carrow road

Ipswich Town 0 Everton 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s a grey, wet, autumn Saturday morning and I’m thinking of the last time I saw Ipswich Town play Everton at Portman Road.  It was almost exactly twenty-three years ago, on 13th October 2001.  In fact, that was the last time anyone saw Ipswich Town play Everton at Portman Road. The result that day was a goalless draw, and I have no recollection of it whatsoever.  The first time I saw Ipswich Town play Everton at Portman Road however is a different matter, because that was the first time I ever went to Portman Road; it was the 6th April 1971 and I sat with my father in the then soon to be demolished ‘chicken run’.  We travelled to the match in the family Ford Cortina. It was an evening kick-off and I remember it being light outside the ground, then dark, and the programme having a photo of Johnny Miller on the front; it cost 5 pence but was effectively free because that was also the price of the Football League Review that was stapled inside.  A vague, coincidental symmetry through time meant the result was another goalless draw as it would be thirty-one years later and, just as they are fifty-three years later, Town were fourth from bottom of the league table.  

Today’s family Ford Cortina is a train as I embrace the concept of ‘modal shift’, and it’s on time.  The rain has stopped, the sky is clearing, and I’m sat in the first of the two carriages with pointy ends which makes it easy for Gary to find me when he boards at the next station stop.  Making life easy is a lot about planning.  Gary is a generous fellow and today he is carrying a polythene bag from the Cadbury’s outlet shop inside which is a book called ‘Tinpot’, which is about supposedly forgotten football tournaments such as the Anglo-Italian Cup, Watney Cup and Texaco Cup, although of course no one in Ipswich or hopefully Norwich has ever forgotten that Mick Mills lifted the Texaco Cup at Carrow Road in 1973.  Gary had bought a copy of the book himself and thought I would like one too, so he bought me one.  Such random acts of generosity and thoughtfulness probably make the world go round, and I urge everyone to make them as often as possible and to send postcards when on holiday.

As the train speeds onwards towards Ipswich we talk of my recent holiday in France and the French football results, and as we descend the hill through Wherstead I think it may not only be my imagination that has the train lurching to one side as everyone finds a window through which to gawp at the polar bears; Gary and I spot two of them, bears that is, not gawpers.

Ipswich station forecourt is busy, as is the garden of the Station Hotel, which crawls with and echoes to the sound of Evertonians.  Gary asks me if I’m going to buy an ice cream, and I tell him I am but unusually we don’t make it to one of the blue booths but instead buy our programmes (£3.50 each) from a young man at a sort of blue painted, mobile, metal desk; I ask for a choc ice and he ignores me, possibly because his mind is totally focused on programmes, possibly because he recognises an idiot when he meets one.  To our collective disappointment, the programme cover today does not feature one of the much trumpeted and popular “Call me Ted” poster-like designs, but instead displays just a boring photograph of a running Ali Al-Hamadi.  The poster design is instead on a tear-out page at the back, negating what we were originally told was the point of the exercise to have these posters as the cover.  I ask myself why it is that even when professional football clubs get something right, they then manage to get it so very wrong?

Gary wants to buy a Town shirt for his nephew and says he will see me in ‘the Arb’ a bit later and so I wish him luck as he heads for the club shop and I stride on up the hill, becoming progressively warmer and sweatier as the sun shines down on what is now an unseasonably warm afternoon.

 At ‘the Arb’ the bar is surprisingly not very busy, so I am soon clutching a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.96 with Camra discount) and seeking out Mick in the beer garden, which is very busy.  Luckily, a table is vacated much the same time as I arrive, allowing us to sit and talk of bowels, cancer screening, colonoscopies and prescription drugs in the afternoon sun.  I also explain why Gary will be joining us later but am surprised when he appears sooner than expected bearing a glass of Lager 43 lager but no Ipswich Town shirt.  It seems the only shirts available are in outlandish sizes and apparently his nephew is neither tiny nor vast. 

We talk, we drink, Mick buys another round and we talk and drink some more.  The Suffolk Pride is extremely good today but resisting the temptation to just stay and drink it all afternoon we leave for Portman Road, although not until all our fellow drinkers have done so first.  Portman Road is busy, thick with queues as if the turnstiles are all clogged up with fans who need outsized shirts. Ironically, it is Gary who hears the public announcement that kick-off is delayed by fifteen minutes and so, having bid Gary and Mick farewell somewhere near Sir Alf’s statue, I amble nonchalantly through the crowds and queues past lumps of molded concrete decorated with empty plastic glasses, paper cups, drinks cans and paper napkins.

 Joining the queue for my favourite turnstile, number 62, I am followed by two blokes who are complaining about the queues; they’re the sort of blokes who describe anything that goes a bit wrong as “a fucking joke”.  I explain that the kick-off has been delayed until a quarter past three and they seem disappointed that they can no longer be outraged at possibly missing kick-off.  Then one of them notices a steward, who is not white, at the front of the queue checking people’s pockets, bags and jackets. “I’m not racist but…” says the previously outraged bloke “but all these stewards, they’re…”   As I eventually pass through the turnstile, I hear the bloke who isn’t racist remonstrating with the steward for touching him.

On the lower tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul) , ever present Phil who never misses a game and his son Elwood are as ever all in place awaiting the delayed plucking of the ball from its Premier League branded plinth as flames climb high into the pale blue afternoon sky and everyone cheers enthusiastically.   Since the Fulham match at the end of August, when I was last here, the stadium announcer seems to have completed a degree course in Stadium Announcing,probably at somewhere like the University of South Florida, and over-dosed on vowel-expanding drugs.  He sounds utterly ridiculous, and I think I hear him at one point refer to “The Everton”, but he does at least synchronise his team announcing with the scoreboard allowing me to shout out the surnames of the Town players as if I am at a game in France.  For this I am very grateful.

