Ipswich Town 2 Huddersfield Town 0

May 5, 2024May 27, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

After a 10.7 kilometre ‘trip’ on a static exercise bike whilst listening to an assortment of tunes by The Jam, a shower, a shave and a hearty breakfast of sausage, poached eggs, tomatoes, toast, Welsh cakes, tea and coffee I suddenly find myself under azure skies waiting on a railway platform for a train to take me to Ipswich to see Ipswich Town play Huddersfield Town in the last match of the football league season. Courtesy of the ridiculous 12:30 kick-off, it’s not even half-past ten yet. “It’s not the end of the world” says a man to a child stood by the grey concrete bridge over the railway tracks, and something inside me hopes that’s the last time I hear that phrase today.

The train departs three minutes late. Inside the carriage, on the other side of the gangway to me a man stares out of the window grooving to the sounds coming through the headphones clamped over his ears. “The sticks man” he says to himself almost laughing and sounding like the school bus driver Otto in the Simpsons, and we pass by bucolic scenes of farmyards, duckponds and country cottages. I think to myself that he could, as Marge Simpson once said, be “…whacked out of his gourd”. But as I get up to change trains at the next stop he calls “Hey, your scarf man!” and I turn to find that my blue and white scarf had fallen on the floor. I thank him and he tells me it’s cool.

On my second station platform of the day, I meet Gary who looms, smiling, out of the throng of blue and white attired people also awaiting the next train to Ipswich. It’s been a very blue a white day so far. The train is packed full, but I get a seat for Gary and one for me by asking two well-spoken young men if they would mind moving their bags of golf clubs from the seats next to them and into the luggage rack above. They are very obliging and as they move their luggage one of them admits to supporting Leicester City; the other wears a garish striped blazer, like a kind of young Michael Portillo, but not as weird.

We look for polar bears as the train passes through Wherstead, but only see Arctic wolves. Arriving in Ipswich it takes some time to alight from the train, an activity further hindered by stupid people trying to get on it before everyone else has got off. Our passage to Portman Road is then slowed again by the ‘automatic’ ticket barriers which unhelpfully haven’t simply been left open to let everyone pass through speedily and safely. Eventually however, we find ourselves crossing Burrell Road and Princes Street bridge and Gary asks me if I’m going to get an ice cream; I tell him I am. Portman Road however, is packed with people, and there are long queues at the programme booths which, because I am an impatient person for whom standing in queues does not align with ‘living in the moment’, I decide not to join.

Today we are meeting Mick for a pre-match drink, but he still hasn’t returned to full fitness after the operation on his foot and so rather than trekking uphill to our preferred boozer, ‘the Arb,’ we are only making for the Fanzone, because it’s nearby. Having negotiated the muddled multitude of supporters milling about in the shadow of the Sir Bobby Robson stand, and waited in a short but nevertheless annoying queue, we enter the Fanzone and meet Mick who had arrived moments before us. With nothing else for three over-sixties to do in the Fanzone but queue for the bar, we queue for the bar having first walked in the opposite direction to discover the end of the queue, like nineteenth century explorers searching for the source of the Nile. The queue is slow moving today which is because it actually turns out to be two queues, which merge just before the entrance to the beer tent. By and by we reach the front of the queue and I generously buy a pint paper cup full of San Miguel Lager for Gary and pint paper cups full of fizzy Greene King East Coast IPA for myself and Mick, it costs me at least double what I would have spent on beer in a week back when Ipswich won the UEFA Cup. I had told Gary I would ask if there was a discount for Camra members, but out of deference to the pretty young woman who serves us, I don’t.

Brimming paper cups in hand, we arrange three collapsible chairs in a circle and discuss the health of Mick’s foot and what a “spazz” (Mick’s word not mine) Ipswich ‘s Tory MP, Tom Hunt is. At about a quarter past twelve a steward asks us whether our seats are in the West stand. Mick’s and Gary’s are, but mine isn’t and she advises that I prepare to leave the Fanzone as there will be queues at the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand. I complain mildly to Gary and Mick about being hurried along in this way, but Mick admonishes me, telling me the steward is only trying to be helpful and also that he quite fancies her; as he does so he crushes his cardboard cup in his hand spurting residual beer froth onto the ground like spilt seed. For a moment time stands still.

Never one to argue with Mick when his dander’s up, I bid him and Gary farewell and make my way round to the Sir Alf Ramsey stand along Constatine Road past a man stood with an enormous flag at least twice the size of the tricolour in Eugene Delacroix’s masterful painting “Liberty leading the people”. The crowds have dispersed now, and I stop to buy a programme (£3.50) at the ice cream booth in the former Churchman’s factory and then Staples’ car park. I tell the attractive young programme seller that I am surprised there are any left given the queues earlier, and then ponder that Spring really does seem to be in the air. There are no queues at all at the Sir Alf Ramsey stand, contrary to popular belief, and having passed through turnstile 62, I’m soon greeting the broad smiles of Pat from Clacton and Fiona as I take my seat next but one to the man from Stowmarket (Paul) and two rows behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood.

Like it often is nowadays, Portman Road is noisy today and I struggle to hear stadium announcer Murphy read out all the names of the Town team, and as a result and to my eternal shame I don’t manage to be the consummate French football supporter as I fail to bawl ‘Tuanzebe’ at the right moment; Fiona laughs. Shouts of “Blue Army, Blue Army, Blue Army, Blue Army” follow the usual singing of the “na-na-nars” in The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” and the match begins with Conor Chaplin playing the ball back to Luke Woolfenden as Town get first go with the ball. As ever, Town sport their signature blue and white kit, but Huddersfield Town are in a necessary change kit of day-glo lime green, a kit that would not look out of place on a hot day on anyone mending the pot-holes in the roads of West Yorkshire.

“Leeds, Leeds are falling apart again” sing supporters of both teams in a touching display of unity and schadenfreude, and then Town fans launch into a song about Sam Morsy to the thirty-year-old tune of “She’s Electric” by Mancunian ‘Brit-Poppers’ Oasis; I particularly like the lyric “He’s fucking brilliant” which I think says all anyone needs to know about the Town captain. Eight minutes pass and clearly unaffected by my earlier faux-pas, Axel Tuanzebe delivers the first shot on goal which results in a comer to Town which begets another, before two minutes later a low Wes Burns cross results in yet another corner and a header wide before after yet another three minutes Town win another corner and two minutes after that Conor Chaplin shoots wide. There is no doubt, Town are on top.

