with 10% Camra discount), because I like bees and the work they do.  I retire to the beer garden to wait for Mick who has texted me to say he is “slightly on the drag”.  I reply to say I shall amuse myself by listening to other people’s conversations.  After about ten minutes Mick eventually  appears and avails himself of a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride and we talk of why he was delayed (he left his phone somewhere and had to go back to get it), what he was doing this morning ( he had to check the temperatures at some morgues) and his trip to Scotland to see his sister, when he also saw Glasgow Rangers play PSV Eindhoven.  Mick has even brought me back a Glasgow Rangers fridge magnet.  What a great bloke. Apart from mention of the morgues, our conversation is unusually free of death and disease, although we do manage to strike a pessimistic note with talk of humankind’s obsession with economic growth rather than prioritising the preservation of the planet; something which will inevitably end badly.  But most people don’t seem to care, as long as they can have a cosy coal fire or free parking for their car at the shops.

After another pint of Nethergate Honey Gold Festivale for me and a single Jameson whisky for Mick (£8.25 for the two), we depart for Portman Road where Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket , ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his young son Elwood are ready and waiting for kick-off.  I have arrived in time however, to try and shout out, in the manner of a French football crowd, the surnames of the Town players as stadium announcer Mark Murphy reads them out.  I succeed to a degree, but new man Murphy isn’t a patch on his predecessor Stephen Foster and reads the names too quickly, running first names into second names and not leaving the necessary gaps between.  Bring back Stephen Foster, I say.

When the game begins it’s Cardiff City who get first go with the ball and they attempt to aim it mostly in the direction of the Sir Bobby Robson stand, Cardiff are dressed today in a slightly washed-out-looking all burgundy or claret kit.  I wonder at the meaning of this, because all kits are imbued with meaning nowadays, but can only come up with it being the colour of the congealed blood of injured miners and dockworkers, or the fine wines consumed by the wealthy pit and port owners.   The first Cardiff player I notice is centre-back McGuinness and I think of the IRA. “We’ve got super Keiran McKenna, he knows exactly what we need….” chant the vocal occupants of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand.  The Cardiff fans are singing too, but I can’t work out what, and that’s not because they’re singing in Welsh, nobody speaks Welsh much in Cardiff I was told by a Cardiff City supporting woman when I was there back in July. She knew enough to get by, she said, but that actually meant she didn’t need to know any.

Early action sees Nathan Broadhead head the ball firmly into the arms of Cardiff ‘keeper Runar Runarsson, who not at all surprisingly is Icelandic and whose goalkeeper’s kit would be ideal for wearing to a funeral.  Wes Burns is penalised ridiculously as he chases down the ball and the player in front of him stops dead and then bounces off him.  It’s an incident that draws my attention to the referee Mr Gavin Ward, who is blond and a bit weedy looking.  “Blue and White Army, Blue and White Army” chant the home crowd and the bloke behind me, making my right ear hurt slightly.

The football hasn’t reached any great heights yet with the highlight so far being Kieran Mckenna’s almost petrol blue jumper, which is an improvement on his usual dull greys and blacks, but still not exactly colourful. It’s ten past three and the Cardiffians sing “Is this a library?”.   Somebody must confirm that it is indeed a library, because moments later they are chanting “Der-der-der, Football in a library”.  Having apparently hit a reach seam of taunts, the Cardiff mob then proceed to ask, “Shall we sing, shall we sing, shall we sing a song for you?” just like they might if they were at an Eisteddfod.  They’re regular Harry Secombes and Aled Joneses the lot of them.

After fifteen minutes Cardiff have a corner and ‘score,’ but it is offside.  At the front of the stand a cameraman is blocking the view of a spectator in the third or fourth row and is asked to adjust his position, which he does but with a grim face and a complete absence of grace as he throws his bag to the ground and generally stomps about like a petulant two-year-old.  At half-time when I speak to Ray, he will refer to him as Bill Oddie, but I think his curly hair has more than a hint of the Max Boyce about it.

