coventry city

Blackpool 1 Ipswich Town 4

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

For someone who had already given up travelling home and away every week to watch my team, one of the good things about the current pandemic and so-called ‘elite’ football being played behind closed-doors is that when your team plays away from home, you simply cannot go, so there is no internal debate to be had about whether or not you should travel.  Equally, there is no longer that same feeling of regret or self-doubt come Saturday afternoon that you are possibly missing out on something when the decision has irrevocably been made not to go away.  Today however, is not such a day, there is no chance that I would have travelled to Blackpool because it’s a long way away and it’s a dump. I have been to Blackpool twice before, once in 1989 with a girlfriend, whilst somewhat bizarrely holidaying on the Wirral and staying in a hotel that looked like the Munster’s house.  That day the sun shone and we took the tram along the front, no football was involved.  Then, eighteen and half years later in January 2008 I was one of a car load of four Town fans who, along with several others witnessed a one all draw at Bloomfield Road.  That game has faded from memory, but the one thing I do recall is a massive, somewhat dilapidated public lavatory near the sea front; this is not a metaphor for Blackpool itself, although it could well be because I found it to be a seedy, ugly town, but the public toilet was actually quite impressive.  To be fair to Blackpool it does have a decent wrought-iron lattice tower (158 metres tall), but once you’ve been to Paris (the Eiffel Tower is 300metres tall), it is easily confused with numerous phone masts.

 In my experience the best thing about Blackpool is the football team’s tangerine shirt, something that first came to my notice in 1971 in the form of ten painted, moulded, plastic footballers on circular bases which I saw when I attended a Subbuteo club at school.  The thought of Blackpool’s tangerine shirts still thrills me a little today as over lunch I look forward to Ipswich Town’s encounter with the collection of living, breathing footballers who currently wear them for work. It’s a cold day of showers and occasional sunshine which I have so far spent indoors, save for a brief excursion to my garage to check its leaking roof and the positioning of five plastic buckets.   My wife Paulene and I eat our lunch of heated-up homemade curry, left over from last night’s dinner, and I enjoy a pre-match ‘pint’ (500 ml) of Fuller’s Bengal Lancer (£13.95 for a case of eight bottles direct from Fuller’s brewery with free postage on orders over £50), which coincidentally, given its name, goes down very well with curry.  

It feels grey and a little chilly in the spare bedroom today and pining for human contact I choose to listen to the match on the wireless in the living room, where I will be in the company of Paulene.  With Paulene watching the Giro d’Italia cycle race on the telly I have to find an earphone because she is strangely uninterested in hearing the fortunes of the Super Blues.  It’s easier to use an earphone with a smaller more portable radio and I therefore eschew the Bush TR82 today in favour of the Sony ICF-S10 portable radio.  After an initial unfortunate brush with Radio Essex, I delicately adjust the dial just in time to catch the hand-over from the Radio Suffolk studio in St Matthews Street, Ipswich to Brenner Woolley at Bloomfield Road, Blackpool.  Today Brenner is in the company of former Ipswich Town starlet Neil Rimmer who, whilst not exactly a Town legend or candidate for our Hall of Fame scored three times in twenty-two appearances for Town between 1985 and 1988 before he went onto play ten times as many matches for Wigan Athletic.  According to Wikipedia Neil is currently manager of Ashton Town.  Neil has a warm, almost mellifluous voice, perfect for radio, even if his mild scouse accent occasionally makes me think of Keith Chegwin, but that could just be me desperately trying to find humour in every situation.

Brenner helpfully tells me that Town are all in blue today and I strike up a colourful mental picture of our blue, Blackpool’s tangerine and the green of the pitch against banks of empty orange seats under a no doubt grey sky.  Brenner begins his commentary, relaying that it is former Town employee Grant Ward who “gets the ball rolling” before he treats us to some decent footballese, describing Blackpool as getting to the edge of the Town area “early doors”.  “Impressive stuff from the Radio Suffolk man.” he might say if he was commentating on his own commentary.  According to Brenner it’s a sunny afternoon in Blackpool, so I adjust the colour and brightness in my mental picture; and it’s very blowy, either that or one of Brenner or Neil is about to tap the microphone and launch into a kind of Norman Collier impression – “testing – testing, 1-2-3”.  Brenner will later say that he expects we can hear the wind around the microphone; he’s not wrong.

