football

Ipswich Town 2 West Bromwich Albion 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Waking up on a Saturday morning is never quite as good as I think it should be. All through the week I’m usually awake shortly before my alarm clock goes off and I lie there in my warm bed, longing for the weekend, drifting in and out of cosy consciousness, wanting to go back to sleep but knowing that in a few minutes the alarm will sound, and I will have to get up and get ready for work.   But on Saturdays, despite the fact that I can go back to sleep, I seldom do, and the lovely lazy feeling of luxuriating in a warm bed somehow doesn’t materialise. It’s as if existence just wants me to be dissatisfied.

Today is Saturday, and having risen from my bed, showered, prepared and eaten a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs and toast and honey with both tea and coffee to help it down, and then kissed my wife goodbye, I am off to face the world of trains, public houses and football.  I hurriedly leave the house to escape the sound of The Stone Temple Pilots who my wife has invited to play very loudly because she knows I won’t be there to complain; not that I would, I’d just stick my fingers in my ears and pull faces or go and play outside.  Outside, it’s a beautiful, clear, bright Saturday morning beneath blue skies dappled with altocumulus.  At the railways station I look over the wall at the back of the platform to see three Christmas tree baubles and I count five ladybirds on surrounding plants.  I didn’t know ladybirds celebrated Christmas, and in February too.  Once on the train I am vexed by one bloke in a group of four ‘lads’, who cannot speak without shouting as they talk of Ibiza, women and Fantasy Football.  I peer out of the train window at the wet fields; after a couple of days of rain everything is sodden and today courtesy of Sky TV it’s another sodden 12:30 kick-off; it will be gone three-thirty by the time I get home, virtually a whole day gone, and at my age I don’t know how many I’ve got left.

Arriving in Ipswich, I head for ‘the Arb’ via Portman Road, where I stop at a kiosk to buy an ice cream but ask for a programme instead (£3.50). The girl who effects my debit card transaction is the youngest looking person I have ever seen working in retail, she looks about twelve.  I thank her sincerely and she thanks me in return but doesn’t wish me ‘bon match’ as a French programme seller would, if they had them.  At ‘the Arb’ I buy a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.60 with Camra discount) and retire to the garden to await Mick.  I sit in the shelter that backs onto High Street , but plagued by more people who can’t talk quietly I move to sit in the open where piercing voices won’t echo off the roof and walls.  It’s not long before Mick appears from the back gate and once he has acquired his own pint of Suffolk Pride we talk of honey, Europe’s most obese nations (Greece and Croatia) , kebabs and takeaway food, e-numbers, water filters, bowel movements,  blood tests and prostates, driving to France, Spain , Italy and Belgium, and Mick becoming a grandfather again next week and having an operation on his foot.  At some stage I also buy another pint of Suffolk Pride and a Jamieson’s, ‘Stout’ Whisky for Mick (£8.56 with Camra discount).

It must be nearly 12:15 by the time we leave for Portman Road, and I consider it a badge of honour that we are the last to leave.  We go our separate ways near the statue of Sir Alf Ramsey as Mick makes for the West Stand and I head to what will to some always be Churchman’s; I pause on the way to help a short woman of Asian origin who is trying to take down the portable gazebo from which East Anglian Daily Times ‘goody bags’ were being sold.  There are no queues at the turnstiles, but disappointingly I am directed away from turnstile 62 by a steward because it doesn’t seem to be working properly; I use turnstile 61 instead, which is almost as good, but not quite.  After syphoning off some excess Suffolk Pride, I emerge onto the stand where Pat from Clacton, Fiona, ever-present Phil who never misses a game, his son Elwood and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) are already in position as the team walk on and flames erupt around the edge of the pitch, warming our faces and any other bare patches of flesh we may have on show.  Meanwhile, Murphy the stadium announcer makes his usual appalling hash of reading out the names of the Town team, failing hopelessly as ever to synchronise with the names appearing on the score board.  By the latter half of the team, I just give up and simply shout the names out as they appear, regardless of what Murphy is reading out.

Today’s opponents are West Browich Albion and it is they who get first go with the ball as they attempt to put it in the goal net at the Castle Hill and Akenham end of the ground.  Whilst Town are in their signature blue and white, West Brom are kitted out in an all-peppermint green number, which seems ill-advised, although conceivably it has been devised to simply perplex the opposition who will be too busy mouthing “WTF” to one another to properly defend set-pieces.

The Albion supporters are in good voice and immediately break into a song about Albion which sounds suspiciously like one that Town fans sing about ITFC.  Not sixty seconds have elapsed and West Brom’s number 31 has the game’s first shot at goal, albeit way off target. West Brom then win the game’s first corner and it takes repetition of the mantra “Blue and White Army” at least three times to get the ball back off them.  “Shall we sing, shall we sing, shall we sing a song for you?” enquire the West Brom fans in generous mood and as fictional supporters might have if there had ever been a Hollywood musical about football.  I notice that West Brom’s number four is called Cedric Kipre and hope his surname is pronounced ‘Kipper’, but I don’t suppose it is given that he’s from Cote d’Ivoire. 

Suddenly, it looks like Town might be on the attack, but Wes Burns is offside, and we get to see how unfortunate he looks with his new haircut.  He needs to grow it back as soon as possible and I hope the barber asked if he wanted anything on it to help it grow, and that he accepted.  There used to be a barber and avid town fan on Felixstowe Road (John) who would always ask that, it was one of the reasons I used to go there.  “We want the action down this end” complains Pat from Clacton as I see that the West Brom goal-keeper is called Palmer, which depending on how good he is might almost be a case of nominative determinism.

It’s only the fifteenth minute, but I seem to have been here longer. Seagulls are hovering above the Cobbold stand perhaps looking for burgers and other mechanically reclaimed meat products hurriedly discarded in Portman Road before kick-off.  West Brom win another corner “Come On You Baggies” chant their fans.  The corner takes an age to be taken and results in a shot over the Town bar.  Two minutes later Luke Woolfenden looks to be brushed off the ball a bit too easily and West Brom’s number thirty-one Tom Fellows runs on to score rather too easily.  The only good thing is that I am momentarily reminded of Graham Fellows and his alter ego “Jilted John” , who along with his album “True Love Stories” was another of many highlights of 1978.

The West Brom team have an extended celebratory drinks party on the touch line before returning to resume the match, whilst the referee Mr David Coote, who sadly isn’t bald (unless he’s wearing a toupe) , looks on pathetically.  Two minutes later and Town have a corner of our own and I bellow “Come On You Blues” as loudly as possible to make up for the thousands who remain silent, lost in quiet contemplation. The corner is far too easily cleared and frankly wasn’t worth my effort.  The Baggies fans continue to sing and the Town fans don’t, although someone is banging a drum, albeit mournfully.