Twenty minutes are up, and Conor Chaplin has a sharp shot on the turn which elicits a corner, and then Massimo Luongo wins another. Five minutes later Cardiff win one too. “Oh please don’t take, my Cardiff away” plead the Cardiffians to the tune of ‘You are my sunshine’. I don’t know what we’d do with it if we did, although the Senedd building or Millenium Centre might look good down West End Road.  From the row in front of me, a lad with the name Adam printed on the back of his shirt turns round to tell Pat that Norwich are losing. Within a few moments sadly, Ipswich are too as a sweeping move through the wide open plain in front of the Magnus West Stand ends with a precise low cross and a neatly clipped pass into the Town net by former OGC Nice player Aaron Ramsey.    “Aaron Ramsey Baby, Aaron Ramsey, Oh-oh-oh” sing the elated Welshmen, to the tune of the Christmas number one from 1981, the Human League’s ‘Don’t you want me’.  Apparently, before signing for Cardiff, Ramsey was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar.

Five minutes later and Town’s George Hirst pulls up lame and is replaced by Freddie Ladapo.  People applaud Hirst off, but I don’t because I’m bitter that he didn’t score a short while before when through on goal.  “In your Swansea slums” sing the Cardiff fans, either confused about where they are and who they’re playing, or how good the hearing of the population of Swansea is.  The first half has not been overly enjoyable if you’re not from South Wales, and even Cardiff’s first booking, for Ollie Tanner, brings little satisfaction as it’s just for a high boot rather than a heinous foul or something amusing like dissent.

As time descends towards half-time, the home crowd chant “Blue and White Army” again, in an act of defiance and once again the bloke behind me joins in, and it almost works as Freddie Ladapo turns and shoots narrowly past the far post and Conor Chaplin has a shot blocked on the goal line by Runarsson. Four minutes of added on time give hope for parity by half-time, but Cardiff selfishly keep hold of the ball and even win a corner for themselves to leave me feeling disappointed as the whistle is blown and I sprint away to syphon off the remnants of the Nethergate Honey Gold Festivale.  I return to talk to Ray and his grandson Harrison and to a steward called Dave.  Ray’s assessment is that Cardiff sit behind the ball and deny Town any space and then break way very quickly; we need to get in behind them.  Ray has no doubt Kieran McKenna knows what to do.

The game begins again at seven minutes past four and the home crowd remain chipper, singing “Ole, Ole, Ole” for reasons unknown. But life is strange, and depression soon descends as in the fifty second minute Massimo Luongo falls backwards, haphazardly making space for Joe Ralls to shoot just inside far post and give Cardiff a two-nil lead.  “No urgency is there?” complains the bloke behind me to his neighbour.  “Two-nil to the sheep-shaggers” sing the Welshmen, which is disarmingly honest of them if true.  “The way I see it, this is what our season’s gonna be” continues the bloke behind me obliquely. “Oh Ingerland, is full of shit” chant the self-confessed zoophiles; sheep shit presumably, from sheep seeking sanctuary over the border.

Town win a free-kick close to the Cardiff penalty area but the ball is despatched hopelessly wide of the goal by Nathan Broadhead. Pat from Clacton rolls her eyes “Thank you” she says “But that’s not quite what we’re looking for at the moment”.  But only moments later Sam Morsy plays the ball forward to Broadhead, who jinks left and right and then smites the ball into the goal from the edge of the penalty area in the style of Eric Gates, and Town are only trailing two-one.  Pat’s sarcasm clearly worked.

Cardiff substitute some players I’ve never heard of for some more players I’ve never heard of.  Someone fouls Nathan Broadhead and is booked. Town win a corner when a Conor Chaplin shot is blocked.  Corner kicks where the ball is launched into the penalty area from above are not much use against teams like Cardiff City whose players could all take up basketball if the football doesn’t work out. A low cross to the near post however presents the unexpected delight of a deft finish from Freddie Ladapo and Town are suddenly no longer losing.  “Shall I get Monkey out for the winning goal?” asks Pat from Clacton threatening to release the magical powers of the masturbating monkey charm she acquired on holiday in Cambodia.  “Two-nil and you fucked it up” chant the home crowd, as ever revelling more in Schadenfreude than the joy of their own team’s success.  Murphy announces the crowd as being 28,011 with 951 from the valleys and banks of the River Taff.  “Thank you for your amazing support” he says, showing himself to be a man more easily amazed than I am.  Bare torsos, drums, flares, flags and a pitch-length tifo in the Magnus West stand would be amazing support in my view. “Oh when the Town, Go marching in” sings the crowd in a fractionally more up-beat manner than usual, but even that’s hardly amazing.

