Ipswich Town 1 Manchester United 1

November 17, 2024February 4, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

When I was young, so much younger than today I would often travel to Layer Road, Colchester on a Friday night to see the U’s engage with the likes of Torquay United, Darlington or Aldershot, and then on Saturday afternoon I would watch Ipswich Town in the First Division. The days of ‘Col U’ playing on a Friday evening are sadly gone, as is Layer Road, but this weekend I had the opportunity to see two games in two days once again, taking my pick from an extensive menu of local non-league matches on Saturday afternoon and then catching the Town on Sunday afternoon with a wholly unwelcome four-thirty kick-off. As it turned out, I didn’t bother, but stayed indoors and courtesy of a ‘Firestick’ watched Paris FC play Annecy in French Ligue 2, and then Ligue 1 RC Lens play Marseille on the telly. I sometimes think I have lost my joie de vivre.

Today is Sunday and it is blowing a gale as I waste away a whole morning and much of an afternoon waiting to go to Portman Road. I tried drilling some holes in a wall to put up some shelves, but I think the party wall in my house must be made of granite and all the time I’ve been wondering if the trains are going to be disrupted, some have been cancelled already. Mick has been in touch to see what time I might be at the Arb’ but the Sunday train times either get me there earlier than I’d like or with not enough time for a couple of drinks. I should be able to sue Sky TV and the Premier League for the inconvenience. The pre-match tension is palpable.

In time, I decide that it would be best for everyone if I simply spent a bit longer at the pub before the game and so after a train journey on which Manchester United supporters sing ‘Eric Cantona’ endlessly to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas and on which I don’t see a single polar bear, I buy a programme in Portman Road and finally arrive at the Arb’ to purchase a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£4.14 with CAMRA discount). Mick has already texted me to say he is ‘on the bench in the beer garden’ and that is where I join him to discuss Gary’s absence, houses of multiple occupation, local non-league football, how Mick has been seeing ‘someone’ (a woman), newspapers, religion, today’s Town team and what time we go to bed; Mick is a bit of ‘night owl’ it seems, and if I didn’t get up at twenty past six each morning I think I’d quite like to be able to watch Newsnight too.

A good hour and twenty minutes drift by in a sea of words and more Suffolk Pride, and we realise that everyone else in the pub beer garden seems to have left, so we do too not wishing to miss the kick-off, although happy to forego the leaping flames and tiresome, over-excited young stadium announcer with his elongated vowels and slightly cheap-looking suit. There are no queues to get into what used to be Churchman’s and I arrive at my seat as ever to find ever-present Phil who never misses a game, his son Elwood, Pat from Clacton, Fiona and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) already here. There’s a lot of noise as the two teams process onto the pitch and I don’t know why, but I can’t help feeling rather bemused, so much so that I suddenly notice Pat from Clacton looking at me a bit quizzically because the over-excited young stadium announcer is reading out the Town team and I’m not bawling out the players’ surnames in the manner of a Frenchman. It’s been so long since Town were last at home that I’ve forgotten what to do and I’m lost in idle reverie. Returning to Earth, I try to make amends but find that the over-excited young stadium announcer is not in -sync with the score board and I therefore have no idea which surname comes next; it’s like a bad dream in which Murphy has returned but years younger and taller, and in a shiny suit

Kick-off comes as a relief with Town getting first go with the ball and aiming it in the direction of me and my fellow ultras. Town are of course in blue and white whilst Manchester United are in red shirts and black shorts, a bit like Stade Rennais, but messily the shirts are two shades of red and the shorts have red flashes on them. The relief is short-lived as within eighty seconds Manchester’s number 16 skips past a Town player, puts in a somewhat limp looking low cross and their number ten nips in to tap the ball past Aro Muric, who looks as if he was expecting to simply casually pick the ball up. My hopes that VAR will have spotted some invisible infringement in the run up to the goal are dashed, largely because there simply wasn’t enough time for anything to have happened.

The game resumes over a minute after the goal was scored and we all feel a bit shocked. The current Manchester United team is widely believed to be pretty useless I believe and here we are losing already. I thought we were going to win two-nil and had told Mick as much. Five minutes are almost gone however, as Town win a corner. Eleven minutes disappear and Sam Szmodics has a decent shot that the goalkeeper saves and in terms of attacking intent at least, Town have drawn level.