Nineteen minutes are history now, joining the preceding billions of years in spent eternity and news arrives that Leeds United are losing, which if it became a result would mean Town could happily lose too and still be promoted. “Leeds, Leeds are falling apart again” sings the crowd to the tune of Mancunian miserabilists Joy Division’s forty-four year old hit “Love will tear us apart”. I briefly wonder to myself why back in 1980 we never re-worded the hits from the mid to late 1930’s such as ‘March winds and April showers’ or ‘I only have eyes for you’. Interrupting my reverie, Wes Burns shoots hopelessly over the angle of post and bar before the dirge version of “When the Town going marching in “ drifts slowly from the stands as if relegation rather than promotion was the likely outcome of the afternoon.

The half is more than half over and Conor Chaplin puts Wes Burns through on goal; agonisingly he rolls his shot wide of the target, but like a man with three goes at a single dart finish, that shot was just a marker and three minutes later, receiving a pass from Conor Chaplin,Wes makes amends ramming the ball between post and goalkeeper. “E-I, E-I, E-I, E-I-O” chants the home crowd, and Huddersfield substitute their No 8 for No 21. Six minutes later and Conor Chaplin falls to the turf inside the penalty area. Several supporters bay for a penalty. “You bald cunt” shouts a bloke somewhere behind me, presumably at referee Simon Hooper, but no one really knows.

Five minutes until half time and I sing “Allez les bleus, Allez les bleus “ a couple of times on my own, which I like to think inspires Omari Hutchison to shoot wide, and then the Huddersfield goalkeeper fumbles the ball but catches it at the second attempt. “At least we haven’t got to go to the play-offs” says Pat from Clacton, clearly feeling confident. “I think we’re alright” she continues “We can have a nice holiday now”. Three minutes of additional time are announced by announcer Murphy using his important announcement voice, and Massimo Luongo shoots over the crossbar before Huddersfield have their very first shot of the game, as number 44 Rhys Healey shoots wide. With the half-time whistle, I travel to the front of the stand to talk to Ray and his grandson Harrison. Ray talks about not believing in a god or gods, I’m not sure why, but I tell him that at least if you worship the sun, or the trees, you can be sure they exist even if popular song says they don’t listen to you.

The second half begins at twenty-six minutes to two and I notice that the Huddersfield goalkeeper is called Maxwell, and I think to myself that if he’s got a silver hammer, we should get a few penalties. Looking up, I see the clouds have changed shape, with towering cumulus being replaced by just a smear across the sky. Three minutes into the half and Omari Hutchinson runs at goal, he is forced to run across the face of goal but he’s too quick for the Huddersfield defence and makes space to shoot; the shot is too hard for the Huddersfield goalkeeper and Town lead 2-0. That’s Ipswich promoted, surely. “Stand up, if you’re going up” is chanted from the stands, and people stand up. What more proof is needed?

For twenty minutes it’s like being present at a concert of Town supporters’ greatest hits of the 2023-24 season. “Are you watching Norwich scum?”, “Carrow Road is falling down”, “One Marcus Stewart.” punctuate corners and a shot over the bar from Leif Davis. The usual double or triple substitutions on the hour aren’t really needed today, so are delayed until the seventy-third minute and serve only to draw ovations for a season’s efforts from the departing players. Announcer Murphy announces today’s attendance as 29,011 and even the seat next to me is occupied, by an extremely tall youth who neither says nor sings anything. “Small Town in Norwich, You’re just a small town in Norwich” chant the Huddersfield fans bizarrely, or at least those who’ve never seen a map of Britain do. But “The Town are going up, The Town are going up” is the carefree response to the intended sleight.

Huddersfield don’t seem capable of threatening Town’s two-goal lead, let alone overhauling it, although their No21 gets Alex Matos himself booked for a foul on Jeremy Sarmiento, perhaps in an attempt to at least show willing. But their supporters know the truth and happily and pleasingly sing “We’re on our way, To Division One, We’re on our way” . With the game entering the final ten minutes, stewards and police begin to surround the pitch and a helicopter circles above. Surely they can’t be hoping to prevent a pitch invasion, and I begin to wonder if Rishi Sunak is going to have us all machine-gunned as punishment for Thursday’s Council election results; he does after all hope to place Britain alongside Russia and Belarus as one of just three countries in Europe not signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights. After the game, the man from Stowmarket (Paul) will tell me he would have felt happier if the helicopter had been being tailed by an Apache from nearby Wattisham.

As the edge of the pitch fills up with people in day-glo jackets, it starts to become difficult to distinguish the Huddersfield players from our would-be murderers, but reassuringly there will be only three minutes of additional time and I think with promotion now assured, our lives may yet be saved. With the final whistle Ipswich Town are indeed promoted, having secured second place in the league, six points clear of the team in third, Leeds United, who have apparenrtly fallen apart again, but may yet be able to put themselves back together in the play-offs if they can beat Norwich City, who finish twenty-three points behind Ipswich. As my friend Pete will remind me later this evening as he congratulates me, from now on Town will be in the “best league in the world”, a world within a world of Sky hype, obscene amounts of money, gambling responsibly and no three o’clock kick-offs on a Saturday – or very few. As happy as I am that Town are successful after years of misery, and as much as a surfeit of beer, Cremant and red wine will result in my falling asleep early in the second half of Stade Brestois v FC Nantes as I watch it on the telly, I still can’t help but think of the words of Mick McCarthy “Be careful what you wish for.”

It is possible this will be my last blog for a while that features Ipswich.

Further reading: The man who hated football by Will Buckley

Word of the week: Ambivalent

Ipswich Town 0 Newport County 1

August 13, 2021August 30, 2021 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

The first and second rounds of the Football League Cup are always an early season treat, a chance to play an interesting ‘lower league’ club and maybe visit a ground never visited before, in fact that was almost guaranteed back in the days of two-legged ties. Added to that, summer isn’t over (if it has ever started) and a hot and sticky road trip precedes a balmy evening of lengthening shadows beneath a maturing, setting sun. Early season evening games are blissful, beautiful occasions and I fondly remember visits to Torquay, Exeter, Scunthorpe, Darlington, Brentford, Stockport, Bolton and Wigan. Sadly, Ipswich Town are now one of those lower league teams, and a decade or more of abject failure has transformed cup ties from nights of wonder and joy into painful experiences to be endured like a trip to the dentist or having your car MoT’d.

Tonight, our opponents are ‘little Newport County’, a phoenix club resurrected from the one that went bust in 1988, following relegation from the fourth division. I recall seeing the original County play out a magnificently awful goalless draw at Layer Road, Colchester in that fabulously terrible relegation season, but I also recall their glorious 2-3 European Cup Winners Cup quarter final defeat to Carl Zeiss Jena at the same time as Town were cruising past St Etienne on our way to winning the UEFA Cup. Again, like on Saturday when Morecambe played their first ever third division game at Portman Road sixty years after Town played our first ever top division game, it is somehow fitting that Newport and Town should meet forty years after both clubs’ finest moments in European competition. I visited Newport’s old Somerton Park ground back in 1988 and could only think how their opponents from the German Democratic Republic must have been glad to get back behind the ’iron curtain’, doubtless with renewed faith that Communism was far superior to Capitalism and produced much better football stadiums, which of course it is and did, if you do it right. Communism is a bit like sex, a great idea but best only conducted between consenting adults.

