clacton

Ipswich Town 1 Leicester City 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Suddenly it’s November and my back garden is strewn with yellow fig leaves, which might be odd if it wasn’t for the presence of the increasingly naked fig tree just beyond the back of my house.  The fig leaves are a reliable indicator of what time of year it is and usually, so is a list of the number of football matches I’ve seen since the start of the football season. By November of last season, I had seen Ipswich Town play six games at Portman Road, and I’d missed two because I was away in France watching Lorient and Stade Brestois instead.  By November of the 2022-23 season, I’d seen Town play eight matches at Portman Road and that was without seeing any Town games at all during the whole of September because I away again.   This season I’ve missed just one home match, but I’ve only seen Town three times. I’m beginning to think I’m not getting value for money from this Premier League malarkey. 

Leaden skies and spits of rain accompany me on my walk to the railway station where I stand far up the platform away from the hoi polloi, in a spot where I know the second carriage with a pointy front end will stop.  Another man with grey hair has been pacing up and down the platform and gets into the same carriage once the doors eventually open, which they don’t for a good thirty seconds.  He looks a bit nerdy, like a possible contestant on Only Connect.  Gary joins me at the next station stop and we talk of someone he knows who is over seventy and still works in order to pay off his mortgage.  Sliding down the hill into Ipswich we see two of the four polar bears and Gary muses on how many other football supporters travelling to games this weekend across Europe have seen polar bears on their journey to the match.  I tell him how an article in the Guardian referred to the ‘Polar Express’.

The ‘plaza’ in front of Ipswich station doesn’t seem quite as busy as usual, but the Leicester supporters in the car park-cum-beer garden of the Station Hotel are plentiful. We stop and buy from a pretty, smiling young programme seller who is working the blue, mobile, metal desk at the end of Portman Road this week.  The turnstiles aren’t yet open, and we have to weave between static Leicester supporters.  A bunch of people surround a large white banner that reads “Premier League stop exploiting our loyalty” and pose for photos.  “They’re Leicester fans” says Gary. “Well, they won’t be Ipswich” I reply cynically, obliquely expressing my belief that the revolution will not begin in Ipswich or be televised on Look East or About Anglia.

Reaching ‘the Arb’, we order a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride and a pint of Lager 43, for which Gary kindly pays. In the beer garden we find Mick half-way through a pint of Suffolk Pride already because he’s been here since a quarter past one having forgotten what time we agreed to meet up.   I tell him he’s getting old and Mick soon remarks upon the gaberdine raincoat I am wearing, which I tell him my father wore when he was in the Royal Navy, and it is older than I am.  This provokes Mick into telling us how as a child he grew up wearing the cast-off gaberdine raincoats of Ken Bruce, the radio broadcaster.  Mick’s aunt, who lived in Scotland, was friends with the mother of the juvenile Ken and she would send the coats that Ken had grown out of down for little Mick to wear.  This in turn leads to mention of former Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s Gannex raincoats and Keir Starmer’s tickets to see Taylor Swift, before Mick stuns us both with his surprising admission that although he despises the woman, he really fancies Kemi Badenoch.

After Mick’s confession I need a drink and head inside to buy another round, but am disappointed to find that the Suffolk Pride is now ‘off’ and I have to have Mauldon’s Special Bitter instead.  Time moves on as it always seems to and not much after twenty-five to three after Gary has suggested we just stay at the pub all afternoon, we depart for Portman Road, Mick locking his bicycle to one of the stands close to where the olde West Gate to the town once stood.  We go our separate ways near Sir Alf’s statue, and I walk down Portman Road alongside a small man with long hair wearing a replica home shirt, who introduces himself as Matt and predicts a 3-2 win for Town.  I tell him I think we’ll win 2-0.  The queues at the back of ‘Churchmans’ are quite long again and that at turnstile 62 seems the longest, but I can’t not join it and by the time I get to my seat everyone is stood silently, hopefully contemplating the futility and stupidity of war, even though it is a full nine days before ‘Armistice Day’.  Even the seagulls atop the cross bar of the Sir Bobby Robson stand appear to be standing to attention. As usual however, I find it slightly weird how professional football now attaches itself to Remembrance, it never used to.  Is it just what is now called ‘virtue signalling’?   I’ve come to watch a football match, and I only really wanted to remember the fabulous Trevor Whymark today.  I will remember those killed by wars on 11th November.

The game soon kicks off, Leicester getting first go with the ball, aiming in the direction of Alderman Road and the canal and wearing all white, although just ‘white’ isn’t good enough for football kits anymore and the programme tells us on page 31 that the colour of the kit is actually ‘light ice blue’.  Town are thankfully in the usual plain old blue and white.   A little surprisingly, at the referee’s whistle Leicester play the ball back from the centre spot and hoof it forward like in days of yore.  Then, to home fans amusement an early back pass goes beyond the Leicester goalkeeper towards his own goal, but unfortunately it is easily recovered.  “We’ve only just got in the ground too” says Pat from Clacton “they were searching everyone’s bags”.

The afternoon is wonderfully grey, with the floodlights and illuminated adverts somehow making it look even greyer because of the contrast. “Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, The Norwich ran away” chant the Sir Bobby Robson standers getting prematurely excited with the season of Advent just 30 days away.  Leicester create a couple of early chances attacking Town from wide positions. Eight minutes are lost, and Muric makes a flying save at the expense of the game’s first corner kick. “Come On Leicester” chant people who might once have parked their cars over the grave of King Richard III or bought a swede from Gary Lineker’s father.

It’s the fifteenth minute and Aro Muric makes another necessary save at the expense of a corner, this time keeping out a shot from Facundo Buonanotte, whose first name is derived from the Latin word for ‘eloquent’, which is unusual for a footballer.  So far, but for Sam Szmodics heading an Omari Hutchinson cross over the goal and Conor Chaplin shooting past a post, Leicester have been the better team, without being very good; it’s a bit like a Second Division match as if both teams are re-living old times.   Leicester’s Wout Faes clashes with Leif Davis which displeases the home crowd. “Fuck off, you fluffy-haired cunt” shouts someone from behind, and I think of Alan Brazil, probably Town’s only fluffy-haired player as long as I continue  to forget about Kevin Beattie’s and Trevor Whymark’s perms.