Eventually, the now heavily choreographed prelude to kick off arrives. A young man in crumpled trousers and jacket, which don’t match, appears to orchestrate the grand arrival of the teams and I think how I miss ‘Entry of the Gladiators’ and how with its acquired circus connotations it would be so appropriate in the Premier League.  The teams pour onto the pitch from beneath what looks like a stack of speakers at a rock concert or a part of the Nazis’ Atlantic Wall fortifications. When everyone settles down a bit, Town get first go with the ball and mostly aim it in the direction of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand. Town are of course in blue shirts and white shorts whilst Everton sport what at first looks like white shirts and blue shorts, but closer up the shirts look off-white and the shorts a sort of bluey grey.  How very moderne, I think to myself.  Confusingly, the front of the Everton shirt appears to bear the word ‘Stoke’, but given how all things football now mostly relate betting it probably says stake, which coincidentally is what the Premier League needs driving through its heart.

Everton take an early lead in corner kicks, the Town fans sing “Blooo and White Army” and Pat from Clacton tells me how she’s just got back from her annual week playing whist in Great Yarmouth, and she won a bit shy of thirty-five quid.  Then excitingly, a break down the right from Wes Burns ends with Jack Clarke shooting hopelessly high and wide of the goal.  As the bloke beside me remarks of Clarke’s shot “That was awful”.  But it’s good enough for the northern end of the ground to break into the joyless dirge that is their version of ‘When the saints go marching in’, substituting the word saints for Town of course.  But despite this, Everton are looking the better team and their players seem much quicker in both thought and deed. Aro Muric makes a save from the Everton number nine who has only Muric to beat after a criminally poor pass from Kalvin Phillips, but then Muric boots a back pass from Luke Woolfenden out for a corner, possibly a comment on the back pass.

With just seventeen minutes consigned to the history of goalless football, Everton score as a result of some poor ball control in the penalty area from Wes Burns, which hands the ball to Iliaman Ndiaye, who only has to score, which he does.  Everton are playing as if on Ecstasy, whilst Town are on Temazepam.   Nevertheless, it’s not as if Town haven’t gone 1-0 down before and Omari Hutchinson is soon being hacked down by number five Michael Keane who is booked by referee Michael Oliver, who from the look of his hair I have deduced isn’t related to Neil Oliver and doesn’t visit John Olivers the chain of East Anglian hairdressing salons.

A free-kick and then a corner follow and then Jack Clarke slaloms into the penalty area only to tumble to the ground and Michael Oliver points to the penalty spot.  In leagues not totally beholden to the wonder of the cathode ray tube this would be enough to give Town a free shot on goal, but being the Premier League VAR must decide and it’s time to place your bets on whether Town will get a penalty or not.  My money is on not and I win the unwelcome jackpot as Mr Oliver decides with the help of video assistance that it was actually Jack Clarke who kicked an Everton player rather than the other way round.  How very convenient.  “You can stick your Premier League up you arse” I chant coarsely to the tune of ‘She’ll be coming round the mountain’.  This is what the Premier League does to people.

Town win another corner and the crowd chants “Come on You Blues” at least twice before Everton win two corners of their own, after the second of which Town fail to clear the ball properly and somehow allow the previously convicted Michael Keane to get behind the defence and score from a narrow angle.  “Everton, Everton, Everton” sing the Evertonians, revealing themselves as true heirs to the lyrical imagination and genius of Lennon and McCartney.

The pantomime of VAR has resulted in six minutes of added on time as well as the mental scars of having been given and then having dashed all hope of a swift equaliser. Kalvin Phillips offers more hope with a free-kick after Leif Davis is cynically fouled, but he then dashes that with his shot over the Everton crossbar instead of under it.  Meanwhile, I can’t help thinking that the name Calvin-Lewin on the back of the Everton number nine’s shirt looks like it reads Calvin Klein. I surmise that this is because I have become overly used to seeing the words ‘Calvin Klein’ on the fashionably exposed waist bands of millennials’ underpants.

Half-time is a sort of relief and I talk to Ray who I haven’t seen for six weeks, but then at twenty three minutes past four the football resumes.  “They’re chasing shadows int they” says the bloke behind me and Everton win two corners as the clock tells us that the game is two thirds over.  Conor Chaplin and Harry Clarke replace Wes Burns and Dara O’Shea.  Pat from Clacton wonders whether she should unleash the masturbating monkey good luck charm from her handbag, and I wonder if Kieren McKenna would have an opinion on that.  Perhaps Pat should write to him and ask when he’d like her to ‘bring him on’.

Sammy Szmodics and Jack Taylor replace Kalvin Phillips and Jack Clarke, and today’s attendance is announced as 29,862, with 2,977 being Evertonians. The excitable stadium announcer uses words such as incredible, amazing and fantastic to describe the support and I begin to wonder if he might need a sponsor for his incontinence pants.

With the changes to the team, Town seem to have improved a bit and are dominating the last fifteen minutes as Liam Delap shoots spectacularly past the post, Omari Hutchnson shoots and wins a corner and Cameron Burgess heads over the cross bar.  Then, as Pat from Clacton worries whether the baked potato she is having for he tea is going to be burnt to a cinder by the time she gets in, George Hurst replaces Liam Delap and from a Town corner Conor Chaplin shoots straight at the Everton goalkeeper before Jack Taylor forces a low diving save from him.  Four minutes of added on time fail to influence events although Muric prevents a third Everton goal as Calvin Klein runs through on his own again.

