Cardiff

Haverfordwest County 1 FK Skandija 0

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

(1-1 on aggregate, Haverfordwest win 3-2 on penalties)

Entering the world in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire just a couple of days before the great Welsh statesman Aneurin Bevan departed it, in July 1960, I sadly didn’t hang about in Wales for very long and instead grew up on the far side of neighbouring England, in Suffolk.  I always liked the idea of being a bit Welsh however, and having developed an interest in football I quietly hankered for the day when I might watch Haverfordwest County play; but distance, idleness and following Ipswich Town home and away  each week conspired for over fifty years to deny me the opportunity, although I did twice get as far as Swansea and have become an avid viewer of S4C’s Sgorio.  Then, earlier this year, having finished seventh in the twelve team Welsh Premier League, Haverfordwest unexpectedly won two penalty shoot-outs against Cardiff Metropolitan University and Newtown in an unlikely European qulification play-off success. Haverfordwest, known also as The Bluebirds, were drawn to play FK Shkendija, a team from North Macedonia and the second leg of the tie was to be played at the Cardiff City Stadium in Cardiff.  Cardiff seems a lot closer and indeed is quite a bit closer to my home near Colchester than Haverfordwest; I’d been to Ninian Park and the new place a few times before to see Ipswich play Cardiff City and as this would be a landmark game, being only the second time ever that Haverfordwest had qualified for European football I decided that this was the time to at last fulfil my ambition and see Haverfordwest County in the flesh.

Travelling to Cardiff was a breeze in my planet saving Citroen e-C4, even if the initial stop to recharge the batteries at Membury Services had to be abandoned because the touch screen on the electric charger didn’t work.  But the chargers at Leigh Delamere services were all functioning and my wife Paulene and I arrived in plenty of time at our hotel to sample the delights of Cardiff Bay with its Norwegian sailors’ church, Welsh Assembly building, National Arts Centre, pierhead building and shops and bars, which seemed almost exactly the same as the shops and bars in every other waterfront development we’d ever been to.

 Today, we traipsed round Cardiff Castle, sampled the local Brains beer (it’s great saying “I’ll have a pint of Brains please”) and dodged hundreds of students in mortar boards and gowns and their parents and siblings all dressed up to the nines to be there when the degrees are handed out.  We ate in Wally’s delicatessen and coffee house, which is in one of the many arcades in Cardiff.  Wally, I learned, was a refugee from Nazi Austria in 1939.  Luckily for him, we didn’t have a Tory government in 1939 or else his café might be a floating one on a hulk in Cardiff Bay.

It’s a good forty-minute walk from our hotel to the Cardiff City Stadium, which means it takes Paulene and me an hour, because she’s only short and doesn’t walk very fast.  We pass the railway station and what was the Millenium Stadium; a bloke in the pub told me it’s now known as the Principality Stadium, not because Wales is a principality, although it is, but because since 2016 the Principality building society has been paying for the privilege. We walk across the bridge over the River Taff and into Tudor Street, which leads into Ninian Park Road.  As well as houses, Tudor Street has many small shops and takeaways, and realising I have forgotten to bring a pen and paper to jot down notes from tonight’s match, I go into the Al-Ismah shop at number 52 where, unable to find me a small enough notebook, the very kind man behind the counter tears five pages from his own notepad. “Would you like them stapled together?” he asks.  “…and do you need a pen?  Thanking him gushingly, I let him staple the pages for me, but happily I do already have a pen.  “What a great bloke and perhaps another refugee” I think to myself.

The Cardiff City Stadium is a disappointing looking structure, clad in grey metal and standing across a large car park beyond a Lidl and a retail park.  I photographed it from the top of Cardiff Castle earlier today, but it could be anywhere; Southampton, Derby, Leicester, Reading, they all look much the same. With no sites to see here we head quickly for the turnstiles.  My ticket says to go to Entrance 9, but as we look to step beyond the first turnstiles we come to, a steward steps in front of me and says that’s been changed, it seems we’ve been downgraded to Entrance 5.  Getting into the stadium is not easy, I’ve got the e-mail ready on my phone,  but apparently I needed to put it in my ‘wallet’, whatever that is.  I saw on the e-mail that it said “Click to put in wallet” but I thought I could equally not click if I didn’t want to put in my wallet, and not really understanding how a phone could have a wallet I didn’t want to put the ticket in there anyway.  As usual in these situations my wife Paulene takes over and downloads a wallet and puts the tickets in it.  The steward at the turnstile, a man with grey hair not unlike myself, tells me he leaves all this kind of thing to his wife as well.  Experience now tells me that on balance, matrimony is probably a good thing.