Shamefully arriving by car and not public transport because of continuing Covid induced paranoia, I park-up in West End Road car park at a little after 7 pm; the tariff is £1.00 until 8.00pm, after which it is free. Stepping from my trusty, air-conditioned Citroen C3 the warmth of the evening air hits me unexpectedly and stirs pleasant memories of going to night matches in more exotic locations such as Beziers, Nice, Marseille and Montpellier whilst on holiday in the south of France. Musing that the stadium catering at Portman Road probably doesn’t serve espresso coffee or cheese and ham baguettes, I stroll to the ground where there are queues at the guichets (look it up). I buy a programme (£2.50) from a booth in which the gently smiling young female programme seller seems rather heavily made-up for the occasion, but then it’s nice that she’s made the effort. Drinking in the pre-match ambience I pass by the back of the Sir Bobby Robson stand and enter Portman Road, which is strangely quiet. I realise later that this is because the only people occupying the Cobbold Stand tonight are the 131 from Newport, many of whom will have travelled on the six-wheeled charabanc of Watt’s Coaches, which idles by the Portman Road bus stop; I ask one of the drivers how long the journey took; “Five and a half hours” he tells me stretching out his vowel sounds with his rich, lilting and somewhat tired sounding South Walean accent, which oozes Rarebit and Eisteddfods.

Returning to Sir Alf Ramsey Way the queues for turnstiles 43 to 47 are lengthening and beginning to snake, so I head for turnstile 49 where there’s hardly anyone ahead of me at all. Inside the ground a line of Heras fencing separates the fanzone from those of us who have passed through the turnstiles. The back of the stand is a noisy place as a disco inside a shipping container seems to be operating from a corner of the fanzone, predictably no one is dancing, and I wonder what the point of it is. Fearing that my hearing is being damaged I head for my seat which tonight is in Block H, so lettered I will discover because at the end of the match it’s difficult to get out of, like the prisoner cell block.

As I stand and flick through my programme, kick-off comes ever closer and the PA system which successfully scrambles any spoken word delivers a medley of tunes associated with the Town. I enjoy the anthemic Edward Ebenezer Jeremiah Brown from the 1970’s, but cringe at the dire Singin’ the Blues of the George Burley era, which sounds as if it is performed by Vic Reeves and Suzi Quattro, and the surreal and corny Sweet Caroline. My only pleasure is from a childish giggle provoked by the name of a Newport substitute, Evan Ovendale.

Finally, my torture by music is ended when the teams come onto the pitch, and I’m pleased to report are warmly applauded as they ‘take the knee’. The match kicks off; Newport pointing in the direction of the Sir Bobby Robson stand in their traditional amber shirts and black shorts and getting first go with the ball. Barely two minutes pass and an Armando Dobra shot strikes Newport’s right hand goal post. Within a further two minutes Newport lead. One of Town’s many debutants, Sone Aluko needlessly concedes a free kick, from which a low cross is diverted into the net via the heel of Timmy Abraham, who rather wonderfully sounds like he should be, and indeed he is, the little brother of the Chelsea player, Tammy Abraham.

At least we probably still have 90 minutes to score a couple of goals of our own. But inevitably, given Town’s recent record in cup competitions, I have a nagging sensation that some writing is already being daubed on a wall somewhere. Meanwhile, Armando Dobra has a shot saved and the oddly named Macauley Bonne heads over the Newport cross bar. When Newport are awarded the game’s first corner, the Sir Bobby Robson stand chant “Who the fuckin’ ‘ell are you” to the taker, displaying a boastfulness of their own ignorance that is fitting in a town that voted for Brexit.

Town may be losing, but the game is nevertheless an entertaining one and despite the mostly empty stands the spectacle is enhanced by the fading daylight. With 21 minutes gone Sone Aluko claims the glory as the first player to be booked by the strangely competent referee Mr Neil Hair, or Herr Hair as he would be known if this were the Bundesliga. Quite suddenly at about ten past eight I notice that all sunlight has gone and the ground is totally in the shade of whatever the Pioneer stand is now called. The oddly named Macauley Bonne strikes the outside of Newport’s left-hand post with a shot and some childish banter ensues between him and the Newport goalkeeper Nick Townsend, with Bonne clutching his stomach to indicate that that Townsend is not merely big-boned; you can take the boy out of Chantry High School but you can’t …etcetera.

Five minutes of the half remain, and Town produce a delightful passing move, sending the ball from Luke Woolfenden to Idris El-Mizouni (whose father incidentally drank a post-match coffee with me when AS Meudon played St Ouen L’Aumone in the Coupe de France in 2018) to Sone Aluko to Armando Dobra, whose cross is headed over by the oddly named Macauley Bonne. There is still time for Newport’s short and dumpy, but wonderfully named and impressively numbered (he’s No 56) Aneurin Livermore to be booked, for Idris El-Mizouni to have a free kick saved, and for him to provide a deliciously whipped-in cross for the oddly named Macauley Bonne to head over the bar yet again.

Half-time brings relief from the claustrophobia of the oldest part of the stadium, as those around me leave to get refreshment; people genuinely were smaller in the 1950’s when the old West Stand was built, possibly because there was no stadium catering back then. Tonight, I am seemingly surrounded by youths in their late teens and early twenties who are all about 2metres tall. Two of them return with trays of chips and the game begins again.

My seat is closer to “Churchman’s” than the Bobby Robson Stand and perhaps that’s why I notice for the first time this evening that Tomas Holy is a vision in cerise, he’s quite a sight. Five minutes pass and the oddly named Macauley Bonne heads a looping cross into the goal, the giants all around me stand as one, but I had already spotted the offside flag. “You fat bastard” chant the North Standers, presumably at goalkeeper Townsend and not to the oddly named Macauley Bonne.

Tonight’s attendance of 6,154 is announced and a good proportion of that number applaud themselves like performing seals do after catching a fish thrown at them from a bucket. Town’s Scott Fraser replaces Sone Aluko who looks like he knows he’s had a poor game. “He’s weird in ‘e? He’s got funny little legs in ’e?” I hear a voice behind me say. I think the voice is talking about Newport’s left-back Aaron Lewis, who indeed does have funny little legs; he also has hair like Grayson Perry; he’s not a bad footballer mind, and I like to think he might also be able to knock up some decent ceramics or tapestries.

