Daizen Maeda

Ipswich Town 1 Nottingham Forest 1

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At the risk of sounding like Michael Parkinson, I think I read somewhere that the city of Nottingham was originally named after a Viking or an Anglo-Saxon called Snot and was known as Snotingaham, which was Old Norse or Old English for Snot’s gaff.   But when the Normans arrived, they had difficulty pronouncing “Sn” and so Snotingaham became Nottingham.  This was possibly also the inspiration for the 1980’s tv advert for Tunes menthol sweets in which a man with a head cold or undisclosed nasal/sinus problem initially fails to make himself understood when asking for a second class return to Nottingham.   I don’t suppose there is anyway of knowing if this is true, but what is certain is that tonight Gippeswic Town are playing Snotingaham Forest and I shall be at Portman Road to see it.

It’s been a nasty, intermittently wet, blustery late October afternoon and according to the message I received on my mobile phone from Greater Anglia, my train to Ipswich is going to be a minute late. But I am not unduly concerned because I am dressed for the weather, as we must in England, with my warm, water-repellent coat, ITFC beanie hat, blue and white bar scarf and home knitted fingerless gloves. My one worry is that I have lost my usual air of mystery and have made it too obvious that I am a football fan heading for a football match.  By contrast, when Gary joins me at the next station stop, he is wearing an orange coat and orange woolly hat emblazoned with a logo that announces hashtag 8 Super-Dry, whatever that means, and there is no way of knowing if Gary is a football supporter, an off-duty vicar or just someone modelling trendy ‘streetwear’.

It’s been a fortnight since Gary and I last spoke and we now talk of what we have done in the intervening period.  I tell Gary I have been in France and witnessed the manifestations (demos in English) by the school students and people wearing yellow vests (gillets jaune).  I ask him if he knows anyone who wants a Dior handbag and then we see one very grubby looking polar bear appearing to stare at a patch of grass as the train descends through Wherstead.

Arriving in Ipswich, the busy station plaza is gently illuminated by a haunting, fading light as the sun sets behind clouds the colour of bruises. We wait to cross into Princes Street to a soundtrack of swishing tyres on the wet road surface.   The aural and visual treats continue as we walk up Princes Steet, Museum Street and High Street to the Arb where, although I am first through the door, Gary gets the drinks, a pint of Lager 43 for him and pints of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me and Mick, who isn’t here yet but is on his way.  We retire to the beer garden to sit with just two other drinkers in the shelter that backs on to High Street where it is wet and miserable.  Occasionally, a strong gust of wind threatens to blow the large garden umbrella opposite us up and away into the evening sky, but fortunately it never does.  Mick, who has been in Felixstowe and got stuck in traffic on his way back, arrives, buys more drinks and a serving of cheesy chips.  We talk of people not having funerals, Mick’s recent visit to Stirling and Mick’s conversation with a Reform councillor who when asked why he stood for selection as a candidate said something along the lines of  “You should’ve seen the others”.  Gary says he feels as cold as he has ever done and we move inside, where I buy a further pint of Suffolk Pride for me and a Jameson’s whisky for Mick whilst Gary doesn’t have another drink at all, realising perhaps that drinking more chilled lager will not help make him feel any warmer.

We leave the Arb at twenty to eight, and I’m surprised to find on arrival in Portman Road that there are few queues for the Cobbold Stand.  This is a first since technology took over from tickets. The queues to be checked for weapons, explosives and scrap metal behind the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand are also shorter than usual, but those for the turnstiles are a bit longer.  The normally illustrious turnstile 62 helps delay mine and everyone else’s entry when it refuses to acknowledge my possession of a season ticket when I hold up my mobile phone to the screen.   A helpful steward takes me to one side and explores the settings on my phone discovering that something called the ‘NFC’ was turned off.   I have no idea what this means and can only tell him I didn’t have problem getting in to see Angers versus Olympique Marseille last Sunday.  I suspect meddling by the Russians as part of their plan to so enrage everyone that they lose all powers of reasoning and so vote for Reform UK Ltd.