Just inside the stadium, a well-located man with what looks like a huge fold-out suitcase-come-wardrobe is flogging scarves for £15 that announce when you hold them up “Haverfordwest European Tour”.  Naturally, I buy one.  With no ticket stub or programme from this fixture, I need a souvenir of some sort to put away in a cupboard and never look at again before I die, when my stepsons will finally put it in a skip as they clear my house. Glowing with pride at the scarf around my neck, I am now in the sort of mood where I will pay a staggering £6.35 for a paper carton of Amstel beer, possibly the World’s most bland fizzy beverage. Paulene gets more intoxicated on a bottle of water for £2.50 and we head for our seats, but stop to chat with the stewards at the top of the stairs.  They tell us there is an expected crowd of 1,200 tonight and we can sit where we want regardless of what it says on our tickets, although the visiting supporters are sitting mostly to the left, so we might want to turn to the right.

We wait for kick off and enjoy the music over the appalling public address system, which includes The Jam’s version of The Kinks’ David Watts and Jeff Becks’ Hi-Ho Silver lining; it almost sounds as if I’m back in 1984 when, with my friend Stephen who I’d known since primary school, I first visited Ninian Park, arriving by train courtesy of half-price rail tickets from a promotion by Persil washing powder. We walked down Tudor Street that day too as I did today; it hasn’t change much.  As I recall, the match was an FA Cup third round tie and Ipswich won 3-0.

Eventually, kick-off approaches and the teams are announced, albeit incomprehensibly over the echoing public address system by a seemingly dyslexic announcer for whom Bluebirds’ Kai Whitmore swaps first names with a make of Korean car.  The names of the visiting team sound like random animal noises transmitted through the medium of a bowl of water, but we don’t care too much and in truth it only adds to our enjoyment.  The sun sinks slowly below the stand at the Lidl supermarket end and the game begins. Haverfordwest are a goal down from the first-leg but get first go with the ball as the sun goes down behind them.  Haverfordwest wear all navy blue with pale blue and white chevrons on their fronts and Shkendija are all in white.   The hollow sound of clapping and the cheers of a handful of excited individuals echo briefly around the thirty-one and a half thousand empty blue plastic seats that surround us all on three sides.

Seven minutes pass and the Shkendija supporters begin to chant.  “Bluebirds, Bluebirds” comes the response from somewhere up over my right shoulder as Pembrokeshire rises to the challenge. Fifteen minutes have gone and Haverfordwest win a corner in the aftermath of a free-kick.

“Why are their numbers so high” says the bloke behind me to the bloke next to him, having presumably spotted that two Shkendija players are sporting shirts numbered seventy-seven and ninety-five.   “I don’t know” replies his accomplice, “I think it’s an east European thing”.   “You wouldn’t get a ninety-seven unless you were a development player” he continues, strangely sounding both knowledgeable and a bit clueless at the same time.  I notice the bloke in front of me is wearing a top with the crest of Undy Athletic FC emblazoned on the back; I joke feebly to myself that rival fans probably think Undy Athletic are pants. It smells like the bloke in front or the bloke next to him might have farted.  Nearly half an hour has passed and Haverfordwest have their first real shot on goal.

“Blueb-i-rds” bellows a voice sounding like a foghorn from a ghostly collier in Cardiff Bay.  There’s a little less than ten minutes until half-time and a Shkendija player shoots straight at Haverfordwest goalkeeper Zac Jones. It’s a rare bit of excitement in a cagey first half when the loudest cheers have been for Shkendija players dribbling the ball into touch or for timely interceptions by Haverfordwest defenders.  Personally, I’ve mostly been learning about the geography of Malaysia; reading adverts around the ground beseeching me to visit Sabah, Johor, Terengganu and Pahang, places I’d previously never even heard of.  Courtesy of their club’s owner, Cardiff City fans must now be the EFL’s most knowledgeable on the tourist traps of Malaysia.

Five minutes remain until half-time and Haverfordwest have what might be a chance to score as a cross is swung in from the right, and their massive number 18, Tyrese Owen, a man seemingly double the size of anyone else on the pitch, swings a leg, but can only divert the ball over the cross bar from six yards out.  As if provoked, Shkendija respond, and number seven puts number five through on goal with just Jones to beat for a 2-0 aggregate lead, but he can only boot the ball wide of the Haverfordwest goal post.  In the final minute of the half Haverfordwest then make desperate calls for a penalty as the ball passes in front of number five at hand height, but the referee is understandably not impressed and after the game’s first booking (for Haverfordwests’s Ben Fawcett) and a minute of added on time it’s half-time, a time to wander beneath the stand and enjoy a welcome burst of the Undertones’ Teenage Kicks over the tannoy.  Paulene admits to having become bored and a bit cold.