Unlike Mantovani or most of the musical content on Radio Suffolk, the early minutes of the game are not easy listening.  “Town have yet to have the ball on the ground in the Blackpool half” says Brenner. ”We’ve got to be precise with our passing” adds Neil offering a solution to the problem and simultaneously endearing himself to Town fans with his use of the first person plural.   “I think it’s all about results” says Neil explaining to Brenner what will make Town fans happy or annoyed, although Mick McCarthy might have cause to disagree, but thankfully he’s not with Neil and Brenner this afternoon.

Twelve minutes pass. “Maxwell puts his right foot right through it” says Brenner using an expression he tends to use once in every match to describe a goal kick.  Brenner carries on with a bit of filler as the action subsides, “Nsiala back in his native north-west” he says, displaying a woeful knowledge of the geography of both England and the Democratic Republic of Congo; Toto was born in Kinshasa which is in the West, not the northwest of the DRC.   Although Kinshasa was in Zaire when Toto was born, it has never physically moved and it seems unlikely that it’s ever been in Lancashire. 

Barely have I recovered from the thought of LS Lowry’s paintings of the cotton mills of Kinshasa and its Hot Pot and Barm Cake restaurants, than “Chambers shoots – fabulous goal!” are the welcome words arriving in my earpiece through the ether.  Town are a goal up courtesy of a shot that “…just about took the net away”.  Paulene missed my celebration of the goal because she has nipped to the toilet, but I tell her about it when she gets back; she feigns interest perhaps because her own team Portsmouth are also winning.

The first half is half over and Brenner tells us that it’s so far so good. Ninety seconds later “Nsiala goes Route One for Ipswich” and Brenner revives memories of BBC tv’s fabulous Quiz Ball, a programme which was last aired in 1972.  I think to myself how I’d like to see Quiz Ball revived; Richard Osman could host it in place of David Vine, they practically wear the same glasses.   It sounds as if the goal has settled Town, although occasionally they continue to give the ball away in midfield; more than once Huws is the culprit but the defence recover well.  “Gabriel back to Marvin Ekpiteta” says Brenner using the best two surnames in the Blackpool team, adding that Ekpiteta has “…come up through the pyramid”, which makes him sound like he could have been an extra in The Mummy.   A move breaks down and “Again Town starting from square one” says Brenner omitting to tell us that he’s now using the system created for the very first BBC radio commentary for a match (Arsenal v Sheffield Wednesday in Division One on 22nd January 1927) whereby the pitch was divided up into eight squares and the commentator Henry Blythe Thornhill Wakelam described the game whilst a co-commentator said which square the ball was in; a diagram showing the football pitch divided up into squares was printed in that week’s Radio Times.

At about 3.35 Gwion Edwards runs into the Blackpool penalty area “He shoots – he scores” says Brenner and Town lead 2-0.  “Again, I think it’s deserved” says Neil displaying a level of enthusiasm and positivity towards Town not often heard. “Yeah clinical from Ipswich Town” replies Brenner putting the emphasis on the word ‘Clinical’ in a way that makes him sound either sarcastic or surprised.

Three minutes later Hawkins “scoops” a chance over the cross bar but Brenner kindly adds that it was “…not quite put on a plate for him”.  Neil’s audible smiles are having an effect on  Brenner who reminds listeners that Neil Rimmer is with him today and goes on to refer to Neil as “…so far a lucky charm”, which sadly implies that the 2-0 score line is nothing to do with Town playing well, but all down to Neil, and that that luck may change.  Other forces are at work it seems and as a Blackpool attack is broken up with a headed clearance from Town’s goalkeeper, Brenner announces “Holy’s forehead takes charge”.  Equally weirdly Brenner praises the teamwork of Town saying that when Miles Kenlock has been under pressure at left-back “… a Huws, an Edwards or a Wilson has helped out.” raising questions about just how many players with these surnames we have at the club and why they are all playing at the same time.

