Ipswich Town 2 Derby County 2

August 31, 2025August 31, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s been a week in which summer, previously baked by the hot sun, has started to crumble away, buffeted by cool breezes, drenched by heavy showers and obscured by clouds. As an Ipswich Town season ticket holder however, I am used to disappointment, and more than just believing it is, I know this is the natural order of things. This morning, after a breakfast of sausage, egg, mushrooms and toast I put a coat of white gloss paint on the inside of my upstairs toilet door. The paint was old and past its best, another coat or two will be needed and probably from a new tin.

Outside, the sun shone this morning, and it still does. A wild array of billowing white clouds decorate the blue sky as I walk to my local railway station to catch the train to Ipswich, which is delayed by two minutes. Three blokes sat up straight on scooters, scoot past noisily. At the station, a grey-haired man wears a T-shirt proclaiming, “Punk’s not Dead – The Exploited”, of course even in 1981 when that album was released, that wasn’t true, Punk inevitably committed suicide or took an overdose long before that.

Gary joins me at the first station stop and we discuss his injured achilles tendon, which means that on arrival in Ipswich we will not be walking to ‘the Arb’ but will drink in the Fanzone. There are of course also still polar bears in Wherstead, although I only spot one today, which like a lot of other things is a little disappointing. Gary asks if I will be buying an “ice cream” today and I think I probably will not because it feels like a football programme that costs four quid has lost sight of what a football programme is meant to be; not that football programmes can really see of course.

It feels like a long arduous walk down Princes Street and Portman Road and into Sir Alf Ramsey Way alongside a gently limping Gary, and our lack of speed worsens the confused pangs of longing I feel as I pass numerous programme sellers. Eventually, we make it to the Fanzone with its loud music, ice cream van, beer tent and huge tv screen, which today is telling us how lucky we are we aren’t from ‘Up North’ by showing Middlesbrough versus Sheffield United. Many people seem strangely mesmerised by it, however.

In the beer tent queues of uneven length line up for young women to dispense plastic cups of dull yellow liquid. Gary says he’s on a diet, so should not really have a drink but he’s going to anyway. We look up at the list of beers, the names of which mean nothing to me. Why doesn’t it just say Lager and Bitter? Gary has something that sounds Spanish and out of sheer cruelty I get him to ask the young woman server if they’ve got a bitter. She looks worriedly at a list and says there’s a lager and then describes something else as an IPA, although she also mentions fruit. Foolishly, half remembering IPAs as amber coloured beers I opt for the IPA and receive a cloudy looking tub of yellow liquid that tastes only of grapefruit; that was the fruit, I guess. The ‘beers’ cost a staggering £6.50 each and miraculously I suddenly realise that in December 1976 the programme for the Ipswich v Liverpool match, which coincidentally advertised the Sex Pistols ‘Anarchy in the UK’ tour, cost 15 pence, whilst at that time a pint of beer cost about 23 pence. So, in a world where the retail price index is based solely on beer and football programmes, in nearly forty-nine years the price of programmes relative to the price of beer has actually fallen a little. Nevertheless, given the choice, and I have been, I will give up football programmes before I give up beer.

At about a quarter to three a man in a day-glo coat effectively tells us to leave and go to our seats. He seems a little curt, even rude, but I let it pass considering that a lot of people have strange jobs nowadays, and Gary and I soon bid our farewells. The blue skies punctuated with white cloud have given way to grey cloud and there is a queue to the Sir Alf Ramsey stand, but it moves as if well lubricated and I am soon passing through the hallowed turnstile 62, named in honour of Sir Alf Ramsey’s team’s achievements back in 1962. I arrive at my seat moments before Fiona arrives at hers and not long after Pat from Clacton reached hers. The man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood are already here too and I’m in good time to join in, in the manner of a Frenchman at the Stade Marie Marvinght or Stade Marcel Picot when the excitable young stadium announcer, who today has seemingly mislaid his jacket but wears a shiny brown waistcoat, reads out the team.

“Be loud, be proud” announces the excitable young stadium announcer as a final gesture, before the strains of The Beatles “Hey Jude” begin. With Jude’s na-na-nas fading away arm in arm with August, the game begins and it’s Derby who get first go with the ball, booting it where possible in the direction of the old telephone exchange, Coes and the Halal butcher on Norwich Road. Derby sport a modern, plastic looking version of their traditional kit of white shorts and black shorts, which sadly fails to conjure spectral visions of Kevin Hector, Archie Gemmill or Colin Todd. Town are similarly in a modern incarnation of blue and white that doesn’t really suggest David Johnson, Jimmy Robertson or Trevor Whymark were once here either.

A man arrives and sits in the seat in front of me but then continuously turns around, his arm hanging over the back of his seat, to talk to the bloke beside me. I try to watch the game. The bloke in front stays mostly turned round to talk to my neighbour. The space in front of me has always been small and now it’s smaller, the seat is pressing against my knee, I’m trying to watch the match, I’m feeling a bit annoyed, a bit grumpy, that pint of IPA in the Fanzone was truly horrible, the bloke in front of me is still turning round. “Look, why don’t you just sit here, and I’ll sit there, this is getting on my nerves” I say, standing up and gesturing the bloke in front to climb over his seat whilst I do the same in the opposite direction. The manoeuvre seems to cause a bit of consternation around me and I think the bloke now behind me is explaining what’s happened to the blokes behind him. “I’m sure we can all read about it later” says ever-present Phil who never misses a game.

“We are Derby” sing the Derby fans. “Create more space with a mezzanine floor” reads the illuminated advertisement between the two tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson stand. “We hate Nottingham Forest” continue the Derby fans and it feels like the world is falling in on me. On the pitch, Derby seem very enthusiastic, running and jumping and barging about like they’ve all over-dosed on pre-match Sunny Delight. It’s not pretty to watch but it’s stopping Ipswich from playing much football. “Windows that Wow. Doors that delight” announces the Sir Bobby Robson stand as a Derby player takes a throw. The Derby goalkeeper is wearing a dayglo orange kit that looks like it might also be worn by staff of the Derbyshire County Council highways department.