After venting spent Suffolk Pride I get to my seat to find I have missed the first one minute and seven seconds of the match, but Fiona confirms that I haven’t missed anything important.  I will later deduce that Nottingham Forest must have had first go with ball, but it is self-evident that they are aiming it towards the goal just in front of me and my fellow ultras, who this this evening only consist of ever-present Phil who never misses a game and Fiona.  Apparently, Pat from Clacton has high blood pressure and feels ‘under the weather’ but Fiona has had a message from her to let me know she has remembered to wear her blue pants this evening, which I find strangely reassuring.

On the pitch, Julio Enciso claims the honour of first shot at goal, after five minutes, but two minutes later Christian Walton is making a necessary save before Abdoul Outtara also has a shot at goal for Town.  But overall, Nottingham Forest in their signature red shirts and white shorts, are looking much the better of the two teams and there is little consolation in the spectacle of the red and blue-shirted players looking like a real-life version of the Subbuteo Continental Club Edition from my childhood.  There is no consolation at all when in the thirteenth minute Nottingham stretch the Town defence for Neco Williams to score a goal, which from my seat I get an excruciatingly good view of.  The only positive is that the goalscorer makes me think of the alluring Christa Paffgen and the Velvet Underground’s weird and wonderful 1967 debut album “The Velvet Underground and Nico”.

The goal inspires Town to play better and they begin to not let Nottingham have the ball so much. Enciso hits a free-kick high over the cross bar, but with the exception of a decent shot straight at the goalkeeper Philogene is giving the sort of performance that in the hey-day of Brian Clough would have had him being labelled ‘a big fairy’. The first half of the first half drifts out of view and both Florentino and Enciso shoot at the economically named goalkeeper Matz Sels, before Nottingham have the only two corners of the half in quick succession and the second one is headed wide.  “Come on Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” entreat the home crowd somewhat desperately. “Fuck off Ipswich, Fuck Off Ipswich” comes the unwarranted reply from the Nottinghamians in the Cobbold Stand as they collectively imagine themselves as modern day Arthur Seatons.

Ipswich are awarded a free-kick.  “You don’t know what you’re doing” chant the Forest fans and a third of the match is only available as replays on Sky tv.  Ten or so minutes later however it is Forest’s Nikola Milenkovic who doesn’t know what he’s doing as Julio Enciso nicks the ball off him and embarks on an unhindered run at goal before shooting simply past Sels at his near post and the score is one all.  “Oh when the Town, go marching in” drone the home crowd as if in mourning. There’s time for Nottingham to almost take the lead again as Leif Davis clears off the goal line before two minutes of added on time are added on and half-time arrives with the promise of a trip downstairs to the gents.

The football resumes at four minutes past nine and after just six minutes the spectre of VAR appears as Issa Diop slides across the pitch on the wet grass and a Nottingham player sprawls headfirst.  Referee Mr Thomas Bramall plays on initially but then VAR announces a review for a possible red card and having seen the tv camera’s view Mr Bramall shows Diop his yellow card and gives Forest a free kick.  The Forest fans can’t see the wood for the trees and predictably bleat on about Mr Bramall not knowing what he is doing again.  Three-minutes later the bookings are evened up as Town’s Emmerson is fouled by Murillo, a player who interestingly has a haircut that looks like Davey Crocket’s hat.

Nearly an hour has been added to history as Nottingham earn another corner and Walton needs to make another couple of saves before the first substitutions are made and the excitable young announcer introduces “Jack! Clarke!”  and Zian Flemming as Philogene and Emmerson take their rightful places on the bench.

Nottingham are dominating again, but more so.  “Come on Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” we plead en masse, and I give some encouragement to time itself to hurry up a bit.  Maeda replaces the ineffective Fatawu and Rory Delap misses two opportunities for Forest in quick succession as he heads over the cross bar from close in and then shoots past a post. “Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottingham” chant the Nottingham supporters imaginatively but more or less to the tune of John Philip Sousa’s “The Stars & Stripes Forever”.

The final ten minutes of normal time are with us at last and again we plead “Come on Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” and Town grimly hang on as they struggle to get any touches on the ball, which they never manage to retain when they do get it.  Desperate for something to change Matusiwa and Akpom replace Florentino and Enciso but it’s a change that seems unlikely to make a positive difference in terms of ability.  Today’s attendance is announced excitably as 29,198 and we are thanked for out “incredible support” even though it’s a few hundred less incredible than it was for the last match, but perhaps we’ve been noisier per head; it’s the sort of thing they never tell us.