Half-time is almost here but there is enough time for Teddy Bishop to win the ball and then “…he shoots – and oh, great goal!”.  “Get this for a scoreline” say Brenner; Town lead 3-0 and it’s time for a cup of tea, although not before Brenner asks Neil for his assessment of the half and Neil says “I was very impressed” before adding “Goals change games” because clichés and football are impossible to separate.

Unplugging myself from the radio I head for the kitchen but forego a half-time snack today because I had a slice of homemade carrot cake after lunch and still feel quite full.  Making a case for a return to the yellow and blue away kit of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s I take my tea in a yellow and blue Ipswich Town mug, which also features the old club crest and refers to the Premier League, dating it to the 1992 to 1995 period.

The second-half coverage opens with Neil again endearing himself to Town fans by telling us that “Teams like this shouldn’t cause us any problems”.  Brenner and Neil reminisce about Neil’s playing days at Ipswich and we learn that the highlight of his time with Town was his two-goals against Manchester City.  Brenner feels the need to explain to ‘younger listeners’ that  back then Town would often beat Manchester City, but omits to tell them that everyone did.

Blackpool win a corner. “They need a goal soon if they are going to get anything out of this game” say Brenner, unnecessarily seeing the game from the opposition’s point of view.  The 57th minute arrives and Kayden Jackson replaces Oliver Hawkins.  An hour has been played.  “Surely a chance, and it is” and Blackpool score through Gary Madine. That’s “really disappointing” says Neil perfectly catching the zeitgeist back in Suffolk.  “Have Town been guilty of sitting back?” probes Brenner turning the knife. “Yeah” says Neil, really disappointed.

There are twenty-five minutes left. “Anything could happen” Brenner tells us almost as if expecting Blackpool to score again.  It seems as if a substitution is about to be made and we learn that on-loan Keanan Bennetts is possibly coming on, “Paul Lambert certainly has his arm around somebody on the far side” adds Brenner injecting a hint of scandal into proceedings. Bennetts replaces Teddy Bishop, but as good as it is for Bennetts to get a ‘run out’ for the first team , I am slightly disappointed that Paul Lambert is not combining his Saturday afternoon job with some sort of romantic tryst.

“Surely not a penalty there” says Brenner suddenly. “Well played referee” he continues having evidently realised that he needs to want Town to win.  In the same vein Brenner begins to speak more quickly and with an air of excited anticipation “Bennetts cuts inside, shoots” then “Wide” in a flattened, deeper tone.  Brenner and Neil are conveying the feeling that Town are responding to Blackpool having scored, Paul Lambert is clapping his hands on the far side, presumably as an act of encouragement for his team and not because he’s cold. Brenner has not said what Paul is wearing today so we are not to know if he might be cold or not.

There are ten minutes left.  Brenner brings good news. “Edwards in behind Gabriel, is he going to make it four? He does”.  The game is won for Ipswich, but perversely Brenner’s thoughts are with the opposition and he finds it necessary to share his supposition that Blackpool manager Neil Critchley will “…be happy with the attitude”.  I’m not sure anyone back in Suffolk cares.

It’s ten to five and I realise I never drank my half-time tea.  I down the still lukewarm beverage and by the time I’ve done that referee Chris Sarginson, whose name I don’t recall Brenner having mentioned, has blown his whistle for the last time this afternoon.   The players, we are told, begin to “pat hands” and in my mind’s eye I see Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in tangerine shirts doing their “patty cake” routine in the “Road to” movies. Road to Blackpool would be a worthy addition to the series. After almost two hours of Radio Suffolk I can’t bear to listen to whatever follows the commentary and for me the broadcast ends with Brenner telling us that Neil will be “hanging around to take your calls”; my mind’s eye flits from musical comedy to a vision of Neil, hands in pockets loitering outside a dimly lit seafront phone box.