Nineteen minutes have gone the way of the previous twenty-nine and a half days of August and the Derby fans chant “Football in a library, do-do-do”, illustrating how human evolution seems to be standing still. A break by Kasey McAteer, and a cross leads to Leif Davis having Town’s first decent shot on goal but it bounces conveniently into the arms of the man from the highways department, and Town begin to get to grips with Derby’s WWF inspired style of play. Twenty-seven minutes are up and Town earn a corner. “Come on you Blues” chant a handful of us lamely. Five minutes later a Conor Chaplin shot earns another corner. More half-hearted chants but they’re all Town need and as the ball sails over the flailing fist of the bloke from the Council, Jacob Greaves applies a stooping header, the humblest of all headers, to put Town one-nil up.

With Town ahead, it’s only a matter of two minutes before the first Derby player is booked for dissent as the Sunny Delight hangover begins to kick-in. “Come on Town, this is good” shouts the bloke behind me and Town win another corner from which Dara O’Shea hits a post with a header before the referee laughably books McAteer, seemingly for over-optimistically jumping alongside the man from the Council who is eight centimetres taller than him. Two minutes of additional time follow, in which Town win a fourth corner but nothing more.

Half-time is a time to talk to Ray, reflect on his forthcoming birthday which features a zero at the end and discuss why Kasey McAteer was booked. Even as a former county highways department employee Ray does not know. On my way back to my seat Pat from Clacton tells me not to swap my seat with the same bloke again because he’s been getting on her nerves too.

The game re-starts, and I eat a Slovakian Horalky wafer bar to help my body forget the memory of what I consumed in the Fanzone. I’m not sure if my lack of concentration whilst eating is partly to blame, but there is also a sudden lack of concentration in the Town defence and some bloke in a white shirt has to be chased into the penalty area by Leif Davis, who is then adjudged to have handled the ball as he dives in to block a shot and Derby are awarded a penalty, which one of them scores. Despite the equalising goal, which the balance of play suggests they should be slightly embarrassed about, Derby’s players are haranguing the referee seemingly wanting Davis sent off for the handball. Quite why these players are not booked or even sent off for unsporting behaviour is a mystery, especially when George Hirst is then booked for alleged diving and weirdly we’re all wishing we still had VAR.

With the scores once again level, Derby clearly intend not to go behind again and have evidently decided the best way to do this is to ensure as little football as possible takes place in the remaining thirty-five minutes. At times the game now resembles a match involving the Keystones Cops and American Civil War soldiers as players comically fall about and then lay on the pitch like extras from the scene in Gone With the Wind after the battle of Atlanta. “Shit referee, shit referee, shit referee” chant the home support imaginatively. “We forgot you were here” reply the Derby fans also failing to roll back the frontiers of witty ripostes before doing it again by once more chanting “Football in a library, do-do-do”.

Time moves on and the inevitable rash of substitutions are made with twenty-two minutes left of normal time. Two minutes later another lack of concentration in the Town defence sees both O’Shea and Greaves miss the ball to allow some brutish part-time actor from Derby to score and give his team the lead. Town win a corner, another substitution is made and we are told by the excitable young stadium announcer that we number 29,155 and 1,144 of us are supporting the bunch that are currently winning and have a road mender for a goalkeeper.

With time not unexpectedly continuing to ebb away into the abyss, Town struggle against Derby’s “tactic” of not wanting any one to play football and the bloke behind me announces that “Nobody seems to want it”, although Chuba Akpom’s shot that goes narrowly over the bar doesn’t really back him up. Certainly, it seems many supporters don’t want to witness the final whistle, and the stands would only empty out more quickly if Nigel Farage had made a guest appearance. Help eventually comes from an unexpected source as it is announced that there will be a minimum of thirteen minutes additional time, and I think I detect a sudden dash to the toilets amongst anxious Derby fans. As the additional time, unfortunately, proves no better than the wasted time it replaces, it seems like maybe my prevailing emotion on a Saturday evening will once again be disappointment.

But then, as once more and then once more again Town sling the ball into the Derby penalty area, the referee awards a penalty. I couldn’t see why from the far end of the ground, but in the absence of VAR I trust the referee who obviously knows what he’s doing, on this occasion. Jack Clarke steps up to take the penalty as the blokes behind me agree that they would have Ashley Young take it and the bloke next to me holds his head in his hands and seems to weep as he says “Not, Jack Clarke, please not Jack Clarke.” But happily, yes, Jack Clarke, as he takes one of the best penalties by an Ipswich player that I think I’ve ever seen, striking the ball hard and into a corner and with a bit of a curl on it too for good measure. There’s still time to win I say to myself, but it turns out there isn’t.

Inevitably, with sixteen minutes of additional time having been played, on hearing the final whistle people don’t hang about. I too turn and head for the exit and my train home to reflect on what despite the last minute goal, still feels like a disappointing afternoon; that beer in the Fanzone was disgusting.

Ipswich Town 0 Brentford 1

May 11, 2025May 12, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It seems to have been a week of looking back on momentous events, with the 80^th anniversary of the liberation of Europe, my own twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and also the forty-seventh anniversary of Ipswich Town winning the FA Cup. Today however, I am returning to the present and am preparing to see Ipswich play Brentford, a club which back in 1978 had just won promotion from the fourth division, which perhaps helps explain why I always think of them as a ’lower division’ team, like Colchester United or Newport County.

For the first time this year It is warm enough not to need a coat, and I walk to the railway station beneath a clear blue sky. It’s a pleasant walk, disturbed only by the loud, wailing sirens of four ambulances and a police car, which careen past me slaloming between lanes of traffic. The train seems on time, but I don’t really know if it is, only that it smells unpleasantly of the on-board toilet. The carriage is mostly empty and surprisingly seems devoid of Brentford fans. Gary joins me at the first station stop and we talk of nothing much in particular, although the polar bears of Wherstead inspire a brief conversation about whatever happened to the soft drink known as ‘Cresta’, a beverage which was possibly at the height of its popularity in1978. The fur of one of the polar bears looks very clean today and we speculate briefly about polar bears and shampoo.

In Ipswich, we head for ‘the Arb’ as quickly as Gary’s dawdling gait will allow, pausing only to buy a programme each (£3.50) at one of the booths that look as though they might also sell ice creams. As ever, I am disappointed that they don’t and that the programme seller doesn’t wish me ‘bon match’. Today’s front cover design, which is not the front cover of the programme thanks to the evil capitalists of the Umbro sportswear company, is an ITFC version of Peter Blake’s sleeve design for The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album. You can’t beat a bit of Pop Art, and for a moment I find myself daydreaming of seeing Ray Crawford, Ted Phillips or Sir Alf Ramsey as they might have been portrayed by Andy Warhol, Pauline Boty or Roy Lichtenstein.