Over an hour of the match has passed and a fine shot from Armando Dobra brings an equally fine flying save from the fat bastard in the Newport goal; James Norwood and Kayden Jackson replace Louie Barry and the oddly named Macauley Bonne. Newport mount a rare attack down the right and Town’s Corrie Ndaba, whose first name reminds me of the episode in series nine of The Simpsons in which Lisa becomes addicted to ringing the ‘Corey hotline’, spectacularly and miraculously slices the ball into the arms of Tomas Holy who is stood behind him.

With the match in the final twenty minutes Newport players twice clear the ball off their own goal line in the space of a few seconds and James Norwood heads a decent cross from Bailey Clements over the bar in a manner which I had thought was the preserve of the oddly named Macauley Bonne. Just a short while later Norwood begins to limp and then leaves the field of play to be replaced by no one at all because we’ve used all our substitutes. The bloke next to me doesn’t notice for a further few minutes that we are down to ten men and when he does, he thinks we’ve had someone sent off; “What happened?” he asks; and I thought I was guilty of not paying attention.

Newport’s shaven headed forty-two-year-old, Kevin Ellison is substituted and hobbles off, clearly attempting to eke out the remaining time in a way which doesn’t involve football being played. “Get off you old git” I bawl at him despite being almost twenty years his senior. I’m not sure what came over me, although these West Standers seem rather dull and need livening up. Unfortunately, Ellison and his team win the day with their time-wasting ways and despite five minutes of added on time Ipswich fail to score, and so once again leave the League Cup at the earliest opportunity, leaving Newport County and the likes of Forest Green Rovers, Barrow and Oldham Athletic to seek the sort of glory we can only dream of.

Despite the result it’s been an enjoyable match, with some fine performances from young players, particularly Bailey Clements, Idris El-Mizouni and Cameron Humphreys. As I stand helplessly waiting to get out of the slowly clearing stand, I applaud Newport and their intrepid supporters and reassure myself by believing that although the score reads as another Cup defeat I have simply witnessed the birth pangs of a Grand Projet that will one day see us reach the next round.

Ipswich Town 1 Stoke City 1

February 18, 2019 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

After a week of beautiful winter sunshine today is grey. As I am about to walk to the railway station I receive a text message from Roly to tell me that there are rail replacement buses between Colchester and Ipswich. The gloom of the day deepens. I leave the house forgetting to say goodbye to my wife Paulene.

At the railway station I see Roly over the tracks on Platform Two, he is eating a muffin and holds a paper cup of coffee. Roly is a conspicuous consumer, of food. Our train journey is brief and we soon find ourselves boarding a sleek grey coach belonging to Tendring Travel, the front of the vehicle sports a Union flag, which no doubt goes down well in that land of hope and glory that leads to Jaywick. Already on board there are people sporting the blue and white favours of Ipswich Town and it feels like we’re setting off on an away trip, but equally I feel like an extra in the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour, such is the magic of boarding a bus or coach. A ‘steward’ in a day-glo coat quietly counts us on to the coach, she’s Tendring’s Wendy Winters, but predictably less glamourous. I cast a fat bloke over the aisle as Ringo’s auntie Jessie; the partly-vacant seat next to him is predictably the last to be occupied. The unhappy looking driver is very anxious that his vehicle is not over-filled “I can’t have anyone standing” he says, twice in quick succession. Someone has to alight but then we depart. The bus is swelteringly hot.

We arrive in Ipswich twenty five minutes later than if we’d arrived by rail, but of course we have been charged the same price for this slower, less comfortable service. If I’d wanted to save money by travelling by bus on Ipswich Buses service 93 from Colchester to Ipswich or by National Express coach I could have done so. Instead I thought I would pay a bit more and travel by….oh dear, bus.

Reeling from our experience Roly and I hot foot it up Portman Road to St Jude’s Tavern, barely registering that the programme kiosks have been painted dark blue and therefore making me imagine even more vividly that each one is a Tardis piloted by Mick Mills capable of time travel back to the 1970’s, that distant time when Ipswich Town first seduced me. St Jude’s is busy with drinkers, but Roly and I claim a table where we sup our pints of today’s Match Day Special, Goblin’s Piss (£2.50) which I am relieved to discover tastes much, much, much better than it sounds. Our conversation is of football and more precisely Ipswich Town and we conclude that playing Collin Quaner and Will Keane up front together is like having two Mich D’Avrays; a concept which we like very much. We drink quickly, probably due to de-hydration from our coach trip and I soon return to the bar to buy a further pint and a half of the Match Day Special, which has now changed to St Jude’s Hoppy Jude (still £2.50). Roly only has a half because he is nothing if not responsible and he will be driving his car later this evening (it’s a Vauxhall Astra). I suspect Roly also wants to leave space for something to eat once he gets to the ground; I sometimes wonder how he is not the size of Ringo’s auntie Jessie.

Under the insouciant gaze of Sir Alf Ramsey we part, Roly heads to the ‘posh’ seats of the East of England Co-op Stand and its gourmet offerings whilst I slum it in the cheap seats of Churchman’s, now the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand. There is no queue at the turnstile where I thank the operator cheerily for his pedal-work and proceed to my seat via the toilet. Unusually I get to my seat before the match ball has been plucked from its plinth. Pat from Clacton is here but ever-present Phil who never misses a game is not, he’s being wined and dined with supporters club supremos and is watching from a ‘posh’ seat somewhere.

Ipswich begin the game playing towards me and Pat from Clacton, as ever they wear blue shirts and socks with white sleeves and shorts and display the deeply tacky logo of an organisation of on-line scammers across their chests. Today’s opponents are Stoke City and to their everlasting credit they have eschewed the wearing of any unnecessary change kit and instead wear their traditional kit of red and white stripes with white shorts and socks. They look a bit like Signal toothpaste, and coincidentally this chimes with the novels of Arnold Bennett set in the Potteries in which the fictional local paper is called The Signal, although I do not recall any reference to toothpaste in any of the novels I have read. I can very much recommend ‘The Card’, which even weaves football into the story near the end.

The ‘Stokies’ assembled in the corner of the Cobbold Stand (we will later be informed that there are 1,138 of them in the total crowd of 15,924) immediately burst into a chorus of Tom Jones’ Delilah for which they are rightly famous amongst people who pay any attention to these sorts of things. Ipswich supporters seem to have given up already on inexplicably singing “Sweet Caroline” as our attempt at being quirky and interesting, possibly because it will now forever harbour painful, dark memories of the destructive Paul Hurst era, brief though it was. Moving forward, as people now say instead of ‘looking ahead’ in these thrusting modern times, spectators in the Cobbold Stand, East of England Co-op Stand and Sir Alf Ramsey Stand could be given song sheets for Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘The Sound of Silence’. Make it performance art and the song sheets could be blank.