Within three minutes of the re-start a Shkendija player flashes a header past a Haverfordwest post and six minutes later, perhaps by way of revenge Haverfordwest earn a corner.  I’m becoming more familiar with the Haverfordwest team as the game progresses and particularly like full-back with Oscar Borg with his mop of dark woolly hair and the bald-headed and bearded, chunky Emperor Ming lookalike Jazz Richards.  Haverfordwest win another corner and the ball is cleared off the goal line.  A yellow glow now shines through the Perspex at the back of the stand at the Lidl end and the game is clearly getting more competitive as the booking count racks up for both sides.  Shkendija’s Eraldo Cinari and the wonderfully named Kilsman Cake go onto my list of players who impress.

Shkendija win a rash of corners, Adents Shala heads wide, Ennur Totre shoots straight at Zac Jones and Haverfordwest lead 4-2 on bookings as the first substitutions are made. Ten minutes of normal time remain and Zac Jones makes a brilliant diving save from a header to keep the score on the night goalless.  Off to our left a Shkendija supporter in a red shirt and black bucket hat stands to conduct his fellow supporters in songs and chants, although he seems to forget the words at one stage, but gets a laugh.

Full-time is looming and I’m beginning to resign myself to Haverfordwest being knocked out, but they win another corner as the stewards line up at the front of the stand; presumably anticipating a possible a pitch invasion, but I’m not sure by whom.  Three minutes to go and Haverfordwest appeal more in hope than expectation for a penalty and are awarded a free-kick at the edge of the box, which requires a decent save from the Shkendija goalkeeper. Was that the last chance of an equaliser?  There’s a minute left of normal time but it turns out not to be normal at all as the ball skitters across the back of the penalty area  and Lee Jenkins swings a leg at it. The ball strikes a defender and deflects off, high up into the goal net beyond a hapless, flailing goalkeeper and Haverfordwest have only gone and equalised.  I leap from my seat in disbelief with fifteen hundred others.  The goal is so unexpected,  so late, and so precious  it ranks as one of the ‘best’ I’ve ever seen.  Being one of a relatively small crowd in a stadium much too large for us somehow just adds to the experience, it makes me feel like we are in a world within a world, an alternative reality. Wow.

“You’re not singing anymore” chant the Pembrokeshire contingent to the tune of Cwm Rhondda, but the visitors clearly understand some English because they immediately begin to sing again; perhaps we should have sung in Welsh (dydach chi ddim yn canu mwyach? Blame Google if it’s wrong). There’s still time for a corner for each team as time-added-on is added on and Shkendija almost equalise with a header that skids past the post, and then it’s extra-time, but it feels like we’ve won already.

Extra time sees an early exchange of corner kicks and Cinari whacks a 35 yarder over Zac Jones’ cross-bar. “Oi Borat” shouts a female voice, which doesn’t seem very politically correct and Shkendija win a couple more corners and a free-kick as they begin to dominate a visibly shattered home team, who one by one seemingly all fall victim to cramp.  Shkendija are full-time players, Haverfordwest are not, this doesn’t seem fair.  But breaking through the pain barrier Lee Jenkins chases back to execute a brilliant saving tackle. From the corner a shot is touched past the post and from another Cake heads over the bar.  The final minute of extra time arrives with Shkendija taking yet another corner and then appealing for a penalty for handball, which the referee, who remains anonymous, waves away with wonderfully dismissive and assertive body language. 

Haverfordwest might be clinging on to parity by the tips of their studs, but Shkendija are desperate and number 77 Florent Ramadani shoots wide with an extravagance to match his shirt number.  Being the only Bluebird not suffering from cramp, goal keeper Zac Jones feigns an equally extravagant  dive for the ball to ease the tension and it works, the game is over and it’s penalties.