An eighteenth minute shot from Conor Chaplin earns Town a corner and at last I get the opportunity to bellow “Come On You Blues” repeatedly until the kick is taken.  “Do-do-do, football in a library” chant the Leicesterites revealing either that they rarely visit libraries, which is believable, or that the libraries of Leicester are quite unlike those in other places.  The game is changing and Town win two corners in quick succession and again I bellow “Come On You Blues”, possibly until I’m blue in the face.  The eloquent Facundo Buonanotte is booked by referee Tim Robinson, inevitably for dissent, although in this case by kicking the ball away his action has spoken louder than any words.

With the game a third over, Town win more corners and Dara O’Shea heads wide.” On a plate that” says the bloke behind me.  Conor Chaplin shoots wide again and then spectacularly past the top corner after a run across the edge of the penalty area.  “I-pswich Town, I-pswich Town FC, They’re by far the greatest team the world has ever seen” chant the Sir Bobby standers to the tune of the Irish Rover, and if Ipswich and Leicester City were the only two teams in the world it would currently be true.  The last notable action before two minutes of added on time sees Ben Johnson hit a rasping shot towards the top corner of the goal, but the Leicester goalkeeper was perfectly situated to simply and rather nonchalantly pluck it from the air.

The Town are worth the applause they receive as they trot off for their half-time tea, or oranges, or whatever it is they consume and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) and I agree that once the Town got going, they were much the better team; we just need to score. Ray is not here today, so instead of talking to him I eat a Nature Valley cereal bar and consider the design of the Premier League football which, with its oddly molded surfaces looks like something that if somewhat smaller I imagine might be sold in an Ann Summers store, but wouldn’t appear in the window display.

The football resumes at five past four and happily in the same vein as before the players went away and then came back again. For a while it even sounds as if the Leicester fans are singing “I’m Ipswich ‘til I die” before they start on about Jamie Vardy. “Jamie Vardy has won more than you” they chant to the tune of Sloop John B, but they can’t possibly know what I’ve won and to be honest I neither know nor care what Jamie Vardy has won, except perhaps Rebecca Vardy’s hand in marriage, and to be honest that doesn’t seem like something to boast about.  “Small town in Norwich, you’re just a small town in Norwich” they continue, revealing that they will probably get lost on the way home.

Moments later and a diagonal cross field ball from Sam Morsy is volleyed beautifully, sumptuously, gloriously, magnificently and above all successfully into the Leicester goal by Leif Davis to give Town the lead they so richly deserve.  After Wes Burns’ goal versus Coventry last season, this could well be one of the best goals seen at Portman Road this century.  I text my wife to get her to put a bottle of Cremant in the fridge.  It feels like we can only go on to score more goals and win because it’s plain to see Town are better than Leicester.  But then referee Tim Robinson books Aro Muric for time wasting as he kicks the ball back to Cameron Burgess after it has gone out for a goal-kick and it’s time for Conor Chaplin to go down to receive treatment and everyone else to get some remedial coaching on the touchline. I think people call it “game management”, but there’s still half an hour to go.

“Champions of Europe, you weren’t even born” chant the geographically ignorant and ill-read Leicester fans jealously, realising that three League Cups do not equal a European trophy. Furthermore, Fiona, Pat from Clacton, the man from Stowmarket and I were all born when Town won the UEFA Cup, and three of us were there to see it.  Such is the Leicester fans’ brazen lack of familiarity with facts that I’m beginning to wonder if Donald Trump isn’t a Leicester fan.

In the seats around me there’s a debate about who has played well.  “To be fair” says the bloke behind me “they‘ve all played well” and he’s  right, as he often is. Leicester blink first and make substitutions and four minutes later Jack Clarke and George Hirst replace Sam Szmodics and the glorious Liam Delap, possibly Town’s best centre forward since Paul Mariner.  Then suddenly everything goes wrong, as if touched by the hand of some malevolent, unseen force, or the referee.  Conor Chaplin is blatantly pole-axed by a Leicester player in the Leicester penalty area and no penalty is given, a clear and obvious error that VAR fails to point out, raising the possibility that we now need a VAR to assist the VAR.  Moments later Kalvin Phillips catches a Leicester player with a dangling foot as he checks his run and referee Robinson books him for a second time, and he’s off.

Hereafter the Town are just hanging on.  It doesn’t matter about the ‘incredible support’ of 29.874 (2,991 with little experience or knowledge of libraries and the geography of East Anglia).  It seems too late for Pat to bring on the masturbating monkey charm from the depths of her handbag. All around is cursing and swearing about VAR and the referee. “Blue Army, Blue Army” chant the crowd, ready to storm FA Headquarters and string up the Premier League ‘grandees’, perhaps.  Trying to reduce the tension I confirm that Pat from Clacton is looking forward to her usual, baked potato for her tea when she gets in. Leicester win two corners, Cameron Burgess clears a goal bound shot from substitute Jordan Ayew with an outstretched leg.  There will be eight minutes of added on time, more than was added to all the matches played at Portman Road throughout the whole of the 1970’s. Half-way through the added epoch Leicester score through substitute Jordan Ayew and that’s it. Town haven’t won.  I guess we now know how Southampton fans felt back in September when Sam Morsy scored.  But who wants to feel like a Southampton fan?  My wife texts me to say the Crémant is on the top shelf and she can’t reach it, I tell her not to worry.

With the final whistle I applaud the Town team but can’t be bothered to boo the referee Tim Robinson, an aloof and arrogant looking man whose hair is too short and who suspiciously has the same surname as a garrulous,  overweight  boy I remember from primary school, who was a Leicester City fan and was always getting into fights. 