I don’t realise it at the time, but the twenty-fourth minute is the peak of the first half for Town as Nathan Broadhead glides into the penalty area and pulls back a low cross which Conor Chaplin proceeds to boot high above the cross bar with ‘the goal at his mercy’.  I shake my fist at the sky.  The West Brom fans couldn’t laugh more if they’d been watching Charlie Chaplin. “Bus stop in Norwich, You’re just a bus stop in Norwich” they sing. “Better than being a public convenience in Smethwick” I think to myself in a Midlands accent.   A half an hour has receded into history and Sam Morsy is booked for bumping into Fellows twice in a few seconds, “David Coote’s a Moron” I sing to myself in the style of Jilted John.  Four minutes later Sam Morsy has a shot on goal, but it’s too weak for Palmer to even have to palm away.  “There’s more of them on the pitch than us” complains Pat unhappily.  I tell her it’s an illusion created by their peppermint shirts.

There are less than ten minutes to go until half time and it seems like West Brom are going to try and spend the whole nine minutes taking a throw-in.  We wait and wait, and Mr Coote starts waving his arms about as if relaying what the odds are on a thirty-sixth minute throw in, before circling his hands about one another like a John Travolta hand jive in Saturday Night Fever.  Town win another corner and I bellow “Come On You Blues” again, not discouraged by the fate of the last corner kick.  Two minutes later, Wes Burns shoots and a deflection produces another corner, and I’ m bellowing once more, but to no effect.  “We all hate Walsall” chant the Baggies fans, I think. “Shit referee, shit referee, shit referee” sing the home fans and the Baggies claim that they had forgotten the home fans were here, although I bet they can remember who won the FA Cup in 1968.

It’s the 43rd minute already and Palmer palms a fine Harry Clarke shot over the cross bar and for the final time this half I get to bellow to no effect. Two minutes of added-on time are added-on and as the first half approaches its finishing line Darnell Furlong dillies and dallies with a throw-in and encouraged by the home crowd, Mr Coote shows him the yellow card.  Time remains however for a final through ball into the penalty area which Conor Chaplin can’t quite reach, “because his legs are too short” suggests Fiona, and we agrees that some sort of clown shoe could make the necessary difference.

With the half-time whistle Mr Coote is booed from the pitch, but it seems likely he’s used to it.  I head down to the front of the stand to speak with Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison, stopping briefly to speak with Dave the steward with whom I used to work back in the 1980’s and early 1990’s, in the days of Frank Yallop, Graham Harbey and Ulrich Wilson.  Ray shocks me by saying that a profile picture I posted on social media made him think of how he imagines a young Boris Johnson might have looked. I may not speak to Ray at the next home game.   

No sooner has the match re-started than Ipswich equalise, George Edmundson nodding the ball on for the excellent Nathan Broadhead to skilfully and acrobatically prod inside the far post on the half-volley.  Nathan Broadhead is such a beautiful player to watch,  with great balance and poise; he just needs longer hair.  Town will surely now go on to win provided Mr Coote allows it, although very soon he is suggesting he might not as he books Harry Clarke for a supposed tackle from behind, but then he does award a free-kick after a foul on Keiffer Moore, which invites ironic and prolonged jeers from the home crowd.

Town are now the better side and dominate possession.  Another corner is won by Town, and Sam Morsy shoots over the cross bar before West Brom decide something better change, and they make two substitutions.  In an isolated West Brom attack,  a free-kick is handled into the Town goal by an Austrian whose name looks like he could be Scotsman, Andi Weimann (Andy Wee-Man), and he is rightly booked, although why keeping the ball out of the net by handling it is a sending off offence, but putting it into the net by handling it isn’t is a mystery; it’s all cheating of the worst kind that could directly affect the result.

A half an hour of normal time remains and at the Sir Bobby Robson Stand end of the ground “When the Town going marching in“ is sung as if someone has died, although a minute or two later a more cheery version is heard.  Meanwhile, West Bromwich have a man down as the Town fans sing “Sky TV is fucking shit”, a point of view with which I concur incidentally, although much more politely. The club golf buggy appears and as the game is put on hold it trundles around the pitch to collect the unfortunate Darryl Dikes and transport him back to the player’s tunnel.  He sits on the back in a pose that resembles Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker”.  The buggy moves slowly. “Put your foot down” I shout, eager for the match to resume; the driver takes no notice.  The bloke behind me suggests this has been the highlight of the whole match.

In due course the match resumes as before with Town actively seeking a goal and West Brom hoping for one. Marcus Harness and Omari Hutchison replaces Conor Chaplin and Wes Burns. Murphy announces today’s attendance as 29,016 including 1,670 Baggies fans. The scoreboard operator, seemingly unable to resist the joy of mental arithmetic, shows the attendance as 30,686.  “They’re there for the taking “ says the bloke beside me.  Moments later West Brom’s number 19, John Swift shoots from outside the Town penalty area and scores, the ball somehow evading the outstretched hands of Vaclav Hladky, who looked all set to save it. “Wasn’t expecting that” says the bloke behind me, and indeed there had been no indication whatsoever that the next goal would not be in the West Brom net.  It feels a lot like fate has been conspiring against us lately.

As Town get back to staying in the West Brom half, the visiting fans come over all religious and start singing Psalm 23, and indeed divine intervention would seem to be the only plausible explanation for their team once again being ahead.   Town win consecutive corners but a lot of time is taken up with West Brom goalkeeper Palmer catching Town crosses.  Seven minutes of normal time remain and Massimo Luongo and Nathan Broadhead make way for Ali Al Hamadi and Jeremy Sarmiento.  Seven minutes later and there will be at least another eight minutes to play.  Two minutes in and Town win another corner before a game of bagatelle ensues with crosses and shot being blocked before the ball drops to Omari Hutchison. At first it seems he hasn’t controlled it, but then as it drops for a second time he strikes it through a crowded penalty area, past Palmer’s palm and on into the goal and Town have equalised again, and deservedly so.

The relief is palpable, isn’t it always? But Town should have won this game and continue to want to do so.  A shot, a save, another corner; almost another minute over the eight, but there is no third goal, and the game ends as a draw.    At least we haven’t lost.   As I leave for the railway station, I think how, much like waking up on Saturday mornings, football often isn’t as good as it should be, but then again I think I might be wrong.

Ipswich Town 2 Sunderland 1

/ martinpbrooks / 2 Comments

I don’t know much about Slumberland mattresses and it’s surprisingly difficult to find much out about them on the interweb, there isn’t even anything about them on the fount of all knowledge that is Wikipedia.  What I do know however, is that Slumberland sounds a lot like Sunderland,  the town (probably now a city) at the mouth of the River Wear whose football team won the FA Cup in 1937 and 1973, lost a Milk Cup final to Norwich City in 1985 and are forever sleeping giants, having seemingly worn themselves out by winning what people now call the Premier League, six times between 1892 and 1936.  Today, Ipswich Town play slumbering Sunderland in the Second Division and I will be at Portman Road to witness this fixture for the 19th time since 1976.