With the final whistle I am one of many quick to head for the exits to catch trains and buses and without really knowing the exact time I am surprised to get to the station two minutes before my train is due to depart.  It’s a small victory on a day of defeat, but heck, there are still another fifteen home games to endure or hope for better.

Ipswich Town 2 Norwich City 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Back in September of 2022 I was in Brittany, and as well as taking in football matches at Rennes, Concarneau and Vannes I drove to the coastal town of Lorient to catch the imaginatively named local team, FC Lorient play in one of their Breton ‘derby’ games  against FC Nantes.  Lorient was flattened by allied bombing in World War Two,  but happily was re-built, and is now an unpretentious workaday port a bit like Ipswich in many ways. Nantes meanwhile has a castle and a cathedral and its football team play in yellow and green and are known as the Canaries.  Based on my experience of our own East Anglian derby against Norwich I had expected an afternoon of passion, vitriol, obscene chanting, threatening behaviour, casual thuggery and a police operation to rival that of May 1968 in Paris.   I was a little surprised therefore that when I spoke to a group of fans to ask the way to the Stade du Moustoir some of them wore the orange of Lorient and some wore the yellow of Nantes.  Inside the stadium, I was further surprised to find Lorient and Nantes supporters sat side by side in every stand and the overall atmosphere was not one of hostility, but more a Breton love-in. I thought to myself why isn’t the East Anglian derby like this?

Today, I am leaving my house at a quarter past ten to catch the train to Ipswich for that very East Anglian derby.  I’ve barely had time to digest my breakfast and kick-back with a coffee; strong evidence that a 12.30 kick-off is just wrong, and if only we weren’t all so stupid, we would rebel and refuse to go to football unless all matches kicked off at 3pm on a Saturday or between 7.30 and 8 o’clock on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday evening.

After texting my wife Paulene to tell her that I had forgotten to put any Champagne or Cremant in the fridge and could she please do it for me, I meet Gary on the train. We exchange Christmas cards and talk of polar bears, going to watch Colchester United play Salford City, how there should be no football on Boxing Day because there is no public transport, ‘half and half’ football scarves and the BBC TV comedy ‘Two Doors Down’.  The train is full, and exiting it at Ipswich is slow, although whilst most people cross the tracks over the high bridge, Gary and I walk a bit further down the platform and save time and effort by using the original lower bridge which has fewer steps.   Outside the railway station it’s as if a state of emergency has been declared, with legions of police in baseball hats and what look like wipe-clean uniforms, all strategically placed around the station plaza and down Princes Street.

Our walk to the Arb today is a slightly convoluted one because Princes St and Portman Road are partly cordoned off by some of the massed ranks of police officers; I didn’t realise Suffolk and Norfolk had so many of them, but good luck to anyone dialling 999 for police anywhere else in either county today.  I can’t help but think the police use football matches to practice what they will do when ‘the balloon goes up’, the country descends into anarchy and our dystopian future is realised.  Arriving at the Arb, Mick is already in the beer garden, whilst Gary generously buys me a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride, and a pint of Lager 43 for himself.   In the beer garden we talk of how there are a lot of unpleasant and ignorant people about, of the closure of Portman Road, how I will get to the Sir Alf Ramsey stand and how there might not be enough time for a second beer, there isn’t.  Gary tells Mick that at the railway station we had seen Norwich supporters getting off their train and giving each other ‘High sixes’.  We leave by the back gate almost half an hour before kick-off.

At Portman Road, the streets are less busy than usual, with no queues at the turnstiles or even the burger vans, everyone presumably having done as they were told and got here early and brought a packed lunch.  The programmes seem to have sold out too. I leave Gary and Mick to negotiate their respective turnstiles into the ‘posh’ seats of the West Stand and I head down Constantine Road past the corporation tram depot and along Russell Road to my beloved turnstile 62, where I wait behind a man who is waving his ticket about in different directions in front of the automatic turnstile equipment.  A steward is stood by the turnstile gazing up at the grey, cloud-filled sky in apparent wonder.  I tap him on the shoulder to let him know it looks like a ‘customer’ needs his assistance, and he duly helps the man out by demonstrating the effective way to wave his ticket about, which also allows access to the ground.  I follow on after randomly waving my season ticket about too, I still have no idea whether it’s the ‘screen’ on the left or the one on the right that reads my card and lets me in.

I am ridiculously early into the ground today and the teams aren’t even on the pitch yet, but naturally Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses and game and his young son Elwood, who is now not so young (he’s thirteen), are all here already.   Murphy the stadium announcer makes his usual botched job of reading out the Town team, racing through it like he’s commentating on the Epsom Derby and failing utterly to co-ordinate with the players’ names and faces appearing on the big screen in the corner of the ground.  Along with ever-present Phil, I do my best to bawl out the players’ surnames as if I were a Frenchman, but I can never remember the squad numbers of players past eleven, so give up after Conor Chaplin. 

When the players eventually make their procession onto the pitch, flames shoot from black boxes around the edge of the perimeter and I realise I’ve forgotten to bring any marshmallows to toast.  The game begins with Norwich City getting first go with the ball which they attempt to put in the net at the far end of the ground; they wear the usual unpleasant yellow and green creation, but this year the yellow shirt has narrow green hoops around it, which makes the players look a bit dumpier than they probably actually are. Town are of course in blue and white, and the home crowd sings “Blue and White Army” repetitively to make the point. “Fuck off Ipswich” chant the Norwich fans exhausting their supply of wit and ready repartee all in one go.  “Carrow Road is falling down, Wagner is a fucking clown” respond the Town fans and so it goes on.