At ‘the Arb’, there is literally a queue at the bar, which I think I succeed in jumping because in my world people don’t queue at pub bars because the bar staff always know who’s next. Happily, it’s not long before Gary and I are soon in the beer garden clutching pints of Lager 43 and Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£9 something for the two with Camra discount) and looking for a place to sit. Mick appears from the back gate and while he is getting himself a pint of Suffolk Pride, Gary and I share a table with a man and a woman and two small dogs who are on a pub crawl of Ipswich’s dog friendly pubs; they’ve already been to the Woolpack and the Greyhound and have five more pubs to visit, when the dogs will qualify for ‘free’ bandanas. I take their photo for them to record the event for their Facebook friends, and reminisce about visiting numerous Tolly Cobbold pubs in the early 1980’s in order to acquire a ‘free’ T-shirt advertising Tolly ‘Original’.

After Gary has bought a further round of drinks and Mick has promised that it will definitely be his round next time, we eventually find ourselves with empty glasses and nothing else to do but head downhill to Portman Road and the afternoon of delights that awaits us. I bid Gary and Mick farewell somewhere near the statue of Sir Alf Ramsey, which isn’t in the Pop Art style, and this is probably a good thing. The queues at the turnstiles to the Sir Alf Ramsey stand are short, but it still takes longer than expected to gain entry because of zealous use of scanners by the security staff, although I get the impression that they are losing heart because no one seems to be trying to smuggle in firearms or explosives; it can’t be good for their morale never discovering anything.

By the time I am reacquainting myself with Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood, the teams are on the pitch, balls of flame have burst into the sky, and a pall of smoke is drifting across the pitch as if all the explosives the security staff had hoped to find, but hadn’t, had been let off at once. The excitable young stadium announcer, whose grey suit looks as if he’s only just got it back from Sketchley’s reads out the teams and I bawl the Town players’ surnames as if I was in the tribunes of the Stade du Moustoir, Lorient or Stade Gabriel-Montpied, Clermont Ferrand.

Ipswich, sporting their usual blue shirts and white shorts get first go with the ball and are mostly trying to kick it towards the goal just in front of me and my fellow ultras. Meanwhile, Brentford sport their traditional red and white striped shirts and black shorts, although closer inspection reveals that the black of the shorts bleeds into the red of the stripes and there are black bits underneath the armpits of the shirts too, as if the players were all using an experimental pitch or creosote-based under arm deodorant.

The game has only just begun, but already I’m thinking that Conor Chaplin is looking different today. At first I think it must be his haircut, but then decide he has a beard, although such thoughts are suddenly swept away as Omari Hutchinson crosses and Liam Delap heads towards the goal, but Mark Flekken the Brentford goalkeeper, who is Dutch but has a French tri-colour against his name on the back of the programme makes a neat but not overly difficult save. ‘Edison House Group’ reads the electronic billboard at the far end of the ground, and although I try not to, I hear ‘Love grows where my Rosemary goes’ playing in my head.

Ten minutes pass and Brentford begin to hog the ball, and then they win the game’s first corner. “Football in a library” sing the Brentford fans perhaps expecting us to cheer their corner, and Pat asks who the well-known Brentford players are so she can photograph them. But Fiona and I don’t really think any of them are well-known, although Fiona has heard of Mark Flekken. I tell Pat I expect they’re well-known in Brentford. With fifteen minutes up, the referee Mr Barrott, whose surname pleasingly rhymes with carrot decides it’s time Brentford scored from a corner and keeps giving them corners until they do. Part way through the catalogue of corners the match is paused for VAR to check for a possible penalty due to over-enthusiastic grappling. “Place your bets” I tell Fiona and Pat from Clacton, but surprisingly no penalty is awarded, although Jack Taylor and Christian Norgaard are both booked. From the next corner however, Brentford score as Kevin Schade, who in his spare time also plays for Germany, rises unopposed at the near post and heads just inside the far post.

Ten minutes elapse after we rapidly come to terms with the likelihood of another home defeat, and Town then win a corner of their own. “Come On You Blues” I bellow, hopefully, but the ball doesn’t even get past the first Brentford defender, who is stood at the near post. “Gotta beat the first man” says the bloke behind me censoriously. The familiar sound of ironic cheers follows two minutes later as Omari Hutchinson wins a rare free kick for Town, but two minutes later Brentford have the ball back and Alex Palmer is making a decent save to prevent a goal.

The final seven minutes of the half witness corners to both sides, more chants of “football in a library” from the Brentford supporters, Jack Taylor shooting wide of the goal and Pat from Clacton complains about the bloke behind her constantly talking (and swearing), most weeks as Pat tells us, there’s a “…nice, quiet older man sitting there”.

After two minutes of added on time, half-time arrives as expected and the disappointments of the first half are forgotten as I go to the front of the stand to talk to Ray and his grandson Harrison, applaud the promotion winning women’s team, see Harrison’s 21^st birthday announced on the big screen and finally enjoy a Polish Przy Piatczku chocolate wafer bar courtesy of the World Foods aisle in Sainsbury’s. Unfortunately, the chocolate on one side of the wafer has melted in the warmth of the afternoon, and through being in my pocket , so after I’ve eaten it I have to ask Fiona if I’ve got any chocolate around my mouth; I haven’t and I think she’s pleased she’s not going to have to dab anything off with a hanky as if she were my mum.

The second half brings the usual misleading, renewed hope, and after ten minutes Jack Clarke, or “Jack Claaarke” as the excitable young announcer calls him replaces Conor Chaplin. Pat from Clacton shifts her attention away from the constant talking of the bloke behind her to the Brentford manager Thomas Frank, who apparently is “always chewing” and with his mouth open too, yuck. More substitutions follow just five minutes later as Jens Cajuste and George Hirst replace Jack Taylor and Liam Delap. Alarmingly, George Hirst has dyed his hair blond and now looks like a cross between a Midwich cuckoo and Sick Boy in the film of Trainspotting.

The game is a little more than two-thirds over and I’m beginning to feel a bit annoyed like Pat from Clacton, but my irritation isn’t down to talking and chewing, but down to the Brentford players who, when not charging at the Town players ( I think it’s called ‘pressing’), seem a whingy, whiny lot who are constantly running to the referee, ‘pressing’ him to give them free-kicks. I begin to wonder if Brentford aren’t called The Bees because they’re always buzzing around the referee, although having grown up in the country I’d be tempted to liken them more to flies around a cow’s arse.