Less than twenty minutes of normal time remain, and Vaclav Hladky saves the day with two marvellous saves, one just moments after the other.  Fifteen minutes remain and Town make mass substitutions with Burns, Clark and Luongo waving goodbye and Jack Taylor, Omari Hutchinson and Bradley Williams joining the fray. Four minutes later and Hutchinson gets to the by-line and crosses the ball low to the near post. Runarsson dives to divert the ball away from the goalmouth, but diverts it up onto the head of the incoming Freddie Ladapo from where it rebounds into the net.  Town lead three-two, and Pat is set to win the final-score draw on the Clacton supporters’ coach.

Happily, Town look more likely to score a fourth than concede a third, although Fiona admits to now feeling nervous because we have something to lose.  Jack Taylor launches a precise cross field pass. “He’s a fucking good player” says the bloke behind me to his neighbour, but I think he’s talking about Omari Hutchinson because he then says something about him taking players on “…like Wes Burns used to”.  Town win a couple of corners and Pat confirms that she’s having chicken drumsticks for tea again, because the ones she had last Saturday were lovely.

Normal time fades away and Sam Morsy leaves the pitch having received a knock, but unusually not a booking. Perhaps Mr Ward the referee wasn’t so bad after all.  Six minutes of additional time take us almost to five o’clock, but Cardiff give us no cause for real nail biting and I’m feeling quite relaxed when the whistle sounds and Town pull off the fabulous trick of coming back from the grave of being two-nil down to win.  “Two nil and you fucked it up” chant the Town fans, mindlessly enjoying other people’s misery more than their own team’s success.  It’s a win to savour and one worth the pain of conceding those initial two goals.  If we can’t win six-nil most weeks like we did last season, then coming back to win from two-nil down is the next best thing, and it does mean I can continue to like Cardiff a little bit more than I did before. Break open the Welsh cakes!

Ipswich Town 2 Bristol Rovers 0

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When the draw for what used to be called the League Cup was made, I was quite pleased to find that Ipswich had drawn Bristol Rovers; this was because Bristol Rovers were the only one of Town’s third division opponents I didn’t see last season.  I’m not sure why that mattered, it’s not as if I keep notes on each team, although in an odd way, through this blog, I suppose I do. Oh dear.

Despite my earlier happiness at the draw, it has taken me until the night before the game to get round to buying a ticket because despite the grotty weather, in my head it’s still summer, and summer is for dreaming and for World Cups, oh, and occasionally for European Conference League qualifying games.   Football is mostly something for autumn, winter and spring.  As usual for League Cup matches, because all the seats cost a tenner I choose not to sit in my season ticket seat, but to explore one of the twenty-nine and half thousand odd other viewpoints.   Usually, I head for the best view and the padded seats of Block Y, and there are still single seats available, but craving company I texted my friend Gary to see if he is going; he is, and gives me his seat number which he tells me is close to where he usually sits in what used to be called the West Stand.  I buy the seat next to Gary which turns out to be uncomfortably  close to the corner of the ground; but it’s okay as I had warned Gary that I would blame him if the seat wasn’t very good, and now I can.  To think, I could have been in Block Y.   I also texted my friend Mick to see if he is going to the game, but he tells me that he has “no interest in the League (Carabao) Cup”, which I thought was a bit haughty of him.

Having parked up my planet-saving Citroen e-C4 in a street between Norwich Road and Anglesea Road, it’s a short walk to the Arb on High Street where I obtain a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.60 with Camra 10% discount). The bar is not very busy, and I tell the barman that I had expected it to be busier, but he tells me most people are in the beer garden.  He’s correct, most people are, but there are still free tables and I can only see one bloke in an Ipswich Town shirt.  I settle down to drink my unexpectedly cloudy pint, and read Issue 26 of the Turnstile Blue fanzine, a small pile of which were in the corridor between the bar and the gents.  I read an article which, in the context of the ‘fuss’ surrounding the death of the old queen, attempts to debunk the apparently mythical status afforded to former Town chairmen John and Patrick Cobbold.  The basis of the argument seems to be that they were incredibly wealthy and posh, and ‘Mr John’ drank and swore a lot.  I don’t read much more because the penetrating voice of a man possibly in his late twenties, who is with the bloke in an Ipswich shirt, and the mild but loud Ipswich accent of a woman probably in her forties are preventing me from concentrating.  After half an hour of slow supping and covering my ears, I leave for Portman Road.