Feeling like I’ve been in a fight myself I head home and on the train, reflecting on how VAR seems to create the conditions for a belief in an unseen, but all-seeing big brother which promises on-field justice, but because it doesn’t share and explain all that it sees gives the impression rightly or wrongly that it sees what it wants to see, a possibility made more real by the corporate, heavily branded, money-loving nature of the Premier League with its need to suckle the big clubs and their global reach, whilst the smaller clubs are all just interchangeable parts. From such fertile soil conspiracy theories sprout.

The Premier League continues to short change me but I’m no doubt in the wrong demographic so no one cares. Tomorrow I shall wear my black T-shirt that bears the slogan “FC IT… where’s the pub”.

Ipswich Town 0 Everton 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Holland 2  Dussindale & Hellesdon Rovers 1

/ martinpbrooks / 1 Comment

Holland-On-Sea, Wikipedia tells us, is a suburb of Clacton-On-Sea and was known as Little Holland until the early twentieth century; it also has a football club called Holland FC.  What Wikipedia doesn’t tell us however is that Holland is just a 30 minute, thirty-eight-and-a-half-kilometre drive from my house, although Google maps does.  Stanway Rovers, Halstead Town, Coggeshall Town, Cornard United, Wivenhoe Town and Hadleigh United football clubs are all playing at home today and are probably all closer to home, but none of them are “On-Sea” and I’ve been to all of their home grounds in the last twelve years, which isn’t true of Holland FC’s Dulwich Road, where I am given to understand that the pitch, as if by some freakish movement of tectonic plates, has moved through ninety degrees in that time, throwing up a metal fence all around itself and a smart new clubhouse.  Therefore, with the promise of sea air and the prospect of a geologically formed football ground, it is on a warm but cloudy Saturday afternoon in early September that I set off in my planet saving Citroen eC4 for Holland-On-Sea.  I had contemplated catching the train to Clacton and making the half hour walk to Dulwich Road, but with only one train an hour I wouldn’t have got home until seven o’clock, and I have a wife whose heart I risk breaking if I stay out too long.

It’s an uneventful journey down the A133 and I arrive in relaxed mood in the Holland FC car park, where I have a wide choice of parking spaces; I draw up next to a modest silver-coloured family saloon, which had turned into the pebbly, beach-like car park shortly before my I and my Citroen did.  It’s not half past two yet , so I decide to take a look at the sea before entering the ground; the cliff top and sandy beach below are only 200 metres away across the grassy expanse of the Eastcliff Recreation Ground and Marine Parade.  From the cliff top, Clacton Pier is visible through the haze at the end of the beach, and out to sea sit the ranks of wind turbines that I like to think made the electricity that powered my car and brought me here.  A West Indian man of pensionable age and riding a low-slung tricycle asks me if I’m local and if I know where the Kings Cliff Hotel is.  I tell him I’m not and I don’t know where the hotel is, but I do know he is heading towards Kings Parade.  I think to myself that the ‘King’ in King’s Parade fame was probably either King Edward the Seventh or some egotistical Tendring District councillor with the surname King.

I walk back inland to the football ground up Lyndhurst Road, a typically suburban, tree-lined street of inter-war bungalows, all of which are almost frighteningly neat and well maintained. Just past a public toilet is a hedge which is teeming with bees and butterflies, mostly Red Admirals.  I am not sure I’ve ever seen so many butterflies in one place, but start to worry that wealthy local MP Nigel Farage might be having them specially bred so that he can pull their wings off or place them in his reptile-like mouth before washing them down with a pint of beer.  But then again, I don’t suppose he ever comes here; he probably gets his butterflies in Florida.

Back at the football ground, the friendly, cheery but visibly overweight man at the gate tells me that the concessionary entry fee of £5.00 applies to over sixties; I tender a twenty-pound note and receive fifteen pounds change.  After I ask if there is a programme today, I am told that the club does produce a match programme, but hasn’t done so today, which to me seems a bit lazy of them.  With the two pounds I saved at the gate by being old, I buy £1.50’s worth of tea from Jaffa’s Tea Bar.  I don’t know who Jaffa is, but his or her (it was a woman who served me) tea is pretty good, even if it is just a tea bag in a paper cup with some added water and milk.    I suspect however that the name of the tea bar is derived from the club nickname, “The Jaffas” and so the apostrophe is in the wrong place, this is Essex after all.  I wander inside the clubhouse which, although bright and new and with a display of trophies on one wall, seems a little soulless due to its grey floor, plain walls and vaulted ceiling; the only pumps on the bar are for Stella Artois, San Miguel and Carlsberg. I am pleased I bought tea and enjoy the irony that in Farage’s constituency all the ‘beers’ are, nominally at least, foreign brands.  Most of the drinkers are sat outside at an array of tables and look like they are settled in for the afternoon. 

“Are you sat here for the music?” I ask two old boys sat on stackable chairs in a covered area outside the home dressing room,  through the window of which can be heard the typical, pumped-up, high volume musical selection of the millennial footballer.  “Is that what it is?” Says one of the old boys.  I wonder to myself if Stanley Matthews, Len Shackleton and Tommy Lawton would get themselves ready for kick-off by cranking up the volume on the latest 78’s from Glenn Miller,  Al Bowlly and Bing Crosby.  With the music turned off we can hear the team talk. “It’s a long journey from Norwich or wherever they come from” says the coach encouragingly to the Holland players.