The final minute turns up seemingly on time but is apparently eight minutes early, giving the opportunity for Forest’s Hudson-Odoi to shoot narrowly wide and then, more importantly, Jack! Clarke! to run across the edge of the penalty area and also shoot narrowly wide, although this late in the game he usually scores. Just four added on minutes remain to be added on as Nottingham substitute Rory Delap for Chris Wood, a footballer whose surname hopefully determined that he should play for Nottingham Forest rather than his ability.  Fiona and I agree, now that he has left the pitch, that Delap was rubbish and we’re glad Town sold him.

The final whistle brings relief and with reports of trains being delayed due to the weather, Fiona and I both clear off sharpish, although I needn’t have bothered because there will be no trains south tonight thanks to a tricky tree that has fallen on the line between Ipswich and Manningtree.  As I make arrangements to get home,  I reflect that Town may have been the poorer team tonight but happily they were probably the luckier one, a bit like how Gippa, the bloke after whom Ipswich was named was luckier than the bloke called Snot.

Ipswich Town 1 Havre AC 0

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According to the Chargemap app on my mobile phone, the 495 kilometre trip from my house to Stade Oceane in Le Havre, home of Ligue 1 football team Havre AC, would currently take seven hours and twenty-five minutes including two stops totalling fifty minutes to re-charge my planet saving Citroen e-C4.  This is a trip I made only last month and is one I would recommend, provided you have the cash to pay for the motorway tolls and the fare for le shuttle.   Le Havre is a fascinating port city and on account of its being re-built in concrete by Auguste Perret after the RAF flattened it, it is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.  Disappointingly however, Havre AC were not at home when I visited last month, so I made do with a trip to the Museum of Modern Art to see Ai Wei Wei’s Lego interpretation of Monet’s Water Lillies, several beers in the excellent bars of le brasserie L’Havrais biere, and wandering amongst some of my favourite buildings.  But the world and time are nothing if not round and a month later Havre AC have come to see me, playing a friendly versus Ipswich Town at Portman Road.

Unusually, my wife Paulene is coming to the match tonight, attracted by the promise of French footballers, although having grown up in Portsmouth she was, and as far as I know still is, always wary of French sailors. Our journey this evening is by planet saving Citroen e-C4 and we pick-up Gary on the way before parking very conveniently just around the corner from the Arb’.    Gary is sporting the very latest replica Ipswich Town away shirt this evening, and gets the drinks in first; a pint of Estrella for him, a small glass of dry rose for Paulene and a pint of Nethergate Stour Valley for me.    A woman in the bar compliments Paulene on her earrings before we retire to the garden and a table in the shade to talk of relatives and friends and other stuff, and Gary is impressed by my Havre AC T-shirt.  In due course, I buy another round of drinks the same as before, but I opt for a pint of the weaker Nethergate Voyager this time and am disappointed that it tastes a little like the pipes have been cleaned but not rinsed very well afterwards, as in fact  did the Stour Valley.

It’s about twenty past seven when we head for Portman Road and thankfully an easy downhill walk, because once again it is a very, very warm evening.  There are long queues for the Cobbold stand in Portman Road, but what I notice first is that there are no programmes on sale again, which vexes me greatly; even in the days of Marcus Evans there were always programmes for pre-season friendlies, weren’t there?   But my spirits lift slightly when I find there are no queues for the Sir Alf Ramsey stand and this gives me time to photograph Paulene with Town mascots Bluey and Crazee who are hanging around in the car park with a small man in spectacles.  I tell Bluey and Crazee that Paulene has been photographed with an army of mascots, including  Bouba the elephant in Monaco, Ri-Ri the Canary in Nantes, Auguste the lion in Reims, Merlux the Hake in Lorient, Erminig the ermine in Rennes, a very dodgy, moth-eaten looking Leopard in Rouen, but sadly not Sali the salamander in Le Havre.   Bluey and Crazee unfortunately do not reply, and I commiserate with them that they do not speak.