Another Brentford corner brings another VAR check for a possible penalty, which is again turned down, this time with the explanation that there had been ‘mutual holding’, which in the privacy of one’s own home sounds quite appealing and probably explains why no one was booked this time. Less appealing is a somewhat reckless overhead kick by Yoane Wissa which makes contact not with the ball, but with Jacob Greaves’ face, although fortunately he is not hurt and manfully he carries on despite the taste of dubbing.

The closing fifteen minutes of the match play out in a way that cruelly allows Town fans to retain hope of an equaliser, which of course never comes. Sam Morsy shoots over, George Hirst bursts through and shoots powerfully wide, Omari Hutchinson shoots beyond a far post too and Town win more corners. Today’s attendance is announced by the now unctuous sounding but still excitable young stadium announcer as 29,511, of whom 2,953 are here for ‘the Brentford’ and indeed “You’re only here for the Brentford” is what they touchingly sing to one other. Five minutes of added on time produce another shot on goal for Town which I think is saved, but before it was it had me off my seat almost thinking it was a goal.

The final whistle is greeted with applause for the Town players today and the realisation that with a bit more luck we might have got a draw and we would have deserved it, and so perhaps, like the season as a whole, it hasn’t been a complete waste of time.

Ipswich Town 0 Arsenal 4

April 22, 2025April 22, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Easter Sunday is the most significant date in the Christian calendar, one of only two days in England when even the big, mainly Mammon-worshipping supermarkets don’t open. As well as not going shopping for groceries on Easter Sunday, until today I don’t think I’ve ever been to a football match on Easter Sunday either, but today, because Ipswich Town are for now still in the evil Premier League, it is their turn to play Arsenal at Portman Road. My memories of previous Easter fixtures against Arsenal are not happy ones, with Easter Saturday 1981 looming large as one on which hopes of becoming champions of England were mortally wounded courtesy of a 2-0 defeat. Those hopes failed to be resurrected on the Easter Monday when we lost at Carrow Road, pretty much like today’s hopes of avoiding relegation, although I am told there is life after death in the second division.

The sun is shining this morning, but a cold north-easterly wind chills my un-gloved hands as I step out for the local railway station. It’s an eventful walk enlivened as it is by the sight of a horse’s bum through the open back of a horsebox trailer, the Colchester United team bus, a bumble bee crawling on the pavement where I’ve seen a bumble bee on the pavement before, a squashed ladybird with yellow innards, a dead squirrel, and a tall man sitting on the bonnet of a small car smoking a cigarette. By way of a conclusion to this odd combination of sightings, today’s train is going to be a bus that celebrates the fourth letter of the alphabet, a double-decker belonging to Don’s of Dunmow. But at least I get to sit upstairs at the front, from where I spot a banner imploring me to say ‘No’ to 180km of ‘giant pylons’. The banner sets me thinking about the stark beauty of electricity pylons in the rural landscape; I’m not sure about ‘giant’ ones mind, but imagine they’re better than tiny ones, which could be a trip hazard.

The bus journey is mercifully short, and I’m soon sat on a train next to Gary looking out for polar bears. I spot a couple as we pass through Wherstead, and when I tell Gary he asks if they were waving to the train. I tell him they were, and that it was a scene reminiscent of a polar bear-based version of the Railway Children, but without Jenny Agutter. In Ipswich, our carriage lands perfectly adjacent to the bridge over the tracks that has fewest steps, and with the benefit of the energy saved we are soon in Portman Road buying programmes (£3.50 each) and looking at what the design of the programme front cover should look like. Today’s design is a mash of the Town and Arsenal club crests and for some reason reminds me a little of the programme for the 1951 Festival of Britain ,I think it’s the colours. Cursing the grandees of Umbro for the actual programme cover picture (Conor Chaplin’s modelling for Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’), we ascend to the Arb, where for £8.94 including Camra discount I buy a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me and a pint of Lager 43 for Gary. Drinks in hand we find Mick in the beer garden and join him to talk of film, religion, sexual politics, double funerals, beer, wedding anniversaries, incels and birthdays before Gary buys a repeat round of drinks, including a Jameson whisky for Mick. Eventually Mick says “Its twenty to three, we’d better leave” so we do.

Either our ambling has got faster or The Arb and Portman Road have drawn closer together, but I’ve been checked for firearms, relieved myself and am shuffling past Pat from Clacton and Fiona to 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 before the teams are even on the pitch. This means I get the opportunity to bellow the Town player’s surnames in the manner of a Gallic ultra as the over enthusiastic young stadium announcer reads them out, although sadly like a latter day Murphy he is not wholly in sync with the names appearing on the scoreboard today. The announcer ends his announcement by doubling over in the style of the deranged Basil Fawlty and bawling “Blue Armeeee! ” into his microphone three times before turning to hug his silent sidekick, Boo Boo, who I can only think is on hand to finish the announcement if he were to suddenly explode or have a seizure.

It is Ipswich who get first go with the ball this afternoon, sending it for a short while, until Arsenal steal it, towards the goal just in front of me and my fellow over-fifties ultras. Town are in blue and white, whilst Arsenal are in their customary red with white sleeves and shorts, resembling, to those familiar with the ‘lower divisions’, an uncharacteristically ‘up themselves’ version of Fleetwood Town . “We ain’t getting nuthin against this lot” remarks the bloke behind me optimistically, before the first minute has elapsed. “Fuckin’ unbelievable play” he says. “Just the way they play” he continues , explaining himself to the bloke next to him.

For all their ability, it takes Fleetwood nearly five minutes to win a corner. “Oh, When the Town, go marching in, Oh when the Town go marching in, I’m gonna be in that number, when the Town go marching in” drone the Sir Bobby Robson standers mournfully and the mood only lifts when the words “Home of the XL vent shipping container “ chase themselves across the illuminated billboard between the tiers of the Sir Bobby stand. Then, suddenly, Julio Enciso incisively runs at the Fleetwood defence, singling himself out as the Ipswich player with attacking intent, but sadly his flash of inspiration, is just that, a flash.

It’s the fourteenth minute, it’s still goalless and then it’s not as a run down the Town left and a low centre becomes a goal and the illuminated billboard reads “External Wall Insulation”. Fleetwood lead 1-0. “Come to see the Arsenal you’ve only come to see the Arsenal” sing the jubilant Fleetwood fans and then “We’ll never play you again, we’ll never play you again” confirming perhaps that they are some of the more pessimistic supporters with regard to their hopes for the future of the planet.