It’s not long before the teams are lining up to parade onto the pitch with the players of today’s opponents Dussindale and Hellesdon Rovers, looking suitably jet lagged.  Dussindale and Hellesdon are two suburban areas on opposite sides of Norwich, but their clubs amalgamated a few years ago and have made it into the snappily titled Thurlow Nunn Eastern Counties League First Division North and now play in Horsford, which is at least next to Hellesdon and close to Norwich airport, which is handy for away games.   After all the usual handshaking and hand-gripping malarkey, it is Dussindale and Hellesdon who kick-off towards the sea in burgundy shirts and navy-blue shorts. It’s a tasteful, if slightly dull kit and doesn’t compare with Holland’s vivid all orange ensemble.  Wikipedia tells us that the nickname of Holland FC is The Tangerines, no doubt due to the colour of their kit, but Holland’s own website refers to them as The Jaffas, although it doesn’t appear to have been updated since last May.  I wonder if there has perhaps been a referendum during the close season on what type of orange best represents the club, with members choosing to reject Satsumas, Mandarins, Clementines, Navels, Cara Caras and Easy peelers.   

The early exchanges on the pitch are typically noisy with the ball frequently flying high into the afternoon sky as an optimistic through pass for someone to chase is booted away.  “Go wide, hit the channel, good chap” bawls the Rovers’ goalkeeper revealing a hint of a Norwich accent as the ball sails in to touch.  Holland have the classic two big blokes at the back, numbers 5 and 12.  Number 12 has the sort of build which, if this were a professional game, would no doubt leave him open to chants from opposing supporters of “You fat bastard”, but he is a ‘rock’ at the back for Holland. 

I walk round the pitch to stand between the team dugouts. Holland win two early corners.  More Norfolk accents are detected on the away team bench.  Holland seem to lack club volunteers, with there being no programme today and no team sheet posted on a wall anywhere either.  The on-pitch commentary from the players however reveals that the Rovers number three is called Eggy and the number four Martin; other players have names too.

A poor back pass lets in the Holland number eleven,  who crosses in a low ball which a Rovers centre-back clears over the cross bar for corner.  It’s the first real opportunity, even if it was entirely manufactured by one team for the other.  The game is full of endeavour, but no one is capable of providing a pass that will lead to a goal. It’s a game of just shouts at the moment.  “Get out”, “First and second ball”, “What we talked about”, “Jump early”, “Ref that was blatant”, the usual anxious nonsense that the players hear every week and must get sick of.  On the Rovers’ bench the coaches are simply willing their team to do better; “Get the ball” urges one, going back to basics.  Then Rovers break down the right; number eleven scampering into the penalty area and crossing the ball low to where somebody should be to tap it in but isn’t.

“That’s the first chance of the game, and it’s to us” says a Rovers coach moments before the Holland number nine heads the ball against the Rovers cross bar from what looked like inside the six-yard box.  Fortunately, he can’t hear the cursing on the Holland bench.  It was the sort of incident that explains why the Rovers number five displays a constantly slightly worried look on his face, in contrast however to the number four playing in front of him, who is calmness personified and always has unhurried time on the ball. “Go on Matt, Dylan” shouts another coach, and I think of a parallel world where a film director working with Jack Nicholson and Charlton Heston might say “Go On, Jack, Charlton.”

 “It’s a great run again” says a Holland coach sounding like a radio commentator as Holland move forward again down the right.   The pattern of the first half has now been established and Holland are the dominant team, but with Rovers are a constant threat on the break. In midfield for Holland, number eight has a beard, and hair swept back with an alice band; it makes him look a bit like a bargain basement Alessandro Pirlo, which would explain why he is captain.  “Keep on side” shouts someone as Rovers’ number eleven breaks forward again, but he’s too late, the linesman’s flag is raised, if only that advice had been shouted sooner.

Unusually, in the final twenty minutes of the first half there are three substitutions, with Holland’s number three, who has been looking physically uncomfortable, being usurped by number seventeen, who is soon having a shot on goal well saved.  For Rovers, numbers seven and eight leave the pitch to be replaced with numbers fourteen and fifteen, like the start of a mathematical puzzle.  Just as unusual is the smell of deep-frying fish and chips that is wafting around when at half past three in the afternoon people should surely be having no more than an afternoon cup of tea and a biscuit.

The thought of tea sends me further round the pitch, back towards Jaffa’s tea bar and when I pass behind the linesmen he warns “Nothing silly” as opposing players chase another hopeful punt forward for Rovers.  The ball is soon returned to the other end of the pitch however, where Holland’s number nine shoots weakly at the goalkeeper as he redirects a square pass.  But the disappointment is short-lived as number ten finds himself in much the same position, but crucially manages to shoot past the goalkeeper and high into the net to give Holland a more or less deserved lead.

 Half-time arrives soon afterwards and teas and beers taste better than they would have if Holland had not scored, although I don’t think everyone sat drinking outside the bar noticed the goal or any of the first-half come to that.  For the second-half I decide to take up a seat in the main and only stand, selecting a spot in the middle of the second row where I can easily see most of the pitch above the metal mesh fence.   From here I can also see the sea of hipped bungalow roofs with ugly concrete tiles and the white UPVC conservatories that squat beyond the surrounding boundary fence and off into the distance.  A seagull stands and squawks from on top of a ridge tile.

The football resumes at two minutes past three and Rovers are soon seeing more of the ball than previously; they’re not playing so deep into their own half, but like Holland before the half-time break, they’re not creating many chances to score.  Suddenly, out of the blue, it all gets a bit too much for Rovers’ number nine who bawls in frustration “Fuckin’ell, fuckin’ play!”.  Moments later, as if to say “Alright, alright, keep your hair on”, his team-mates fashion a corner kick and then number fourteen becomes the first player to be booked as he fouls Holland’s number eleven.   In contrast to the increased excitement on the pitch the afternoon now feels quite still; the sky has clouded over and it’s cooler than it was. 

Despite both number nine and ten having decent shots on goal for Rovers, Holland are holding on fairly comfortably, but it must nevertheless come as a relief to them when around half past four  Rovers’ number five swings a foot to clear the ball and misses it, letting Holland’s number eight take it to the edge of the box, check inside and send a gently curling shot beyond the goalkeeper and inside the far post. Holland lead 2-0.