Four-one wins away from home are not common occurrences for any team, in the 1980-81 season when we were the best team on the planet we scored four goals away from home twice, at Coventry City and at St Etienne, so today’s result is one to treasure. Results like this however do make me want to travel away again and they highlight the sadness of football that we can’t be a part of.   But I refuse to let it bother me and I am now already looking forward to next Saturday and the reunion of Brenner with Mick Mills after what seems like a geological age without a home game. Inspired by the mention of St Etienne and Blackpool Tower I shall be wearing my Allez les Bleus t-shirt.

Ipswich Town 0 Coventry City 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Last night I went to a ‘gig’ in a very small music venue in Chelmsford called the Hot Box.  My friend Pete, who has never really got over being eighteen, invited me to see a ‘Psyche Rock’ band from Glasgow called Helicon, he thought I’d like them because some of their songs feature a sitar and I’m a sucker for a sitar, so he thought right.  It was when sitting in the bar chatting and listening to the trains rumble overhead (Hot Box is inside two railway viaduct arches) that we couldn’t help but notice all the reproductions of classic album covers of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s that plaster the walls, and Pete spotted that for the Only Ones’ eponymous album released in 1978, my favourite year. Today I have realised how the lyrics to the Only Ones’ Another Girl, Another Planet describe my relationship with Ipswich Town “You get under my skin, I don’t find it irritating”.

Today the sky is blue with a hint of wispy cloud.  I stepped out of my back door a bit earlier and it felt flippin’ freezing; so, it is cloaked in a thick woolly jumper, overcoat and muffler that I set off for the railway station having flagrantly ignored the threat of COVID-19 and kissed my wife goodbye. The train arrives on time and the twelve minute walk has left me hot and a bit sweaty; life is not always what you expect. Naturally, the sun is shining in Ipswich and behind the Station Hotel in its beer garden the scarves and shirts of Coventry City fans mimic the colour of the sky; surreally the Eton Boating Song drifts up over the pub car park and the murky waters of the River Orwell, I half expect to see Boris Johnson and his cronies burning £50 notes in front of the rough sleepers who doss down at the front of the railway station.

In Portman Road the six-wheel, slate grey Coventry City team bus arrives at the same time as me, but the bus reverses into Portman Road, turns round and is re-directed to the Constantine Road entrance. Unlike the coach driver I know exactly where I’m going and walk on through, past a man who appears to have a metal bollard stuck up his anus, and the usual pre-match panorama of people munching low-grade meat product between slabs of low grade bread product.  The flags on the Cobbold Stand fly strongly in the breeze and I walk on towards St Matthews Street and St Jude’s Tavern where Mick is already a good way through a pint of Iceni Brewery Partridge Walk (£2.50).  I buy a pint of the same and once sat down we discuss the end of my phased return to work after illness, our weight , today’s team selection and, after Mick reveals how he can’t stand people going on and on about their dogs, dogs. Neither of us owns a dog but I used to have two Lurchers called Alfie and Larry, until they were put down.  I drink another pint of Partridge Walk whilst Mick sinks a Jamieson’s whisky and with fifteen minutes or so until kick-off we depart with the licensee wishing us luck as we don our coats.

  • Larry
  • Alfie

Turnstile 5 is my portal into another world today and as usual I smile and thank the operator for letting me through. With bladders drained and hands washed Mick and I take our seats, stepping over them from the row behind so as not to inconvenience Pat from Clacton who is already ensconced at the end of the row.  Of course ever-present Phil who never misses a game is here too, along with his young son Elwood and there’s a welcome return of the old dears (Doug and Sheila) who used to sit behind me but now sit in front of me; the only absentee is once again the man with the Brylcreemed hair; that’s two games on the trot he’s not been here, I fear we may have ‘lost’ him and Pat from Clacton says as much.  I won’t miss him, I found his thick hair furrowed with Brylcreem somewhat distracting.