“United, United, United, United” chant the Mancunians and their friends from London and the Home Counties up in the Cobbold Stand, separating each ‘United’ with three quick claps. A little slow to catch on, the Blue Action group belatedly shout “Shit, just like people did in the 1970’s, but usually before the visitors had stopped shouting ‘United’. The football is quite good though. Lots of passing is going on and Ipswich are probably doing more of it than Manchester. The half is half over and finding himself next to Sam Morsy, the Manchester number seventeen falls to the ground and rolls over and over and over and over to both the anger and amusement of the home crowd. “Get up, ya great pussy” I tell him loudly. “That’s Garnacho” says the bloke in front of me. “Yer what?” I ask him. “That’s Garnacho” he says again. A bit confused being unfamiliar with the names of any footballers unless they play for Ipswich Town I say “So it’s not Pussy then.” “He’s a funny looking bleeder” says the bloke behind me of the aforementioned Garnacho and the bloke next to me momentarily reflects on how children don’t get called ‘little bleeders’ nowadays, and sadly I think he’s right. Amusingly, to me anyway, ‘ya little bleeder’ was probably the polite version of ‘ya little bugger’ which is how my grandfather affectionately knew me.

Another Town corner unexpectedly inspires a warm booming chant of “Come On You Blues” and Liam Delap earns a free-kick on the edge of the penalty area as United’s captain Jonny Evans looks bothered; having only this week watched a version on the telly, I think of Evans The Death, the undertaker in Dylan Thomas’s ‘Under Milk Wood’. The free-kick is neatly taken, but goes straight to the goalkeeper Andre Onana for whom I am amazed the United supporters do not sing KC and the Sunshine Band’s ‘Baby Give It Up’. Sensing my disappointment when Town don’t score, Pat from Clacton tells me that she’s already had her dinner today – a Marks & Spencer roast turkey ready meal. “It’s not even Christmas yet” I tell her and Town win another corner from which a shot is blocked after the ball had been headed back across goal. United breakaway up field, but Sam Morsy slides across to sweep the ball out for a throw with the sort of tackle that takes the Manchester player as ‘collateral damage’ and which the home crowd loves, especially against a rather ‘poncey’ team like this one seems to be.

With five minutes until half-time,Town produce the move of the match, tearing the Manchester defence apart as Leif Davis chases a raking long pass, checks inside and plays in Liam Delap who has a whole goal to aim at , but somehow Onana gets a hand or an arm or a shoulder in the way of the goal bound ball. Within sixty seconds, another move opens up a view of goal for Jens Cajuste, but he shoots over. The momentum is with Ipswich however and Omari Hutchinson claims the equaliser very soon afterwards with a shooting star of a shot from outside the penalty area which loops gently off a Manchester head on its rapid journey into the top right hand corner of the goal net, at last beyond the reach of Onana. Three minutes of added on time follow without incident and we are relieved not to be losing anymore, but also feeling like we could be winning.

With half-time I dispose of excess Suffolk Pride and then speak with Ray, to whom it seems I haven’t spoken in months. We speak of car parks and Kemi Badenoch, whose surname Ray pronounces as Bad Enoch, which for those like us who remember Mr Powell seems worryingly appropriate. On the way back to my seat I congratulate ever-present Phil who never misses a game on having recently completed his quest to see a game at every one of the ninety-two League grounds in England and Wales. I tell him I got to around seventy-eight grounds about fifteen years ago but have never managed to get any further. I don’t tell him it’s a metaphor for my entire life.

The football resumes at twenty-four minutes to six when people without a subscription to Sky Sports TV are watching Countryfile and eating buttered teacakes. I notice the moving advertisement for Aspall cider which reads “made in Suffolk since 1728” , words that fosters images in my romantic mind of misty orchards, wooden vats and apple presses, horses, carts and crusted rustic characters, and then the illuminated display says “now available in a can”.