Arriving in Sir Alf Ramsey Way shortly after seven-thirty, I buy a programme (£2.00) in the modern cashless manner and am then surprised to see long queues at the turnstiles.  Tonight, in the spirit of saving the planet by not using unnecessary pieces of paper, my ticket is on my mobile phone and my inner Luddite wonders if technology is the reason for the slow progress into the stadium.  Moments before reaching the turnstile, my finger slips on my phone screen  and I accidentally delete the e-mail that includes my ticket, but fortunately I know I can still find it if  I look through all my e-mails and that’s what I do.  Happily, the QR code on my e-mail also works and I pass through the turnstile just in time to drain off some Suffolk Pride and make it to my seat before the names of the Ipswich team have all been announced.  I try to call out the surnames of Town players in the manner of a French football crowd, but the ‘new’ stadium announcer Mark Murphy says Dom Ball instead of Dominic Ball and ruins things completely.

The match kicks off at fourteen minutes to eight according to the digital clock on the scoreboard. Town get first go with ball, kicking it mostly towards Sir Alf Ramsey’s stand, and are wearing the traditional blue and white kit, which this season has broad white stripes down the sleeves that from some angles make the whole sleeve look white.  Kits have to be imbued with meaning nowadays and we are told that the design is inspired by the kit worn by the promotion winning team of 2000.  When the sleeves look all white, I am reminded of our Premier League winning side of 1962.  Bristol Rovers for their part wear black shorts and white socks to cover their loins, buttocks and calves and grey shirts over their torsos.  I do not know if the Rovers shirts are imbued with meaning or not, but I like to think they are inspired by a foggy day in the Bristol Channel or specks of ghostly coal dust blown across from the South Wales pits or Cardiff docks.  Gary and I speculate as to whether we have already seen this season’s dullest kit worn by an away team at Portman Road and recall how Manchester United once wore a grey and black kit at Southampton and changed at half-time when already three or four goals down, supposedly because the players couldn’t see each other against the background of the crowd.  It seems probable from the half-time score that they couldn’t see the Southampton players either.

Town dominate possession and after just twelve minutes take the lead. A passing move down the right ends with Jack Taylor passing a ball from Kayden Jackson into the Bristol goal net.  That was easy.  I haven’t really tuned myself into the game yet however, and rather than leaping up and punching the air in a display of forgotten youthful exuberance like I would normally, I just slowly raise my bottom off my seat and applaud politely in a semi-stooped position.  Gary’s reaction is similarly sluggish. For these supporters it still feels like pre-season, the overture, or to employ a war-themed comparison popular with football pundits, like 1939, the phoney war.  Elsewhere in the stadium people are more attuned to the programme as they beat drums and chant “Blue and White Army.”

Town continue to dominate possession and occasionally come close to scoring a goal, but not close enough.  I haven’t seen Gary since July 1st, so we talk as much as we concentrate on the game.   Gary asks me what is the worst football ground I’ve ever been to. I tell him I think it was Oxford United’s Manor Ground.  He asks what the best ground was. I tell him possibly The Velodrome in Marseille, although the Allianz Riviera in Nice is pretty good when full.  Having been unexpectedly put on the spot I forget to mention the Stade Felix Boleart in Lens and the Stade Geoffrey Guichard in St Etienne.

Bristol Rovers only occasionally approach the Town goal and their first shot just creeps and bobs and bounces its way across the turf into the arms of the Town goalkeeper, the interestingly monikered Cieran Slicker. It takes a good twenty minutes or more for Rovers to have another shot and this time Grant Ward’s much more powerful shot is parried away by Slicker for what amounts to a pretty good save. It’s a moment which results in my hearing the faint call of “Come On Rovers” carried over the pitch on the warm evening air from the one hundred and twenty-three Bristolians in  the far corner of the stadium.  Otherwise, the first half of the game leaves no lasting impression on me and after a minute of time added on it’s time for Gary to nip to use the facilities whilst I stand up and try to manipulate my neck, which has grown achy and stiff from having my head turned towards the Sir Alf Ramsey stand for most of the previous forty-six minutes.