When I woke up this morning and drew back the curtains on another day, my wife suggested I close them again because outside was grey and miserable. I didn’t however, but instead put my mind to how I was going to fill the additional two and a half hours before kick-off this evening, the match having been chosen for broadcast by loathsome Sky TV with a ridiculous kick-off time of 5.30pm.  If the modern football-watching equivalent of the proletariat could be bothered to draw up a Charter for the running of football, it would surely demand that all games only kick-off at 3pm on Saturdays or between 7.30 and 8pm on weekdays. Come the revolution.

I spend a morning replacing an outside light, failing to find a bulb that fits an indoor light and filling-in a hole in my garden that looks like it was dug by a rat.  Fortunately, I am pretty sure a combination of some peppermint oil and the local cats has now sent the rat packing, or to an early grave.  After a lunch of baked Coley and chips and an espresso coffee I set off for the match.  Engineering works on the railway mean that trains have been replaced by buses today, and refusing to pay a train fare to travel by bus (why are they allowed to charge the same?) I take the wheel of my planet-saving Citroen e-C4 and agree to give Gary a lift too, in order to keep his petrol-burning, carbon monoxide emitting Suzuki Swift off the road.  Our journey is a smooth one, punctuated on arrival in the outskirts of Ipswich by a stop to lend two season tickets to Aimee, an attractive mother of two whose daughter is in a girl’s football team, which has won its way through to a national competition.  The promise is that the team will get to wave to the crowd from the pitch at half-time, but Aimee now tells me that because the game is on Sky TV this may not happen, which seems like a good reason to smash-up your satellite dish, or perhaps your neighbours’, and post it back to Rupert Murdoch with no postage.

Having parked up the trusty, clean-air loving Citroen, Gary and I wander across Gippeswyk Park towards Portman Road and ‘the Arb’ beyond, pausing only for Gary to kindly buy me a programme by way of ‘payment in kind’ for his lift.  Uniquely, the front cover of the programme looks like an advert for hair shampoo featuring Nathan Broadhead. At ‘the Arb’ I order a pint of Lager 43 for Gary and a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for myself, whilst a loud man sat at a table with other drinkers complains at length that Gary has not closed the door, although oddly, at no time does he say “Please would you close the door”. Gary has a hearing aid,  doesn’t hear the man and didn’t realise the door hadn’t shut.

In the beer garden, we join Mick who is already half-way through a pint of Suffolk Pride. We talk of the African Cup of Nations, how Gary knows someone whose nephew plays for Tanzania (and Wealdstone), and how it is a busy time of year for undertakers. Mick gives me a belated Christmas present, an Ipswich Town hat bearing the logo of TXU Energy, the club sponsors during the glorious relegation season of 2001-2002.  It’s not even two o’clock and many drinkers are already leaving for Portman Road. We collectively scoff at such behaviour and Gary boldly buys another round of drinks, the same as before, but Mick has a Jameson’s whisky. We discuss how my pint of Suffolk Pride is a bit of a short measure, but like people not prepared to stand up to the way televised football invariably inconveniences the people who actually go to football matches, we decide to let it pass this time.

At around 5:15 we leave for Portman Road, we are the last football supporters to leave the pub and can’t stop being surprised at how the throng of people treading the well worn path is much reduced today.  Perhaps supporters have had enough having spent all afternoon in the pub, or maybe they are in the thrall of Sky TV and the leaping flames that will greet the players as they parade onto the pitch. We part ways near the statue of Sir Alf; at the back of his stand there are no queues and as I enter the meaning-laden turnstile 62 I ask the steward “Have you been waiting for me?”, I’m not sure why.

Up in the stand, Pat from Clacton, Fiona and ever-present Phil who never misses a game and his son Elwood are all here, but the man from Stowmarket (Paul) is missing; I’m surprised (again).  I have missed the leaping flames that now seem to be de rigeur before televised games, but I’m in time for Murphy the stadium announcer’s reading out of the teams.  Wondrously, his performance is much better today and he gets through the first seven or eight names pretty much in sync with the names appearing on the scoreboard, but he can’t help gabbling Conor Chaplin far too quickly and all is suddenly lost and my bawling of players names as if I’m French becomes a hopeless, pointless struggle like trying to look cool in a Norwich City shirt.

Before kick-off there is a minutes applause for all the Ipswich Town supporters and a former player who have died in the last year, because apparently this fixture is the club’s dedicated ‘Memorial Match Day’ for the season.  It’s an odd idea and I don’t like it very much; it strikes me as mawkish. Sadly, people die but life, and that includes football, is for the living. Also, if people didn’t die we would need much bigger football stadiums, but I suppose they could always watch on Sky TV.

At last, after a decent burst of The Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude’,  the game begins, and Sunderland get first go with the ball, aiming it more or less in the direction of the hospice on Anglesea Road.  Pleasingly, Sunderland are sporting their handsome signature kit of red and white striped shirts with black shorts, and look like Exeter City, which I‘m hoping is a portent for another six-nil home victory; we haven’t had one for a while now.  Town are also in their natural habitat of blue shirts and white shorts.  Portman Road is full of noise today and I suspect an afternoon in the pub is something to do with it.  “Addy, Addy, Addy-O” sing the Town fans in the Sir Bobby Robson stand.  Sunderland win the games’ first free-kick to groans from the home crowd and their number 21, Alex Pritchard, who is allegedly 3cm taller than Conor Chaplin, but doesn’t look it, has the first shot on goal; it goes over the cross-bar.  I’m finding it difficult to read the black squad numbers of the Sunderland players against the red and white stripes of their shirts.  Harry Clarke loses the ball by the corner flag and some Sunderland player or other advances towards the goal unopposed. “Firkin ‘ell” I mutter to myself under my breath so that Pat from Clacton won’t hear, but fortunately the ball is soon cleared. 

Only seven minutes have passed and the Sunderland fans sing “Doo Doo Doo, football in a library”.  A low Wes Burns cross skids across the face of the  goal but Kayden Jackson cannot quite get to it to apply the merest ⁹⁸touch needed to direct it into the goal.  Eleven minutes have gone and the Sunderland fans sing “Doo doo doo, Football in a library” and then “Shall we sing, shall we sing , shall we sing a song for you”.  Nobody responds, but I am tempted to ask if they know ‘I had too much to dream last night’ by the Electric Prunes, but I’m not sure that vocally they could re-create the reverb on the electric guitars which is an essential part of the record.   The seat on my left is vacant and so is the one next to that.

Darkness encloses the ground like a shroud.  Pat from Clacton asks the bloke behind her not to swear. “Your support, your support, your support is fucking shit” sing the Sunderland fans,  perhaps because it doesn’t  contain enough swear words.  “Football in a library, doo- doo-doo” continue the Sunderlandites, clearly now attempting a world record for the number of times they can diss another club’s support in the first half of a televised match.  It’s the nineteenth minute and a succession of short passes finally play Kayden Jackson into a position where he rolls the ball past a post.  The Sunderland number five Dan Ballard falls extravagantly under a challenge from Kayden Jackson.  Ballard is an outside toilet of a man, Jackson a waif by comparison. Referee Mr Allison awards a free-kick to Sunderland. “Weed” I bawl at Ballard, “Pathetic man”. He scuffs the ball into touch, no doubt unsettled by my calling him out.   Five minutes later and Harry Clarke is the first player to see Mr Allsion’s yellow card; the match is pretty good,  but home fans agree that the refereeing isn’t.  A minute passes and Vaclav Hladky makes a fine save at the expense of a corner to Sunderland and then they score as a large gap appears to one side of the goal and Jack Clark has too much to aim at to miss.  “Clarke, Clarke will tear you apart again” Sing the Sunderland fans to the dreary, similarly titled 1980 tune by the ironically named Joy Division.