“Come On Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” we chant a good three or four times because Manchester are keeping the ball more than we’d like. The encouragement works and Town get the ball, Wes Burns whips in a low cross and Onana saves brilliantly again from Liam Delap and Town have another corner. Manchester break again and Jens Cajuste chases back to make a perfect tackle inside the Town penalty area and now Manchester have a corner. Not an hour has been played and Manchester are making substitutions as Evans the Death and some bloke who is so good he only has one name goes off and some other blokes I’ve not heard of come on. Up in the Cobbold Stand the away supporters sing songs about Roy Keane and Eric Cantona, perhaps because like me they don’t know who their current players are either.

Then Ipswich make substitutions; Sam Szmodics and Jens Cajuste departing and Jack Taylor and Jack Clarke arriving. “For me, Burns ain’t done nothing” says the bloke behind me clearly thinking he should have been substituted but perhaps not having noticed his pass to Omari Hutchinson for the goal, that cross for Liam Delap, or his defensive play. Twenty-three minutes are left and Manchester have another corner before a couple more substitutions; a bloke called Zirkzee comes on. “Sounds like a cleaning product” say the bloke behind me. This early afternoon and early evening’s attendance is announced by the over-excitable young stadium announcer in the shiny suit as being 30,017 with a very nicely rounded 3,000 of that number being here to sing about Eric Cantona.

Manchester United are mostly the team with the ball in the second half, but despite some grace and speed and long accurate passes they aren’t threatening the Town goal much, they just look like they could if they thought about it a bit more. Perhaps they just have too much confidence and and self-love for their own good. The good thing is it means Town look more likely to score, but as Pat from Clacton says to Fiona “You can feel the tension” . Eventually, the bloke behind me gets his wish as Wes Burns is replaced by Conor Chaplin, and the match rolls on into the final ten minutes of normal time. Ali Al-Hamadi shoots and Onana saves, again. Conor Chaplin shoots, but pretty much straight at Onana.

Only four minutes of added on time are added on and I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Do we need more time to score or less time so we don’t concede? “Oh when the Town go marching in, Oh when the Town go marching in“ drone the home crowd mournfully as if they’ll be following a coffin when it happens. Manchester United win a corner and the ball is booted clear to create maximum distance between it and the Town goal and then the match ends. Fiona and Pat from Clacton are quickly away, but not before Fiona says “See you next Tuesday”- it’s when Town play Crystal Palace.

It’s been another fine game, perhaps not as exciting as some of the others this season, but despite not dictating enough of the play in the second half there is no doubt Town can claim they deserved to win more than Manchester did, and Onana is clearly Manchester’s ‘Man of the Match’, although they probably won’t admit it. Leaving Portman Road for the railway station I think back to the first time I ever saw Town play Manchester United, in December 1971. That game ended in a draw too, a goalless one, and Best, Law and Charlton were all rubbish.

Ipswich Town 1 Leicester City 1

November 3, 2024 / 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 11^th 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 2 Huddersfield Town 0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Further reading: The man who hated football by Will Buckley

Word of the week: Ambivalent

Ipswich Town 1 Middlesbrough 1

April 14, 2024April 16, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Today, for the first time in six years, Ipswich Town will play Middlesbrough at Portman Road. It’s bright, sunny and warm and the pale blue sky is wreathed in thin, high cloud. As I walk to the railway station a woman in an open-top car motors past me, the Rolling Stones’ (Can’t get me no) Satisfaction playing on her car radio. Momentarily, I feel like I’m in a film from the swinging Sixties, but happily Julie Christie never had tattoos like the woman driving the car. I realise I’m not in Billy Liar or Blow Up, I’m in Essex. The train for Ipswich departs one minute later than advertised. There were a goodly number of Ipswich Town fans on the station platform when I arrived there and even a couple of Middlesbrough ones, but now In the seat in front of me sits a pouty girl with pre-Raphaelite hair. When I hear her speak, she’s American, from the east coast I reckon, so more Patti Smith than Lizzie Siddal. In the seats behind me a father and his young son natter about which stations the trains to Norwich stop at. As the train descends Wherstead Hill I see a Polar bear; I know Middlesbrough is way up North, but that’s ridiculous.