The once blue sky above Portman Road has become cloudy. A corner is headed over the Town crossbar, but otherwise the game consists of Fleetwood just passing the ball about endlessly. I begin to wish to myself that somebody would just do something. Fourteen minutes after the first goal comes a second. Again, a run down the left, a low cross, which is more of a pass, a flick which is a pass, and a player is free to pass the ball into the Town net. Fleetwood lead 2-0.

Four minutes later and Leif Davis’s studs come into contact with the back of Bukayo Saka’s ankle. Saka leaps into the air like a startled cat and Davis is sent off for endangering life, which VAR confirms. Later this evening in France, in an almost identical incident a St Etienne player (Lucas Stassin) will be sent off for a similar foul against the less feline Corentin Tolisso of OL, but this will then be rescinded and changed to a yellow card when the referee looks at the VAR screen. Tolisso will be carried off on a stretcher and Lucas Stassin will go on to score the winning goal. Sadly, Ipswich is not St Etienne.

In the aftermath of Davis’s dismissal, Cameron Burgess replaces Jack Clarke and Saka proceeds to miss two decent chances for a goal to loud jeers and boos from Town supporters before I notice that the floodlights are now on and it’s not even a quarter to three yet. I surmise that the lights are on because conspicuous consumption is one of the rules in the Premier League. Five minutes of added on time are added on thanks to the delay when Saka received treatment from the club vet. It allows time for a moment of joy for Town fans and the opportunity to cheer ironically when George Hirst is awarded a free-kick for being fouled. Ironic cheering is one of the skills supporters of ‘little’ teams promoted to the Premier League quickly develop .

Half-time is a brief island of pleasure in a sea of pain and is made all the more pleasurable by my consumption of a catchily named Na Okraglo chocolate and wafer bar, which I picked up in the World Food aisle at Sainsbury’s, and which is made in Poland and is just one of the many benefits of immigration into Britain in recent years.

But the football resumes all too soon at seven minutes past three and Town are quickly defending another corner. The highlight of the match for Town arrives in the fifty seventh minute as Sam Morsy shrugs off a couple of opponents, strides forward and places a ball over the top of our opponents’ defence, for George Hirst to run onto and then cut inside a defender to curve a shot just beyond the far post. Apart from Enciso’s early enthusiasm, it’s probably been the only thing worth seeing from Town all afternoon and I can’t help wondering if the opposition are that good, or if we’ve just given up.

Fleetwood make some substitutions, but it doesn’t seem to alter their ability to dominate the game and as I begin to wonder what Pat from Clacton might be having for her tea and whether it will be any different to usual because it’s Easter Sunday, I hear her say “potato”. “Mashed?” I ask, half believing I heard her say that too, but no, she said “Jacket”. I then have a brief conversation with Fiona about hot cross buns. She had hers on Friday as you should, but I admit to having been eating them for weeks now.

We’re heading towards the last twenty minutes and corner follows corner follows corner, and from the last one Town concede a third goal, as some bloke in a red shirt turns, shimmies and just kicks the ball into the goal in a ridiculously simple manner, as if suddenly bored with all this passing the ball around the goal, so he thought he’d just score instead. “We’ll never play you again” chant the Arsenal fans once more, gloomily foreseeing Armageddon within all our lifetimes and then the excitable young stadium announcer gives us that the news that there are 29,549 of us here this afternoon, but 2,955 of us are just passing through. Unsportingly, but failing to realise most of us no longer care, the Arsenal fans now taunt us with chants about ‘going down’. But who won the FA Cup in 1978 eh? Winning the Cup is permanent, as is losing in the final, but relegation isn’t.

Nothing continues to happen except the ball going backwards and forwards across the pitch as if we’re playing a team of hypnotists. I’m struck by what a miserable looking lot the Fleetwood players are. Eighty-seven minutes are pretty much up and a shot hits a Town goalpost when no one is looking, and then a minute later a different shot strikes Cameron Burgess’s bum and swerves off the perfectly angled buttock into the goal; perhaps that’s why they call them the Arsenal; Town lose, four-nil. As if to rub it in, there are four minutes of added on time too.

With the final whistle, those that haven’t already left, mostly leave quickly. With just thirteen minutes until my train departs I swiftly clear off too, feeling suddenly alive as if awoken from the afternoon nap equivalent of a nightmare in which I’ve been mesmerised by life-sapping close passing and bad singing. I’m just glad it’s over, just Brentford and West Ham United to go now.

Ipswich Town 1 Wolverhampton Wanderers 2

April 8, 2025April 23, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

This week has felt somewhat depressing, probably because I have been reading ‘The Kevin Beattie Story’ as told to Rob Finch (Cult Figure Publishing 2007). It’s a sorry tale of lost innocence and cruel fate and its sadness was not helped by the fact that my copy of the book had belonged to a close, longstanding friend who sadly died; his wife kindly asked me if I’d like any of his collection of ITFC related stuff, and the Beattie book was the one thing I didn’t have in my own museum.

Wednesday’s win for the Town in Bournemouth perked me up a bit, although I hadn’t bothered to find it on the telly, preferring to watch the second semi-final of the Coupe de France between AS Cannes and Stade de Reims. But now, as I step out into a bright blue Saturday afternoon, my mood has performed a summersault, and I can only think of a Town home win, a series of further improbable wins and the greatest escape from relegation ever seen. The season starts now and given that today’s game is only the second match at Portman Road in almost six weeks, it genuinely feels like it.

Unhappily, my journey to the match begins with a rail replacement bus service, but on the plus side I sit across the gangway from a woman of retirement age brandishing an ‘Extinction Rebellion’ placard. I think to myself how I might like to go on some demos in my retirement. As a baby-boomer, moulded by the 1960’s I think I owe it to future generations to stoke up a bit of revolution before I shuffle off this mortal coil. The diesel engine powered bus ride is mercifully brief and I’m soon with Gary on an electric train to Ipswich looking out for polar bears. We sit at a table and a man about the same age as me, possibly a little younger, sits down opposite us, first asking if we don’t mind if he sits there. “As long as you don’t disturb us” I tell him, by which I really mean “As long as you don’t join in with our conversation”, and that of course is exactly what he does. I’m not sure why I feel averse to social interaction today, perhaps it’s because with no match for three weeks I ‘ve become overly introverted.