The heavy grey cloud and hint of damp in the air lend the afternoon a sombre atmosphere but the floodlights are on and once again, as on Wednesday night versus Derby, this feels like a proper football match; the Sir Bobby Robson Stand, or more accurately the corner of it occupied by the Blue Action supporters group is audible. From the lower tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand however, the Stokies are more audible and soon sing “One Gordon Banks, there’s only one Gordon Banks”. Many Town supporters in the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand begin to applaud and frankly I’m confused as to whether this is a one minute’s applause for the deceased goalkeeper or just applause directed at the Stoke fans singing “One Gordon Banks”. Modern football with its sentimentality is complicated.

Stoke are dominating possession but not in an exciting way; they don’t look much like scoring and their fans are hopefully being ironic when they sing “We’ve got the best team in the land”; having been to Stoke On Trent I think it likely that Stoke supporters are capable of irony. For Town, little Alan Judge (Judgie) looks our best player by some way and when he picks himself up off the turf after being fouled the spectators around me applaud him warmly, showing far more enthusiasm for this ‘resurrection’ than they do for supporting and getting behind the team the rest of the time. “Shoot!” bellows someone from behind as Town players circle in front of the Stoke penalty area. “They don’t know where the goal is anyway” mumbles the old boy behind me, clearly hankering for the latter days of Mick McCarthy’s reign when we only came to games to be miserable.

It’s twenty-five past three and as little Judgey crosses the ball with speed and purpose a chant of “Come on Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” comes out of the blue from the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand; a spontaneous, instinctive, momentary burst of enthusiasm in a dull first half. Less than ten minutes later and Alan Judge is floored again as he is fouled by Stoke’s James McClean who becomes the first and only player to be booked by the small, balding referee, Mr Scott Duncan. Hilariously McClean tries to make out that it is he who has been fouled by then diving outrageously; he is fully deserving of the chorus sung just for him by the Sir Bobby Robson Stand of “Wanker, Wanker…” It makes me wonder why so many professional footballers are such bare-faced cheats and why the normally po-faced Football Association puts up with it.

Four minutes to go until half-time and the game is hardly thrilling. “That’s gettin’ misty” says the old girl behind me, understandably more engaged by the weather than the match. Stoke have had better chances to score than Ipswich, but fortunately seem to believe that the cross-bar is much higher than it actually is. A minute before half-time however, Town’s Jonas Knudsen loses all sense of where he is in relation to the rest of the planet and heads a harmless looking cross away from rather than to Bartosz Bialkowski in the Ipswich goal, allowing the cheating James McClean to run on and score from less than a yard into an empty goal; even he couldn’t miss that or fall over. Once again justice doesn’t play to the whistle and has gone early for a half-time cuppa.

Half-time follows and after a chat with Ray I let out some more of the Goblins Piss and Hoppy Jude. I take a look at the half-time scores and search for a Panda brand liquorice stick that I thought I had in the inside pocket of my coat. I will eventually find it later this evening in the coat lining, I should probably buy a new coat, this one has to be twenty-five years old at least. The new half begin at five past four and Ipswich improve a little and the crowd remain with them, politely applauding an over-hit pass which last season would have drawn scorn and bile from the stands.

Teddy Bishop begins to run with the ball. He does it once; he does it again and is brought down to win a free-kick. “I knew that would happen” says the old boy behind sounding annoyed as if to say he shouldn’t have bothered. “But he’s won a free-kick” says the old girl displaying a more measured tactical approach to the game. Alan Judge draws a spectacular flying save from the Stoke goalkeeper Jack Butland when the kick is taken.

Collin Quaner goes down injured and the game is stopped with Stoke in possession. Sportingly, the Stoke fans boo, revealing their proud Premier League heritage. When I was at university I knew a Stoke City supporter; his name was Tony and he was a lovely, friendly bloke, fun to have a drink with. He lived in Wolverhampton but went to watch Stoke he told us, because of the violence. He was very proud of his sexual conquest of the daughter of a local Chief Constable and he once defecated in a milk bottle; I didn’t see him do this, but I saw the milk bottle, which was enough.

Fifty seven minutes have been played and the Stokies sing “Is this a library?” It’s a mark of how things have improved at Portman Road that they have had to wait this long to sing it; they do so only once; it’s almost as if it’s a condition of sale on the tickets. Stoke press forward and earn a corner, the ball runs back to the edge of the box and one of their number, I have no real idea who, but it could have been Oghenekaro Etebo , wellies the ball nominally goalwards; travelling like a comet the ball drifts left in a graceful curve under the influence of an unseen gravitational force and heads at speed directly towards me. I remain seated but raise my arms, succeeding only in getting a finger-tip touch which barely alters its trajectory. “Why didn’t you catch it?” shouts Ray “I would have if I could be bothered to stand up” I tell him “I’m just very lazy, it’s why I’m not in the team”.

The game drifts away, meandering towards time added on as the evening chill sets in. I sense disappointment and frustration behind me. “Come on! You can beat this lot. They’re nearly as bad as you are” calls the old girl cruelly. “That’s all very pretty…” says the old boy as the Town pass the ball across the pitch and back “…but does absolutely nothing”. He sounds bitter and his attitude illustrates why English football will always be inferior to French or Spanish or Italian, because we can’t abide all that soppy passing.

Time added-on arrives and Town are pressing, but not looking likely to score; they win a corner and in a stroke of good fortune Paul Lambert, still wearing his black Marks & Spencer v-neck jumper and black slacks still has one substitute left. On to the field comes Suffolk’s favourite 1.93m high Congolese centre back Aristote (Toto) N’Siala. I can almost hear the Stoke players thinking “Who the feck is going to pick him up?” Possibly several players go to mark Toto and as the corner is taken I see the ball and the number fourteen on the shirt of Will Keane converging. “Goal!” I shout and a fraction of a second later Keane’s head sends the ball into the net and Town have equalised. It is a moment I may not forget, like when Mich D’Avray scored from Kevin O’Callaghan’s cross against Liverpool in February 1986.

There’s barely time left for either side to score again and a little predictably they don’t. The game ends and for the second match in a row Town have not lost and we are deliriously happy. This is truly one of the weirdest season’s I have ever known at Portman Road. We are still bottom of the league and we never get appreciably closer to the teams above us, but for some reason it feels good and a good number of people are enjoying it. Are the Russians putting something in the water or the Match Day Special?

Ipswich Town 1 Derby County1

February 16, 2019February 18, 2019 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

I usually catch the train home from work at about ten to five, but today I am engrossed; writing a report and explaining why a deadline has to be extended. At about five past five however, my stomach feels slightly jittery, I am feeling inexplicably anxious and my concentration is waning , thoughts of beer and football tumble over one another displacing everything else in my mind. All at once it seems horribly late, it’s getting dark outside, I can feel my heart beginning to pound. I have to leave. At five-fifteen I step out into the cool, dimming light of dusk in Ipswich. Office lights shine out sadly from upper floor windows casting shadows of regret. But what do I care, I am making straight for St Jude’s Tavern.