Seven minutes pass and Town haven’t scored. I’m relaxed but I wish the Town would score a goal, or six.  Pat from Clacton has a headache, she looks worried.  “Where were you when you were shit?” ask the Norwich supporters, not unreasonably.  Pat was here all the time, so was I and ever-present Phil and Fiona and Elwood and the man from Stowmarket, not sure about everyone else though. Gary was definitely somewhere else and admits it. There’s a tackle and the Norwich number seven, who could be an Oompa Loompa, clutches his face.  However, referee Mr Smith, if that is his real name, ignores the crocodile tears and simply tells him to get up, and knowing when he’s beaten, as Norwich players do because it’s a regular occurrence, he does.  Town are showing themselves to be better than Norwich already and like a surge of adrenalin the understanding of this seems to hit the home crowd who burst into a chorus of “We’ve got Super Kieran Mckenna “ . Weirdly, the net effect is that Norwich win the game’s first corner to loud boos from what used to be the North stand and the referee engages in a long lecture to discourage players from mauling one another before the kick is taken.

With the corner kick lost in the past Town continue to dominate possession. Norwich’s number twenty-three sprawls on the ground clutching his face. “Fuck-off you fucking idiot” bawls the bloke behind me, which is conceivably what referee Mr Smith says to him too as he plays on. “On the ball city, blah, blah, blah” is heard for the first time and Wes Burns produces the game’s first decent shot on goal which the Norwich goalkeeper unfortunately saves without too much trouble.  Then Nathan Broadhead beats one defender and then another, and now he has just the goalkeeper to beat; he shoots and I am convinced the ball is about the rattle the goal net, but momentarily the laws of physics take a rest and the ball goes past the far post to leave 27,000 people clutching their heads in despair. Leif Davis shoots, but it’s too weak to beat the goalkeeper. Wes Burns breaks down the right and the ball is played back to Nathan Broadhead who again places the ball the wrong side of the post when science said he would score.  “Morsy being fucking unreal in the middle there” say the bloke behind me, Wes Burns arrives with perfect timing to smack the ball unerringly into the Norwich goal,  but unnatural forces get the better of the ball and it goes over the cross-bar;  Town should be at least three-nil up but aren’t.

Norwich somehow win a corner and then another. “You’re shagging your sister” chant the Sir Bobby Robson stand at the corner taker.  Norwich’s first shot on goal flies over the bar to jeers. A third of the match is over.  “Football in a library” chant the Norwich fans and the lack of a goal despite almost total dominance has left the crowd perplexed. Town win a corner.  “Come On You Blues” I shout, along with Phil and may be four other people. The ball is crossed, it hits some heads, George Hirst heads it down and Nathan Broadhead smites it into the net from close range.  Town lead one-nil and surely victory will be ours.

The bloke next to me disappears somewhere,  strangely taking the long route to the gangway.  “I expect they’ll go up the other end and score now” says the man from Stowmarket with uncharacteristic pessimism. But he’s right, Town’s lead lasts six minutes before the ball develops a mind of its own and gives itself up to a short stocky bloke in a number twenty-seven shirt and out of the blue he scores.  “Who are ya? ” chant the yellow and green horde in the corner mysteriously, as if troubled by a vision of someone they don’t know.  “You’re not singing anymore” they continue, providing an unnecessary commentary.  The bloke next to me returns as if he had known Norwich would score and hadn’t wanted to be here to witness it.  Conor Chaplin shoots wide and weakly before Murphy announces three minutes of added-on time in which Nathan Broadhead shoots wide again. Town win another corner and Pat says “Ooh, I hate that song” as we hear another rendition of “On the Ball city”, a ditty so awful it makes the Baby Shark song sound like Dvorak’s New World symphony.

With the half-time whistle I walk to the front of the stand to speak to Ray and his grandson Harrison. We bemoan our luck and talk of our wives’ birthdays, although Harrison doesn’t because he’s only nineteen and not married,  before Ray leaves to use the facilities and I return to my seat to eat a Nature Valley Crunchy Peanut Butter bar.  In the seats next to Ray a couple break open the Tupperware and tin foil to enjoy a packed lunch of ham rolls. “Do you know ‘Son of My Father’ the No 1 single for Chicory Tip in 1972” I ask him. “No” says Phil.  I sing it for him anyway. “Son of your sister, Norwich City, Norwich City, Norwich Scum, you’re all no better looking than a baboon’s bum”. Phil looks at me as if to say “We’ll let you now”, although he liked the tune.

The football resumes at twenty-four minutes to one.  “Stand-up if you ‘ate the scum” chant the home crowd. Frankly, I can’t be bothered. As shows of solidarity go, it’s a pretty lame and pointless one. The second half proves not to be quite as good as the first and pretty much immediately proves the point but somehow letting Norwich score again as the ball drops to the chunky number twenty-seven whose bobbling, not particularly well hit shot squirms beneath Vaclav Hladky and spins insultingly into the Town goal net.  I can’t begin to imagine what the twenty-seven must have sold to the devil to buy such luck, twice. “Two-one on your big day out” chant the Norwich fans, stretching their wit to its absolute limit and forgetting that it’s actually their big day out, not ours, we’re at home.  But then, in Norfolk going down the garden to the bumby is a big day out.

Conor Chaplin shoots wide. Town win a corner. Cameron Burgess heads over the cross bar.  “Oh for fuck’s sake” says the bloke behind me, I’m not sure why.  An hour of anxiety has thankfully receded into the past, just a half an hour to go. Town take the ball down the left and then across into the middle in stages before it arrives with Wes Burns who takes a touch and then strikes the ball cleanly, just inside the left hand goal post and it’s two-all on our big day out. I suddenly feel much better.