 Once Gary has returned, the ‘new’ stadium announcer Mark Murphy appears on the pitch wearing what looks like the same suit that replaced announcer Stephen Foster used to wear.  Murphy tells us he is going to talk to a Town legend and with the artificially excited intonation and words-all-rolled-into-one pronunciation of a former local radio DJ, he announces “Johnny Warks here” and Gary and I look at each other wondering who the hell Johnny Warksear is.  Johnny Wark appears on the big screen and all that’s missing are the subtitles when he speaks.

The game resumes at ten minutes to nine and my hopes of spending the second half just looking straight ahead take a dive as Bristol start quite well.  “Wo-o-o-oh, That’s the way we like it” or something like that sing the Sir Bobby Robson Stand to the tune of what seems to be an original composition or a song I don’t know.  Rovers are gifted a corner as Lee Evans passes the ball back to a place where Cieran Slicker isn’t standing.  But then Ipswich win a couple of corners of their own to redress the balance, before on-loan Omari Hutchinson is the first player to be booked after not so much a bad tackle as an inept one.  “Ole, Ole, Ole” sing the Sir Bobby Robson stand and the drums up in the corner of the stand by the club shop beat; inside the shop stuff must be bouncing off the shelves.  In the seat in front of me a bloke with not much hair has a pair of sunglasses perched on top of his head.    There’s a holiday feel to the crowd tonight with adults and children wearing T-shirts and shorts, looking as if they’ve been at the beach all day.  I half expect to see someome eating candy floss or wearing a ‘kiss me quick’ hat. On the pitch, the second half is reflecting the cheery mood with carefree attacking football and as result Cieran Slicker makes a spectacular save with his feet.

Substitutions arrive on sixty-six minutes with Cameron Humphryes and Sone Aluko taking a bow. Shots rain in on the Bristol goal and a corner is won.  “Oooh Sone Aluko” sing the Sir Bobby Robson Stand to the tune of the White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army.  Marcus Harness half-volleys the ball from close range, but too weakly to bother the Rovers’ goalkeeper.  As more substitutes warm up on the touchline in front of us I say the name of George Hirst to Gary.  “I know what you’re going to say” says Gary “He has a haircut that looks like his mum cut it using a pudding bowl”.  Gary knows me too well and is almost exactly right, but I’d say she used a side plate or small frying pan giving his hair the appearance of a little hat or beret.  I struggle so much to accept George’s haircut that if it had been up to me I wouldn’t have signed him, so it’s probably as well that it wasn’t.

In the seventy-third minute George and Conor Chaplin and Harry Clarke get to make the transition from bench to pitch, but the only immediate result is that Javani Brown shoots wide of the Town goal for Bristol. Within a minute of that however, a sweet passing move down the left sees the ball relayed across the penalty area for Sone Aluko, who seems to be existing in his own isolated moment of time and space, which allows him to then pass the ball into the far corner of the Bristol goal, and Town lead 2-0. Gary tells me how his mother recently received a new copy of the local telephone directory and that there were three people in it with his surname; they were Gary, his mother and his uncle who died several years ago, but it wouldn’t surprise me if BT was a hotbed of spiritualists.

All that remains is for Murphy to announce the crowd as being 15,047 with 123 of that number being from Bristol, and for people to applaud themselves, each other, and more acceptably the travelling Bristolians.  Bristol is a long way from Ipswich on a Wednesday night, although logically no further than at any other time of day or week.  Five minutes of time are added on to ensure we get our money’s worth and when that expires we rise as one to applaud and then seep out into the night.  It’s been a decent little game, a bit low key like a pre-season match, but it’s good to see a match where none of the players appear to think winning matters more than life itself.  Bristol Rovers played their part and should have scored at least once, but on the plus side they will now have time on their hands in the middle of the week to think about what their away kit should look like next season.   As for Ipswich,  we are on our way to Wembley, my stepson and his family live in the RG24 postcode area so if I get the urge I might march on to Basingstoke, or Reading.