The Sunderland supporters are very loud indeed, perhaps because shipyards of old were noisy places, although I don’t suppose the Datsun car factory and call centres compare.  Harry Clarke gets forward and a low hard cross earns a corner. “Come On You Blues” I bellow to a background of abject silence from all around me.  The corner comes to nought.  A third of the match has gone forever. “Football in a library, doo-doo-doo” sing the Sunderland fans now completely at ease with the complicated lyrics. Two minutes later and more Town passing involving Conor Chaplin peaks with a through ball for Kayden Jackson, which he sweeps past the Sunderland goalkeeper into the corner of the goal net and the score is one -all.  “I didn’t even expect that” says the bloke behind me as if at other times he always knows what is about to happen. “When the Blues go marching in” sings the Sir Bobby Robson stand at a funereal pace, perhaps because it’s the Memorial Match Day.

There are five minutes until half-time and more passes culminate in a Kayden Jackson shot wide of the goal.  “Football in  a library, doo-doo-doo” sing the Sunderland fans showing signs of addiction before the ball bounces about alarmingly in the Town penalty area and Murphy announces two minutes of additional time, which pass without incident. Half-time is spent at the front of the stand with Ray his grandson Harrison and son Michael. We agree it’s been a good half, but we appear to lack the confidence of previous games and Kayden Jackson would have done better in the days of two up front and needs Trevor Whymark to play off.

The football resumes at twenty-three minutes to seven and within a minute a Leif Davis shot forces a not very elegant save from the Sunderland keeper.   Sunderland win a free-kick from which they thoughtfully shoot directly over the bar and then Town work the ball from one end to the other with a succession of short passes. “Champagne football” says the bloke behind me, although really it’s Suffolk football.  George Edmundson puts his hand on the shoulder of Sunderland’s number seventeen who collapses in a heap and Mr Allison brandishes his yellow card, before celebrating the passing of an hour by doing the same at Wes Burns.  “We forgot, we forgot, we forgot that you were here” chant the Sunderland fans, but I’ve forgotten why.

“Handball” calls the home crowd as one at the north end of the ground, making that glorious unified sound of appeal, but of course Mr Allison’s ears are closed to it.   On sixty-five minutes Sunderland make a substitution with Adil Aouchiche replacing Abdoullah Ba, I recall seeing Aouchiche playing in French Ligue 1 for both St Etienne, where I thought he was quite good, and Lorient and can’t imagine why a player would leave such lovely places for Sunderland.  Within a minute Sunderland force a defensive howler as Town’s neat passing at the back goes awry and Aouchiche is presented with an open goal which thankfully he screws wide of the goal with a shot off the outside edge of his right foot. He follows this up by being nutmegged by George Edmundson .

It’s time for Town to make mass substitutions and Wes Burns, Kayden Jackson and new loan signing Lewis Travis whose name makes me think of Malcolm McDowell in ‘If’, depart to be replaced by Omari Hutchison, Dominic Ball and on-loan Jeremy Sarmiento from Ecuador via Brighton and Hove.  Town have started to dominate the game now and we even win a free-kick to ironic cheers from the crowd. “You go to a football match, you gotta expect to hear foul language.  It’s fucking ignorant, that’s what it is” blurts the bloke behind me philosophically.

There are less than twenty minutes to play; Town win a corner.  It’s too late to get ‘monkey’ out says Pat from Clacton referring to her lucky masturbating monkey charm from Cambodia.  “When does he he usually appear” I ask her. “Sixty-nine minutes” she tells me. “He’s obsessed” I tell her.  A low cross and a shot for Town follows as pressure builds on Sunderland.  Another corner follows for Town and a free- kick.  Leif Davis crosses the ball, Conor Chaplin finds space, runs towards more and heads the ball firmly into the Sunderland goal and Town lead two-one before an exultant home crowd.  After not scoring against QPR and Stoke some had doubts, but not anymore. “Ralph Woodhouse contact the nearest steward” announces Murphy over the PA system.  “Conor Chaplin Baby, Conor Chaplin O-o-oh” sing the Sir Bobby Robson Stand to the tune of the Christmas number one record from 1981.  “About fucking time” says the bloke behind me.

Not long to go now. Murphy announces the crowd as 29,291 with 1,965 away supporters. “Thank you for your continued support” says Murphy, perhaps worried that we might all stop coming to games at a moment’s notice.  If I do, it’ll be his fault. “One Bobby Robson, there’s only one Bobby Robson” sing some home supporters confusingly, seemingly unaware Bobby died in 2009.  Town are still dominating and appear to almost score again, but instead it looks like Luke Woolfenden misses an open goal.  “We want a striker” chant the Sunderland fans, when from where I’m sitting a couple defenders and a midfielder wouldn’t go amiss either, although handily they already have a referee.

At last additional time turns up and after five minutes of it the game ends and Town win.  It’s been an excellent match with the added joy of coming back from a goal down and returning to second place in the league table having been temporarily usurped before kick-off.  With no trains running, a road closure on my usual route out of town and having to drop Gary off, it will be nine o’clock before I get home. I shall sleep well tonight with or without a Slumberland mattress.

AFC Wimbledon 1 Ipswich Town 3

/ martinpbrooks / 1 Comment

With the end of Christmas, the return to the drudgery of work, the promise of more short, dark days, miserable weather and stale mince pies, the start of January needs something to lift the spirits.  Christians have Epiphany, and those football fans whose teams weren’t knocked out in the preceding rounds have the third round of the FA Cup; Christian football fans get both and no doubt count themselves blessed.

Having returned to the Second Division, Ipswich Town have this season avoided the first and second rounds of the Cup, and something like The Jam’s 1980 single ‘Going Underground’, which went ‘straight-in’ at No1 in the popular music chart, have gone ‘straight-in’ to the third round and a tie with fourth division AFC Wimbledon, who got here the hard way thanks to ‘going knap’ twice with  victories over Cheltenham Town and Ramsgate.  The joy of this third round tie is further enhanced by the fact that I haven’t previously visited to Wimbledon’s new ground at Plough Lane and they will become the first club I have seen play at five different ‘home’ venues. Take that ‘I-spy’ book of English Football League grounds.

