crystal palace

Ipswich Town 0 Crystal Palace 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s been one of those days. At work there have been time-wasting e-mails to answer about things over which I have no control from people who seem to have suddenly flipped from ordinary rational beings into marauding psychos.  There isn’t a full moon, so it must be all the early Christmas decorations sending people potty.   I was going to meet Gary on the train to Ipswich for tonight’s match versus Crystal Palace and a pre-match pint, but he’s cried off to go to the game with his brother because evidently blood is thicker than Lager 43.  Mick is going to be a bit late getting to the Arb he told me in a text, but I blame the trains for not running at the times when I most want them to, which isn’t two an hour but fifty minutes apart.

After a ‘dinner’ with my wife Paulene of roast chicken breast, potatoes, parsnips and carrots at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, there’s time to relax with a small coffee and a Speculoos biscuit before donning my fat coat and gloves, and giving the Ipswich Town branded ‘bronx’ hat a first outing of the season.  It’s cold out, but the train is on-time and warm and busy with folk returning from London.  A small, elderly woman sits opposite me; I have to ask a bloke to shift his feet off the seat opposite him so I can sit down.  On the other side of the gangway a man wearing a T-shirt adorned with pictures of mushrooms has hair like John Peel circa 1971; he’s with a woman with curvy, plump lips and metal rimmed glasses.  Standing by the doors a man has tassels of straggly ginger hair falling down over an unevenly shaved scalp, he’s with a woman who looks like Caroline Aherne, they have a baby and strike me as good castings for an up-dated re-make of “Some mothers do ‘ave’em”; they wouldn’t be Frank, Betty and Jessica though, they’d be Jordan, Shannon and Ava.

At Ipswich railway station the QR code on the ticket on my phone fails to open the automatic barrier as two surly blokes with “Revenue Protection” printed on the backs of their day-glo gilets look on disdainfully.  When I turn I to them for assistance one tells me a woman stood on the other side of the barriers “might” let me through. “Well, I flippin’ well hope she does” I tell them grumpily “seeing as I have paid for a ticket”.   “Unhelpful, ill-mannered bastards” I think to myself, momentarily turning into my late father on a bad day.

Incredibly, given that it is December,  this is the first evening match of the season at Portman Road and the first opportunity to see the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand lit up magnificently in blue with huge, white, illuminated letters announcing ‘Ipswich Town Football Club’.  I buy a programme (£3.50) from the blue booth where once stood an office supplies store, the name of which I can no longer remember.  In Portman Road metal barriers form a snaking path to the entrance to the back of the visitors’ section of the Cobbold Stand. Two plastic buckets are labelled “Amenesty Bin”.  “What’s an amenesty bin then?” I ask a passing steward, pronouncing amenesty as it has been printed.  “It’s for cans and bottles and prohibited items” she says informatively.  “Oh, it’s spelt wrong then,” I tell her. “There’s only one ‘e’ in amnesty” and she hurries off like someone with a fear of spelling tests . 

I look at the time and see it’s still only twenty to six.  I doubt if Mick will be at the Arb until gone six, so I take a detour along Westgate Street towards Cornhill. In Westgate Street there is a phone shop called iCrack and I can’t help but wonder if they sell more than just phones.  The town hall and  former Post Office look fantastic, it’s just a shame more people aren’t here to see them.  The Arb looks good too when I get there, and it’s heaving with customers, so I have to wait for my pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£4.14 with Camra discount) although I refuse to join what looks like a nascent queue at one end of the bar.

Conveniently, I’ve almost finished my first pint by the time Mick appears, and so he buys me another before we sup together and talk of films, living a useful life, age differences, tonight’s team line-up, political illiteracy, French colonial atrocities and how neither of us ever liked Gregg Wallace. I go to find a third pint of Suffolk Pride, but it’s all gone, so I have to make do with something I can’t remember the name of (£4.41with Camra discount); but it was possibly brewed by Moonraker Brewery. Mick is waiting for a vegetarian burger, which eventually arrives but he has to eat it quickly as typically the match is on some obscure tv channel and therefore kicks off at the now uncommon time of 7.30pm.  Pointlessly nostalgic, I remember when all evening kick-offs were at 7.30pm, but oddly Mick says he doesn’t.