Haverfordwest County 1 B36 Torshavn 1(aet)

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(B36 Torshavn win 3-2 on aggregate)

Haverfordwest County’s progress into the second qualifying round of the European Conference League was a beautiful thing and a tremendous way to witness my long-awaited first ever Haverfordwest County match.  It brought its own problems, however.  I hadn’t honestly expected that win, as welcome and wonderful as it was, but having started out on the ‘European adventure’ I now had to see the next game and consequently arrange time off work, match tickets and somewhere to stay in Cardiff.  Lovely, first world problems, but to a fundamentally lazy person committed only to bobbing through life like a cork on the tide, a challenge that had me feeling unpleasantly like Odysseus or other heroic figure charged with completing onerous tasks.

My wife Paulene arranged everything of course, except the time off, which I managed, and after intermittently aquaplaning and queuing along the M4, waking up to a spectacular view of the Bristol Channel from our ninth-floor hotel room and whiling away the day marvelling at the cuddly dragon and sheep souvenirs available in Cardiff gift shops, we now find ourselves on platform 3 of Cardiff Queen Street station awaiting the 18:31 for Radyr, calling at Cardiff Central (Caerdydd Canelog) and more importantly Ninian Park (Parc Ninian).  On platform 2 are two well-built women, one carries a large koala bear on her back, the other an even larger red and white fluffy octopus; they gaze across the tracks then descend the stairs into the subway that connects the platforms and disappear from view forever.   When the ‘train’ eventually arrives, seven minutes late, it is sadly no Ivor the Engine, but instead an aged sort of bus on rails, which chugs and grinds and squeals its way past Cardiff’s ripped backside towards once elegant Cardiff Central station where, the guard explains, we are held by a red light. “A riddle for you while we wait” says the guard, “What starts red and ends on green?”.   The riddle solved, some passengers alight and others climb aboard before we continue what is probably the shortest and slowest train journey I have ever been on (£2.60 return with Senior railcard).  Ninian Park station consists of two windswept open platforms and if the train hadn’t stopped there to disgorge, we might have thought it had been closed since the days of the evil Dr Beeching.

It’s a short and now familiar walk to the Cardiff City stadium, across Sloper Road, past the Jubilee Recreation Ground where a rugby team is about to begin a practice session, and then through the Lidl car park.  Entry to the stadium tonight is again through Gate 9.  Approaching the nest of steel barriers around the turnstiles, I spot a man wearing a day-glo coat featuring an Ipswich Town club crest.  Being an Ipswich Town season ticket holder myself we accost him but don’t learn much. He’s lives in Torquay, would very much like a Haverfordwest shirt, was an Ipswich season ticket holder several years ago and claims Ipswich is a dump nowadays and Colchester is better. I re-educate him as best I can about the relative merits of Ipswich and Colchester and tell him Ipswich still has its beautiful buildings and parks and history and is therefore as good as it ever was, it’s just that the inhabitants buy everything on-line, so the town centre shops have shut and for some of them being miserable and a bit racist is all that keeps them happy, hence we have a Tory MP.

Having previously mastered the concept of my mobile phone having a wallet, entry to the stadium is a breeze tonight and I am soon eagerly presenting my bank card to pay for a replica Haverfordwest County shirt (£45) and a bucket hat (£15) which both commemorate the Pembrokeshire club’s presence in this season’s European Conference League. Excited beyond words and now sporting my commemorative bucket hat, I head with Paulene for our seats.  Emerging from beneath the stand back into the evening sunlight we talk to the steward at the top of the stairs who tells us where we will find our seats, but also points out there are free Haverfordwest T-shirts randomly draped over the backs of the seats; they’re in different sizes so it’s a question of looking until we find two our size.  The tag inside the neck of the first shirt I pick up reads ‘L’ and on the back of the shirt is the surname of the current French president.  That’s me kitted out, but the search for a ‘S’ for Paulene continues.  A man with two sons says all the ‘kids’ have been looking for them, then another younger man says “What size do you want?” I tell him I need a small. “Here you are” he says, almost immediately turning up the required shirt on the next seat he comes to. What a kind bloke, I think to myself as I thank him.

