fc clacton

Clacton Town 8 Diss Town 0

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s just under 37 kilometres from my house to the Rush Green Bowl, home of Clacton Town Football Club, but as far as I can tell the quickest that it is possible to make this journey by public transport is one hour and thirty-six minutes, and this involves a challenging degree of co-ordination of buses, trains and footsteps, probably not possible on a Saturday and not convenient for a 3pm kick-off, and then I still have to get home.  Never mind, I think to myself, I have an electric car so can save an hour for worthy purposes and still try and save the planet too whilst travelling to watch non-league football, and so that’s what I shall do today having chosen to watch Clacton Town versus Diss Town in the snappily monikered Thurlow Nunn Eastern Counties League First Division North.

It’s been a while since I last saw Clacton play; eleven years and eight months to be almost precise, but rocking up at the Rush Green Bowl it doesn’t seem that very much has changed in all that time but for a superficial and recent switch from being FC Clacton back to being Clacton Town, and as William Shakespeare might have said if in a sarcastic mood, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. 

It’s a gloriously sunny, early autumn day as I step out of my neatly parked Citroen, breath in the briny scent of sea air and walk to the turnstile along the back of the clubhouse beneath an ugly gable and a sign bearing the Clacton Town crest, the word ‘Welcome’, a CCTV camera and a burglar alarm.  The turnstile itself is a magnificent piece of iron work but is set at a somewhat impractical angle as if an overly large person had tried to force their way through it or it had been rescued from a shipwreck. I ask the lady operator if it’s from the pier, but she doesn’t know.  Entry for a ‘senior’ costs a fiver, but more importantly and satisfyingly Clacton Town still produce a programme (£2.00), an impressively glossy twelve-page effort between stiff covers. Through the turnstile, a man sells old programmes and ‘goes’ on a pub card on which the pubs are football clubs. Seeing that Ipswich Town has already been bagged by someone called Richard, I plump for Burnley, who Ipswich beat to the 1962 version of what is now called the “Premier League” title.

There is still most of a half an hour until kick-off and so I look about a bit. I poke my head in the club house, a large, gloomy space that smells of body spray and has a large bar at one end; the back of the door is where the team line-ups are posted.  Returning outside, I take in the architecture comprising three small stands and a gathering of blue portacabins linked by a porch that looks like a massive nesting box and features another gable, which in this case grandly announces, “Hospitality Suite”.  Mostly blokes stand about awaiting kick-off as last-minute adjustments are made to the goal nets at the clubhouse end of the ground.  Some blokes hold plastic pint glasses of pale beery liquid.  One of the blokes not holding a plastic pint of beery liquid turns out to be Richard of pub card fame, who I know from our mutual historical association with Wivenhoe Town. Richard had booked a trip to the nearby Essex County Council dump to dispose of some garden rubbish and to my amusement had decided to combine that trip with one to the Rush Breen Bowl, which handily is next door.  We stand and talk and listen as the Clacton Town club secretary, a man called Karl, looks at his mobile phone and reads out the teams over the public address system.  Richard and I look at each other askance as the name of Clacton’s number three is announced as Lincoln Green.  “Surely, that’s a colour not a left-back” we almost say as one.

When the football begins, it is visiting Diss Town who get first go with the ball, which they despatch in the general direction of the club house and the North Sea, whilst hoping the goal net stops it from going that far.  Diss, known as “The Tangerines” wear an attractive kit of orange (more accurately tangerine) shirts and navy-blue shorts.  Richard and I agree that you can’t go far wrong with an orange football shirt. Clacton meanwhile sport white shirts with royal blue trim and royal blue shorts.  To avoid doubt they have the words Clacton and Town printed across their shoulders where players at professional level have their names.  Any musings about the comparative merits of the team kits are quickly forgotten as Diss Town soon lose possession and inside a minute Clacton dismantle the Diss defence and number seven Sonny Carr scores with a low, casually placed shot into the corner of the goal to give Clacton a very early lead.  It’s a lead which is almost doubled very soon afterwards as Letts’ header is saved and number two, Logan Green has a shot cleared off the goal line.

After thinking that Clacton might run away with the game, it settles down into one of scuffs and miskicks on the hard, uneven and dusty surface.  More than one hoofed clearance is propelled at an unexpected angle and into the undergrowth beyond the pitch.  Diss make it into the Clacton penalty area to win a couple of corners but seem to lack attacking players.  “’kin ‘ell” shouts a Diss player in response to a high boot and the game is held up as the Diss physio runs on carrying what looks like a first-aid kit from the glove compartment of his car. The game resumes with a Diss free kick which is booted straight out beyond the goal line from a good 40 metres out.   Cirrus clouds wheel above us, a small plane takes off from the adjacent airfield.   “We’re fuckin’ walkin’” shouts the totally bald Clacton coach as the game fleetingly descends into the not unusual swearing match often associated with local football.  “Keep it down for the kids” says Richard to me quoting the Thurlow Nunn League’s long-time mantra, and weirdly it seems to do the trick.