The two teams soon emerge from the shiny, blue, plastic tunnel and Crazee the mascot waves his flag like Liberty leading the people in Eugene Delacroix’s painting. “L’étendard sanglant est levé” I sing to myself, in my head, whilst wishing this game was in Ligue 1 and not League One.  The sky is no longer blue, but grey and cloudy.  The game begins and Ipswich are wearing their customary lovely royal blue shirts and socks with white shorts whilst our guests Coventry are in a somewhat avant garde ensemble of white shirts with a black and white chequered band across the chest, black shorts and white socks; they look as though they are either the 2-Tone Records works’ team or the Metropolitan Police, but it’s quite smart in a un-football-kit-like sort of way. The 2-Tone connection is in fact used to market the kit and in my mind I take things a step further imagining the players on the team bus all in dark suits, pencil ties and pork-pie hats before stepping off the bus in a line like Madness or skanking to The Selecta.  If Ipswich Town was to go for a dress style based on that of a famous, local, popular music artist the players would have to have haircuts like a 1980’s Nik Kershaw, and indeed Frank Yallop did.

Five minutes pass and Town’s Jon Nolan falls theatrically in the penalty area, it’s a blatant dive and I express my disgust with outspread arms and disbelieving expression whilst those around me bay for a penalty.  Town looked okay for a short while, but Coventry are now dominating possession and seem like they have a plan. Up in the Cobbold Stand the Coventry supporters sing Tom Hark (originally a Ska song by Elias and his Zig-Zag Ji-flutes, but not on 2-Tone) and something about ‘going up’, which my ears won’t let me decipher.  The away following today is impressive, even if their annunciation is poor; we will later learn that there are 1,740 of them and in forty-nine years of coming to Portman Road I have never seen so many Coventry City supporters, but then this is the first time in forty-nine years that a Coventry team has come to Portman Road that is at the top of or even anywhere near the top of a league.  These people have been very patient, their team having previously only ever been models of mediocrity, although most Town fans would kill for a bit of mediocrity right now.

As seagulls soar overhead and perch on the cross girder of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand roof, Coventry win the game’s first corner, but the ball is sent directly behind the goal line. The match looks like being one of attrition, but then Coventry score; the uninspiringly named Matt Godden turning very cleverly and shooting inside the far post. No one saw that coming, least of all Luke Chambers and his chums in the Ipswich back-four. Fifteen minutes have passed. “Super, Super Matt” sing the Coventry fans as if advertising a local launderette, but then clarifying the matter by adding “Super Matty Godden”, all to the tune of Skip to My Lou.

The Sir Bobby Robson stand, who had been in reasonable voice fall quiet and the pall of gloom that had seemingly been blown out to sea after the defeat to Fleetwood on Tuesday returns.  “Fucking dog shit this” opines the roughly spoken gentleman behind me.  “Fuckin’ sums it all up” he continues, as a Town player is out-jumped for the ball, “How was he beaten in the air? He’s not even trying to win the fuckin’ ball”.  Pat from Clacton rolls her eyes at the coarseness of the language whilst owning up to me that she sometimes says “shit”.

On 28 minutes a ball drops over the top of the Coventry defence and Town’s Jon Nolan is on to it with just Coventry’s Slovakian goalkeeper Marko Marosi between him and glory. Nolan opts for abuse as he tamely heads the ball into the goalkeeper’s hands. “We’re gonna win the League” sing the Coventry supporters, sounding a little unsure of the words, having never sung them before this season.   Half an hour has passed and the wonderfully named referee, Trevor Kettle, whistles for a foul on Town’s Teddy Bishop and then gives his yellow card its first airing of the afternoon, brandishing it in the direction of the perpetrator Liam Walsh.  Town win their first corner five minutes later and Luke Woolfenden’s shot is sent wide of the goal.  It’s nearly half-time and seizing their opportunity to deliver ironic humour as Town supporters head for the toilets, the Coventry fans sing “Is this a library?” Time enough remains for Nolan to be through on goal again and send his shot over the cross bar and a few rows behind me some unusually posh sounding people talk to one another very loudly ,as posh people often do, about something completely unrelated to football.