But life is never simple, and the journey to Wimbledon is paved with rail-replacement buses, added to the fact that the year has started badly as I have broken my glasses and cannot see well enough without them to drive; safely anyway.  Just to add an extra layer of inconvenience to that, the match kicks off at the ungodly hour of 12:30pm in order that the good people of Aruba, Bolivia, the Central African Republic, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Myanmar, Norway, Rwanda, Sudan and Venezuela, amongst many others may share in our joy via the medium of satellite television on such channels as Star+, SuperSportGOtv LaLiga, DStvNow, NovaSport3, ESPNPlay Caribbean and SportKlub5 Serbia.

As I leave home a little before 8am, my wife Paulene is only just stirring from her slumbers, but I think she understands when I kiss her goodbye and tell her the cup of tea I made her is probably nearly cold. I collect my train ticket (£26.60 with over 60s railcard) from the automatic ticket machine at the railway station. The train is on time and travels through long, broken shadows as the sun rises spectacularly in the East through bands of grey cloud. I look on in wonder through the carriage window, glad I don’t need my glasses to see the glory of this.   “Welcome to this service for Witham, we will be calling at Witham” says the soothing female voice of the train announcement as we depart Kelvedon, and then after a short pause “Next stop, Witham”.  In no doubt that this journey involves going to Witham, I am not surprised when I arrive there and then switch to a smart, bright blue double-decker bus with high backed seats and leg-room that would be uncomfortable even for Douglas Bader.  In the seats behind me are three generations of a family. The grandmother and daughter talk of people they know who died over Christmas, but how they won’t be going to the funerals.  The daughter says everything twice and her mother repeats it; the granddaughter just occasionally squeals.  The bus speeds along down the A12, and the bit of the window beside me that opens shakes in the breeze, causing a draft, but at least it helps to stop the window steaming up.

The bus takes us to Ingatestone where we wait on platform 2 for a train and I talk to a fellow Town fan also on his way to Wimbledon.  We share the glory of Ipswich Town in 2023 and agree that whatever happens, it has been, and still is wonderful, and it is up to everyone to just enjoy it.  He’s had a season ticket since 2007; I don’t tell him I’ve had one since 1983, but hope he still has one in 2048.  The train arrives at Liverpool Street and I take the Elizabeth Line one stop to Farringdon, where I arrive a half an hour earlier than expected and soon board a Thameslink train destined for Sutton, although I will alight at Haydons⁹ Road.  It’s a marvellous ride over the river at Blackfriars and then on through the city’s ripped backside. I peer down into scruffy back gardens, amazed at the prevalence of plastic lawns. Rows of double-decker buses stand idle outside a depot. Vicious looking spikes deter trespassers on roofs and messy graffiti adorns crumbling walls and corrugated iron fences.

Haydons Road is a miserable little railway station, two scruffy, open platforms either side of two sets of rails; this is suburbia and it’s ugly, but mainly because of the roads and the traffic; if trees and grass replaced tarmac and cars it would probably be lovely.  It’s cold and there are spits of something in the air, but it’s only a five minute walk along Plough Lane to the football ground, which is mostly hidden behind mixed-use development of plain appearance, but with attractive brickwork, which is preferable to render and cladding.  I buy a programme and the woman selling the programmes seems to recognise me, almost as if I’m a regular at Plough Lane.  I wonder for a moment if I have a doppelganger living an alternative life in suburban London, then I head into the club shop to admire the exhibits, which include bears, but not Wombles. Outside the shop are two display cases showing models of the previous Plough Lane ground and the Kingstonian ground plus other sacred artefacts.

As someone who has broken the habit of never missing a game home or away, I had no chance whatsoever of getting a ticket (£15) as an away supporter for today’s match.  I have therefore employed guile and cunning to get an old friend, Chris, known as ‘Jah’ because of his knowledge and love of Reggae, who lives in relatively nearby Kingston, to acquire tickets, just as he did when Town played Wimbledon shortly before lock down in 2020.  I had arranged to meet Jah at Haydons Road station, but my earlier than anticipated arrival has messed things up a bit and he was still in the shower when I texted him from Farringdon.  But I get time to explore and enjoy the delights of a sculpture carved from a tree trunk,  a bench that features Orinoco the Womble and an overflowing rubbish bin, the delightful street name ‘Greyhound Parade’, a featureless but clean alleyway behind the away end and a grotty looking pub called the ‘Corner Pin’.  When we finally meet, Jah reveals that he has spotted a bar and cidery nearby which also looked enticingly grotty and we head there to find that it is in fact rather marvellous, being a small bar attached to a cidery inside a rundown looking industrial unit.  It reminds me a little bit of a similar establishment called La Cave du Kraken, which is on the outskirts of Bruay-la-Buissiere in northern France.  I order two pints of an unidentified Porter and a packet of Piper’s Jalapeno and Dill crisps (£13.50). Unfortunately, I couldn’t read the pump label without my glasses. We are soon joined by a friend of Jah, introduced initially only as Mr Lynch, who is also a Town fan and who now also lives in Kingston, but was originally from Tattingstone.  Back in this same bar after the match, I will learn that at school he was taught geography by a man whose daughter I went out with in 1979.

The bar is only small and has perhaps eight or nine tables, so it is odd, given that is no more than 150 metres from the football ground that it is not full. Odder still, it is only ten past twelve and people are already supping up their beer and leaving.  When we eventually depart, about twelve or thirteen minutes later, we discover why, as there are long queues at the four turnstiles to the economically named Ry stand.  We miss the first six minutes of the match. Once we find our seats, Jah, who is a Newcastle United supporter, asks me who he should look out for in the Ipswich team.  Town have a corner.  I tell him Nathan Broadhead and no sooner have the words left my lips than Nathan hits a shot from the edge of the penalty area which he skilfully deflects off the heels of one and then a second Wimbledon player and into the corner of the goal. Town lead one-nil and having just sat down and advised Jah to look out for the Nathan Broadhead I claim some of the responsibility.  The bloke next to me curses the Wimbledon defence with tsks and sighs for their failure to stop the goal.

Wimbledon wear all blue with a yellow band across their chests, whilst Town look like Walls Calippos in all over orange, and clash somewhat with goalkeeper Christian Walton who is in pink, or as Jah suggests, ‘rose’.   In front of us, a large Womble trails a blue wheelie bin behind him and occasionally stops to rhythmically bang the lid as a prelude to the crowd shouting “Wombles”.  We join in because it’s fun, and already not being in with the Town fans has worked out quite well.  I haven’t long enjoyed the sight of a large electricity sub-station in the corner near the away end, when Wimbledon are awarded a penalty, I’m not sure why, even with the aid of the glasses Jah kindly lent me when we were in the pub. “That’s what you need” says the bloke sat next to me, and Wimbledon equalise less than ten minutes after Ipswich went ahead.

The goal inevitably excites the home crowd who begin to celebrate the smallest victories all across the pitch; throw-ins, the easiest of tackles and any small failures by Town players are either cheered or jeered  enthusiastically as if instead of the Town shirts bearing the Ed Sheeran logo thing, they bear the words “We are mighty Ipswich and we’re loads better than you, you snivelling little menials and we are gonna stuff you at least 10-0”.  Sadly however, I think there are some supporters who would like this printed on the Town shirts.