It’s the sort of a goal that commentators tell us will ‘wrap the game up’ and ‘put it to bed’; it’s just what Holland have been waiting for.  Two minutes later and it hasn’t, as Rover’s number ten has a shot parried by the Holland goalkeeper and number nine sweeps the rebound into the goal.  The score is 2-1 and anxiety takes hold.  It’s been a game of very few fouls, but someone cries “Late every time” when there is an accidental collision of boot and ankle, and I begin to wonder if all referees shouldn’t also be primary school teachers.

It is seven minutes to five when the game ends, and before returning to my trusty planet saving Citroen for the drive home, I pause to applaud and reflect on what has been a very good game. As I say to one of the old boys as he gathers up his sticks to toddle off home, we’ve had a decent five pounds worth of entertainment.   But shuddering slightly, I nevertheless can’t help wondering how all these people voted at the last general election.

Ipswich Town 1 Fulham 1

/ martinpbrooks / 2 Comments

It’s been a grey morning; warm but cloudy and breezy, with two very sharp, short showers.  The apple tree in the garden has provided a good crop this year and I’ve been cooking them ready to put in the freezer and ensure a future that contains crumble and blackberry and apple pie.  I mopped the kitchen floor too after making waffles for breakfast.  We didn’t get any post, but heck, there’s football this afternoon.

The train to Ipswich is on time, but the carriage I sit in is full of people seemingly with no ability to control how loud they talk, or rather shout. Do they all operate pneumatic drills during the week I wonder, or listen to marbles inside tumble driers as a leisure pursuit?  Gary joins me at the first station stop, I have texted him to tell him I am in the second half of the train, in the carriage with the pointy front; I think it’s called streamlining and is all the rage on modern trains. We talk of people we both know and of what Gary has arranged to do to fill his days now he is retired; weeks of badminton, ten-pin bowling, crown green bowls , indoor bowls and quizzing stretch out before him invitingly.  We spot all four polar bears as we glide down the hill towards Ipswich through Wherstead and one is taking a swim.  It’s a highlight of my day so far, has saved me the cost of entry to Jimmy’s farm, about twenty quid, and I’ve had a train ride and conversation with Gary thrown-in.

In Ipswich, the train stops conveniently close to the bridge that takes us across the tracks from Platform 4 to the exit and our walk along Princes Street, Portman Road and up to ‘the Arb’.  In the beer garden of the Station Hotel a chorus of “You’re going down, you’re going down, you’re going down “ rings out noisily. Premier League banter eh?  We buy programmes (£3.50 each) from one of the ice-cream booths that sell programmes on Portman Road.  Today’s front cover is in the style of a childishly drawn cartoon and very good it is too, and reminiscent of the cartoons that used to appear in the ‘A Load of Cobbolds’ fanzine in the 1980’s and 90’s, although not in a ‘My Sweet Lord’, by George Harrison, ‘He’s so fine’ by the Chiffons sort of a way.

‘The Arb’ is predictably busy and Gary gets the first round in, a pint of Lager 43 for him and a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me (£8.58 with Camra discount).  It’s odd how the pub seems even busier than it did last season, even though there will be no more home supporters present than before. Perhaps all the ‘Johnny-come-lately’ fans have been reading up on what to do before a game to enjoy the ‘full Premier League matchday experience’.   We talk of the paralympics, Walton On The Naze, religious observance and the religious persecution of women, Ipswich  Town’s latest signings, how strawberries and blackberries are apparently not berries and other inconsequential matters that I can’t recall, before I buy a second round of Lager 43 and Suffolk Pride. After all the other pre-match drinkers have left for Portman Road, we leave too.

Gary and I part ways near Sir Alf’s statue and I head on down Portman Road, flitting as best as a 64 year old man with a dodgy achilles tendon can through the queues into the Cobbold Stand on my way back to my usual seat in the lower tier of Sir Alf’s stand.  The queues at the turnstiles are long again today, unlike for the Liverpool game where there were barely any queues at all. So slow moving is the queue for the illustrious turnstile 62, that like  an impatient driver approaching roadworks on a motorway I switch lanes and join the queue for turnstile 60, where evidently supporters are more proficient at flashing a bar code in front of a screen.

The teams are on the pitch by the time I take my seat and of course ever-present Phil who never misses a game, his son Elwood, Pat from Clacton and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) are already present.  Fiona however is not, and instead a man who quickly identifies himself as Ian, tells me that he is not Fiona.  Ian is in fact Fiona’s next-door neighbour.  On the pitch, a tall, slim, young man in a suit announces the teams enthusiastically and does a reasonable job of co-ordinating with the scoreboard so that ever-present Phil and I can bawl out the Town players’ surnames as if we were at the Stade de la Licorne or Stade Felix Bollaert, two of my favourite places in northern France. Beside the tall, slim young man, is a shorter young man in a suit and I think of Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo.  The last strains of The Beatles’ Hey Jude drift away as the game begins and Fulham get first go with the ball, aiming it roughly in the general direction of the telephone exchange and London Road Baptist church.  Town wear their signature blue shirts and white shorts, whilst Fulham are in their signature white shirts and black shorts, but with vivid red go faster stripes on their shorts too, that surprisingly look rather good, I think it’s the contrast with the red and the black.  Feeling a little pretentious, I think of Stendahl.

“Blue and White Army” roar some of the crowd above the general loud hubbub of nearly thirty thousand excited people. “Temporary Boiler Hire” flash the electronic advertisement hoards that sit between the upper and lower tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand.  I think to myself that that could come in handy in the winter if the water from the taps in the Alf Ramsey stand toilets is as cold as it usually is.  After only three minutes Leif Davis is lying on the turf clutching his back. “Looks serious “ says the bloke behind me, but happily it’s not, and the crowd are soon merrily singing “Addy, Addy, Addy-O” as if imagining the soundtrack from “A Taste of Honey” starring Rita Tushingham and Dora Bryan, which is what I’m doing.