I pass the Ipswich Town main gate where people wait like groupies at the stage door. Is it a free ticket they crave or a glimpse of a star player arriving for the match in his nastily ostentatious Audi or Range Rover? A steward leans in towards the wound down window of a Ford Fiesta, perhaps explaining that this sort of car isn’t acceptable round here and there is a Council pay and display car park over in Portman Road for his sort. I walk on past warning signs about CCTV and bag inspections, past burger vans and polythene goodie bags containing the local paper. It all has a certain beauty.

In St Jude’s Tavern I collect a pint of the Match Day Special, St Jude’s Thaddeus (£2), I ask if they have any pies, but they haven’t. I console myself with the thought that this is not necessarily a bad thing. I sit down with two of the superannuated old blokes who are here before every match; we talk football and Ipswich Town. The older looking of the two tells me he saw Town play three games during their last season in Division Three South in 1957, versus Bristol City, Charlton Athletic and Sheffield Wednesday. He’s talking nonsense because none of those teams was in Division Three that season. The memory can play tricks.

I buy another pint of Thaddeus and Mick arrives, and then so does ever-present Phil who never misses a game, they both drink Thaddeus and Phil remarks that it tastes like it’s ‘on the way out’, it is, and for my final pint of the evening I choose St Jude’s Oatmeal Stout (£3.60); it’s an extra £1.60 well-spent. Along with third division football grounds, a jazz festival in Nice and what the city of Derby is famous for (Rolls Royce, real ale pubs and Bombardier trains) we talk of euphemisms for dying and I relay how a member of staff at the crematorium in Colchester referred to my ninety eight year old mother-in-law’s eventual death as being when “she performs”, which we all agreed was a very odd turn of phrase.

After just a half, Phil leaves first for the ground because he’s going to visit the Fan Zone, but Mick and I also leave earlier than is decent because Mick has to arrange a refund having bought two tickets together in the West Stand for tonight’s match even though I have a season ticket in Churchman’s. Mick is extremely polite in the ticket office and I feel slightly guilty when the ‘saleswoman’ says that the club doesn’t usually move season tickets seats and I reply a little snappily “Well, they did for the Rotherham game.” As a person who generally is almost as polite as Mick, I can’t really explain my bad attitude, but suspect I harbour a lot of resentment as a result of being a season ticket holder for the past 35 years. I am also fearful that if the club knew that I sometimes imagine handing out flares, or at least sparklers in the family and disabled enclosures I would be banned for life.

The ticket refund palaver has made us late and the teams are already on the pitch and participating in a minute’s applause for the late Gordon Banks who very sadly has ‘performed’ today. By the time we have drained our bladders and taken up our seats the game is just kicking off. Tonight’s opponents are Derby County a club whose appearances at Portman Road in their halcyon days of the early 1970’s I somehow contrived to miss. Despite first attending Portman Road in 1971, I failed to see Derby County play here until December 1977, by which time their once brilliant star had started to wane. It is for this reason perhaps that I have no strong views on Derby County and in my mental map of league football they appear only faintly as peripheral, shadowy figures. Tonight’s game will do nothing to alter this image as Derby line up and begin the game in the most insipid, uninspired and vapid kit of pale grey shirts, shorts and socks with lime green cuffs and trim. Town meanwhile sport their usual blue and white attire despoiled by the anything but magical “Magical Vegas” logo.

Perhaps as a result of low self-esteem induced by that “Magical Vegas” logo or because they simply didn’t notice the Derby players drift by in their shadowy, foggy kit, Town offer up the customary one-goal lead to the opposition within the first two-minutes. Bloody hell. Town are now quite literally giving teams a goal start, I fear they will soon be kicking off every game with a ball already in the back of their net to save time.

Happily, once play resumes it’s as if the goal never really happened and for people reaching their seats only fractionally after Mick and me, it never did. Town soon settle into playing passing football and they dominate possession. The crowd, who we will later be told number 18,604 (including 926 from Derby) are behind the team as one; the Sir Bobby Robson stand is as good as full and the enthusiasm engendered by the Blue Action group has seemingly spread all along the lower tier. “Man On!” shouts the man behind me trying to help out Town’s on-loan full-back James Bree. “Who’s that” asks Mick . “Bree” I reply. “What, Bree as in tree?”. “Yes”.

“Ohh, just that bit too high, weren’t it” says the bloke behind me as a Town’s first corner kick sails over everyone’s’ heads. He’s not wrong. “O-oh no-o” he then says developing an ugly streak of pessimism when Alan Judge’s pass is intercepted. There’s no such doubt in the Sir Bobby Robson stand however where “Ipswich ‘til I die, I’m Ipswich ‘til I die, I know I am, I’m sure I am, I’m Ipswich ‘til I die (or perform)” is the life-affirming song of the day. All the Derby fans can muster in response is a wishy-washy “Lampard, Lampard, give us a wave” which he does, limp-wristedly.

This is a good game and things get better as the first player booked is former Ipswich darling Martyn Waghorn, as he fails to fool referee Mr Andy Madly into awarding him a free-kick and pays the price for his impression of someone ‘performing’. The smell of chips wafts up into the middle tier of the East of England Co-op stand as half-time approaches but the bloke behind me refuses to be optimistic “ Oh, here we go” he says as a Derby player runs at the Town defence. A flowing passing move releases Town’s Collin Quaner into the penalty box, he shapes to shoot and I tense my calves, ready to jump up, but he shoots high and wide having almost fooled me into thinking he might actually score.

Matthew Pennington is having possibly his best game so far in a Town shirt and I can think of no higher compliment, for the time being, other than to say he reminds me of David Linighan; it’s his leggy run I think. Less leggy is diminutive, little Alan Judge who is nevertheless a cut above his fellow midfielders and reminds me of Olympique Marseille’s Valere Germaine, but with a little bit more hair. Trevoh Chalobah tips over Derby’s number seven Harry Wilson whom Brian Clough would hopefully have called Harold Wilson. “He was lucky to get away with that” says the bloke behind, adding “He does do that” as if to explain that he can’t help himself, which the referee understands and is why he didn’t book him. Pessimism soon returns however as the bloke behind me muses “If they score another, that’s it”. He couldn’t enjoy the game if he wasn’t so miserable.