Town win a corner and a chant of “Come You Blues” drifts up the pitch.  The corner comes to nothing, as they often do, but being camped in the opposition half is always nice, even if fleetingly.  Their defensive successive inspires more rhythmic clapping and chants of “Wombles” from the inhabitants of the quaintly named Reston Waste Stand to our left behind the goal that Town are attacking.  Taking the home supporters’ lead of cheering their team,  the Town fans shout “Ole”  as one Town pass follows another, but may be they had hoped for more consecutive passes.  Oddly, Town are giving the ball away more cheaply than usual.  It’s just gone one o’clock and Nathan Broadhead displays excellent dribbling skills to set himself up for a shot for which he displays not quite so excellent shooting skills; both the words ‘high’ and ‘wide’ are unfortunately accurate descriptions. “Championship,  You’re ‘avin’ a laugh” sing the home fans to the tune of “Tom Hark” by Elias and his Zig Zag Ji-Flutes and later The Piranhas.

Marcus Harness is the first Town player to see the referee’s yellow card following a foul but not before referee Mr Donohue first bends down to speak to the prostrate victim, as if to ask him “Would you like me to book him for you?”.  Town haven’t done very much of note since Wimbledon scored, and with Town fans rarely ones to help their team in adversity, ⁹the home fans ask the question “Can you hear the Ipswich sing?” before slightly annoyingly telling us the answer, “No-oo, No-oo”,  but then admitting this is because they are all profoundly deaf, singing “ I can’t hear a fucking thing”.  It is to be hoped however that it’s due to nothing more than a build-up of excess earwax.   

Half-time will be here in less than ten minutes and Freddie Ladapo gets in a shot, but it is weak and easily saved by the Wimbledon goalkeeper Alex Bass, a player who shares his surname with a very tasty type of fish.  Another superb piece of foot-based trickery from Nathan Broadhead then earns Town another corner from which Axel Tuanzebe stretches to head the ball into the Wimbledon goal and Town are back in the lead.    The goal excites the crowd again and the home fans once more clap rhythmically and shout “Wombles” and it’s too silly and too much fun not to join in.  “You ‘af to win that, he’s a foot taller than the other geezer” says the bloke beside me as some Wimbledon player loses out in a struggle to head the ball before we learn that the first half is going to last forty-nine minutes instead of forty-five.  It’s a four minutes in which Omari Hutchinson has a run and shot, the bloke next to me says that at least Wimbledon have got good full-backs, Freddie Ladapo shoots over the cross-bar, Town fans sing “Addy, Addy, Addy-O” and the home fans respond with “Come On Wombles” and “Ole, Ole, Ole, Wombles, Wombles” despite not having heard the Ipswich fans singing.

With the half-time whistle Jah and I drain off some excess Porter and then tour the street food vendors which line the perimeter wall of the stadium offering a wide range of foods.  We look for the shortest queue and separately join queues for crispy pancakes and pies to see who gets served first.  The queue for pies moves much more quickly and I buy us each a sausage roll (£7.00 for two), although the pies have sold out.  When we get back to our seats the game has re-started and I will never know which team kicked off first; not unless I ask someone who knows.  I enjoy my sausage roll and Jah enjoys his too as Wimbledon earn a corner and their number eight, Harry Pell, glances a header into the arms of Christian Walton.  Ten minutes later and Pell is booked for a second time this afternoon and is sent off, we’re not sure why. “It looked like a head butt” says Jah, “But it didn’t seem that bad” he adds, revealing a worrying indifference to casual violence.

This is a reasonable game of football, with both teams mostly playing nicely and just trying to win, rather than not lose.  It’s what used to make Cup matches more of an attraction than dull, same old same old league games, but times change and people seem more serious and earnest nowadays.  Ipswich mostly dominate possession, but every now and then Wimbledon get the ball and quickly put in a cross to see what happens.  For Ipswich, Marcus Harness shoots weakly at the end of a flowing move and Walton makes a decent save from the interestingly named Armani Little after Axel Tuanzebe gives the ball away in the penalty area having earlier been booked.  With fifteen minutes to go Luke Woolfenden has a goal disallowed following a corner and Sone Aluko and Wes Burns replace Omari Hutchinson and Marcus Harness. I tell Jah that Wes Burns is another player to watch and I realise I forgot to tell him about captain Sam Morsy.

I decide I like Plough Lane football ground, it’s very much what a football stadium should be like in a big city, pressed up close against neighbouring buildings, but somehow quite spacious too.  The main stand (The Cappagh Stand) is quite impressive even if it does look a bit like it’s been transplanted from a racecourse and  Jah and I debate how it should be pronounced; is it Capparff as in laugh, or Cappa as in Fermanagh or perhaps Capparrrrrr as in some made-up, more amusing pronunciation.  Either way it gets us through to late chants of “Come On Wombles” and an almost frighteningly inaccurate Sone Aluko shot before Wes Burns runs, crosses and Jack Taylor taps the ball in from close range and Ipswich have won 3-1.  The attendance is announced as 8,595 with 1,390 from Ipswich, although the latter figure is actually at least 1,393 if you count me, Mr Lynch and the bloke sat next to him who Mr Lynch later tells us is  Mick Stockwell’s cousin. Four minutes of added time make no difference except to our ages, but then not much.

It’s a lovely feeling winning a Cup tie, especially away from home when there is no need to rush back, and instead we adjourn to the Against the Grain cidery just round the corner, and Jah is elated too because Newcastle have thrashed Sunderland  three-nil.  After leaving the cidery and Mr Lynch, Jah and I will head ‘into town’ for we have unlimited travel of tfl services and we will talk of all manner of things long into the evening, or at least until about ten past seven when I reckon I ought to be getting home.  We’ve had a lovely day, which is probably pretty much what the Magi said when they turned in for bed 2024 years ago.  

Ipswich Town 2 Norwich City 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Back in September of 2022 I was in Brittany, and as well as taking in football matches at Rennes, Concarneau and Vannes I drove to the coastal town of Lorient to catch the imaginatively named local team, FC Lorient play in one of their Breton ‘derby’ games  against FC Nantes.  Lorient was flattened by allied bombing in World War Two,  but happily was re-built, and is now an unpretentious workaday port a bit like Ipswich in many ways. Nantes meanwhile has a castle and a cathedral and its football team play in yellow and green and are known as the Canaries.  Based on my experience of our own East Anglian derby against Norwich I had expected an afternoon of passion, vitriol, obscene chanting, threatening behaviour, casual thuggery and a police operation to rival that of May 1968 in Paris.   I was a little surprised therefore that when I spoke to a group of fans to ask the way to the Stade du Moustoir some of them wore the orange of Lorient and some wore the yellow of Nantes.  Inside the stadium, I was further surprised to find Lorient and Nantes supporters sat side by side in every stand and the overall atmosphere was not one of hostility, but more a Breton love-in. I thought to myself why isn’t the East Anglian derby like this?