It’s now twenty-six minutes past three and all of a sudden Clacton lead two-nil as the speedy but diminutive number nine Adam Wrathall runs at goal, number seven Carr has a shot blocked at close range and number ten Letts bundles the ball into the roof of the net from even closer range. It’s a goal which owes its existence to pace and poor marking and the home crowd cheers. The Rush Green Bowl as its name more than implies is shaped like a bowl and on three sides there are mostly overgrown banks of grass on which spectators stand like the occupants of broken-down cars at the side of a motorway.  In front of us Diss’s number eight Ellis shepherds the ball out putting himself between it and the Clacton number five Cooper-Macklin. As the ball crosses the touchline Cooper-Macklin kicks Ellison on the ankle in what might generously be described as an act of petulance. The referee Mr Mills explains to Cooper-Macklin that the ball was already out but fails to book him for his spitefulness.  Soon afterwards, karma takes a holiday and after a Clacton corner kick the ball runs to Cooper Macklin on the edge of the penalty area and his low shot is deflected into the Diss goal to make the score three-nil.

The bald Clacton coach standing near the touch line in his blue tracksuit continues to shout and encourage.  Clouds of dust accompany almost every kick, and such is the apparent lack of any reaction in the Diss Town dugout I wonder if Diss have a coach at all, or whether the team functions as some sort of autonomous collective.  There are five minutes of the nominal first forty-five remaining as Clacton score their fourth goal from the penalty spot courtesy of captain Emmanuel Ikwuegbu after Wrathall runs at and around the Diss centre-half Viner and seems to be about to shoot when Mr Mills points to the penalty spot.  Richard and I agree it looked a soft penalty decision (shirt tugging?) and we wonder if Wrathall wouldn’t have scored anyway.  As if to let the world know that yes, he would have scored, five minutes later Wrathall rattles in a fantastic shot into the top corner of the Diss goal from something like 30 metres out.  When the half-time whistle is blown at twelve minutes to four the score is a probably decisive Clacton Town 5 Diss Town 0.

Richard and I have, during the course of the match, been making our way around the pitch and with half-time, we move from the sunny eastern side to the more shaded area next to what passes as the main stand.  On our way, we go onto the pitch to get around the subsiding terrace stand behind the goal that is now closed off for safety reasons.  It is at the same time a shame that the stand cannot be used but it also strangely adds to the character of the place and the delightfully depressing sense of decay and dilapidation that often characterises lower league football. 

The football resumes not much after four o’clock and at three minutes past Clacton score a sixth goal as number eleven Morton receives a square pass and from about 10 metres shoots the ball into the top right-hand corner of the Diss Town net.  The game resumes again and a man in a blue shirt, Diss Town club tie and possibly stay-pressed trousers, walks past us from the direction of the hospitality suite.   Earlier this afternoon as we stood near some of the Diss Town committee members I reflected on how even now some club officials come to games looking like refugees from the 1950’s with their collared shirts and club ties and sometimes even blazers and as a result they can’t help but also look a bit like coach drivers.    Richard suggests that if Diss have a bus in the car park they should make a note to park it in front of their goal in future. Our reverie is broken as the ball flies off the pitch and lands in the long grass next to me.  As I throw it back, I think it feels a bit soft, but on a rock-hard pitch that’s probably a good thing.

A Diss player is the first to be booked by Mr Mills, possibly for tugging a shirt, we’re not sure, and  as a cool breeze blows in off the sea the players shadows begin to lengthen across the mottled green of the pitch.  Diss win a freekick outside the Clacton penalty area, the Clacton captain is booked and from the kick Clacton’s goalkeeper Palmer, palms the ball away for his only save of the game.  Four minutes later and Clacton score their seventh goal as Wrathall scurries into the penalty area holding off a towering defender before sending a scorching shot high into the top corner of the net at the goalkeeper’s near post.

The last fifteen minutes of the match have arrived and to their credit Diss Town continue to do what they can to score and Ellis should do so when confronted with an open goal, but instead he boots the ball high over the subsiding stand. Four minutes later and once again I have to throw the ball back onto the pitch for a second time, I think I’ve now had more touches than the Clacton Keeper’ and the Diss centre forward.  Clearly a sympathetic man, Richard is hoping for a Diss goal but all they can manage is a shot that sails higher above the subsiding stand than the previous one and another which curls increasingly wide of the goal after leaving the Diss player’s boot.  It is a quarter to five when Clacton score an eighth goal, an audacious lob over the luckless Diss goalkeeper’s head from 50 metres after he misguidedly leaves his penalty area and clears weakly.

Finally, after an uncomfortable sounding clatter of shin guards on studs there is a late caution for Diss Town’s number three and captain Bray, who had deserved a booking for some earlier successful attempts to con freekicks out of Mr Mills.  With the final whistle, an understandably appreciative crowd applaud the teams and Richard and I make for the car park only to wonder if either of us had won the pub card.  Although it’s been a one-sided game in terms of goals, it has still been an entertaining one and on a beautiful autumn afternoon. After a rotten day for Diss Town however, we can only wish them and their coach drivers a safe journey home.

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.

 

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  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.

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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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…”.

 

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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.

 

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