Half-time necessitates further bladder draining before stepping out onto the practice pitch to take the air and stretch our legs. The middle tier of the West Stand is a little uncomfortable for people who exceed 1.8m height like Mick and me, but we rationalise our pain by deducing that in the 1950’s when the lower part of the stand was built people were probably shorter on average, perhaps because they never had the benefit of free-school milk that us baby boomers enjoyed.

Refreshed and un-coiled we resume our positions and Town resume their dominance. Derby really are as pale and innocuous as their kit, which barely seems possible. Surely Ipswich are on the brink of the play-offs and Derby bottom of the league? “As if to verify this the North Stand chants “Can you hear the Derby sing? No-o, No-o”. It is the first time in years that Town fans have had the confidence to sing this.

A Derby player has the ball, “Put him under! “ Put him under” shouts a wannabe coach or anaesthetist. Trevoh Chalobah misplaces a pass and we speculate that his bleached, dreadlocked fringe got in his eyes. Jon Nolan replaces Flynn Downes for Town; for some reason I cannot hear the name Nolan without thinking of the Nolan sisters and I am reminded that Anne Nolan was married to former Blackpool footballer Brian Wilson and I enjoy the ‘Seasiders’ and ‘Beach Boys’ connection. Within two minutes of Nolan’s appearance, Collin Quaner lays the ball off to him and everyone is in the mood for dancing as his low shot tears past Kelle Roos the Derby goalkeeper. What a great goal! But when your team hasn’t scored for three games and seldom does anyway, the feeling of elation reaches new heights. Winning might be overrated, but scoring isn’t.

This is the best match of the season so far, by far. Defeat at Norwich, or perhaps more so Paul Lambert’s alleged threats of violence towards the Norwich goalkeeping coach have been an inspiration. “Paul Lambert is a Blue, Is a Blue, Is a Blue; Paul Lambert is a Blue, He hates Norwich” to the tune of London Bridge is falling down tumbles from the mouth of the Northstanders. The rest of the stadium remains pretty moribund but they carry us through. The pessimist behind remains un-moved from his dark outlook. “Uh, ohh” he groans as a Derby cross flies in. Meanwhile I breathe deeply the smell of the damp, cold turf. Derby come with a late surge on the back of some forlorn cries of “Come on Derby” from the 926 in the Cobbold Stand; they hit a post and miss a shot but nothing terrible happens.

After five minutes of additional time courtesy of six substitutions and the usual needy players craving the attention of the physio, the day-glo shirted Mr Madley whistles with final certainty. We all get up to go home, but not before a round of applause and a general exchange of good wishes and loving feelings. Happiness reigns; Town haven’t won, but they haven’t lost and even if they had I didn’t think most of us would have minded that much, because even though they didn’t look very much like scoring it was clear that was what they were trying to do. It makes me wonder if we’re not re-defining sport here in Ipswich, returning it back to what it’s meant to be. We’ll need a few more relegations to accomplish that fully however and the Southern Amateur League isn’t what it used to be. It’s been a while since we played the Crouch End Vampires.

Ipswich Town 1 Rotherham United 0

January 13, 2019January 15, 2019 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

January is reputedly the most miserable and depressing of months and the closer to the middle of January it gets the more miserable and depressing it becomes. The third Monday in January has been designated ‘Blue Monday’; nothing to do with The Blues of Ipswich Town but rather something to do with the pleasure and happiness of Christmas having worn off completely and the realisation for people that they are now deep in debt; the weather has something to do with it too. Today is only 12th January however, I have no debt and my Christmas was not noticeably any more happy or pleasurable than any other couple of days off work, and although the weather is grey and overcast today, I have an afternoon at Portman Road to look forward to.
My erstwhile colleague and still current friend Roly is waiting for me at the railway station, he is drinking a cup of coffee which I imagine he imagines lends him an air of sophistication. Ignoring this, I tell him how I long for the weekends when I see Town play and how I feel a curious kinship with the many species of Mayfly that live for but a few short hours. It’s a twelve carriage train so we wander down the platform away from everyone else knowing that we won’t have so far to walk to the bridge over the tracks when the train arrive at Ipswich station; every second counts in the all too brief joy of a pre-match drink and then the match. Roly fritters away some of our precious time getting a fresh twenty pound note from a cash machine, but we are soon heading for St Jude’s Tavern where we are going to meet Mick. Portman Road is busy, the ticket enquiry office bleeds out into the road with a queue of late comers taking advantage of the special offer of tickets in any part of the ground for just £12. People with nothing better to do queue for the turnstiles to open. I buy a programme (£3) from one of the portable kiosks, which always make me think of a Tardis piloted by a Dr Who played by Mick Mills, transporting us back to the 1970’s. The programme seller is unsmiling and I wonder if he and his colleagues have been instructed to no longer invite customers to “Enjoy the match”; if programme buyers are anything like many of the nasty, ignorant and rude people who seem to inhabit social media I imagine such words of goodwill are generally met with verbal abuse. How I long to live in a civilised country like France where it is impossible to even make eye contact with club employees on a match day without them wishing you “bon match”.
In St Jude’s Tavern a group of three very young looking lads with Yorkshire accents buy two Coca-Colas and a pint of lager whilst I wait to purchase two pints of the Match Day Special (£2.50 a pint), which today is Cliff Quay Brewery Neptune’s Nip; Mick appears, like the shopkeeper in Mr Benn to bump my order up to three pints and the barman for some reason makes an un-necessary association between Neptune’s Nip and Poseidon’s penis. Roly, Mick and I sit at a table next to the young Yorkshiremen. We talk of Ipswich’s new signings and Mick is impressed at Roly’s knowledge, which he imparts with a weightiness of tone as if to say “…these are the facts, think otherwise if you wish, but I will not be held responsible.” I sit and listen and hope he gets to the bar soon because I need to drink as much as possible before the match to dull the pain. Roly buys the next round of Match Day Specials which is now Cliff Quay Brewery’s Tolly Roger (still £2.50 each). Whilst Roly is at the bar I get Mick to show me how he has so neatly tied his blue and white scarf around his neck. “It’s like a cravat” he tells me. I follow his instruction and achieve the desired look of Michael Palin in the episode of Ripping Yarns entitled ‘Golden Gordon’. The Yorkshire lads have left leaving two half glasses of Coca Cola and most of a pint of lager, very strange. I imagine they’ve gone to see if there is a rain gauge at the town hall. Before we leave I feel the solitary need to sink a further half pint of Cliff Quay Brewery Sir Roger’s Porter (£1.70), and then one of the retired gentlemen I drank with before the Millwall game on New Year’s Day comes over to say hello and remarks that I have some friends with me today. I tell him yes and that I therefore don’t need his company.
Glasses drained and returned to the bar, we negotiate the door and descend Portman Road, crossing Handford Road and joining the expanding throng of match-goers. At the turnstiles in Sir Alf Ramsey Way we walk past the end of the queues of the first block of gates to reach the second turnstile block where there are no queues; I smile to myself about how stupid people are who join the first queue they come to and surmise that they probably voted ‘leave’ too. The lady turnstile operator and I smile broadly to one another as I pass through and Mick reveals that she smiled at him too when Roly complains that his turnstile operator was miserable. He cannot understand it he tells us, explaining that he is so much younger and therefore more attractive than Mick and me.
Once inside the East of England Co-op stand bladders are emptied and we head for our seats. Because the tickets are a mere £12 each today I have traded up my usual seat with the groundlings of the lower tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand and have taken up a place with Mick in the upper tier of the East of England Co-op Stand. The view of the game is better here, but it is also somehow a little too far removed from it, as if we are watching on TV and I sense that some of the people around me will be just waiting for a convenient break in play to go and put the kettle on. It wouldn’t occur to them to shout or chant in support of the team, they truly are just spectators and nothing more.