Today, I am leaving my house at a quarter past ten to catch the train to Ipswich for that very East Anglian derby.  I’ve barely had time to digest my breakfast and kick-back with a coffee; strong evidence that a 12.30 kick-off is just wrong, and if only we weren’t all so stupid, we would rebel and refuse to go to football unless all matches kicked off at 3pm on a Saturday or between 7.30 and 8 o’clock on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday evening.

After texting my wife Paulene to tell her that I had forgotten to put any Champagne or Cremant in the fridge and could she please do it for me, I meet Gary on the train. We exchange Christmas cards and talk of polar bears, going to watch Colchester United play Salford City, how there should be no football on Boxing Day because there is no public transport, ‘half and half’ football scarves and the BBC TV comedy ‘Two Doors Down’.  The train is full, and exiting it at Ipswich is slow, although whilst most people cross the tracks over the high bridge, Gary and I walk a bit further down the platform and save time and effort by using the original lower bridge which has fewer steps.   Outside the railway station it’s as if a state of emergency has been declared, with legions of police in baseball hats and what look like wipe-clean uniforms, all strategically placed around the station plaza and down Princes Street.

Our walk to the Arb today is a slightly convoluted one because Princes St and Portman Road are partly cordoned off by some of the massed ranks of police officers; I didn’t realise Suffolk and Norfolk had so many of them, but good luck to anyone dialling 999 for police anywhere else in either county today.  I can’t help but think the police use football matches to practice what they will do when ‘the balloon goes up’, the country descends into anarchy and our dystopian future is realised.  Arriving at the Arb, Mick is already in the beer garden, whilst Gary generously buys me a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride, and a pint of Lager 43 for himself.   In the beer garden we talk of how there are a lot of unpleasant and ignorant people about, of the closure of Portman Road, how I will get to the Sir Alf Ramsey stand and how there might not be enough time for a second beer, there isn’t.  Gary tells Mick that at the railway station we had seen Norwich supporters getting off their train and giving each other ‘High sixes’.  We leave by the back gate almost half an hour before kick-off.

At Portman Road, the streets are less busy than usual, with no queues at the turnstiles or even the burger vans, everyone presumably having done as they were told and got here early and brought a packed lunch.  The programmes seem to have sold out too. I leave Gary and Mick to negotiate their respective turnstiles into the ‘posh’ seats of the West Stand and I head down Constantine Road past the corporation tram depot and along Russell Road to my beloved turnstile 62, where I wait behind a man who is waving his ticket about in different directions in front of the automatic turnstile equipment.  A steward is stood by the turnstile gazing up at the grey, cloud-filled sky in apparent wonder.  I tap him on the shoulder to let him know it looks like a ‘customer’ needs his assistance, and he duly helps the man out by demonstrating the effective way to wave his ticket about, which also allows access to the ground.  I follow on after randomly waving my season ticket about too, I still have no idea whether it’s the ‘screen’ on the left or the one on the right that reads my card and lets me in.

I am ridiculously early into the ground today and the teams aren’t even on the pitch yet, but naturally Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses and game and his young son Elwood, who is now not so young (he’s thirteen), are all here already.   Murphy the stadium announcer makes his usual botched job of reading out the Town team, racing through it like he’s commentating on the Epsom Derby and failing utterly to co-ordinate with the players’ names and faces appearing on the big screen in the corner of the ground.  Along with ever-present Phil, I do my best to bawl out the players’ surnames as if I were a Frenchman, but I can never remember the squad numbers of players past eleven, so give up after Conor Chaplin. 

When the players eventually make their procession onto the pitch, flames shoot from black boxes around the edge of the perimeter and I realise I’ve forgotten to bring any marshmallows to toast.  The game begins with Norwich City getting first go with the ball which they attempt to put in the net at the far end of the ground; they wear the usual unpleasant yellow and green creation, but this year the yellow shirt has narrow green hoops around it, which makes the players look a bit dumpier than they probably actually are. Town are of course in blue and white, and the home crowd sings “Blue and White Army” repetitively to make the point. “Fuck off Ipswich” chant the Norwich fans exhausting their supply of wit and ready repartee all in one go.  “Carrow Road is falling down, Wagner is a fucking clown” respond the Town fans and so it goes on.

Seven minutes pass and Town haven’t scored. I’m relaxed but I wish the Town would score a goal, or six.  Pat from Clacton has a headache, she looks worried.  “Where were you when you were shit?” ask the Norwich supporters, not unreasonably.  Pat was here all the time, so was I and ever-present Phil and Fiona and Elwood and the man from Stowmarket, not sure about everyone else though. Gary was definitely somewhere else and admits it. There’s a tackle and the Norwich number seven, who could be an Oompa Loompa, clutches his face.  However, referee Mr Smith, if that is his real name, ignores the crocodile tears and simply tells him to get up, and knowing when he’s beaten, as Norwich players do because it’s a regular occurrence, he does.  Town are showing themselves to be better than Norwich already and like a surge of adrenalin the understanding of this seems to hit the home crowd who burst into a chorus of “We’ve got Super Kieran Mckenna “ . Weirdly, the net effect is that Norwich win the game’s first corner to loud boos from what used to be the North stand and the referee engages in a long lecture to discourage players from mauling one another before the kick is taken.

With the corner kick lost in the past Town continue to dominate possession. Norwich’s number twenty-three sprawls on the ground clutching his face. “Fuck-off you fucking idiot” bawls the bloke behind me, which is conceivably what referee Mr Smith says to him too as he plays on. “On the ball city, blah, blah, blah” is heard for the first time and Wes Burns produces the game’s first decent shot on goal which the Norwich goalkeeper unfortunately saves without too much trouble.  Then Nathan Broadhead beats one defender and then another, and now he has just the goalkeeper to beat; he shoots and I am convinced the ball is about the rattle the goal net, but momentarily the laws of physics take a rest and the ball goes past the far post to leave 27,000 people clutching their heads in despair. Leif Davis shoots, but it’s too weak to beat the goalkeeper. Wes Burns breaks down the right and the ball is played back to Nathan Broadhead who again places the ball the wrong side of the post when science said he would score.  “Morsy being fucking unreal in the middle there” say the bloke behind me, Wes Burns arrives with perfect timing to smack the ball unerringly into the Norwich goal,  but unnatural forces get the better of the ball and it goes over the cross-bar;  Town should be at least three-nil up but aren’t.

Norwich somehow win a corner and then another. “You’re shagging your sister” chant the Sir Bobby Robson stand at the corner taker.  Norwich’s first shot on goal flies over the bar to jeers. A third of the match is over.  “Football in a library” chant the Norwich fans and the lack of a goal despite almost total dominance has left the crowd perplexed. Town win a corner.  “Come On You Blues” I shout, along with Phil and may be four other people. The ball is crossed, it hits some heads, George Hirst heads it down and Nathan Broadhead smites it into the net from close range.  Town lead one-nil and surely victory will be ours.