In Portman Road there are long queues to get in the ground and the same is true at the back entrance to ‘Sir Alf’.  I can hear the excitable young puppy of a stadium announcer going through the teams and I hear ‘Hey Jude’ and I’m still queuing, although I can’t hear any crowd noise.  There was a time when missing kick-off would have really irked me, but I don’t really care anymore. I believe I’ve only ever missed one Ipswich goal; away to Northampton Town in the League Cup (7th October 1987). The supporters’ bus was late.

Tonight, I miss the first five minutes of the game but no goals, and I am in time to witness what turns out to be a rare Ipswich corner.  “Did you come by car?” asks Pat from Clacton, who along with Fiona, ever-present Phil who never misses a game and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) is naturally already here.  Pat no doubt think I have been delayed in traffic.  “No” I tell her brazenly, “I’ve been in the pub” and she looks at me disapprovingly.

I’m still settling in when the bloke behind me says “He looks like a flippin’ albino” of the Crystal Palace number 19, Will Hughes who has bleached hair.  But he reminds me more of Sick Boy in the film of Trainspotting.  Hughes and his Crystal Palace chums are all in primrose this evening and kicking towards Handford Road and the Burlington Road Conservation Area beyond. Of course, Town are in blue and white and kicking the other way. The North Stand sing about Sam Morsy to the tune of an Oasis song as Crystal Palace ‘set out their stall’ by falling over a lot to win free-kicks courtesy of the gullible Mr Craig Pawson, who unusually is all in black, like referees used to be when beer was 25p a pint.

Crystal Palace’s tactic of falling over has blunted the Town because it’s difficult to play when the opposition is having free-kicks all the time and this has allowed Palace to dominate, albeit in a second division sort of a way, which fortunately involves not really threatening to score goals.  And so the crowd becomes quiet.  “Addy, Addy-O” sing the Town fans. “We forgot you were here” reply the visiting suburbanites of Croydon, masquerading as south Londoners.  When Jens Cajuste is fouled and Town are awarded a free-kick, the home crowd cheers ironically.  A booking for Dara O’Shea is quickly evened up by Mr Pawson with one for  Palace’s Doucoure a minute later.  “Is this a library?” sing the Palace fans and it’s like being back in the second division all over again, before they cleverly trick all the home fans by singing “Sit down if you love Norwich”. I look forward to reminiscing about tonight far away in the future, what larks.

Crystal palace win a couple of corners and I notice that it’s possible to still read the word “Pioneer” on the front fascia of the west stand before Pat from Clacton tells me she’s already eaten today, she had dinner down at the Greensward on Marine Parade West, and she won’t have anything when she gets in after the match. It’ll be gone half past ten I tell her,  “and the  rest” she says.  Feeling increasingly disappointed with life I bawl “Come on Town, it’s only Crystal Palace, they’re rubbish” and then “They’re the team of the 80’s, they must all be about sixty-five.”  This is what the Premier League does to people.  But despite three minutes of added on time nothing changes.

I talk to Ray at half time as usual, and bump fists with his grandson Harrison and sense we’re all depressed but hopeful.  At twenty-five to nine the football returns and the same pattern of play as before more or less continues as Crystal Palace close Town down, and we largely do the same to them, but  they have a more precise outlet with their forward Jean-Philippe Mateta seeming to have more of a plan than Liam Delap, I think it’s because Mateta is French.

O’Shea shoots over, Palace win a corner, Sick Boy is booked and then a Town attack falls apart  and Palace quickly move forward through Eze, who places the ball with precision in front of Mateta to run at goal; Greaves is with him but stumbles ,slips and falls over, and Mateta lifts the ball over Muric to give Croydon the lead; it’s a fine finish.  “Who are ya?” chant the visiting pseudo-Londoners as if to say whoever you are you can’t be much good if we scored against you.  All of sudden the Palace supporters seem very loud indeed, and I gain a sense of a release of the pent-up frustrations of their boring suburban lives; this is the sound, the sound of the suburbs I sing to myself, remembering 1978 as I often do.