I’m happy to say I’ve not seen many penalty shoot outs;  the one I do remember I do so because it was so bad, Ipswich beating Luton 2-1 in the long forgotten Zenith Data Systems Cup. Tonight’s penalty shoot-out starts badly for Haverfordwest; missing the first one is horrible, even more so when Shkendija score theirs, it feels like that’s it; over.  But it isn’t and soon Haverfordwest have taken a 3-1 lead.  If Kamer Qaka now misses or Zac Jones saves we win; but Qaka scores. It’s 3-2.  Now Ben Fawcett only has to score and Haverfordwest win. Surely he will score, he has to, but instead he blazes the ball out into Cardiff Bay, just so we get our money’s worth.  Shkendija have already missed two penalties, they won’t miss again and then it will be 3-3, and then who knows?  Florent Ramadani of the extravagant number 77 shirt and extravagantly wide shot steps up.  He shoots.  Zac Jones saves!  Haverfordwest win! Bloody Hell!

What a night this has been. I have seen a lot of football in fifty odd years of going to games, I’ve seen Ipswich Town win the FA Cup and the UEFA Cup and a play-off final, but tonight is up there with the most memorable of matches and tonight I’ve never been so happy and proud to have been born in Haverfordwest.  Come On You Bluebirds!

Ipswich Town 1 Bolton Wanderers 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Here we go again, and it’s still July.  I will admit to not looking forward to the start of the football season because as a person who seeks fulfilment in being idle I enjoy summer Saturdays with nothing much to do, and summer is still in its prime, it won’t begin to flop into autumn for another three weeks at least, that’s when the football season should begin again. But hey, how else are we going to fit in 46 league games, at least three games trying to win a pizza pan and probably no more than two or three games trying to win two cups that are inevitably destined to end up on the sideboard of one or two of the same four clubs from London and the north-west?

 Today, it is ordained that we shall play Bolton Wanderers, last season’s nemesis who along with Rotherham United were the only team to beat us both home and away, which in the week of the last episode of Neighbours I will admit, whilst in confessorial mood, was my Australian ‘soap’ of choice.   The last time Town played Bolton Wanderers on the first day of the season was in 1961, albeit at Burnden Park, and Town of course went on to win the Premier League that season, although it wasn’t called that then.  By way of yet another private confession, last night I dreamt about today’s game and how Town drew two-all after twice going ahead with the opposition equalising twice from spectacular long range shots into the top right hand corner of our goal.  I say opposition because oddly Town were playing West Ham United in my dream although they also seemed to be called Bolton Wanderers.  Even odder is that I then dreamt that I woke up and realised I had been dreaming because all I could remember of the game were the two Bolton/West Ham goals and an empty ground.  Then I really did wake up and felt a bit disorientated.

Having happily reined in my subconscious mind I have negotiated the crawling traffic of the A12 and walked across Gippeswyk Park.  At the junction of Ancaster Road and Ranelagh Road I must decide whether to turn left towards the Bobby Robson Bridge or right towards the station hotel where I will no doubt be serenaded by boozing Lancastrians in the pub garden singing the praises of barm cakes, back to back housing and cotton mills.  Seeking the quiet life as ever, I opt for the former. In Alf Ramsey Way I purchase a match day programme in the modern cashless manner which seems to take several minutes, before heading off over Civic Drive, past the enchanted Spiral car park which used to just be known as ‘the underground car park’ and up St George’s Street to the Arbour House (formerly The Arboretum) to meet Mick and discuss life over a pint of  a beer (£3.90) from the Burnt Mill brewery which the pump clip said was Japanese, I ask the  barman where it was from, “Stowmarket” he replies.  Mick’s and my conversation rambles between spotty liver disease, the quality of television pictures, Ipswich Town’s latest signings and funerals before I buy a pint of Lacon’s Encore and a packet of Fairfield’s cheese and onion crisps (£1.00) and we discuss VHS videos of Ipswich Town’s greatest moments in history and retirement.

We leave earlier than usual for Portman Road because I have a bag of six Ipswich Town VHS videos to give to a bloke called Ash from Swaffham; I have arranged to meet Ash at twenty to three by the Sir Alf Ramsey statue, but he doesn’t turn up. I ask several people stood about if they are called Ash, but none are and two people think I have asked them if they’ve got any hash.  Disappointed but not surprised, because the world is an increasingly unreliable place, I head for turnstile number 60 to begin yet another season full of hope and likely disappointment; but you never know (that’s the hope again).