Having been checked for scrap metal and explosives, I am ushered by a lady steward towards turnstile 61, but I tell her that I have to use turnstile 62, although I don’t know really know why and tonight’s match is only a pre-season friendly. “You never know” she says, and I think to myself “You never know what?” but like Bluey and Crazee I can’t say it. After venting excess spent Stour Valley and Voyager I meet up again with Paulene and Gary at our seats, which until we sit on them are an oasis of blue plastic amongst a sea of parents and children, many in last season’s replica kits.  None of them are at all familiar and I look in vain for Pat from Clacton, Fiona, ever-present Phil who never misses a game, his son Elwood and the man from Stowmarket (Paul).  I feel rather uncomfortable, like a walrus stranded amongst roosting penguins on a stoney beach somewhere in the South Atlantic.  They seem to be giving off a lot of heat too because it is incredibly warm.

Eventually, the football begins with Town in their natural blue and white getting first go with the ball and kicking it towards the goal just off to our right.  Havre are most disappointingly in all black rather than their signature pale blue and dark blue halved shirts and dark blue shorts, although a look on their website suggests they have no away kit, at least, perhaps not one they think anyone would want to purchase a replica of.  Havre don’t know it, but they are of course kicking towards Cumberland Towers, a concrete building which is unlikely to earn Ipswich UNESCO World Heritage site status, but which I like because it looks a bit like a very big match box stood on its end.

In terms of football, the first half is awful, but this is at least consistent with most pre-season games.  We amuse ourselves by working out which players are which on both sides.  Gary asks who Mendel is and is more amused than he should be when I tell him that he is Mendelssohn’s father. This is probably the highlight of the half but only if I ignore the fact that Town’s new Japanese signing Daizen Maeda looks about sixty-five and nearly ready for his pension, but this is solely due to the strange silvery colour of his hair. Otherwise, all I recall are the numerous seagulls swooping overhead (have Le Havre brought their own?) and that Havre have a player whose surname is Pembele, which because it rhymes Dembele sets me off thinking about an imaginary team whose names all sound a bit like those of other, far superior players, like Zinedine Sedan, Bobby Carlton or Lionel Nessi.

The welcome relief of half-time is spent talking to Harrison, who Gary has never met before, although Paulene has. Harrison’s grandfather Ray is watching the match from his Heath Road hospital bed, from where he at least might have access to drugs.  I will visit Ray a day or two later and he will tell me that he missed the first fifteen minutes because Town TV is not very good.  I reassure him that in fact he missed absolutely nothing at all.

The match resumes at nine minutes to nine, predictably with a new Ipswich team.  As happened in last week’s pre-season game versus Osasuna the more or less wholesale substitution of the team seems to do the trick and thirteen minutes later a Town goal is being celebrated as Chuba Akpom directs a free header into the Havre net after some startlingly bad defending from the Norman team and Town lead one-nil.  On the touchline, the seldom smiling Havre manager Didier Digard, who incidentally played three games on loan for last week’s opponents Osasuna about ten years ago, is grim faced, looking as if he’s already deciding who to hit first when they all get back in the dressing room in half an hour’s time. Havre soon begun substitutions of their own, bringing on the players with the evening’s two most pleasurable surnames, Yanis Zouaoui and Hakim Dongopandji.

Twenty minutes of the second half have upped and left, and Jack Clarke has an early tilt at the worst shot of the season award as he shoots spectacularly wide and high.  A minute later George Hirst is brought on to see if he can do better.  Twelve minutes later, Havre produce what might be their only shot of the game, from substitute wide player Enzo Koffi, and the waning of interest in the stands begins to manifest itself with depressing calls of “Blue Army” from both adult males and small children. It’s something that doesn’t happen during ‘proper’ games and is another compelling argument for not attending pre-season friendlies.

The match nears its uninteresting conclusion and over the public address system we are told that collectively we number 6,669.  It’s probably close to a capacity crowd for the limited areas of the stadium that are open, but I remain disappointed that I have not seen or heard a single French person in the crowd this evening, or smelled a Gauloise or even a faint whiff of garlic.  I hope that we get to see RC Lens, Paris St Germain or Olympique Marseille at Portman Road before too long.