Sixty-five minutes will never been seen again because time travel is impossible and it would potentially render Rothman’s Football Yearbooks pointless, but substitutions now seem necessary and Burns, Cajuste and Clarke (J) depart, usurped by Taylor, Chaplin and Broadhead But Palace win more corners and Muric saves as Mateta fails to complete the same finish twice in the same match.  Pat asks whether she should bring on the masturbating monkey lucky charm, but decides against it for animal welfare reasons; it is a very cold evening.   Town win possibly only their second corner of the game before the excitable young stadium announcer thanks us for our “incredible support”, which amounts to 29,539, of whom 2,339 could own a privet hedge and greenhouse somewhere in Surrey, but I might have misheard the figure.

“We’re not playing particularly badly, they’re just better than us” says the bloke behind me as straight-forwardly intuitive as ever, and Crystal Palace begin to make substitutions too, probably to ensure they hold on to their slender lead.  We know Keiran Mckenna is making a last roll of the dice as Ali Al Hamadi replaces Liam Delap. A minute later Sam Morsy shoots over the Palace cross bar.  An atmosphere of quiet resignation punctuated by moments of hope and a memory of belief pervades.  The illuminated advertising hoarding between the two tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson stand reads “Home of the XL vent shipping container” and I wonder what it would cost me to have half a dozen random, silly words run around the stadium in lights.

There are four minutes left of ‘normal’ time and a deep cross is headed back onto the far Palace post by Jacob Greaves before predictably deflecting away from the in-coming Nathan Broadhead and out for a goal-kick. Three minutes of not-normal time will be added on, but they don’t prove that unusual, although Jean-Pierre Mateta is booked for ignoring the ball and just looking at his feet when Mr Pawson and the Town players want to get on with the game.   Mateta feigns annoyance but I doubt he really cares because a minute later the game is over.

Pat from Clacton and Fiona bid me farewell as they and the majority of the home crowd make a sharp exit into the cold night, keen to get home and catch the latest news about Gregg Wallace.  A few of us with nothing better to do, because our train doesn’t leave for another twenty minutes hang about forlornly and applaud our beaten heroes much as any remaining Trojans might have done as Hector’s dead body was dragged through the streets of Troy. It’s been one of those days.

Ipswich Town 1 Manchester United 1

/ 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 2 Brentford 0

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Ipswich Town have won their first four matches this season, something the team hasn’t done since 1999. It’s enough to make an Ipswich Town fan feel a bit giddy and I do, and worried. The last three of those wins have all been away from home and now the team return to Portman Road for today’s match versus Brentford, a club who I still can’t help thinking has its name prefaced by the words ‘fourth division’. That’s the division Brentford were in when I saw their most well-known (only?) celebrity fan, Rick Wakeman live at Ipswich Gaumont back in the mid 1970’s. As an Ipswich Town fan my most memorable football experiences are all rooted in the past. I haven’t got used to Brentford being a second division club, even though I know that in the 1940’s they were in the Premier League or First Division as George Orwell, Clement Attlee, Clark Gable and Josef Stalin knew it. I apologise to Brentford supporters everywhere, although hopefully some of you pine for those days of games against Colchester United and Crewe Alexandra.
Ipswich Town has something to lose, so it is with a sense of trepidation that I set out to catch the train. Can the Town maintain their unbeaten, all-conquering run? I am not used to such questions. As I stand on the platform waiting, on the other side of the tracks a poster36677654895_b0685b3db9_o-1 advertising The SAMARITANS picks out the words “I’ve lost hope” which normally would be the case, but today I don’t know what to think. There is hope it seems, but is there really hope? Surely this run of consecutive wins will end now the team must play again in front of its taciturn, mostly silent, unsupportive home supporters. The pressure of playing in front of Brexit voting miserabilists will prove too much to bear, won’t it?
I try and enjoy the journey. Opposite me a man is taking his very young son to his first match. As the train passes through Colchester, he points out the Asda store to him. No, not Colchester castle, or Jumbo the water tower, or the fine Edwardian town hall clock tower; Asda, f…ing Asda. Perhaps he wasn’t a complete philistine, maybe he just worked in retail.
Arriving in Ipswich at about 13:25 it’s a temperate afternoon, but cloudy. The turnstiles of Portman Road are yet to open, but a few people, presumably with nothing else in their lives, wait at the doors to get in when they do. Otherwise Portman Road is quiet, the programme kiosks stand isolated by the kerb looking like designs rejected by the BBC for Dr Who’s Tardis. The statue of Bobby Robson stands alone looking as if he is directing people around the corner; polythene ‘goody-bags’ containing the local newspaper, a packet of crisps and a bottle of water litter the pavement waiting to be bought.