After group photos for the family album are posed in the centre circle, the game begins with Town kicking-off with their backs towards ever-present Phil who never misses a game and Pat from Clacton, who I can see in their usual seats in the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand, or Churchman’s as us people who remember the ’good old days’ call it. Town sport their usual blue and white kit despoiled by an ugly advertisement for an organisation of on-line scammers. The usual team colours of today’s opponents Rotherham United are red and white, but eschewing the opportunity to recreate the classic blue and white versus red and white Subbuteo encounter, they wear an un-necessary change kit of yellow shirts with pale blue sleeves, and pale blue shorts and socks.

Sadly Rotherham’s kit is insipid and somewhat effete; it detracts from the spectacle and speaks nothing to me of Yorkshire grit and scrap reclamation for which Rotherham is rightly famed.
The match is fast and furious and lacks finesse but unusually Ipswich have the upper hand. There is an air of expectation as a bevy of debutants (or debutantes if you prefer to see this match as a sort of ‘coming out’ ball) before the home crowd. The transfer window is open and a wind of change is blowing through Portman Road as Paul Lambert gets to choose his own players rather than just make do entirely with what he has inherited from that false Messiah, Paul Hurst.

Outstanding in the Ipswich defence is an enormous bald-headed man by the name of James Collins; he is thirty-five years old but looks fifty, he is a colossus and carries the Ipswich rear guard on his back like Atlas, though not literally of course. If for some bizarre reason I were to make a TV adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, I would cast James Collins as Jean Valjean, not Dominic West.
With only twelve minutes gone referee Mr James Linington brandishes his yellow card in the direction of Rotherham’s Zak Vyner, a man whose name is distinguished by having more than its fair share of letters from the back end of the alphabet and is worth a decent score in the brand of imaginary Scrabble in which only footballers names and not proper words are currency. It’s one of the few popular actions Mr Linington makes all afternoon, although I do approve of his choice of all-black kit; it’s what referees should wear.
A half an hour passes and Freddie Sears scampers down the left; he gets beyond the Rotherham defence and crosses the ball low to the near post. No one has control and the ball looks like it is trying to escape, but it only runs as far as new signing Will Keane, who despite the unpleasant associations of his surname and a hairstyle more becoming of the Eastern Counties League strikes a low shot into the goal. The crowd rises as one and all but the 729 Rotherham United fans in the corner of the Cobbold Stand enter a state of joyful delirium. Town lead 1-0.
It’s half-time and the toilet beckons; as I enter the ‘smallest room’ in the stadium I hear Roly giving his friend Andrew from Bury St Edmunds the benefit of his analysis of the first half; he sounds very earnest, like a bearded, Caucasian Garth Crooks; I stand next to him at the urinal and open-zippered tell him I disagree with his analysis, although in truth I hadn’t heard what he had said. I wash my hands and am amused by the words ‘Danger Electricity’ which appear on the top of the hand dryer “ Ah, the old enemy , electricity” says Roly convincingly.
The game begins again and the two blokes behind me discuss refurbishing a kitchen; “ Seriously, if you do it, I can get you a 10% discount at B&Q.” says one “ Does that include stuff already on offer?” says the other, looking a gift horse in the mouth. But I shouldn’t be surprised, these two haven’t a clue who any of the Town players are and are clearly here because the tickets are cheap. Out of the kitchen and back on the pitch the match has changed. Ipswich no longer dominate, quite the opposite in fact. They are incapable of retaining the ball for more than a few seconds and have seemingly abandoned all attempts to pass it to one another. Rotherham produce wave after wave of ineffectual attacks which are repelled by a mighty rear guard action from the Blues. This is good on one level but immensely frustrating, worrying and disappointing on another. We are making Rotherham look like Paris St Germain; lose this and they’ll be wanting to take the Eiffel Tower down for scrap.
Despite Town’s apparent ineptness, brought on in my opinion by a shortage of proper midfield players, the crowd of 20,893 remain firmly behind the team. The lower tier of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand, galvanised by the Blue Action supporters group and some welcome support from a bunch of fans of Fortuna Dusseldorf, Town’s unofficial ‘twinned club’ are proving inspiring, and every now and then even people in the East of England Co-op Stand are moved to clap their hands rhythmically. The floodlights are on as darkness envelopes the town and we benefit from the atmosphere of a night match, but Town still struggle to do anything but defend. On the touchline Paul Lambert the Town manager is very active, prowling up and down the technical area and swinging his arms directorially. I suggest to Mick that he’s probably just trying to keep warm because as ever he is in black slacks and a v-necked Marks & Spencer jumper and not wearing a coat, but Mick tells me in an authentic sounding Scottish accent that this is T-shirt weather.

Mr Lambert and his 'Marks and Spencer' jumper

Mr Limington the referee awards a catalogue of free-kicks to Rotherham, most, seemingly because a Town player has simply stood too close to one from Rotherham or has given him a funny look. The crowd tell Mr Limington he doesn’t know what he’s doing although I would prefer that they had asked “Who’s the bastard in the black?” Flynn Downes replaces German debutant Collin Quaner for Town as Paul Lambert reacts to that need for a stronger midfield and the bloke behind me with the kitchen asks “Who’s that?” “ Number twenty-one” says the bloke with connections at B&Q.
Finally, after five minutes of added time and a couple of narrow escapes for Town, Mr Limington gets something right and blows the full-time whistle unleashing rapturous scenes. The Sir Bobby Robson Stand finds a bigger voice than at any time during the match and hails the winners. It is a famous victory, as any victory is in this season mostly of defeats. But whilst the win is much needed and keeps hope alive, what this match has really shown is that people still care enough to come to a game, discounted prices or not, and Suffolk is still behind its team. Whether Town escape relegation or not, if managed properly this could be the start of a renaissance for Town and a re-connection with its fan base; I bloody well hope so.