The game carries on, and Town are still much the better team. George Hirst heads over. The Norwich goalkeeper fumbles the ball a couple of times to gift Town corners, Norwich make a double substitution. Murphy announces today’s attendance as 29,611 with 2,004 of that number being from a single family.  Murphy thanks us for our “continued support”, perhaps because no one is leaving early, yet.  The Norwich number seven waves his arms up and down to encourage the visiting fans to sing, but they mostly ignore him and there are moments of almost reflective quiet. Massimo Luongo shoots very wide of the goal indeed. Conor Chaplin curls the ball over the cross bar from a free-kick.  Another fumble, another Town corner. Wes Burns is booked.

Not much more than ten minutes of normal time left and I still don’t think Town will not win, after all, we always do, and today we are more superior to the opposition than usual.  But Norwich are the new Cheltenham Town, not particularly good but with windows covered in guano, boots made from rabbit’s feet, pitches full of four leaved clover and a horseshoe nailed above the door of the team bus.  Pat from Clacton has been lucky too today, she has drawn 2-2 in the ‘predict the score’ lucky dip on the Clacton supporters’ bus, but she doesn’t want to win it.

With time running down, final mass substitutions are made and Norwich take a long time over their goal kicks. There will be six minutes of added on time.  Nathan Broadhead is announced by Murphy as the man of the match as selected by some sponsor or another, there is a ripple of applause,  but hopefully most people see the stupidity of having a man of the match in a game which more than ever is about the effectiveness of the team. With the final whistle the Norwich supporters are beside themselves with joy at their team having drawn; they must have been so convinced they would lose, and heavily, I know I was.

Pat and Fiona are quickly away and after a bout of applause I don’t linger long either, I want to get to the club shop to see if they’ve got any of those half and half scarves.

Burton Albion 0 Ipswich Town 1

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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.

Ipswich Town 0 Charlton Athletic 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Despite my father growing up in Gosport , the only football match I recall him mentioning going to as a boy was when his uncle George, who lived in Plumstead, took him to see Charlton Athletic at The Valley.  This would have been at some time in the late 1930’s when Charlton were one of England’s top teams and having been promoted in consecutive seasons under Jimmy Seed from the Third Division South to the First Division, the ‘addicks finished runners-up, fourth and then third in the three seasons before the outbreak of the Second World War.  Charlton had the largest club ground in the country at the time and in February 1938 a record 75,031 people piled in to watch an FA Cup tie versus Blackburn Rovers, it is reckoned that even then the ground wasn’t full.   If it was that match that my father’s uncle George took him too, and it might have been, it’s little wonder he remembered it.

Now, over eighty years on and nobody can go to the football anymore and the stadiums sit empty as we watch the games on the telly.  Not going to football is better than dying a horrible death from Covid-19 of course, so I’m not complaining, but footie on the telly is losing its appeal and logging into the ifollow each week is becoming a chore.  At least I think that’s the problem, but it might just be that my team Ipswich Town keep losing and against the background noise of social media and the silence of the empty stadium football is no longer as enjoyable as it was back in the good old days of Paul Hurst, Mick McCarthy, Paul Jewell, Roy Keane, John Duncan and Bobby Ferguson.

Although in melancholy mood, I nevertheless log in to my lap-top and the ifollow and make the connection just in time to hear the tail end of a report from Carrow Road on Radio Suffolk, which ends with the words ‘mind the gap’.  I understand these words are meant as a reference to Norwich City being in a higher division than Ipswich Town,  but I find it rather endearing that people from Norwich should find travelling on the London Underground so memorable that they have taken to repeating a station announcement in this way.  I settle into my Ikea Poang chair and as the pictures of Portman Road appear on my tv screen I take the opportunity to drink in sight of the pitch, seeking solace in a bottle of Titanic Plum Porter (two for £3 from Waitrose).

The mellifluous voice of Brenner Woolley introduces Mick Mills who waxes long, but not necessarily lyrically about the failure of Paul Lambert to prevent relegation in 2019 or to achieve promotion in 2020.  The failures of last season seem to be being repeated again; and not achieving promotion again, says Mick, is “what worries local people”.    Micks mention of ‘local people’ immediately has me thinking not of the Football League but of the League of Gentleman, and my mind’s eye puts  Mick in a floral headscarf, thick-framed glasses and poorly applied lipstick repeating ‘local people’ in a high-pitched voice .

The lining up of the players for the start of the game and a minute’s applause for the recently deceased Diego Maradona curtail the disturbing image in my head.  Maradona had, says Brenner “… a pure love of the ball and it loved him back”.  Brenner’s attempt to get all poetic is appropriate given Maradona’s brilliance,  but I can’t help thinking that affording emotions to inanimate objects is just a bit weird.  Nevertheless, when it is eventually Brenner’s turn to shuffle out of his mortal commentary box I like to think that someone somewhere will be moved to say that Brenner loved his microphone and it loved him back, and that the same was true of Mick Mills.

Clearly inspired by the tribute to Maradona, Brenner is quick to get into footballspeak with the phrase “early doors from Pratley” as Charlton’s Darren Pratley does something or other early in the game.  On the pitch David Cornell, with his first touch of the ball in his first league appearance for Town, slips and sends his goal-kick out for a throw-in.  For the first five minutes Brenner can’t mention a Charlton Athletic player’s name without also telling us all the teams he’s ever played for.   It’s as if he has researched all this information and he’ll be damned if he’s not going to use it, and as quickly as possible.    The ball has been booted upfield by both teams several times in the opening minutes and Mick tells us this makes the game quite entertaining.  I’m not convinced, and gain more pleasure from Brenner’s reference to “the pony-tailed Woolfenden”, although in truth, whilst in favour of long-haired footballers, I am not that impressed by the ponytail itself, but give it time.