I walk on to St Jude’s Tavern which is quieter than usual, although there is a table of Brentford fans who obviously appreciate good beer. I consume a pint of Earl Soham Albert Ale with a beef and onion pie (£5.00 the pair) and later a pint of Milton Medusa (£3.40) and talk with a friend who has just returned with his partner from a week in Berlin; he tells me he didn’t get to see the home of Hertha Berlin but we agree that virtually everywhere either of us has ever visited in Europe is nicer than Britain. We don’t discuss why but I think it’s because we still have a monarchy and have failed to properly embrace social democracy.
Beer glass drained, it is time to head back down to Portman Road which is still not that busy even at ten to three. As I head towards the stadium a big-breasted woman walking the other way shouts swearily into her mobile phone. A seagull sits on a lamp standard looking down on the statue of Alf Ramsey,36672917115_22e6776e6b_o but with a beady eye on the burger van adjacent to him and any discarded junk food; it’s a good place for a scavenger to hang out. On the Cobbold Stand the club crest and the union flag fly together in the strong breeze and in the street below a35863643543_fd0a0303c0_o Brentford fan is either playing aeroplanes or is being frisked as he queues to enter the ground. Inside the ground the lack of custom at the “matchday essentials” kiosk suggests it’s not really selling essentials at all.
I urinate in the appropriate place and then take up my seat in the stand. The teams enter the field and everyone applauds. The game begins. Brentford, whose nickname is The Bees, probably just because ‘B’ is the first letter in Brentford, wear red and white striped shirts with black shorts and red stockings, or socks as they are more prosaically known; they look a picture as teams in striped kits often do. In the away supporters’ stand two flags bearing the St George cross indicate that Brentford supporters are from as far afield as Yorkshire, Oxfordshire and Ealing Road.35863614623_f780c5d607_o
After some early, even sparring Brentford start to dominate possession of the ball, selfishly kicking it about amongst themselves, whilst Ipswich just try to keep it away from their own goal. The only cheer to emanate from Ipswich fans is when the Brentford goalkeeper slips over. Predictably the ‘keeper then stares at the turf where he slipped as if expecting to see a carelessly discarded banana skin which would explain away his embarrassment. The scoreboard dies; scoreboardwe do not see it re-illuminated all afternoon. The Brentford fans chant “Come on Brentford, Come on Brentford” which seems a bit superfluous because their team are doing fine, they just haven’t scored, and it seems that that sentence fragment is missing the word ‘yet’ on the end.
The Ipswich fans have to seek happiness where they can in a situation like this and helpfully the Bees number nine, Neal Maupay lies still on the ground after Jordan Spence brushes past him to win the ball. Receiving no free-kick Maupay jumps up quickly, too quickly, to remonstrate with the referee Mr Oliver Langford, thus proving his guilt as a diver and a cheat and according to the North Stand a “wanker” too. Maupay is a recent signing from France’s finest club St Etienne (although he was on loan at Stade Brestois last season) and being born at Versailles, although presumably not in the palace, he is French, so he may not have understood the word; for future reference the French translation for wanker would be branleur.
Maupay’s histrionics are perhaps a sign of The Bees growing sense of frustration and at about twenty-five to three that is increased as David McGoldrick runs into the penalty box and falls to the ground under a challenge; as everyone turns to the referee to see him signal no penalty, the ball and Town’s Martyn Waghorn are seemingly the only objects to keep moving and ‘Waggy’ joyously sweeps the ball past the Brentford goalkeeper to give Town a lead which, on the balance of attacking play is somewhat unexpected and undeserved. But the ‘balance of play’ has never counted for anything and probably never will unless the big six clubs in the Premier League consistently begin to lose every week despite having the ‘balance of play’.