Half -time brings boos for Trevor ‘The Whistle’ Kettle as he leaves the pitch with his two side-kicks in their unpleasant yellowy-green tops and the air is one of despondency.  Mick asks if I thought we should have had a penalty near the beginning when Nolan went down; I tell him I can’t remember the incident. “Well, you were very animated at the time” says Mick, and then I remember and have to explain that actually I was annoyed that Nolan had dived.  I speak with Ray who bemoans the absence of decent full-backs at the club and the fact that once again the goal Town conceded came down the left hand side of the pitch.

At 16:04 the second half begins, but the blokes behind don’t return for a good few minutes; they don’t miss much and we don’t miss them.  As time passes inexorably it becomes apparent that the second half is better than the first from a Town supporting perspective, we have more of the ball anyway, which makes it feel like we’re doing okay.  Godden misses a good opportunity to confirm the win for Coventry, but otherwise his team doesn’t look that much better than ours, just a bit more confident due to a fortunate habit of winning rather than an unfortunate one of losing.  Pat from Clacton tells me that she’s going to Yarmouth next weekend for a week of playing whist, but she’ll be back on the Friday, the day before the Portsmouth game.   She won £28 last year.

An hour of football has passed and as he turns towards goal Town’s Freddie Sears is hacked down by Coventry’s Kyle Macfadzean who is consequently booked by Mr Kettle, who I imagine must have asked “Would you spell that please” as he reached for his pencil and his notebook. With the help of her compact Sony camera and its zoom lens Pat confirms that Ed Sheeran’s is here again today and she snaps him. I tell her that I saw on Twitter that Rick Wakeman is here too, and she gets a really good picture of him in the directors’ box, in which he’s looking right down the camera.   Watch out for the Patarazzi.  Pat’s sister Jill wins the guess the crowd competition on the Clacton supporters’ bus.  “Oh please let them score” entreats Pat as another cross is sent into the Coventry penalty area, but the team is in need of some luck and Pat gets out the masturbating monkey charm who introduced himself at the Fleetwood game; she rubs his head but nothing happens.  I learn that the monkey actually came from Cambodia, not Vietnam as I said before.

Neither Mick nor Pat from Clacton, nor I notice how many minutes of added time there are, so engrossed are we in the match and so strongly are we willing Town to score, but at 16:53 Mr Kettle whistles for the last time and it’s all over bar the booing, of which, thankfully, there isn’t as much as there was on Tuesday.  Pat from Clacton and ever-present Phil and who never misses a game and Elwood make a sharp exit for their respective coach and car but Mick and I stay to applaud the team.  They haven’t all played well, but we don’t doubt that they tried to, who doesn’t want to do their best except nihilists and they probably want to be good at being nihilists.  If we don’t applaud them that can only make them feel worse; we’re Supporters, it’s what we do.  Something tells me the masturbating monkey would say it’s just fate.

Colchester United 2 Coventry City 1

/ martinpbrooks / 2 Comments

After a hard day at work (7 hours 24 minutes) there’s nothing like getting home to your wife, husband  or partner on a winter’s evening to enjoy an aperitif, a good meal and a relaxing evening of engaging conversation.  But tonight I have worked almost eight hours, caught a later train and now find myself on the cold, dark, traffic-dominated concrete forecourt of Colchester railway station leaning into a drizzle filled wind as I head for The Bricklayers Arms as a precursor to a bus ride out to the Weston Community Homes out in the middle of nowhere Stadium and an evening of fourth division football.

In the Bricklayers there are just a handful of drinkers, perhaps because it’s not yet six o’clock.  I buy a pint of Colchester Brewery Number One (£3.50) and settle down at a small table to read a couple more chapters of W Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage; I’ve been reading it for weeks.  A man called Mike and his grand-daughter walk in, he says hello and I reciprocate.  The Bricklayers is under new management and seems brighter and somehow larger than before, I like it but they have been unable to resist having inane words in different fonts painted on the walls –   “Menu, Share, Full Flavour, Experience, Greatness Awaits.”  They forgot “Huh?”, but at least the beer is bit cheaper than it used to be.