Our arrival in wonderful down-town Ipswich is heralded by loud chanting from the car park of the Station Hotel where Wolverhampton supporters are singing “We are Wolves, We Are Wolves, We Are Wolves”. Such loud, pre-match singing has been unusual from visiting supporters this season and Gary and I speculate as we head for the Arb, that either the beer here in Ipswich is stronger than they’re used to in Wolverhampton, or they’ve all arrived early and been here for several hours. Gary asks if I’m going to get an ice cream; I tell him I am, but as usual I come away from the blue booth with just a match programme (£3.50).

At the Arb, there is no queue for the bar and I am soon stood in the beer garden holding my pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride and one of something called Rosa Blanca belonging to Gary (the Lager 43 is ‘off’), as I wait for him to emerge from the toilet. He takes an age, so regrettably I can’t help surmising that he must ‘doing a number two’. Mick does not join us today because he is watching his paramour’s granddaughter play for Ipswich Town Under-16 girls against Leeds United at Needham Market (kick off 12:30). I assume that the Leeds team is also made up of under 16 girls. After another pint of Suffolk Pride for me and an Estrella Damme for Gary, (he didn’t like the Rosa Blanca) it’s gone twenty to three and is time to leave for Portman Road and the main event of the day.

The back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand is thick with queues when I arrive and as I stand in line I pass the time by looking up at the dark metal fascia of top of the stand, which is impressively streaked with guano, although there is not a seabird to be seen, as if when asked they will say “it was like that when we got here” . The queue to turnstile 62 is as ever the slowest, so I switch to the seemingly better lubricated turnstile 61, but I’m still syphoning off excess Suffolk Pride as the team is read out and by the time I am reacquainting myself with Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his young son Elwood, all trace of the excitable, young and somewhat lanky stadium announcer, and his sidekick Boo Boo, has gone.

It’s the Town that get first go with the ball this afternoon and naturally sporting the famous blue and white they are soon getting the ball to travel in the direction of the goal just in front of me and my fellow fifty plus (with the exception of Elwood) Ultras. Wolverhampton are almost in their signature gold and black kit, but disappointingly their black shorts seem to be in the wash and their ‘gold’ shirts and substitute shorts aren’t that golden, more of a dark yellow, so anyone who is a bit short-sighted, or just contrary like me, might think they’re a poor man’s Cambridge United.

Pat is soon asking me if I’m well and we exchange complaints about aching knees and joints, it’s been that kind of a week. “Oh when the Town go marching in” chant the north standers miserably as if we’ll be doing it under duress, and the Wolverhampton number twenty-seven shoots over the Town cross bar. “Ed Sheeran, what a wanker, what a wanker” sing the Wulfrunians, as well they might, given that they share their love for their team with the likes of Robert Plant and Noddy Holder.

The Wolverhampton number nine shoots and Palmer saves as the prequel to repetitive chants of “Come on Wolvers” which are the soundtrack to three consecutive corners before Town earn a couple of corners of our own and I get to bellow “Come On You Blues”, which always seems to amuse Pat from Clacton, Then the ball is crossed in again. Dara O’Shea heads the ball back across goal and Liam Delap slides in to score, and Town lead one-nil. “Liam Delap, Ole,” chant the multilingual home supporters and Pat from Clacton snaps pictures of our hysterical faces. This is what being in the First Division is supposed to be like, but then reality bites as we have to wait for VAR to confirm that what we think we saw, we really saw. “VAR don’t work in football” says the bloke behind me bitterly as we grow cold and old waiting for the decision, which presumably takes so long because there is controversy over whether the blade of grass on the toe of Liam Delap’s boot is a part of his boot, in which case he’d be offside, or part of the pitch, in which case he isn’t. Surprisingly perhaps, the goal stands, and feeling even more excited than I did when we actually scored, I celebrate all over again.

High on the goal and VAR decision I am more convinced than ever that the Town will escape relegation, and decide that the Wolverhampton number seven, who mysteriously is just called ‘Andre’ , looks a bit like Freddie Mercury. Naturally intrigued, Pat from Clacton zooms in on him with her camera and disappointingly concludes that he looks nothing like him. It must have been the spring sunlight playing across his dark moustache. “Balustrades” reads the electronic advert between the tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson Strand, and then “Hot Sausage Company”, before then trying to convince us it is the ideal place to get one’s pre-match meal, making me wonder in the interests of a balanced diet what vegetables they serve to accompany the hot sausage.

Life winds down towards half-time with an indirect free-kick on the edge of the Town six yard box after Alex Palmer misjudges a back pass and has to make a diving save to prevent the ball from going into the goal. Another lengthy delay ensues as the referee struggles to employ the ten-yard rule within a space of only six yards, and predictably perhaps Wolverhampton miss anyway. Alex Palmer is booked for encroachment, probably because he felt responsible. Incredibly, but thankfully, only three minutes of added on time are added on and the first half ends with the home crowd feeling quite content with our lot.

Half-time is a blur of talking to Ray and his grandson Harrison, feeling a spot of water on my hand from the sprinklers on the pitch, syphoning off more Suffolk Pride and eating an oddly named ‘Alibi’ chocolate bar, which I found in the World Food aisle at Sainsbury’s and which comes from Poland and is a bit like a plain chocolate Toffee Crisp, but bigger; rather nice.

The football resumes at five minutes past four under the same clear blue sky that’s been here all day. “Come On Wolvers, Come On Wolvers” is quaintly reprised up in the Cobbold Stand, Wolverhampton win a corner and Ipswich win two, but it is the team from the Black Country who are mostly running at the Town defence with the ball and looking quite good, much better than they did in the first half, unfortunately. Silky Nathan Broadhead is replaced by the more combative Jack Taylor for Town. There are only twenty minutes left and Town still lead but it doesn’t feel like it. “Come on Wolvers” continue the Wulfrunians and a SWAT team snatches away one of their number who has presumably been being doing something good football spectators shouldn’t. I beginning to think that the Wolverhampton team is a bit whingy, whiny and rough and a bad influence on their supporters. “Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, the Norwich ran away” chant the Sir Bobby Robson standers referencing football hooliganism of yore in solidarity with the naughty boys of Wolverhampton.