Buoyed to ridiculous proportions by the goal, the North Stand fans break into a chorus of the folk song The Wild Rover , singing “ Ipswich Town, Ipswich Town FC, they’re the finest football team the world has ever seen” . This is a song not heard at Portman Road in some time and it stirs memories of the early 1980’s when the words rang true. Meanwhile the Bees have been stung into action and a very, very firmly struck shot hits the Ipswich cross bar with such force that the woodwork springs up and down in blurry resonance and I surmise that had an unsuspecting seagull been sat upon it, the unfortunate bird would have been catapulted up over the roof of the stand. Despite continuing Brentford possession of the ball, Ipswich do not yield and can enjoy their half-time teas and reflect on being in the lead.
I enjoy half-time by eating a Traidcraft mixed berries chewy cereal bar, which I did not purchase in the ground because such ethically sourced snacks are not available from the club’s food and drink outlets. With a captive audience, football clubs could prioritise the sale of locally and ethically sourced products, but they don’t, perhaps because they just don’t care. Later I muse upon a pitch- side advertisement at the far end of the ground for Red7 Marine who, apparently, are ‘jack-up barge specialists’. 36508278362_db3bd9aa74_oDo many football supporters often require the services of a jack-up barge specialist? Is this a good place to advertise? What is a jack-up barge? I conclude that there are many things in this world of which I have no understanding. God bless Google and their tax dodging ways, they will explain.
Fortunately the second half begins, although once again it’s Brentford who are buzzing while Ipswich just drone on, sportingly kicking the ball back to their guests to give them another go. But then at about ten past four Ipswich win a corner and Joe Garner’s diving header is cleared off the goal line; except that it’s not, because the ball has crossed the line and a slightly delayed celebration signifies that Ipswich now lead by two-goals to nil.
The spectators in the lower tier of the North Stand, who last season berated manager Mick McCarthy for this ‘shit football’ now become either self-deprecatingly ironic or simply overcome with such deep joy that they lose all sense of self-awareness and, rather endearingly, to the tune of the children’s song Skip to My Lou, they chant “Super, Super Mick, Super, Super Mick, Super, Super Mick, Super Mick McCarthy”. I imagine Mick McCarthy would find this amusing whilst muttering under his breath “duplicitous bastards”.
The game returns to its familiar pattern with Brentford players kicking the ball from one to another and occasionally to a Town player. Ipswich attack now and then as possession of the ball permits, but defend mostly and they do this very well indeed. Brentford pass the ball neatly, but they seem to be playing without forwards; Maupay is mopey and is booked. Ipswich are probably as likely to score as Brentford, although it’s not that comfortable an experience to watch for Town fans. I am struck by how much the Brentford number six resembles the FA Cup with his fashionable short back and sides haircut accentuating his sticky-out ears.
Happily Town are hanging on to win the match and the crowd appreciate their efforts, for this is a much weakened team missing all the club’s recognised senior centre-halves and two or three first choice midfield players. Naturally the majority of the crowd do not chant their appreciation in the traditional manner of football spectators, because this is Ipswich where voices are weak and people a bit shy, but there are bouts of rhythmic clapping; I am reminded of John Lennon telling the audience in the expensive seats at the Royal Variety Performance to rattle their jewellery to show their appreciation.
With the final whistle from the bonny Mr Langford, a wave of relief flows from the stands and the tannoy blares out the Dave Clark Five’s “Glad All Over”; the only explanation for which must be that Town’s next match (a League Cup tie) is at Crystal Palace and that’s what they do there. Personally, I prefer the cover version by The Rezillos.
That’s five consecutive victories and the two-fingers raised to those who lacked the faith and the understanding of what it is to be a football supporter and therefore failed to renew their season tickets grows larger, although they will doubtless claim vindication as soon as Town inevitably do lose. Branleurs.

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