 

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

  Someone says it’s quiet because the trains are not running; there’s been ‘a jumper’ at Kelvedon.  The barman, with no one to serve, obsessively wipes down the bar.  There’s a group of four men who seem to be from out of town, well one of them has Scottish accent, and they sit and pore over the menu before discovering that food isn’t served on Tuesdays.  As they leave one of them says “We’re going pizza then are we?”    I return to the bar as the first appreciable numbers of patrons, mostly men going to the match arrive and stand in groups; I have a pint of Colchester Brewery Sweeney Todd (£3.50).  At length I finish another chapter, drain my glass and head for the bus.

It’s still wet outside and the soft lighting inside the buses gently illuminates the dull street; I pay my fare (£2.50 return) and head upstairs to the front of the empty top deck; car brake lights and yellow street lights glow psychedelically  through the misted up, rain spotted front window of the bus.  I eat a Ginster’s pasty that I’d bought earlier (£1.50 from Sainsbury’s); it’s strongly flavoured but the packet tells me that despite being ‘The Nation’s Favourite’ it contains just 14% ‘quality beef’. It doesn’t clarify whether that’s good or poor quality; the two large pieces of gristle I chew on don’t suggest the former.  The bus fills up and a bunch of middle-aged Coventry fans join me, still enjoying the thrill that we got when we were young, riding up at the front.  I ask one about the recent travails of their troubled club, but wish I hadn’t, because he goes on a bit.  I’m interested, but don’t want to write a thesis on it.  I’m not proud of this so don’t admit to my slightly ghoulish desire to see Coventry City, a club who were in the First Division for 34 years, playing in the Fourth Division. It’s morbidly fascinating, like having seen Simon Dee signing on.

 

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The bus lurches, growls and hisses its way through the wet streets to the stadium where everyone politely alights thanking the driver for delivering us safely.  The stadium lights penetrate the gloom, casting angular shadows beyond the spiky stands. It’s only twenty five past seven so I take a wander around the ground to take in the ambience.  I love floodlights. It’s bleak and open out here, even more-so on a wet and windy night like this and people scurry towards the turnstiles appearing and disappearing between the shadows.  Across the A12 the jaundiced neon of the McDonald’s arches glows brightly.  Feeling cold I head for the warmth of the club shop from which a toy Eddie the Eagle stares blankly into the night.  The shop is virtually empty of customers; children have long spent their Christmas money and it seems no one wants a Colchester United air freshener, tea towel or pencil tonight.  I buy a programme, but outside from one of the cold and wet, windswept vendors.

 

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

As I join the three person queue at the turnstile a steward asks what I have in my bag and I try and make it sound interesting as I tell him about my umbrella and Kindle; he takes a look but mostly has a feel as if playing one of those party games where you have to pull out particular objects from a sock.  A female steward in a fluffy bobble hat asks me if I have any games. “What, like Snakes and Ladders or Ludo?” I say, bemused.  “No, on your Kindle” she says.   I didn’t even know you could have games on your Kindle. “You can read my book, if you want” I tell her as the turnstile beeps and I enter the stand, not really knowing if she would like W Somerset Maugham.  I reduce my liquid content and then take my seat, which appropriately is in Row P.

The pitch looks soft and muddy and Coventry City kick-off the playing towards the South Stand, Severall’s and the town far beyond.  Coventry wear their customary all-pale blue kit, not for nothing are they known at the Sky Blues.  Colchester United sport blue and white striped shirts and white shorts with beautiful blue and white hooped socks which look a treat. The drizzle sweeps across the pitch from east to west, visible only in the glare near the lights and unseen on the ground.