We watch the two teams warm up and the seats about us fill up with Welsh bottoms; I return ‘below’ to buy two bottles of water (£2.50 each), but experience no urge to pay £6 for a paper carton of insipid Amstel beer, I did that before the previous match, so do not need to do it again.  I reminisce that the only other occasion when I ever drank Amstel was in a bar in Amsterdam before the second leg of the 1981 UEFA Cup Final, I don’t know how many guilders and cents it cost but I expect it was my father’s round anyway.  When the game eventually kicks off, B36 Torshavn get first go with the ball and are kicking from left to right towards far off Pontypridd and Aberdare; they wear yellow shirts and socks with navy blue shorts, a bit like Oxford United or the Swedish national team, which is unexpected because the Faroes are Danish.  Haverfordwest are in this season’s signature kit of all navy blue with pale blue and white chevrons on the front, and to my knowledge resemble no one else but Haverfordwest.  Away from the pitch and back in the stand, people are still emerging at the top of the stairs like bubbles from a crack in the seabed, but they’re much more annoying as they dither on the steps trying to find their seats and blocking my view.  I can at least console myself with the thought that they have arrived too late to nab a free T-shirt, that’ll teach them.

“Blooobi-irds, Blooobi-irds!” chant several people like demented evening paper vendors as the excitement of the game having actually started takes hold.  “What seat is your number?” says a bloke behind me confusedly to the person next to him and in a not overly Welsh accent.  I don’t catch the answer, and I’m not really interested.  On the pitch, Torshavn’s number 8 Taufee Skandari hacks down Haverfordwest number 3 Rhys Abbruzzese, and whilst escaping punishment from the referee, other than a free-kick, he will hereafter be roundly booed by the crowd whenever he touches the ball.  Barely ten minutes have passed, but it’s always good to identify a pantomime villain early on.

“That’s blown my mind a little bit” says the bloke behind me about something which disappointingly I didn’t catch.  The game is close at the moment and cagey, and perhaps therefore a little dull, so I would have liked to have known what blew his mind, even if it did only get blown a little.  After ten minutes Haverfordwest get the kudos of winning the game’s first corner. “Blooobi-irds” chant the blokes who like to chant, and when Skandari touches the ball they boo too.  “  ‘kin ‘ell man” says the bloke behind me as the ball seems to wilfully run away from a Haverfordwest defender as he shapes to clear it.  “Aaah, talk man” continues my neighbour as the ball is booted out for Torshavn’s first corner kick just a goalkeeper Zac Jones arrives hoping to gather it up in his arms.  The Faroese number three takes an age to take the corner as if he’s first having to calculate precisely the trajectory of the ball before kicking it.  A second corner follows but thankfully to no effect.

It takes a half an hour before Haverfordwest have a shot on goal, although a diving header is required from Torshavn defender moments before to clear the ball for a corner and a few minutes before that Oscar Borg sent Martell Taylor-Crossdale away down the left to optimistic and encouraging cheers, but the Faroese goalkeeper got to the ball first.  To even things up, Skandari volleys over the cross bar to inevitable jeers and his team are on the up as they win two more corners and Haverfordwest captain Jazz Richards goes down injured and has to be substituted with ten minutes still to go until half time.  It’s not a good time for the home team as a shot now has to be cleared off the goal line after a Torshavn free-kick; I thought it was going to go in.  As if by way of desperately trying to restore the balance in favour of Haverfordwest, the boos when Skandari next touches the ball are even louder.

After another Torshavn corner and a shot which narrowly misses the Haverfordwest goal but ‘scores’ in the staircase up into the seats behind the goal, Haverfordwest’s Lee Jenkins misses arguably the best chance for a goal so far as he heads a fine cross back across the goal instead of into it.  With half-time two minutes away a mass exodus occurs, which includes the bloke behind me and his friends who it seems are heading for the bar.   Above us, a gang of three or four seagulls circle and swoop over the crowd, perhaps on the look out for someone who has already obtained a hot, half-time carton of chips or someone who has discarded a cold one.  Paulene is intrigued by the men in suits stood by the players’ tunnel and remarks that at every game there are always men in suits stood by the players’ tunnel.  We wonder who they are, and I speculate that they are no one in particular, but that for a fee football clubs will hire anyone a suit and let you stand there, like a sort of adult mascot. Then half-time arrives.