Ipswich looks good in the sunshine and in the garden of the Station Hotel our visitors from Middlebrough must be wondering what the big yellow, sparkly thing up in the sky is. The Middlesbrough team pass over the river in a shiny, six-wheeled, grey metal box. In Portman Road I pause to buy a programme (£3.50) and an ice cream, but as ever fail to ask for the ice cream. Today, after last seeing Town play back in February, against West Bromwich Albion, Mick is returning from injury (a foot operation) , but he’s not fully fit and cannot manage the walk from ’the Arb’ so is being dropped off near Portman Road, and our pre-match toast will take place in the Fanzone. I arrive some time before Mick, and having stood in an impressively fast moving queue for a pint of massively over-priced Greene King East Coast IPA (£5.95!), I talk to ever-present Phil who never misses a game, who is hanging about in the beer tent. A huge cheer goes up as Blackburn Rovers score against Leeds United. Phil and I talk of pre-season, of matches to go to next weekend, the sale of miniature versions of the statues of Sir Alf, Sir Bobby and Sir Kevin in the club shop, clubs to visit if staying in Hunstanton (King’s Lynn Town, Heacham and Swaffham Town), and how, should Ipswich get promoted, the victory parade ought to involve an open-top bus ride to the Port Authority building and then a boat trip down the River Orwell and back to the old Tolly Cobbold Brewery accompanied by a flotilla of small craft, packed to the gunnels with Town fans. Thanks to Athletic Bilbao for the idea, although of course they sailed down the estuary of Bilbao when they recently won the Copa del Rey, not the estuary of the Orwell.

Mick arrives about 2:15 and we join the still fast-moving queue for more over-priced, pasteurised beer, although the club must be congratulated on how efficiently it is dispensed. Leeds United lose. Beers in paper cups in hands we sit at a Yogi Bear style picnic table to catch up on the past two months. Time passes and people are leaving to get to their seats even as we sit down, and by and by we are the only people left sat here and it’s not even ten to three yet; we don’t usually leave ‘the Arb’ until gone twenty to three. A woman steward seems very keen to see us leave, telling us she doesn’t want us to miss kick-off; I hate being made to hurry up over meals and drinks, it wouldn’t happen in France. We should be allowed to miss kick-off if we want to, particularly with beer at £5.95 a pint.

Having bade Mick farewell, I make for the Sir Alf Ramsey stand via Constantine Road, past the offices of Ipswich Buses, proudly owned like our football ground by the people of Ipswich, and along Russell Road to turnstile 62. My appearance on the bottom tier of the stand coincides with that of the teams on the pitch and I exchange cheery hellos with Pat from Clacton, Fiona and the man from Stowmarket (Paul), who jokes that my just-completed team talk was clearly very serious this week. Ever-present Phil who never misses a game is here too with his son Elwood, but I knew that I already. Murphy announces the teams and at least Phil and I bawl out the Town players’ surnames as if this was the Stade Felix Boleart or Le Roazhon Park, before we all join in with a stirring rendition of ’Hey Jude’, which is only just fading away as Ipswich get first go with the ball, sending it towards me and my fellow ultras. Town are of course in blue and white, whilst the ‘Boro are in their signature kit of all red, although the white bit across their chests, synonymous with the shirts worn by likes of Platt, Cuff, Craggs, Brine, Spraggon, Boam and Foggon in 1974, is sadly reduced to a couple of tram lines either side of the name of a betting company.

Portman Road is noisy. “Blue and White Army” gives way to “We’ve got super Keiran McKenna” and they’re even clapping rhythmically or rattling their jewellery in the West Stand. Leeds lost, Leicester lost, this is the chance to worry about getting clear at the top of the table instead of just enjoying the game. Six minutes on, Town win a corner and Conor Chaplin smacks the ball over the cross bar from inside the six-yard box as he darts to the near post. “Come On Boro, Come On Boro” shout the Teessiders in the Cobbold stand, fearful of conceding an early goal, and possibly of the bright sunshine too.

Three minutes more and Jeremy Sarmiento shoots straight at Seny Dieng the ‘Boro goalkeeper. Pat from Clacton tells us that a week today she’ll be flying to America, but in the excitement I forget to tell her to give Donald Trump a good kick if she sees him. Back on the pitch I notice that Middlesbrough’s number twenty-seven is called Engel and I ponder on how, except in an episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, I can’t ever recall a player called Marx, or Engels come to that. “Alley, alley, alley- O” sing the Sir Bobby Robson standers, a bit like the schoolchildren in the 1961 film adaptation of Shelagh Delaney’s a Taste of Honey, starring Rita Tushingham and Dora Bryan.