Out in the Sir Alf Ramsey stand Pat from Clacton, Fiona, ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood are already here looking fresh and revived in their summer clothes, it reminds me of what the first day back at school used to feel like.  On the pitch, be-suited stadium announcer and former BBC Radio Suffolk presenter Stephen Foster reads out the teams looking as if he is the best man at a wedding.  Banners festoon the front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand telling us “The future is bright, the future is blue and white”; it rhymes, it must be true.  To our right is the new scoreboard, beaming messages to us like something out of Orwell’s 1984. The stadium is alive with the sound of nigh on 27,000 people and as the game begins those in the lower tier of the Sir Bobby Robson stand break inexplicably into a chorus of Mary’s Boy Child, with lyrics altered to tell of eternal fighting and Norwich running away, because it’s Boxing Day.  Off to my right in the Cobbold Stand, in an equally surreal vein, it sounds as if the Bolton supporters are singing “Oh wanky wanky, Wanky wanky wanky wanky Northerners.”  But my hearing isn’t what it was and Boltonians do have thick accents.

The opening minutes of the match are messy with lots of physical effort, but little discernible entertainment.  All the Bolton team appear to be about 2metres tall and there’s not a Frank Worthington amongst them. “Shall we sing, shall we sing, shall we sing a song for you?” chant the Bolton fans.  As nice as that might be, no one takes them up on their kind offer and in a fit of pique they impolitely tell the Ipswich fans “Your support is fucking shit”, before peevishly announcing like thwarted adolescents that the large crowd is because “You’ve only come to see The Wanderers”.   Only six minutes have passed and it’s like last season never ended; clearly supporters have wasted the whole close-season and not come up with a single original new chant between the lot of them.

A frisson of excitement shoots through the home support as a punt forward forces the Bolton ‘keeper James Trafford to play sweeper for a moment. Up in the Cobbold Stand the brief roar of excitement from the home support is an excuse to unleash what passes for wit with a chant to say they had forgotten we were here. How droll.  It’s the eleventh minute and Town win a corner as a Bolton defender heads the ball out of his goalkeeper’s hands.  Lee Evans’ exotic curling corner-kick curls too much and goes disappointingly straight into touch like a metaphor for last season. It is a quarter past three and Bolton win a corner leading to Wes Burns breaking away down the right  and putting in a low cross which is blocked. Burns is looking neater and slimmer than last season suggesting to me that his call-up to the Welsh squad and access to the bright lights of Cardiff might have turned his head.

“They love a ball up the middle don’t they?” says the bloke behind me to the bloke beside him as Bolton launch an attack like a Russian missile strike.  Fortunately for Town, Bolton’s attacks are producing few goal-attempts, but they are dominating play and look generally quicker and stronger than Town for whom debutants Marcus Harness and Leif Davis are doing little other than entertain me with the thoughts that Marcus Harness sort of rhymes and that Leif is a great first name.

The first half is more than half over and all of a sudden Bolton have a penalty from which Aaron Morley scores.  Leif Davis is adjudged to have tripped some Bolton player or other, who predictably makes full use of the opportunity to fall headlong to the turf whilst simultaneously looking up pleadingly at referee Mr Samuel Barrett, who is not to be confused with Samuel Beckett.  Disappointment reigns. But unusually the goal against proves a turning point in Town’s favour and for the rest of the match Ipswich are the better team.  Corners are traded as the half hour approaches and in the Town penalty area some male posturing ensues.  “Who the fuckin’ ‘ell are you?” chant the inhabitants of the lower tier of the Sir Bobby Robson stand and the Bolton supporters sing the same thing.  Nobody seems to know who anybody is.  It could be the result of dementia but it’s probably because third division footballers are generally not household names, with the exception of course of Town’s number 17, Ed Sheeran.   Bolton’s number three Declan John becomes the first player to be booked in a possibly not unrelated incident.

The 37th minute has arrived and another of the day’s debutants, Freddie Ladapo, has a shot deflected away for a corner which Conor Chaplin passes into the penalty area for Lee Evans to side foot into the goal net in a moment of combined thought and invention that was two steps ahead of the entire Bolton team and probably a good 27,000 other people too.  The sadness and shame of having gone behind in the first game of the season is instantly forgotten.  “ You’re not singing any more” chant the home fans to the Boltonians delving delightedly into bottomless wells of Schadenfreude.   More is to come almost, as a beautiful interchange of passes down the right between Janoi Doncaien,  Conor Chaplin, Wes Burns and Sam Morsy ends with Freddie Ladapo having a shot blocked almost as soon as it leaves his boot.

Two minutes of the half remain and having already given away a penalty on his debut, Leif Davis then makes a bid for immortality as he also becomes the first Town player of the 2022-23 season to be booked; it’s a good effort from him but no one will ever rival the appalling Town debut of Mark Fish, who funnily enough also played for Bolton Wanderers.   Three minutes of time added on are played and then it’s half-time.  I consume a Panda brand liquorice stick and talk to Ray, who tells me that his son Michael and his grandson Harrison are missing today’s game because they are respectively in Greece and Scotland.  We share our doubts over the validity of the penalty and the efficacy so far  of the left hand side of the Town team. 