Five minutes in and Town win the game’s first corner; Jacob Greaves’ far post header is saved  athletically by Fulham goalkeeper Bernd Leno who I do not think is related to American TV presenter Jay Leno, but I don’t honestly know. Leno is wearing a slightly dull looking lime green ensemble, if lime green can be dull.  It takes two minutes for Fulham to level the corner count. “Come On Fulham, Come On Fulham, Come on Fulham” is the entreaty from a large part of the top tier of the Cobbold stand, but happily for Town, the Fulham football tean doesn’t oblige.  Two minutes later and Fulham step ahead in the corner count as Luke Woolfenden clears accidentally towards the Sir Bobby Robson stand from distance.  The Fulham fans chant “Come On Fulham” twice as many times as for the previous corner, but it makes no difference, although it adds to the already febrile match-day ambience.  Seeking reassurance after their team’s corner related failure, the Fulham fans sing “We are Fulham, We Are Fulham” and I think I even hear some reference to their postcode, SW6, which is nice for Royal Mail pensioners like Gary and myself.

After twelve minutes, Fulham have another corner as Woolfenden blocks a low cross from Adama Traore. “Quick aint he?” says the bloke behind me of Traore. “He aint normal.”  The Fulham fans have given up on their chants of “Come On Fulham” for the time being at least and switch to “No noise from the Tractor Boys”, which, as prophetic football chants go, turns out to be one of the worst of all time as within sixty seconds Leif Davis breaks out of defence, runs, squares to Liam Delap who also runs, but at the goal, and then diagonally, before turning slightly to leather a shot past Leno, who can touch the ball but not stop it rocketing  high into the net. Wow. Town lead 1-0. “Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, The Norwich ran away” sing the Sir Bobby Robson standers feeling prematurely, but understandably festive.

The goal lifts Town, who set about levelling the corner count and Liam Delap heads wide when there wasn’t anything or anyone really preventing him from scoring. Town are dominating. “For a team that’s still gelling, we don’t pay bad” says the bloke behind me, and he’s right.  Like someone recently injected with morphine, I sit back and just enjoy the sensation of watching some excellent football.  “Get your head up” shouts a berk from somewhere a few rows back as Sam Morsy wrestles to retain possession.  As if anyone in the crowd could possibly teach these players anything.

Then Fulham equalise, the game has just under an hour left of normal time.  Fulham weathered Town’s onslaught then steadied themselves with a bout of prolonged possession, which was on the verge of becoming boring before a pass out wide, a run to the goal line, a low cross, and a shot swept in by Traore running into an open space.  It’s how good football works I believe.  “Who are ya?” chant the Fulhamites inquisitively, perhaps worried that we are Fulham too, but luckily for them we’re not.   Fulham are now on top and Rodrigo Muniz heads at the Town goal, but straight at Aro Muric.  “We are Fulham, We Are Fulham” chant the Fulham fans again, clearly weirdly obsessed with people’s identities, and possibly postcodes.

Sam Morsy’s standard booking happens in the thirty-seventh minute as he clatters Muniz, but a fine passing Town move follows, which earns another corner, although Kalvin Phillips wastes it by hitting it hopelessly beyond the goal.  The young announcer announces two minutes of added time very excitedly and in a manner that personally I would only think was appropriate if announcing free beer.  At half-time the score is 1-1 and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) is very content with what he considers to have been an even first half.  I concur, but add that Fulham have probably had more possession, although they’ve not done much with it.

During the break, I speak with Ray and his grandson Harrison and Ray tells me that they have tickets to see Oasis at Wembley.  I am pleased for them, especially Harrison, who then further pleases me by asking about Robyn Hitchcock’s book ‘1967: How I got there and why I never left’ and the accompanying album (1967: Vacations in the past) which is released in the UK on 13th September. I tell Harrison I shall be seeing Robyn play in Hackney, the weekend after next.

The football resumes at three minutes past four and I’m soon noticing the raspberry blancmange like colouring of Aro Muric’s shirt and shorts, and how from a distance the ball looks a bit like a very un-ripe wild strawberry.  Back in the game itself, Sasa Lukic kicks Liam Delap’s feet away from under him and is booked by referee Mr Lewis Smith, whose first name makes me think of Lewis Carroll and Alice Through the Looking Glass.  “The Hot Sausage Company” appears in bright lights across the electronic advertising boards and Liam Delap shoots over the Fulham cross bar. Ipswich win a corner. Antonee Robinson, the spelling of whose first name would only be improved if it was Antonknee is booked by Mr Smith for shoving over Omari Hutchinson and then Town win yet another corner.  An hour of the match is lost to history and recorded highlights, and the Sir Bobby Robson standers come over all festive again and sing about endlessly fighting Norwich.  “Quick, Easy, Affordable Balustrades” announce the bright lights of the electronic advertisement boards and I try to think of the occasions when I have needed a cheap balustrade in a hurry before deciding that Adama Traore looks a bit like he could be a handy weightlifter when not playing football for Fulham.

The second half belongs to Ipswich and the game is mostly taking place up the other end.  When Fulham do win a corner, it dissolves into a series of wild grabs and shoves and I’m surprised Mr Smith doesn’t tell the players that if they can’t play nicely there won’t be any more corners. The game hurtles into its last twenty minutes and the first substitutions are made, Jens Cajuste replacing Kalvin Phillips for Town.  “I liked him the other night” says the bloke behind me, possibly revealing details of his private life, but more probably that he saw the midweek League Cup game against AFC Wimbledon.  Not to be outdone, Fulham make a substitution too and then today’s attendance is announced as 29,517 with 2,952 of that number being of a Fulham persuasion.  Fulham win a corner, Traore is shown Mr Lewis’s yellow card for tugging at Leif Davis. I’m surprised the hulk look-alike didnt tear Davis’s shirt clean off.