“Oh when the Town go marching in, Oh when the Town go marching in” is next in the sequence of football family favourites from the Sir Bobby Robson stand, and behind me the bloke sat there decries the apparent unwillingness of Omari Hutchinson to run at the full-back, “He’s got the ability to fuckin’ do’ im”. Ali Al-Hamadi is barged over when in full flight and from somewhere off behind me and to my left a voice calls out “That’s a foul ref, you’re fuckin’ shit”. The tension is palpable, but Town are on top and surely, it’s just a matter of time before we start scoring.

Twenty minutes have gone forever into history and Vaclav Hladky’s clearance doesn’t go as far as it might, the ball is played out to the right and crossed back in and a Middlesbrough head rises above all others to send the ball into the far side of the goal and Town are trailing one-nil. We weren’t expecting that, but then again. So, running away clear at the top of the table isn’t going to be as easy as first hoped, or as it seemed an hour ago as we celebrated Leeds losing at home to Blackburn. On the touchline, the managers are trying hard to be inscrutable in black and grey shirts and slacks.

The goal is a fillip for Middlesbrough who share more of the game for a while, but then Leif Davis is free down the left and pulls the ball back, Omari Hutchinson shoots but the ball looks down on the cross bar as it sails above it. Town win a corner as a low cross is blocked by what the linesman says was a shoulder, but what looked to those around me like a whole outstretched arm. But from the corner kick a kind of justice is done. At the far post Massimo Luongo appears from the knot of players of both teams to welly the ball at the cross bar from close range; the ball hits the cross bar for a second time as it bounces back up from the goal line and then finally drops and gives itself up to the goal side of the line, and Town are no longer losing. How can Town not now go on to win? Although It is possibly the first time I have ever seen one shot hit the cross bar twice.

Town’s second goal is soon on the way as Jeremy Sarmiento is put through to steer his shot beyond Dieng, only for it too hit the post and contrarily deflect away from the goal when bouncing the opposite way would have been a far more popular decision by the inanimate, plastic coated leather sphere. “Ipswich Town, Ipswich Town FC, they’re by far the greatest team the World has ever seen” we sing, telling the ball in no uncertain terms that its behaviour doesn’t bother us.

The last five minutes of the half arrive and Massimo Luongo places a shot into the arms of Dieng before Conor Chaplin floats a speculative forty-yard attempt wide and the Sir Bobby Robson standers get all festive with a rendition of “Hark now hear, the Ipswich sing, the Norwich ran away” Then, just to remind us that they’re still here Middlesbrough send a couple of shots wide and earn a corner before the half is extended by two minutes and referee Mr Allison turns down another Town penalty appeal as Conor Chaplin falls beneath an enthusiastic challenge. I thought the Middlesbrough player got the ball, but Ray will soon tell me that he thought the player went through Chaplin to get to it.

With the half-time whistle, I talk to the man from Stowmarket as there is no one sat between us again, despite the match being sold out, and then go to talk with Ray and his grandson Harrison. Harrison and I bump fists and Ray and I talk of the National Health Service and that penalty controversy. At seven minutes past four the football resumes and after just four minutes Massimo Luongo is the first player to see Mr Allison’s yellow card up close after he tugs on the shoulder of some bloke or other who’s playing for Middlesbrough.

The second half is still young as Omari Hutchinson goes on a magnificent run to within what looks like a few metres of the ‘Boro goal, only to win just a corner. Pat form Clacton gets out her “Altogether now” ITFC badge and I question whether it has anything to do with the Beatles’ song of the same name on the Yellow Submarine album. I don’t think it does. Back on the pitch, and Middlesbrough even up the bookings as number sixteen hauls down Jeremy Sarmiento, which was a bit of a waste of time because Jeremy is substituted for Nathan Broadhead two minutes later in the usual change, which today only also sees Keiffer Moore replace Ali Al-Hamidi. “Na-na, na-na, na-na, na-na, na, na, now, Keiffer, Keiffer Moore, Keiffer Moore, Keiffer Keiffer Moore” sing the Sir Bobby standers by way of celebration, to the tune of KC and the Sunshine Band’s 1973 hit single ‘Give It Up’. The final twenty minutes are approaching, and Pat from Clacton is delving into her supply of lucky charms and pulls out a blue Dodo from Mauritius. The efficacy of the lucky Dodo has not yet been established, but today is its big chance to promote the worth of Dodos everywhere, if it isn’t too late.