The game resumes at eight minutes past four with the mystifying partial rendition by the Bolton fans of Manfred Mann’s 1964 Number One hit record ‘Do-wah-diddy diddy’ (although it was originally recorded the year before by American band The Exciters).  On the field of play, things are more mundane with the usual procession of corners and stuff that you get in football matches.  It’s a little bit after a quarter past four and Trafford spectacularly tips a Lee Evans header over the cross bar; five minutes later and the first of a host of substitutions materialise with the luckless Lief and ineffective Harness being replaced by Greg Leigh (not to be confused by Prog-Rockers with Greg Lake) and Tyreece John-Jules (impossible to confuse with anyone).   An hour has gone, Freddie Ladapo shoots tamely at Trafford before Leigh gets back to acrobatically head away a Bolton cross.

As the final third of the game progresses the sky begins to cloud over a little, there are flying ants taking to the air and landing on the shirt of the bloke in front of me;  seagulls circle over the Portman Road car park; it’s stiflingly warm.  It’s a dog day afternoon; I think of Al Pacino.

Ending a sequence of three ever worsening fouls, Bolton’s Conor Bradley chops down Tyreece John-Jules particularly dirtily and is booked. “You dirty Northern bastard” chant the Sir Bobby Robson standers reciting possibly football’s greatest chant. “Small Town in Norwich, You’re just a small Town in Norwich” is the Boltonian’s weak response, which does little to dispel the rumours that Bradley hasn’t washed, is Northern and was conceived outside wedlock.

Both teams continue to make substitutions like they’re going out of fashion, making four each with Sone Aluko and Kayden Jackson replacing  Conor Chaplin and Freddie Ladapo for Town.  Ipswich dominate, pinning back Bolton and making them play sardines in their own penalty area.  It’s a niggly game as both teams display their frustration at being unable to beat the other.  The crowd is announced as 26,688, and it seems wakes week has come early with 1,392 pale and pasty-faced folk from the mills and the mines making up the numbers in the Cobbold Stand.  Pat from Clacton wins the guess the crowd competition on the Clacton supporters’ bus with a prediction of 26,679; she seems a little shocked but I can tell she’s excited by her win, it’s been a long time coming.

Back on the pitch, Luke Woolfenden is the second Town player to be booked.  A Wes Burns header brings another corner, Sone Aluko shoots past the post and so does Tyreece John-Jules, who also has a shot saved, and then in the best opportunity of the whole game Wes Burns runs deep into the penalty area before placing one of those crosses usually labelled ‘inviting’ in front of Sam Morsy.  Morsy sends Trafford the wrong way with his shot, but the ball strikes the fortunate keeper’s legs and is cleared.

After six minutes of time added-on, the game ends.  It’s a shame not to start the season with a win, yet again, but it was a tough match against a strong team and Town did recover from going a goal behind, and on balance these are all good things.  One swallow does not make a summer seems an appropriate homily for the occasion, because every occasion needs a homily; although in this case it’s not so much a lovely, swooping, screaming swallow as a scrounging, step-sibling murdering cuckoo.

Burton Albion 0 Ipswich Town 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

This morning I awoke, along with everyone else in eastern England who hadn’t died in their sleep, to the sight of streets and gardens, trees and roof tops covered in a reasonable, but not thick layer of snow.  I’ve seen plenty of snow before of course and it had been forecast so it was not a surprise, but I couldn’t help but stop and stare at it out of the bedroom window.  Snow is always beautiful, a bit like sunsets.

I have been looking forward to the match today having suppressed the memory of last week’s game and crushed it into a tightly knotted, dense ball of pain and suffering which is now buried deep within my psyche. That covering of snow has added to the sense of joy and hope that I now feel as it has made me thankful that despite Town playing in Burton-On-Trent, normally the kind of town I would be first on the bus for, I don’t have to leave the house today.