The weirdly named Keanan Bennetts falls to the ground in the penalty area and Brenner tells us that “ two or three players put their blue-sleeved arms up there”.  Mick however gives those blue-sleeved arms’ owners short-shrift and sounds somewhat disgusted that they should have appealed for what was clearly not a penalty.  ‘Good old Mick,’ I think to myself, ‘you tell these youngsters’.    Mick is having a good early afternoon and after Brenner tells us that Charlton have two ‘makeshift’ centre-halves in Darren Pratley and Chris Gunter, Mick explains his hopes for Town because James Norwood is a “very knowledgeable striker”.  This probably means however that Norwood will be mostly looking to win free-kicks rather than appearing in a future episode of ‘Only Connect’.    In a rich vein of form Mick goes on to explain why he and Brenner say that Town are playing a 4-3-3 formation, even though  Town manager Paul Lambert has denied this and refers to more complicated permutations such as 4-1-2-2-1.  “We’re trying to paint a picture” says Mick, although sadly he omits to mention painting by numbers, Abstract Expressionism or Kayden Jackson Pollock; it’s an opportunity missed by the Town legend.

In the thirteenth minute Luke Chambers wins Town’s first corner through the unexpected means of a shot with the outside of his right foot.  Three minutes later and Brenner says “Town the better side at the moment” and he’s not wrong, although it’s not long before Charlton are passing the ball within the left hand side of Town’s penalty area; it’s a situation “very similar to how McGuinness gave away a penalty ….here……before”  says Mick sounding as if he is struggling to remember that it only happened last Saturday against Shrewsbury.  In the twenty-first minute Charlton score having made easy progress through the left side of Town’s defence once again.

Brenner tells us that Brett McGavin wins a free-kick because of a “high-shoe” from Andrew Shinnie, who we have to hope scores lots of goals with his lower leg.  Dozzell sends a lofted pass “over the top” but “ there’s too much on that from Andre “ says Brenner with cosy familiarity as the ball sails out of play.  From upstairs I hear a shout ,“Oooooooh”.  My wife is in the bedroom with Pompey, King’s Lynn Town and the FA Cup on BBC iplayer.  Not expecting to miss anything much at Portman Road I nip up the stairs in time to witness a replay of some Pompey player or other sweeping the ball into the top corner of the King’s Lynn net from a few metres outside the penalty area. “Is he allowed to do that?” I ask.  Apparently he is.  Pompey will go on to win 6-1, which makes my wife happy and me too  because it’s good to see teams from Norfolk lose.

I return to Portman Road in time to see James Norwood fall to the ground clutching his hamstring.  “That’s gutting for the lad” says Brenner going into footballspeak overdrive and thereby sounding like a public schoolboy straining for ‘street cred’.  “What is the matter with this club? asks Mick more pointedly,  querying why we have a whole team’s worth of players out through injury.   Mick believes someone seriously needs to carry out some research into why we have so many injured players.  Once the game restarts little Alan Judge comes close to scoring but for a fine flying save from Ben Amos in the Charlton goal , and then Judge becomes the only player of the afternoon to be booked.

Asked to sum up the first half by Brenner, Mick says “ It’s been indifferent really”.  Asked his opinion of Charlton, Mick says they have players who have “…been around a long time. They can play. They’re okay”.   What this glowing eulogy says about Town I can’t make out.   After a cup of tea and a Nature Valley chocolate protein bar the second half begins.

Ipswich win a corner, they don’t score. Eleven minutes pass and my eyes are feeling heavy. “We do have to think about changing direction again” says Mick as if Town had struggled with the change of ends at half time.  It’s the 59th minute.  In the 65th minute I open my eyes to see Town’s converted electric milk float ferrying Charlton’s Paul Smyth off the pitch. I’ve been asleep.  The wonderfully named Omar Bogle replaces Smyth and Town’s players don’t notice, allowing him to remain unmarked beyond the far post so that he can easily divert either a cross or a poorly aimed shot from Darren Pratley into the Town net. Charlton lead 2-0.

The remaining twenty-two minutes do little for me, although I do not fall asleep again and am kept entertained by the name of the next Charlton Athletic substitute, Ben Purrington, who replaces Chukwuemek Aneke.  I can’t decide whether  Purrington is having a great game or whether it’ s just that I find his surname so unlikely,  but the word Purrington is now all I can hear from Brenner’s commentary.  Mr Purrington, it sounds like the name someone might give to their pet cat. “Prodded away by an alert Purrington” says Brenner, sounding as if he is enjoying the substitutes surname as much as I am.

Mr Purrington ?

The final ten minutes of normal time arrive.  Little Alan Judge shoots at goal but his shot is straight at Amos the goalkeeper; if he’d shot like that at Amos the old testament prophet,  he would probably have saved it too.   “Charlton up to fourth, and third if they can get another goal” says Brenner optimistically.  Town win their second corner of the half.  Seven minutes of added on time are to be played, some of  it perhaps because the milk-float that carried off Smyth “ran into traffic”, a phrase I don’t remember Brenner using today.  “What do you think Mick Mills?” asks Brenner with a weary sigh.  “We lost to Hull and we deserved to lose this one as well” is Mick’s honest and accurate assessment.

With the game over I watch the players leave the pitch before the ifollow broadcast ends abruptly, a bit like my enjoyment of today’s game, although that didn’t last as long.  Whatever, I’ll be back for the next game.