It’s a good game, Coventry try a couple of shots and then Colchester take over a bit, their number 20 Courtney Senior darting forward and repeatedly feinting to the right before running off to the left past hapless Coventrians.     In the seventh minute, as if to announce that they’d now got a quorum, the few hundred Coventry fans up the corner near the A12, somewhat surreally burst into a chorus of the Eton Boating Song.  It’s not because of the ‘jolly boating weather’ or being Old Etonians, but rather because when Jimmy Hill took over the club in the 1960’s, taking them for the fourth to the first division he wrote new Coventry-centric lyrics to make it the club song.  I always thought Jimmy Hill was a bit odd.  Now Jimmy is dead and Coventry City are back in the fourth division, but the song remains the same and they’ve brought their modern folk music with them to soggy Colchester.

People around me are getting involved in the game, some cuddle up for warmth , others are in fancy dress.  A free-kick is given to the Coventry goalkeeper after he’s challenged by a Colchester player, “How the fuck does that work?” queries a voice behind me. A dog’s bark echoes from the dark corner between the stands; there are two policemen with police dogs watching the game, the dogs turn around as if to ask “Who said that?”   The drizzle has draped itself over the walls of the concrete vomitoria in the west stand.  At the back of the stand a man talks loudly with occasional calls of “Come On U’s”.  He  sounds a bit like Harry H Corbett and in my mind I imagine he looks like Oliver Reed; I turn around to look, but can only see Roy Cropper from Coronation Street.

 

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Twenty-six minutes have passed;  a couple of legs or feet trail and snag and courtesy of the interpretation of referee Mr Busby, Colchester have a penalty; Junior Ogedi-Uzokwe scores, they deserve it and possibly more goals, but 1-0 is still the score at half-time.  I go under the stand to escape the chill and release some more what’s become of the output of the Colchester Brewery.  The refreshment counters are doing a good trade tonight and there’s an intensity about the staff in their blue schoolboy caps as they dole out the over-priced, plastic wrapped, processed fare.  I flick through the match programme which is boring and too inoffensive for my taste.  I like the page on local football however and in particular the words of FC Clacton manager Kieron Shelley who is quoted as saying “I still believe this team is good enough to compete – may be not at the top of this league or even the middle but certainly within this league”.  I like to think he paused for a long time after he said certainly and perhaps went “…erm…”.

 

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Within ten minutes of the game re-starting a newly galvanised Coventry City equalise as Tom Bayliss smacks the loose ball high into the middle of the goal from the edge of the penalty box.  The Eton Boating Song is heard again and I wonder what Captain Algernon Drummond, who wrote it back in the 1870’s would have made of Jimmy Hill and Match of the Day. As a riposte to the glorious swell of the boating song the Colchester fans respond with a Welsh hymn tune and sing “We forgot that you were here”.  I don’t know where they thought they had gone, to chapel perhaps.   Not to be out done the Coventry fans respond with “You’re not singing anymore” to the same tune and from behind me Roy Cropper booms “Shut up you Black Country tossers” showing off his knowledge of geography, but perhaps a lack of singing talent and vocabulary.  A youth in front of me finds it amusing though.

Coventry are having the better of the second half and I sense that Colchester might rue not scoring more than once when they were the better team.  The managers of both teams hop about in their ‘technical areas’ looking like they may also have been processing the products of the Colchester Brewery; and it is a cold night.   Colchester bring on their substitutes and Coventry introduce a man with three surnames, Johnson Clarke-Harris, a name which the Coventry fans quickly put to music covering the White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army.

The drizzle has stopped, but the cold is deepening and the damp is penetrating my bones.  My ankles and knees feel like pins are being pushed into them, my nose is numb and I sense an iciness crystallising around the very depths of my soul.  It’s the 88th minute of the game and just then Junior Ogedi-Uzokwe crosses the ball from in front of me,  Mikael Mandron leaps majestically in the centre of the penalty area, turns his head to divert the path of the ball, sending it firmly into the  bottom corner of the goal net. A goal, and Mandron salutes the crowd, before disappearing into a blue and white striped human hill, which includes mascot Eddie the Eagle.  Joy abounds.

After four additional minutes Mr Busby blows conclusively, Colchester win, Coventry lose and my circulatory system stutters back into life as I head for the bus and my lonely spouse.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.