Murphy the stadium announcer tells us that we are 28,771 today, with 1,324 from Teesside and then thanks us in the usual pre-programmed way “for our continued support”. Really Murph, it was nothing, you’re welcome. “Sing your hearts out for the lads” continue the Sir Bobby standers having heard that confirmation of just how many of us there could be singing, and then the ground goes quiet before the noise returns with some Oles. Twenty minutes of normal time remain, and possession of the ball is lost forcing Vaclav Hladky into making a save. “Blue and White Army! Blue and White Army!”. I can feel the tension coming up at me through the concrete of the stand.

“Attack him!” shouts the bloke behind me, still frustrated that Omari Hutchinson isn’t running at the full-back as much as he’d like. This feels like a play-off match, which can’t be good. Fourteen minutes left and Hutchinson shoots over the cross bar again, but also earns a corner again, and then another. Jack Taylor replaces Massimo Luongo who receives rich applause. Eleven minutes left and Nathan Broadhead shoots wide. Ten minutes left and Luke Woolfenden is caught out near the half-way line resulting eventually in a shot which Hladky saves superbly, diving low to his left to tip the ball away, and then a minute later he makes an even better save, hurling himself to his right to tip a powerful header over the cross bar.

On the cusp of full-time Conor Chaplin is replaced by Lewis Travis and Axel Tuanzebe by Dom Ball. There aren’t many people leaving the stadium like there would have been at one time; if this Town team has achieved one thing already this season it is that it has cured a lot of people of leaving before the end. Today however, proves not to be one of those days when the winning goal is the punch line, and five minutes of added on time merely ends with Mr Allison’s final whistle a signal for a muted celebration of another point. We can only hope for, not expect satisfaction, although I don’t think the Rolling Stones mentioned that in thier song.

Ipswich Town 0 Watford 0

April 11, 2024April 11, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

As the football season begins to draw to its close, I sometimes start to look ahead and see what few fixtures are left, conscious that all of this will soon be over and when it returns summer will be almost gone too. Since last weekend I have therefore occasionally thought of Watford,

As far as I can remember, I have only ever known three Watford FC supporters. The first one I knew for just a fortnight back in 1982, when I worked for the Department of Health and Social Security and was sent on a course to distant Stockton-On -Tees. He was what might commonly be called a bit of a ‘Jack the lad’ and he had driven up north in a small saloon car with go faster stripes and a tinted windscreen, which might even have had his name printed on a sun strip across the top. He was the sort of bloke who wore white socks and loafers and had a small moustache. I worked with and occasionally played five a-side football with the other two, both of whom I would describe as suburban; they both had neat hair and doubtless still have. That’s how I think of Watford, suburban.

I first saw Ipswich play Watford in a League Cup quarter final tie in January of 1982. It was the first time the two clubs had met since Boxing Day 1956, and a factor in this is that it had taken Watford from 1920 until 1969 to even get into the Second Division. The Observer’s book of Association Football describes how in 1969 Watford were promoted as Champions and simultaneously earned a reputation as a Cup team, by drawing at Old Trafford and then the following season beating Bolton, Stoke and Liverpool. “But…” says the pocket-sized book “…second division life was hard”, which I think is a veiled reference to two seasons in the bottom five followed by relegation in 1972. But that was over fifty years ago and a club that once fielded players called Roy Sinclair, Ray Lugg and Barry Endean is now home to Edo Kayembe, Mileta Rjovic and and Vakoun Bayo.

When I talk of Watford to my wife Paulene she recalls what, judging by the pained expression on her face, was one of the worst nights of her life, when in about 1977 she was taken to a nightclub called Bailey’s. It was full of Stag and Hen parties she recalls, and the headline act for the night was ‘comedian’ and children’s TV presenter (Runaround) Mike Reid, who picked on her because she wasn’t laughing. She’s not been laughing ever since, except when I fell in the garden pond a few summers ago.