MK Dons 1 Ipswich Town 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Leaden clouds, gusting wind, rain.  I spend my Saturday morning mesmerised by the steady drip of water from the leaves of the fig tree outside my living room window, and the drip, drip, drip from the underside of the gutter onto the window sill and the Begonia in the adjacent window box.   It’s all so beautiful but so sad, like the thought of Ipswich Town playing MK Dons.  Football is allegedly the beautiful game, but the presence of MK Dons in the Football League is a source of sadness and not a little anger to me.   It was to be expected that the gutless, ineffective Football League, an administrative body that doesn’t understand the sport it administers,  would allow the original Wimbledon football club to be hollowed out and the empty husk replanted in a new town over sixty miles away to the north, and although seventeen years have passed since then, it remains as something that was and still is fundamentally wrong, like mullets, racism, the ‘quartic’ steering wheel of the original Austin Allegro, Chris Sutton and slavery.

Drip, drip, drip on the Begonias

My usual enthusiasm for Town’s game today is therefore tempered and I’m not ‘quite myself’. Unsure of exactly who I am I have allowed the morning to drift away in aimless reverie, although I did have a lucid half an hour in which I experienced brief happiness in finding a wing nut that fitted the bottom of a metal bird feeder on which the original nut had rusted away.  My back garden now is mobbed with a feeding frenzy of sparrows and starlings but such is my listlessness it is two-thirty and I am only just sitting down with my wife Paulene to eat lunch; a salad featuring the unusual combination of tuna and sliced sausage; the joy of leftovers. Worst of all I have not had, and have little desire to have a pre-match ‘pint’, despite a well-stocked beer cupboard which contains five cases of Fuller’s Bengal Lancer in addition to bottles of Westmalle Dubbel, Orval, Dark Star Revelation, Titanic Plum Porter, Chimay and Chimay Brun.  My heart is not in this.

  • Feed the birds
  • Wing-nut

It is gone ten to three as I find myself retiring to one of two spare bedrooms in my boring late 1970’s semi-detached house, getting comfortable in an Ikea Poang chair and switching on the wireless.  Shockingly my ears are assaulted by the faintly estuarine tones of a young woman talking authoritatively about today’s Braintree Town line-up, quickly I move the dial the necessary couple of degrees to reach the safety of Radio Suffolk where an intense sounding young man is being interviewed and makes reference to ‘affleets’ and being ‘affletic’; apparently he played for Lowestoft Town but is now at Wycombe Wanderers. His name it transpires is Malachi Lynton and if he is as serious about his football career as he sounds he should do well, although I hope he gets to laugh a bit as well.

Three o’clock approaches and I am joined by Brenner Woolley against a background of loud rock music which bleeds into ‘Hey Jude’ as he introduces the legendary Alex Mathie, a man who earns that ‘legendary’ epithet courtesy of his hat-trick in the most recent of our three 5-0 thrashings of the yellow-feathered peril from up the A140.   Brenner tells me that the team is the same as last week and Alex adds how he is looking forward to seeing Town ‘live’ for the first time this season.

The game begins; I don’t catch which team kicks off, which direction they are kicking relative to Brenner and Alex’s seats or what the two teams are wearing. I am pleased to quickly learn from Brenner however that Paul Lambert has on his black overcoat.  “Fabulous stuff from the home team” says Brenner.  “That should’ve been 1-0” says Alex.  Oh crikey.

MK Dons have won none of their opening four matches this season but as is often the case they seem to be one of those teams who have been saving themselves for the game against Ipswich.  But little good it does them as in the seventh minute Brenner tells me “Nolan shoots….he scores”.  It doesn’t sound like it was goal of the season however, and Brenner advises that it was against the run of play, although I’m not altogether sure how valid the expression ‘against the run of play’ is when the game is only seven minutes old.

Relaxing a little now that Town are in what has become their customary winning position, I pick up my mobile phone to catch up on my Twitter feed where I enjoy some pictures of the fabulous Stade Bolleart in Lens tweeted by AS St Etienne, who play there at four o’clock today and are blissfully unaware that they are destined to lose 2-0.  St Etienne were of course probably the best of the six teams that Town beat on our way to winning the UEFA Cup in 1981 (well, they had the best players) and Racing Club de Lens are geographically the nearest ‘top-team’ to Ipswich’s twin-town of Arras.  Town really should try and have closer links to these two French clubs as much as to Fortuna Dusseldorf with whom Town have nothing in common.  My dreams of matches in France are interrupted by an injury to Stephen Ward and the ‘will he/won’t he be substituted’ drama that ensues.  Ward stays on.  “Great recovery from the Irishman” says Brenner, as if the player’s nationality had a bearing on his being able to continue.   Relieved, I return to Twitter where at Maes Tegid it is 0-0 between Bala Town and Haverfordwest in the Welsh Premier League, but getting more up to date I learn that Chris Venables has put Bala ahead with a penalty.  At least Town are still winning and it sounds as if a Franz Beckenbauer-like surging run from James Wilson will make it 2-0, but Brenner pushes me back from the edge of my seat with the words “Sears shoots wide”.

I don’t know if the game is not that good, or Town aren’t playing very well, but Brenner goes off on an irrelevant tangent relaying every imaginable fact about Town’s previous runs of consecutive clean-sheets.  I seek solace in Twitter again where Haverfordwest have equalised and I find confirmation of Nolan’s goal.  With twenty minutes having passed Brenner succeeds in recapturing my attention with one of his moments of surrealist commentary as he refers to “Lewington with is captain’s armband on his left instep”. To protect my mental well-being I don’t think about it beyond briefly imagining team photos by Picasso.

Surrealism is replaced by tragedy as Stephen Ward leaves the pitch to be replaced by Miles Kenlock, Ward’s Irishness only being sufficient to beat the injury for no more than ten minutes.  Meanwhile I have caught up with the Twitter feed to the extent that I have just seen Jon Nolan’s goal which someone has recorded off the ifollow on the telly.  The goal was a mess but at least I have learnt that Town are playing in all blue and their opponents in all white, like a knock-off Leeds United.  Twitter continues to be a source of joy as I discover that it is full time at match in Carrow Road and the away team have won, although more importantly the home team have lost.