I usually like to take a wander at half-time, but tonight I don’t. I think the sight of that mass exodus a few minutes ago has made me want to stay put; I‘m not one to follow the herd.  The match resumes at twelve minutes to nine and Haverfordwest set off as if the first half was just a warm-up and now they’re going to play properly.  A corner is soon won and then Ben Fawcett is free in space and time at the edge of the penalty area, but he shoots wide of the Torshavn goal.

As always seems to happen in the second half of games, players start getting shown the referee’s yellow card.  Like in life, the more time goes on the less one cares, but perhaps others become more desperate.  The names of Lee Jenkins, Ricky Watts and Torshavn’s Isak Jonsson all enter the referee’s notebook in just seven minutes of deviant behaviour.   From the crowd a new song is heard to the tune of Jeff Beck’s ‘Hi-Ho Silver Lining’, with the words ‘Silver Lining’ being substituted rather neatly and amusingly with ‘Hav-er-ford-west’.  Twenty-minutes of the second half pass and the ball is knocked down in the Torshavn penalty area. Messy moments of uncertainty follow before the ball is slamming into the roof of the goal net; booted there by Ben Fawcett. Haverfordwest have scored, and the tie is level on aggregate; I begin to mentally prepare for penalties and Fawcett slides across the turf towards the adoring, cheering crowd before disappearing under a pile of his excited team-mates.

TV pundits tell us that goals change games, but Torshavn change their team by bringing on a couple of substitutes.  It works to an extent as they reverse the traffic towards their goal and win a corner, and their number nine has a shot on goal which draws a few worried gasps from fellow spectators around me, but happily the shot goes wide.

Tonight’s attendance is announced as 2,119, and as often happens at football matches nowadays some people break into a round of applause.  I can’t decide if they’re clapping themselves, each other, the announcer or whoever it was who counted everyone.  There are seven minutes of normal time remaining and Skandari falls to the ground with an anguished groan; naturally he is booed. When he gets up a bloke behind me somewhere shouts “Miracle!”.  The final minutes belong to Torshavn who win a succession of corners as Kai Whitmore joins the gang of Haverfordwest renegades who have been booked and Torshavn substitute Valerijs Sabala shoots over the cross bar. Only two-minutes of added on time are added on, it’s as if the referee thinks it’s pointless adding any more because no one’s going to score so we might as get on with extra-time.

Extra-time begins at twenty-one minutes to ten and I realise there will be no prospect of catching the five to ten train from Ninian Park back to Cardiff Queen Street, or the ten-thirteen.  The first half of extra-time sees Haverfordwest’s Oscar Borg stride forward and shoot over the cross bar, but then disaster strikes as a mess in the Haverfordwest goal mouth ends with a shot which is blocked on the goal line by Rhys Abruzzese and the referee awards a penalty for handball. Jann Julian Benjaminsen accepts the referee’s gift to the people of the Faroe Islands and scores high into the net as Zac Jones dives, conveniently for Benjaminsen, in the opposite direction.  A minute of added on time is played and the final fifteen minutes of the European tour beckon.

Naturally, Haverfordwest attack.  A shot is tipped over the bar for a corner, Martell Taylor-Crossdale is crowded out and falls down in the penalty area; was he shoved?  A shout of “The referee’s a wanker” from somewhere behind me suggests someone thinks he was, but it could be cramp.  When they get the ball, Torshavn pass it around just to retain possession, which they do quite well.  With the game into two minutes of added on time, Zac Jones heads up field to join the throng in the penalty area for a corner but, there’s to be no glorious goal from the goalkeeper tonight, and no glorious penalty saves.

With the final whistle, the applause from the crowd is every bit as loud and appreciative as it might have been had Haverfordwest won, it just lacks the roar and the beaming smiles.  Paulene and I stay for a while to pay our respects before heading off into the night for Ninian Park station.  It’s 10:30 when we get there; the last train is at five to eleven, but the information screen says it’s not expected until eight minutes past.  With over half an hour to wait on a bleak cold platform we decide it will be quicker to walk, and this is how our European Tour ends.