It’s now a cool, drafty, grey evening. After fulfilling my filial duty and visiting my surviving aged parent, I am now as ever in ‘the Arb’, stood amongst a knot of people at the bar , some of whom seem to be trying to form a queue. When did people start queueing at bars in pubs? As I say to the bloke next to me “It’s a free for all”, policed only by the bartender’s uncanny and yet unerring ability to know who’s next. Eventually, with a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.78 with Camra discount) in hand, I repair to the beer garden and wait for a bowl of “Very French, French Fries” for which, now looking back, I think was ludicrously overcharged, because I paid about £13.00 for the chips and the beer. Perhaps it’s Karma for jumping the imaginary queue.

I sit and flick through the match programme (£3.50) that I bought earlier. I only paid £3.10 for the programme today because I had an impressive 40 pence worth of loyalty points amassed from previous purchases from the club shop, which I am now beginning to think of as being a bit like the Co-op. After drinking my pint and eating my chips I buy a second pint and listen to the conversation on the next table, where three old blokes denigrate the oeuvre of Taylor Swift, questioning whether her work will in fifty years’ time compare to that of The Eagles, Paul Simon and Elton John, all of whom are heard travelling through time via the speakers above our heads.

By and by I am the only person left in the garden who is going to the match, and so in order not to miss kick off I leave too. Portman Road and the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand are busy with queues for the turnstiles and by the time I reach my seat the teams are already on the pitch and Murphy the stadium announcer is beginning to announce the teams as I say good evening to Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), and check on the presence of ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood. Murphy completes his hat-trick by synchronising for the third match in succession his reading out of the Town team with their names appearing on the scoreboard, allowing at least Phil and myself to behave like Frenchmen and bawl out their surnames as he announces them.

Predictably, kick-off soon follows a stirring rendition of Hey Jude and Town, in traditional blue and white, get first go with the ball, sending it hopefully towards the goal just in front of me and my fellow ultras. Watford meanwhile are in yellow shirts and black shorts, although their shirts appear to have been daubed with black paint across the front or dragged across a tray of soot. It’s one of those kits that exposes the folly of having a new kit every season because after not very long the good people of Puma, Hummel, Juma and Kelme clearly ran out of ideas and possibly motivation; and who wouldn’t, a polyester shirt is after all just a polyester shirt.

“Blue Army, Blue Army” chant the militaristic Sir Bobby Robson standers and I am struck by how few Watford supporters are here given that it’s only 150 kilometres away. “Wo-oh…” sing the Watfordians that are here, followed by something unintelligible before chanting what sounds like “Oh when the horns go marching in” . Above us the sky turns bluey grey as darkness descends. In front of us I notice the Watford goalkeeper has the name Bachmann across his shoulders and I wonder if in fifty-years’ time the live performances of Taylor Swift will be remembered like those of Bachman Turner Overdrive.

Ten minutes pass and Keiffer Moore heads a Kayden Jackson cross disappointingly high and wide. AT the far end of the ground “Ole, Ole, Ole” is the refrain after the bit that goes “We support the Ipswich, and that’s the way we like it…”. I don’t know the tune but don’t think it’s by Taylor Swift. Another five minutes pass and after the evening’s first particularly good outbreak of passing Town sadly earn no more than a throw in. From the top tier of the Cobbold Stand it sounds like the Watford fans are singing “Alternate Steve, Alternate Steve” which makes very little sense but sounds like a plausible nickname for that Watford fan I met in Stockton On Tees in 1982. My reverie is broken by a Nathan Broadhead shot which Bachmann must dive on to deny us the pleasure of a goal.

Nearly twenty minutes pass and Watford win the game’s first corner, but thereafter it is Town who begin to dominate. Omari Hutchinson makes a fabulous jinking run in to the penalty area before squaring the ball to a Watford defender and Kayden Jackson darts down the wing, crosses the ball and Keiffer Moore imperiously side foots it into an empty space on the un-netted side of Bachmann’s left goal post. “We forgot that you were ear” sing the Watford fans puzzlingly, but to the tune of Cwm Rhondda, which is nice if you’re Welsh. Watford’s number four Wesley Hoedt then kicks his own goalkeeper and referee Mr Barrot (like Carrot or Parrot but with a ‘B’) gives them a free-kick. I count eleven seagulls stood on the girder above the Sir Bobby Robson stand.