The final ten minutes witness mass substitutions for both teams including a first sight of another new signing for Town, Jack Clarke, but disappointingly nothing more leaps out at me from the electronic advertising boards. Pat from Clacton is feeling nervous and we’re not even winning, but there seems to be a commonly held belief that a point today will be good enough; Fulham are a decent side.  The allotted ninety minutes have expired and the young man in the suit announces that there will five more. “Five added minutes” he concludes portentously, and the crowd responds with a final roar of encouragement, perhaps inspiring Town to win a corner and Omari Hutchinson to turn and shoot and have his shot saved by Leno.

The final whistle draws a torrent of appreciation from the stands as Pat from Clacton and Ian make a swift exit, but with no train home for half an hour, I hang around to watch the ensuing love-in and reflect on what has been a really good match.  I thought last season’s matches were fast and intense, probably because I had become used to what went on in the loveable old third division, but this football, now, has stepped up to a far higher level again.  Happily, it looks like this evolving Town team are capable of playing here.  I don’t like the Premier League, I strongly disapprove of it and its greed, but I have to admit the football we’ve seen at Portman Road in these first two games has been brilliant. But what can you do? Let’s hope we find out soon, and do it.

Stanway Rovers 0 Maldon & Tiptree 0

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s the third day of August and the domestic football season is yawning and stretching after a  long sleep throughout June and July.  However, in the same way that an early morning shower, or a nice cup of tea, will bring enjoyment and refreshment at the start of another day, so the FA Cup also invigorates and refreshes and quickly brings a sense of purpose, and today is the start of this season’s FA Cup (although some games were played last night).  The ‘proper’ rounds of the FA Cup of course do not begin until the league clubs enter in November, and non-league football clubs have to qualify to get into the ‘proper’ FA Cup and so obsessed with hierarchy is the Football Association that before the first qualifying round there is a preliminary round, and before that is the extra preliminary round, and that’s what’s happening today.  It’s as if the FA is saying to the smallest clubs, at the lowest levels of the league pyramid “You are nothing and you have no money, so whilst we’ll let you play in the FA Cup, it won’t be the ‘proper’ FA Cup”   Worse still, some clubs, those below Step Nine, aren’t even allowed to enter the extra-preliminary round. 

I have toyed with the idea of attending any number of possible FA Cup fixtures today with Long Melford, Cornard United, FC Clacton, Basildon United, Little Oakley, Stowmarket Town, Heybridge Swifts, Ipswich Wanderers and even Harleston Town all having home ties that I could surely get to.  But as a lazy person who economises on effort wherever possible, I eventually choose the fixture that is closest to my house and therefore easiest to get to.   I briefly consider catching the bus, but the service is only hourly and whilst I would arrive in plenty of time for kick-off, I can’t be certain that I would make it back to the bus stop in time after the final whistle.  So it is that I set off forty minutes after the bus, just before half-past two, in my planet saving Citroen eC4 to travel the 5.76 kilometres to New Farm Road and ‘The Hawthorns’ where at three-o’clock Stanway Rovers of the Essex Senior league will be playing Maldon & Tiptree of the Pitching-In Isthmian League North.

It’s been a sultry morning under cloudy skies, but now the sun is shining as I edge through the car park and am directed by a man in a dayglo tabard into what is possibly the last available parking space.  The car park is like Brighton beach without the nudists, and pebbles crunch under foot as having left my car I head for the club house and the bar, where I am delighted to see real ale for sale.  With kick-off only twenty minutes away I buy just a half a pint of Colchester Brewery “Romans go home”, which of course they did at the beginning of the 5th century.   At £2.30 it seems rather expensive but the beer is tasty and I quaff it quickly before I trudge back across the beach between the cars to the turnstile, where a queue has formed, largely due to the time taken for someone up ahead to pay by debit card, although cash is also accepted.  To heighten and prolong my sense of eager anticipation and impatience to see the game, and that of the people behind me, I too pay by card (£8.00).

Stepping inside the ‘stadium’ I exercise a visual stock take and don’t think the place has changed much since I was last here, which was on a cold day in December 2013 to see Stanway Rovers lose improbably by a single goal to mighty Wivenhoe Town.  There may now be a few more bus shelter style stands and a couple less portacabins but that’s about it.  What does differ from eleven years ago is that there are no programmes on sale today but a faded, laminated A4 poster displays a QR code for digital programmes, although these turn out to be last season’s, not today’s game.  I ask a man in a dayglo gilet if there is a programme today; he doesn’t know, although trying to help he asks another man in a dayglo gilet who doesn’t know either but responds in a manner which suggests it’s nothing to do with him and he prefers not to answer questions about anything.

Time passes as Nineties dance music plays over the public address system, which turns out to be two large roof mounted speakers, one on its side, that look like they’ve been liberated from an ageing hi-fi system.  The music stops abruptly as the two teams appear from the corner near the turnstile to process onto the pitch and go through all the usual handshaking before forming separate huddles and then lining up to await the ‘parp’ of the referee’s whistle. The Stanway number eleven has one leg of his shorts rolled up over his thigh as if to ‘show a bit of leg’. Slightly late, at two minutes past three, the match begins with Maldon & Tiptree getting first go with the ball, which they boot towards the car park end.  The visiting team are wearing a frighteningly dull kit of pale grey shirts and slightly darker grey shorts; it makes them looked like all life and natural colour has been drained out of them as if by some previously unknown Essex coast vampire.  Maldon’s home kit is one of red and blue stripes like Barcelona of the Spanish La Liga or Stade Malherbe Caen of French Ligue 2 and it’s a mystery why they’re not wearing it as it would not clash with Stanway’s yellow shirts and black shorts. Perhaps the home kit is in the wash, or maybe they are wearing it and that vampire is real.