This morning my wife Paulene has finished a jigsaw that has occupied a table in front of our French windows for at least the past four months, possibly longer.  I have listened to The Byrds’ ‘Younger Than Yesterday’ album, because that’s how I feel, and I have also taped up the ill-fitting kitchen window to keep the draft out, hung out four fatballs in the garden for the birds, put the coffee dregs and vegetable peelings in the compost tip and washed up one of three Lapins Cretins (Rabid Rabbits in the UK) glasses which don’t go in the dishwasher and which were acquired in France as part of a special offer at the Intermarche supermarket chain.  Enthused in the wake of that completed jigsaw Paulene and I have also completed a 3D ‘jigsaw’ of the Eiffel Tower which Paulene’s brother gave us for Christmas. Time has flown by carried on the wings of our industry and it’s now thirteen minutes to three.  I have not even thought about a pre-match pint today and strangely it feels like the middle of the afternoon, which, if the evening begins at six o’clock I guess it is.

Leaving Paulene to watch Toulouse versus Grenoble Foot 38 in Ligue 2 on Serbian television courtesy of the wonders of the Amazon Firestick, I skulk off to the cool of the back bedroom and its Ikea Poang chair, where I fire up Radio Suffolk on the trustee Bush TR82/79 in time to hear unwanted word of Norwich City and their visit today to Cardiff.  As unpleasant as that is it soon passes, but I then discover that the clicky bit on the top of the ITFC branded ballpoint pen with which I intend to jot down a few notes for this blog has fallen off somewhere and now the pen is unusable.  The portents for this afternoon are so far not good, but finding a replacement Montpellier HSC branded pen I get comfy in the Poang and am aurally transferred to Studio 2 at Radio Suffolk from where Brenner Woolley is providing the commentary.   Brenner speaks of remote commentary positions at the San Siro and Bernabeu stadiums and how today’s commentary tops those because he is 160 miles away (256 kilometres) from the Pirelli Stadium, the location for today’s fixture.  Although it sounds like it’s in Turin, the Pirelli Stadium is of course in Burton On Trent.  At no time does Brenner let on that he will be watching the match on a tv screen, it’s as if he wants us to believe he has a superhero’s eyesight.

As the game begins I learn from Brenner that Town are in all blue and line-up against yellow shirts, black shorts and yellow socks; if we’re just playing a kit with no one in it this game should be easy. In the studio with Brenner is someone called Stuart, but I don’t catch his surname at first hearing and I don’t recognise his voice.  Brenner may have missed last week’s game through illness but is soon into his stride quickly telling us that James Norwood is wearing pink boots, and using new synonyms for kicking as the ball is “…clouted forward by O’Toole”.  There are several changes to the Town team today including Tomas Holy replacing Dai Cornell. “It’s an easy change to make” says Brenner’s accomplice who I learn is former Town FA Youth Cup winner and Felixstowe & Walton United captain, Stuart Ainsley.  “It’s a new voice at the back” says Stuart obliquely; a comment that has me imagining Tomas Holy shouting “Keeper’s!” as a cross comes over and the centre-backs turning to each other enquiringly and mouthing “Who said that?”.

Stuart has a light Suffolk accent, but it’s not a voice made for broadcasting, even on Radio Suffolk.   Brenner compensates however, with his command of football speak and unusual use of words to describe the movement of the ball.  “The ball rumbles into touch nearside” says Brenner and then, as Burton’s John-Joe O’Toole is substituted, he tells us that “ …it’s a setback for Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink early doors”.  “Not a great deal of quality to report in this game so far is there Stuart?” Adds Brenner telling us more in one sentence than all of his other commentary has so far.  “Chambers; an early ball in, not the worst in the world” says Brenner, from which I infer that it was a better cross than Brenner expected.

It’s nearly twenty-five past three, the game does not sound entertaining.  “A little bit of football broke out there, Stuart” says Brenner sounding surprised.  Stuart chips in now and then but he’s not very interesting.  It’s left to Brenner to make up for Stuart’s inexperience in front of the microphone with startling commentary like “Bishop opens his legs and crosses the half-way line”.  Just before half past three Luke Chambers is booked by referee Mr Hare, who if he was German would be known as Herr Hare,  which is what the people in the posh seats at Carrow Road say when they agree with what someone has just said.

Brenner’s commentary is sounding more positive as half-time approaches and Town enjoy more possession of the ball. “Chambers seeing an awful lot of the ball, here he is with his left peg” says Brenner again using curious colloquialisms and making it sound as if Chambers doesn’t always have his ‘left peg’ with him.  Brenner continues in positive vein telling us that it’s great to see three academy players in the midfield today.  Stuart agrees but further explains also that it’s “…difficult for them out there with the pitch looking like it does”, making it sound as if they are all sensitive aesthetes.  Otherwise, Stuart sounds bored and nearly everything he says is punctuated with sighs.   It’s now twenty to three and we are told there hasn’t been a shot on goal, but Brenner remains up-beat. “Town turning the screw” he says, suggesting perhaps that Town are hoping to torture Burton into submission. 