After the seventy first minute, the seventy-second minute turns up as we expected it would, but with unexpected consequences as Wolverhampton’s Pablo Sarabia turns on the edge of the penalty area and shoots with no particular power at the Town goal. From where I am sitting I am fully expecting Alex Palmer to dive across to his left and palm the ball away, but instead the ball unsportingly evades him and carries on onto the corner of the net. Town are no longer winning and life is suddenly not as sweet as it was a few moments ago. Of course, VAR has to give us false hope that a loose thread from a gold shirt was in an offside position and might have distracted Palmer, but it is not to be and our pain is doubled with the seemingly inevitable confirmation that the goal was indeed a goal.

“We are Wolves, We are Wolves” chant the visiting Wulfrunians, at last feeling bold enough to identify themselves in public, and by way of confirmation we are told that there are 2,955 of them amongst a total crowd of 29,549 and we are all thanked for our “incredible support,” which I can’t help thinking gets a little less incredible and a little more ordinary every time we are told that it’s incredible. Meanwhile, back in the Cobbold stand the Wulfrunians have broken free of their shackles and launched into a chorus of the socialist anthem the Red Flag, although despite the lyrics of the song expressly forbidding it, they have changed the colour of the flag from red to gold. Flippin’ revisionists.

Ten minutes of normal time remain as hopelessly inaccurate shots rain in on the Town goal and the Wolverhampton fans gain in confidence to the extent that they tell us we’re “Going down with the Albion”, by which I assume they must mean Burton Albion because both West Bromwich and Brighton & Hove are both securely mid-table. Either their barbed taunts provoke a reaction, or Keiran McKenna looks at his watch and realises it’s nearly tea-time as he makes a sudden rash of substitutions with Delap, Townsend and Cajuste replacing Philogene, Davis and Hirst on the bench. The changes unfortunately bring disaster for Town as within three minutes a run into the box and a low cross allows a large Norwegian by the name of Strand Larsen to score a close-range goal similar to that which Delap scored in the first half. “Like a a bag of cement” says the bloke behind me about some Town defender or other. “Piss poor” he concludes. VAR twists the knife by again making us wait for confirmation that the goal was a goal, as all hope at first slowly but then more quickly bleeds out of us.

Seven minutes of added time are of no help; we lose and are well beaten by a more skilful, more exciting, more proficient team, interestingly made up entirely of players from Portugal, Brazil, France, Spain and other countries that aren’t England. But the league table still says that they are the next worst team after us.

Not to worry, this sorry tale of a season of lost innocence and cruel fate will soon be over.

Ipswich Town 2 Nottingham Forest 4

March 16, 2025March 17, 2025 / martinpbrooks / 2 Comments

One of the many awful things about the awful English Premier League is that it is possible to go weeks on end without a home game. It is three weeks since Ipswich played at Portman Road, and in that time the cost of the rail fare to Ipswich has increased by about four per cent. It feels so long since I last went to a match that I would believe it if someone told me that not only have the fares gone up, but electric trains have replaced steam ones too. It is with a sense of dim resignation therefore that I set out for the railway station beneath a blue, but cloud strewn sky.

Gary joins me at the first station stop after I send him instructions by text that I am sat at the back of the second, forward facing, pointy-ended carriage. The train does not seem as busy as usual as if everyone is losing interest. Descending into Ipswich through Wherstead, we spot one polar bear having a swim and another languidly strolling along like polar bears do. Arriving in Ipswich we head for ‘the Arb’ via Portman Road, where Gary is handed a Panini sticker, which bizarrely features the gormless, messy-haired portrait of local ginger celebrity Ed Sheeran. I tell him he should hand it back. We pause to buy programmes (£3.50 each) at one of the booths that look as if they should also sell ice creams. Today’s programme has a boring picture of a footballer on the front cover, I think it’s Luke Woolfenden, but am struck by the thought that it looks a bit like Kurtan Mucklowe from TV’s This Country. Either way, the world would be a better place if the ‘poster’ design on the inside of the back page featuring the Cobbold Stand was the front cover of the programme. I am sure that if the poster designs had continued to be used as front covers as originally intended, Town would not be in the relegation zone. Damn you Umbro.

At ‘the Arb’, Gary buys the drinks (Lager 43 for him, Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me), and then Mick appears, and Gary buys him a drink too (Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride), and at Mick’s request, a packet of potato crisps (Fairfeld’s Cheese and Onion flavour). We repair to the beer garden where unusually there are plenty of vacant seats and tables, further evidence perhaps that the supposed excitement of Premier League football is wearing thin, or that it’s been so long since we had a match people thought, or hoped, the season was over. We talk of firing squads, lethal injections, the full moon over Felixstowe, Allan Hunter, kitchen tidiness and wedding anniversaries. We laugh a lot, Gary gives Mick his sticker of Ed Sheeran, Mick buys more drinks (Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride, Lager 43 and a Penderyn Welsh whisky) and we predict a 2-1 win to the Town on the understanding that we actually expect them to lose, again. Proudly, we claim the distinction of being the last Portman Road-bound drinkers to leave the pub.

In Portman Road we part ways near Sir Alf Ramsey’s statue and wonder on what far off date we will meet again for the next home match, which we think is against the Wanderers of Wolverhampton. I sense that we don’t care too much about what match it will be, but are already mostly looking forward to the hour to be spent in the pub beforehand. At the back of the Alf Ramsey Stand the queues are modest in length, but I join those being ushered through the side entrance, which makes me feels like I’m entering Studio 54 or some after hours boozer. After venting excess Suffolk Pride I am soon with Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood. I must be early again today because I’m here in time to witness the attempt to barbecue any stray pigeons and seagulls in front of the Cobbold Stand, and to shout out the surnames of Town players in the style of the ‘Magic Fans’ of St Etienne or ‘Les Dodgers’ of Lens as the overly enthusiastic young stadium announcer reads out the team before he finally, embarrassingly, bellows ‘Blue Army’ into his microphone.

Today’s visitors and therefore inevitable winners are Nottingham Forest, who also get first go with the ball, which they initially send only in the general direction of the goal in front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand. Sensibly, Nottingham wear all red, having only swapped their usual white shorts to avoid any hint of a colour clash, rather than donning some weird all-black or gaudily-coloured away kit which will sell well in replica versions in Myanmar, Papua New Guinea and South Korea, but is not necessary.