The opening stages of the game seem tense and cautious.  “Mick, right shoulder” shouts the home goalkeeper. “’old ‘im” bawls someone else “Get over!”.  It’s a relief when the ball leaves the pitch and hits a man with a jade-coloured jumper draped over his shoulders.  I walk down the ground behind the dugouts past a man with a golden retriever dog.  I overhear a snatch of conversation “Tooting Broadway Witherspoons (sic) is right across the road” explains someone. I stand between the dugouts “Joe, Joe, can we?” implores one of the Stanway coaches curiously as he stands momentarily with hands on hips in his black nylon tracksuit. “Come On Ref!”

At twelve minutes past three the Stanway number four heads wide of the Maldon goal.  The opinion in the Stanway dugout is that he “needed” to score that.  As if to almost  prove them right Maldon are almost immediately on the attack and win two corners in quick succession.  A Maldon player dribbles the ball cleverly between two opponents.  “Nice feet” says a man near me, who is possibly a chiropodist.   Stanway almost score almost again as a back-header skims off a crown and is tipped away acrobatically by the Maldon goalkeeper.

Keen to experience the game from all around the Hawthorns I move to the corner of the ground where the slope on the site affords me an unexpectedly elevated view across the gently, but nevertheless worryingly rolling, undulating pitch.  Above me a blackberry bush hangs down over the fence and I spend the remainder of the half feasting on plump, ripe blackberries which are being warmed by the mid-afternoon sun.   By half-time I have eaten more blackberries than I have ever eaten before whilst watching a football match.  It’s now twenty-five past three and the somewhat lumbering, balding and clearly bearded referee calls for a drinks break.  The Stanway substitutes trot about in front of me, stretching and discussing football boots; apparently, one of them owns a pair “…like the Trent Alexander Arnold ones”.

When the match resumes Maldon pass the ball amongst their centre backs, in the style of England, until number six carefully side foots the ball into touch.   It’s three thirty-eight, and a Maldon free-kick thumps the head of the Stanway number eight, who was in a defensive wall but now lies prone on the grass; the game is stopped while he receives treatment and then leaves the pitch.  In due course he returns, but oddly now has his shorts rolled up over his thighs like the number eleven.

The match is not of the highest quality and the ball regularly sails aimlessly through the upper atmosphere and on one occasion into a neighbouring garden.  At eleven minutes to four however Maldon’s number nine shoots and only a low diving save from the Stanway goalkeeper prevents a goal. From the resultant corner however, the ball is fired out into the car park and hopefully avoids my Citroen; the high fence behind the goal doesn’t seem to be quite high enough.  The half ends with me reflecting on the names on the advertisement boards and questioning whether  Planned Environmental Services have a rival company called Un-planned Environmental Services.  Finally, I find myself disappointed that neither club seems to have neither a band of noisy teenage Ultras or one of ageing but witty malcontents.

With half time I head to the tea bar where I invest in a pound’s worth of tea and two pounds’ worth of sausage roll, which comes with a free paper napkin.   I don’t think the sausage roll is as good as the ones at Coggeshall Town, although it is cheaper, but it is definitely better than the ones from Greggs. Having eaten my sausage roll I move to the two-step terrace cum bus shelter  behind the goal at the car park end and strangely overhear more people talking about Tooting Broadway. I finish my tea and the teams amble out only to line up and then have to wait for the referee and his two linesmen, one of whom has a beard, whilst the other is older and has a bit of a pot belly.

It is eight minutes past four as the football resumes and unexpectedly a small man in a polo shirt with a tie draped around his shoulders begins to bawl Yellow Army, Yellow Army, Yellow Army several times.  I see from my phone that the current temperature is twenty-four degrees and then the man in the dayglo gilet who I asked about the programme appears and tells me that there is currently an ‘error’ with the programme.  I wonder if the error is that no one produced one as Maldon win successive corners and I get the impression that they are the slightly more dominant team.

Continuing my odyssey I walk a little further round the ground and on to the fourth side where there is a small pre-fabricated stand containing the only seats in the stadium.  I am suddenly struck with the thought that Stanway Rovers seem to have an uncharacteristically small number of players with visible tattoos before I spot what looks like my friend Gary in the seats.  Approaching the stand, I confirm that the reason the person I see looks like Gary is because it is Gary, and I decide to sit down in the seat in front of him just as Maldon’s number four is booked by the referee for a misdemeanour I didn’t see fully because I was concentrating on identifying Gary. 

As Stanway make their first substitution, Gary tells me how his mother has been ill and in hospital. It’s now twenty-three minutes to five and the game remains tense, cautious and lacking in goalmouth action with both teams either defending well or just lacking the ability to score a goal, I’m not sure which. At seventeen minutes to five some football suddenly breaks out as Maldon’s number nine dribbles down the right flank leaving three Stanway players in his wake before putting in a low cross.  The cross unfortunately runs behind the Maldon player’s team-mates, but their number seven manages to get to the ball and turn, but then sends his shot over the goal, the fence and into the premises of Collier and Catchpole, the independent local builders’ merchants.

The clock is running down, it’s nine minutes to five and my thoughts are turning to what I might have for tea as a Stanway shot rolls rapidly towards goal and this time it is necessary for the Maldon goalkeeper to make a save.  Gary and I chat as we watch and I learn from him that the concessionary admission price at Stanway applies to over sixties, not over sixty-fives, so I’ve spent three pounds more to get in than I needed to.  It’s two minutes to five as another football sails out of the ground and into one of the neighbouring properties, but a minute later the game is over; the final score nil-nil.

The game over and with no conclusion except that there will be replay at Maldon, Gary and I quickly vacate our seats, leaving together as he heads for the toilet, and I make for my Citroen.  Briefly deconstructing the game in the style of football pundits, I think the match was a bit of a non-event, but Gary thinks the second half was better than the first. 

With no conclusive result, no programme and having paid three quid more to get in than I needed to, it hasn’t been the best afternoon, but then again the sun has shone, I had a decent half of beer, a decent cup of tea, an ok sausage roll and most memorably of all more blackberries than I’ve ever eaten before at a football match.  It must be the magic of the Cup.