A third of the match has passed and Brenner evidently thinks it is time to use some of his own brand of football-ese as the ball is crossed by one of the Dons and “…is plucked out of the sky by Holy”.  It cannot be denied that Tomas Holy is very, or even very very tall, but it is open to debate whether he is capable of plucking something from the sky or indeed whether the cross was so high that the ball was ‘in the sky’ as opposed to just being ‘in the air’.  Perhaps Brenner is very short, it’s hard to tell on the radio.

As half-time beckons I finally catch up to the very latest Tweets and Brenner and Alex provide a brief resume of  the half,  admitting that it’s “ all gone a bit flat”.  MK Dons apparently look a “decent side” according to Brenner but he can’t help tempting fate by saying that they haven’t really looked “like troubling Holy” before again messing with the English language as he tells us that “Harvie plants one over the top”.  In the final minute of the half Alex Mathie treats us to the sound of a stifled sneeze, for which he apologises, but I enjoyed it and was pleased that it revealed that despite having scored a hat-trick against Norwich, Alex is a mere mortal susceptible to the common cold or nasal irritation like me or Brenner.

Forty-five minutes are almost gone and Brenner sounds a trifle miffed that there will be five minutes of added time, as if he has to be off sharpish after the match, but he is more enthusiastic as he tells us that “…may be there is a chance for MK Dons to equalise before half-time”.   They don’t equalise but it seems that the chance came courtesy of the Ipswich defence. “Bad defending” says Alex channelling Alan Hansen as only a fellow Scot could.  The half-time whistle is blown and Alex concludes that Town “…just shaded it”, but he doesn’t sound convinced by his own words.  Alex and Brenner both go on to list the Town players who have done okay, these are Freddie Sears, Toto Nsiala, Tomas Holy and Jon Nolan; I head downstairs to put the kettle on and avail myself of a Nature Valley Peanut and Chocolate protein bar by way of a half time snack.

Half-time

The second half has already started by the time I return to the comfort of my Ikea Poang chair and I am thankful to my wife Paulene for telling me that Pompey had already scored at Burton which gave me the clue that play had probably resumed in Milton Keynes too. I am not reassured to hear Alex say that “We haven’t started the second half yet” and it becomes clear that the game has started but Ipswich Town haven’t.  With nine minutes of the half gone Brenner repeats his description of the Town goal, substituting Nolan for Harvie.  MK Dons have equalised.  Unable to put my mobile phone down I switch from Twitter to Facebook where I see that  ever-present Phil who never misses a game has issued a post, “Bugger” it says, and for a moment I think how wonderful it would be if that had been the radio commentary from Brenner or Alex.

Paul Lambert responds quickly to the goal for some reason, replacing Freddie Sears and Teddy Bishop with little Alan Judge and Flynn Downes, which seems a bit hasty given that we have already had to make one enforced substitution due to Ward’s injury.  Paul Lambert moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform however, and so too it seems does Miles Kenlock.  “Kenlock’s gone to sleep” claims Brenner as Town’s opponents threaten to score again.  Whether Kenlock suddenly woke up Brenner doesn’t say, but he does reveal that it was Town captain Luke Chambers who ultimately saved the day.  There is a half hour left and it is made clear by Brenner that the Dons are definitely the best side at the moment.

As comfortable as I am in my Ikea Poang chair in a physical sense, my listening is not such a comfortable experience and things go from not ideal to worse as a Flynn Downes tackle injures Flynn himself instead of the opposition player and he has to leave the field of play; there is of course no remaining substitute to replace him.  “It’s not particularly pleasant watching at the moment” says Brenner, and he prepares his listeners back in Suffolk for the worst by adding that “It looks like a matter of time before MK Dons score”. 

Outside, the clouds have lifted slightly and a watery sunshine is leaking through the blinds of the spare bedroom.  On Twitter, Racing Club de Lens have started to beat St Etienne courtesy of Gael Kakuta, who incidentally is Congolese like our very own Toto Nsiala.  Barely able to listen to the tale of shattered hopes unfolding in Buckinghamshire I catch up with more latest scores on Twitter and take another look at Facebook, where it is apparent that on one of the Ipswich Town supporters’ groups someone has been streaming the game from the ifollow. This has ended in verbal abuse if not tears, as most things on social media do, and the stream has stopped, for which the streamer has somewhat predictably received a fresh dose of abuse.  It pains me that Ipswich Town supporters can’t all be nice to one another, but sadly intolerance seems to be quite the fashion nowadays.

It’s almost ten to five and despite Alex’s wishful commentating with “Wouldn’t it be lovely if Town could nick one” in fact it sounds like Town are mostly struggling to hold on to the draw. “An awful moment of comedy there” says Brenner as if reviewing an episode of ‘Mrs Brown’s Boys’, but actually telling us about Town’s defence.   Happily however, Town survive and whilst Alex’s hopes are not realised Brenner’s prediction of MK Dons goals is not either, and at four minutes to five full- time is called. We may have missed the start of Crackerjack but at least we haven’t lost. 

Not feeling as relieved as I should that we didn’t lose I remain slumped in my Ikea Poang chair.  Brenner and Alex each provide their brief summary of the match. “It was 1-0 to Town in the first half, and 1-0 to MK Dons in the second half” says Brenner. “Ipswich won the first half and MK Dons won the second” says Alex.  Feeling enlightened beyond my wildest dreams I head for my beer cupboard, where I intend to stay until the next proper game on Saturday week.