There are only ten minutes until half-time now and Nathan Broadhead turns neatly, glides towards goal and shoots, at Bachmann, but the way he moved across the turf was a beautiful sight. A minute later Broadhead shoots again. This time, his shot goes beyond a diving Bachmann and I begin to rise from my seat to celebrate the inevitable goal, but for a moment the laws of physics are seemingly suspended and the angle of incidence no longer equals the angle of reflection as the shot hits the inside of the goal post, but then curls out across the face of the goal instead of deflecting into the net as science and natural justice insists it should have.

The last five minutes of the half witness Sam Morsy shooting at Bachman and then a Harry Clarke cross is headed powerfully down into the net by Keiffer Moore but Bachmann’s reactions go into overdrive and he pushes the ball away hurriedly for a corner before ball and net can be united. Two minutes of added on time follow repeated chants of “Come On You Blues “ from me and ever-present Phil before the corner as like the chorus in a Greek play Pat from Clacton repeats her mantra of “two of us singing, there’s only two of use singing”. Drums beat in the far end of the Cobbold Stand and I’m struck by how smart Mr Barrot and his assistants look in their orange shirts with black shorts; if I were a Watford player I think I might see if he’d be willing to swap at the end of the game.

With the half-time break I chat to the man from Stowmarket before speaking briefly with Dave the steward, Ray, and his grandson Harrison. At nine minutes to nine the game resumes with prophetic chants of “Come on Watford, Come on Watford, Come on Watford” , and they do as they begin to dominate possession and run around like someone’s cracked open the anti-depressants and they’ve all been slipped a few ‘bennies’ with the half-time tea. On the hour almost, and Vaclav Hladky makes his first save of the night as a fierce snap shot hits him in the chest and goes off for a corner, and then they get another.

It feels like we’ve just been waiting for a respectable amount of time to elapse before making substitutions and so it proves as in the sixty-third minute Luongo, Chaplin and Sarmiento move in at the expense of Taylor, Jackson and Broadhead. “Jeremy Sarmiento, he’s magic you know” sing the Sir Bobby standers to a tune I don’t know, but which could be by Taylor Swift.

Twenty minutes remain of normal time remain. “Over and in” says Pat from Clacton quietly coaching the team before rooting through her purse for a lucky charm that will work some magic. She picks out Ganesh with his elephant head and four arms, who could be useful at corners, although he’d probably like to see a few Hindus in the team before he promises too much. There are currently no seagulls on the roof of the Sir Bobby Robson stand. Pat’s prospects of winning the ‘predict the score’ draw on the Clacton supporters bus seems slim, she’s drawn two-all. But as Fiona says, with Ipswich this season you never know. Murphy announces the attendance as being 28,589, but mysteriously doesn’t tell us how many are from Watford as if perhaps we wouldn’t believe him. He nevertheless thanks us for our ”continued support”, although I’m getting bored with him saying that every single week and think he should just tell us how really lovely it is to see us all again.

The final twenty minutes don’t see Town really come close to scoring, despite Ganesh, and Watford win a couple of corners as I wonder about Mr Q, which is the sponsor’s name on the front of the Watford shirts. I think of Mr Plow (Plough in English), in series four of The Simpsons and Mr Potato Head in Toy Story, but hope Mr Q is a second hand car dealer or industrial cleaner somewhere on a Watford industrial estate; he sounds like one. Then George Edmundson is kicked on the ankle and has to be replaced by Luke Woolfenden and our chances of bringing on a late attacking substitute who would be bound to score are dashed. Despite two corners, chants of “Blue and White Army, Blue and White Army” , and four minutes of added time Town fail to score at home for just the second time this season and for the first time in 2024. But just to remind us how lucky we really are a freakish punt at goal from the half way line has to be batted away by a desperately back-peddling Vaclav Hladky in the dying seconds. There were days when that would have gone in.

Just like when we played Grimsby on an April night in 1992 on the way to winning the Second Division Championship, the game has finished goalless. It’s not what we wanted, but at least it’ll stop me thinking about Watford.