There are minutes to go until half-time, “Town have always scored when they’ve been at the Pirelli Stadium” says Brenner, and almost immediately Burton hit the top of the cross bar and Brenner is saying “this has to be a tap-in”, but fortunately Luke Chambers blocks the shot. Three minutes of added on time are played and half-time arrives.  I put the kettle on, check with Paulene on the final score at the Stade Municipal in Toulouse (the home team won 2-0, Allez les Violets!) and eat a couple of Waitrose Stollen bites as a half-time snack.  At four o’clock Serbian tv moves its attention to Olympique Marseille v Nimes Olympique in Ligue 1 and I leave Paulene at the Velodrome as I climb the stairs back to the Pirelli Stadium, where the ‘action’ has already re-started and Town have conceded a corner. 

Burton Albion are “…sharper out of the blocks early doors in this second half” says Brenner mixing metaphor from an unrelated sport with football-speak; but nevertheless the view of Stuart is that Burton pose no threat except from set pieces.  Stuart is concerned however, that Town players are not chasing back when they lose the ball, but stops short of calling them lazy and overpaid, which is probably what many listeners are thinking.  But tuning into the need for honest assessment Brenner adds “…the game is really boring at the moment, it has to be said”, before telling us that , as he keeps emphasising, the Burton Albion goalkeeper is yet to make a save.

The sense of gloom builds and Brenner begins to speculate that “Burton will see this as a chance to build on their away win at Gillingham” before adding after a pause, having seemingly completed some swift mental arithmetic “Six points out of six”.   Stuart’s confidence has grown in the shadow of Brenner’s pessimism and he tells us that Town have “…no belief in what they’re trying to do, whatever tactics they’re trying to play”.  Stuart’s reference to “whatever tactics” makes it plain that he hasn’t been able to spot any.

James Norwood is replaced by Aaron Drinan with thirty minutes left to play and Tomas Holy concedes a corner. “Was that a shot we just saw there Brenner?”  asks Stuart as Burton’s Lucas Akins’ kick at goal is saved. Now Ipswich win two corners in quick succession and Aaron Drinan hits the Burton cross bar with a header.  “Drinan done well” says Stuart like a true footballer.  Town win another corner and then Mark McGuinness wins a free-kick. Oliver Hawkins replaces Teddy Bishop and the possibility arises that Town will play with two forwards who are actually playing up-front.   Little Alan Judge has a shot blocked before crossing the ball following a short free-kick. “Headed in by McGuinness” says Brenner, “His first professional goal”.   It’s the seventy-third minute of the match and Town lead 1-0. “Town had been on top for 15 minutes” says Stuart a little uncertainly, “Playing the right football in the right places”.

Brenner tells us that Town quickly come close to scoring a second goal with a header by Aaron Drinan that is well saved.  We learn that Paul Lambert is wearing a black beanie hat and snood before Gwion Edwards is replaced by Freddie Sears.   It doesn’t sound as if Burton are likely to score, but all of a sudden, out of the blue “ Oh, a slice by Nsiala” and Tomas Holy makes his best save of the afternoon from one his own centre halves.  Stuart has been impressed by Toto Nsiala this afternoon and generously blames the ‘dodgy pitch’ for his mis-kick.  Burton have a couple of shots which don’t trouble Tomas Holy and Brenner introduces yet another word to describe the ball being kicked as it is “…clattered up to half-way by Gallacher.”

Hopes for a second consecutive away win are now high. “Town upwardly mobile in terms of the table” says Brenner using lots of words to describe Town climbing the league table without saying in what position they will be.  It’s six minutes five.  Mr Hare blows the final whistle and Town win.  “Big victory this” says Brenner, as he usually does when Town win.  As nice as it is to be told that we have  ‘big victories’ I can’t help thinking that they wouldn’t be so big if it wasn’t for all the big defeats that come between them.  “Was that deserved overall, Stuart Ainsley? asks Brenner. “I think so, yeah” says Stuart, as convincingly as he can.

Personally, I’m glad the game is over; it’s not that I was nervous and on the edge of my seat, wondering if Town would hold on, more that I was bored.  Unfairly, I decide to blame Stuart Ainsley, he’s no Mick Mills, but who is?  Relieved and happy however, I turn off the radio and return downstairs to watch the second half of Marseille v Nimes where Paulene is happy too because her team Portsmouth has also won 1-0 away from home.   Like the snow and sunsets, away wins are always beautiful.