In the upper tier of the Cobbold stand the Nottingham fans sing incomprehensibly about their team, who hold on to possession for almost two minutes before Town get to have a go with it too, courtesy of a throw-in. “England’s, England’s, number ten” continue the Nottinghamians mysteriously, about a player who, unless it’s Nigel Clough, I have probably never heard of. It’s the fourth minute and Town have a free-kick in the sort of location from which Colin Viljoen or Arnold Muhren might have easily scored in happier days, but today’s effort only strikes the defensive wall.

“Down with the Leicester, you’re going down with the Leicester” chant the Nottingham lot as I fantasize about a big wheel of red cheese, whilst the words “Home of the XL vent shipping container” scroll their way along the front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand before disappearing into the side wall of the Planet Blue shop. Not much is happening on the pitch, but with a seemingly limitless but mostly unimaginative back catalogue of songs and chants, the Nottingham fans proceed to resurrect Tony Christie’s cheesy ‘Road to Amarillo’ before hitting on the old classic “Football in a library, do-do-do”. The Nottingham Forest team seems fashionably short-haired, looking as if National Service didn’t end in the East Midlands in 1960, like it did in the rest of Britain, but the exception is number thirty-four who resembles side-show Bob from The Simpsons, and probably has more hair on his head than all of his team mates put together; if he went to head the ball with any part of his skull but his forehead, there’s a risk the ball would disappear.

Ipswich win a corner and I bawl “Come On you Blues” with minimal accompaniment before Omari Hutchinson shoots over the cross bar. Pat is working hard taking photographs this afternoon and seems particularly interested in snapping the Nottingham number five. “Murillo” she says. “What like the cherry?” I ask. Pat tells me she follows him on some social media platform or other. “Oooh, he’s gorgeous” she says. “Take a look, you might even fancy him yourself”. “If you hear something that doesn’t seem right” read the advertising screens between the tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson stand. I think of Gary’s Panini sticker, which he gave to Mick.

Over twenty minutes have gone forever, and Town aren’t losing. Cruel hope and foolish optimism begin to insinuate their way into my mind. Nottingham take a corner and still it’s goalless. “Come of You Reds” sing the occupants of one end of the Cobbold Stand. “Ole. Ole. Ole” sing the occupants of the other. The game is a third of the way to finishing goalless. “Blue and White Army” chant the Sir Bobby Robson standers a good two or three times and the words “Hot Sausage Company” appear above them in bold red letters moving from left to right.

The thirty fourth minute and Nottingham earn a corner as Alex Palmer’s hacked clearance cannons off Jens Cajuste. The corner is cleared but then crossed in again, knocked down and a big bloke called Milenkovic scores. Bugger. Two minutes later Town lose possession, have no left back and Elanga sprints away with the ball down the Town left and scores. “We’re gonna win 3-2” says Fiona. “Yes, we’re going to win 3-2” I reply as convincingly as I can. Five minutes later, the ball bounces and Elanga scores again.

Pat from Clacton is going to Great Yarmouth this week for her twice-yearly week of playing whist. She’s hoping to win lots of money and is looking forward to seeing the sun rise over the sea from her bedroom at the Palm Court hotel. “Down with the Leicester, you’re going down with the Leicester” chant the Nottingham fans, but Pat won’t mind. The half ends with Kalvin Phillips shooting over the bar, two minutes of added on time and an obese woman walks up the steps from the front of the stand carrying a bottle of Coke and bag of crisps.

With the half-time break, I take a short walk to the front of the stand to speak with Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison. In front of us are three ‘trainee’ guide dogs. “What do you call a group of dogs?” asks Ray. “A pack” I tell him “So this is a pack of guide dogs”. We go on to talk about the popular image of packs of dogs tearing other animals or even people apart, and contrast this to a pack of guide dogs who we imagine compete with one another to help people.

It’s three minutes past four when the match resumes. Town soon win a corner and Omari Hutchinson has a shot, then win another and O’Shea heads over the goal. As the man from Stowmarket remarked before the game, it’s very cold today, possibly the coldest it’s been at Portman Road all season. Kalvin Phillips is the first player to be booked because fifty-four minutes have departed and it’s about time for a booking. Pat reveals that she’s already started looking forward to eating the baked potato she’s having for her tea. There is a half an hour left and whilst Town are having most of the possession there’s not much going on.

The best bit of the game so far arrives when Nottingham’s Nicolas Dominguez rolls around on the ground having committed a foul, gets up, gets booked and then hobbles about pathetically. “There’s nothing wrong with you” chant the Sir Bobby Robson standers to the tune of Verdi’s “La Donna e mobile”, which the Argentinian Dominguez will no doubt appreciate if he’s ever been to the Teatro Colon opera house in Bueno Aires.

“It’s not worth getting monkey out, is it?” asks Pat, raising the possibility of employing her masturbating monkey good luck charm to influence the result. “Probably not”, agree Fiona and I. “He can’t perform miracles” says Fiona, and I suggest that we’d have the RSPCA round, especially on a day as cold as this.

Town win yet another corner, but nothing comes of it and the bloke behind me comments that “You can make all these passes around the penalty area look good, but it don’t do anything does it, fart-arsing around with it?”. As I digest the truth of this, the excitable young stadium announcer tells us that we are 29,878 and 3,000 of us are mainly here to watch Nottingham, not Ipswich; meanwhile the Nottingham fans sing something which sounds like “We’re eating porridge”, but they could be singing about Norwich. I resign myself to neither knowing nor caring, but instead enjoy the mass substitutions from both teams that greet the 80^th minute. What game-changing substitutions these prove to be as within two minutes Town are on their way to winning the second half. Presumably elated at having for once not been substituted, Jens Cajuste superbly turns and scores into the top corner of the Nottingham goal. Admittedly, just four minutes later a typical breakaway at pace allows Silva to restore the three goal lead for Nottingham, but then in one of the four minutes of added on time, substitute George Hirst rises to head into the other top corner of the Nottingham goal to win the second half for Town. Most of the home crowd have left by now, which in itself is quite satisfying because people who leave early don’t deserve to experience the joy that late consolation goals bring to proper fans.

The final whistle sounds, and with my train home still twenty-five minutes away, I stay to applaud what people not prepared to wilfully disregard all that happened before four o’clock will fail to realise is a victorious Town team as they traipse off the pitch. There are now just four home games left, we’re out of the FA Cup, in the relegation zone, effectively nine points behind the team above us in the league, and Spring is in the air. Today, it still feels like Winter and I suspect it will continue to do so for another four games, whatever the weather does. Up The Town!