The bloke next to me disappears somewhere,  strangely taking the long route to the gangway.  “I expect they’ll go up the other end and score now” says the man from Stowmarket with uncharacteristic pessimism. But he’s right, Town’s lead lasts six minutes before the ball develops a mind of its own and gives itself up to a short stocky bloke in a number twenty-seven shirt and out of the blue he scores.  “Who are ya? ” chant the yellow and green horde in the corner mysteriously, as if troubled by a vision of someone they don’t know.  “You’re not singing anymore” they continue, providing an unnecessary commentary.  The bloke next to me returns as if he had known Norwich would score and hadn’t wanted to be here to witness it.  Conor Chaplin shoots wide and weakly before Murphy announces three minutes of added-on time in which Nathan Broadhead shoots wide again. Town win another corner and Pat says “Ooh, I hate that song” as we hear another rendition of “On the Ball city”, a ditty so awful it makes the Baby Shark song sound like Dvorak’s New World symphony.

With the half-time whistle I walk to the front of the stand to speak to Ray and his grandson Harrison. We bemoan our luck and talk of our wives’ birthdays, although Harrison doesn’t because he’s only nineteen and not married,  before Ray leaves to use the facilities and I return to my seat to eat a Nature Valley Crunchy Peanut Butter bar.  In the seats next to Ray a couple break open the Tupperware and tin foil to enjoy a packed lunch of ham rolls. “Do you know ‘Son of My Father’ the No 1 single for Chicory Tip in 1972” I ask him. “No” says Phil.  I sing it for him anyway. “Son of your sister, Norwich City, Norwich City, Norwich Scum, you’re all no better looking than a baboon’s bum”. Phil looks at me as if to say “We’ll let you now”, although he liked the tune.

The football resumes at twenty-four minutes to one.  “Stand-up if you ‘ate the scum” chant the home crowd. Frankly, I can’t be bothered. As shows of solidarity go, it’s a pretty lame and pointless one. The second half proves not to be quite as good as the first and pretty much immediately proves the point but somehow letting Norwich score again as the ball drops to the chunky number twenty-seven whose bobbling, not particularly well hit shot squirms beneath Vaclav Hladky and spins insultingly into the Town goal net.  I can’t begin to imagine what the twenty-seven must have sold to the devil to buy such luck, twice. “Two-one on your big day out” chant the Norwich fans, stretching their wit to its absolute limit and forgetting that it’s actually their big day out, not ours, we’re at home.  But then, in Norfolk going down the garden to the bumby is a big day out.

Conor Chaplin shoots wide. Town win a corner. Cameron Burgess heads over the cross bar.  “Oh for fuck’s sake” says the bloke behind me, I’m not sure why.  An hour of anxiety has thankfully receded into the past, just a half an hour to go. Town take the ball down the left and then across into the middle in stages before it arrives with Wes Burns who takes a touch and then strikes the ball cleanly, just inside the left hand goal post and it’s two-all on our big day out. I suddenly feel much better.

The game carries on, and Town are still much the better team. George Hirst heads over. The Norwich goalkeeper fumbles the ball a couple of times to gift Town corners, Norwich make a double substitution. Murphy announces today’s attendance as 29,611 with 2,004 of that number being from a single family.  Murphy thanks us for our “continued support”, perhaps because no one is leaving early, yet.  The Norwich number seven waves his arms up and down to encourage the visiting fans to sing, but they mostly ignore him and there are moments of almost reflective quiet. Massimo Luongo shoots very wide of the goal indeed. Conor Chaplin curls the ball over the cross bar from a free-kick.  Another fumble, another Town corner. Wes Burns is booked.

Not much more than ten minutes of normal time left and I still don’t think Town will not win, after all, we always do, and today we are more superior to the opposition than usual.  But Norwich are the new Cheltenham Town, not particularly good but with windows covered in guano, boots made from rabbit’s feet, pitches full of four leaved clover and a horseshoe nailed above the door of the team bus.  Pat from Clacton has been lucky too today, she has drawn 2-2 in the ‘predict the score’ lucky dip on the Clacton supporters’ bus, but she doesn’t want to win it.

With time running down, final mass substitutions are made and Norwich take a long time over their goal kicks. There will be six minutes of added on time.  Nathan Broadhead is announced by Murphy as the man of the match as selected by some sponsor or another, there is a ripple of applause,  but hopefully most people see the stupidity of having a man of the match in a game which more than ever is about the effectiveness of the team. With the final whistle the Norwich supporters are beside themselves with joy at their team having drawn; they must have been so convinced they would lose, and heavily, I know I was.

Pat and Fiona are quickly away and after a bout of applause I don’t linger long either, I want to get to the club shop to see if they’ve got any of those half and half scarves.

Colchester United 2 Mansfield Town 0

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As I stepped off the train at Colchester station the voice over the public address system was announcing the imminent departure of a train to Harwich Town. Something about the way he said “Harwich Town” made him sound like Michael Caine.  I tried to peer in through the window of the Customer Service office as I drifted past, hoping to pick him out, but I couldn’t.  In any case, it’s 2017 and everyone wears glasses like Harry Palmer nowadays, except me.

Leaving the station, it was still light as I walked to the Bricklayers Arms where a barrel of Adnams Old Ale was waiting for me to request the drawing of a pint, and in time another (£3.65 each). My thirst quenched by the dark liquid and my mind entertained by a book, the evening had closed in by the time I caught the bus to the Weston Homes Out in the Middle of Nowhere Community Stadium (£2.50 return).  Tonight the opposition would be Mansfield Town, close rivals of Colchester in the Division Four league table, with 52 points, one more than the U’s.

I sat with a former work colleague on the bus, we met at the bus stop. “Hello Martin” he said. “Hello Martin” I said. It sounded silly, but what can you do, we are both called Martin. Martin (that’s him, not me, I don’t like to refer to myself in the third person, only weirdos do that) has a season ticket and had one back at Layer Road. I ask how long he’d been a season ticket holder but he couldn’t say, so too long probably. Alighting from the bus I said goodbye because I wanted to stop and queue for a programme. Outside the ground there is a sense of anticipation created by this short queue and the cheery bonhomie of the programme seller. Programme (£3.00) in hand,I now pause for a moment and take in the beauty that is the glare of the floodlights huddling over the tops of the stands 33478017515_e15e34aa2f_zand the warm glow of spitting hot fat and cones of chips that emanates from a shiny white burger van.

It’s 7.30 now and the tannoy gets us in the mood by playing Love Will Tear Us Apart and I have a few minutes to look at the programme before kick-off. Admirably, Col U’s programme IMG_20170317_0002always features local non-league teams and tonight there is a piece on Halstead Town; IMG_20170317_0001it is hilarious. Halstead goalkeeper Luke Banner has swallowed a lexicon of footballspeak and cliché “…you never know” he is quoted as saying “If we take one game at a time and keep picking up wins and points then who knows what can happen”. Wise words Luke. Whatever you do you don’t want to be one of those clubs that plays several games at once and loses them all; that’s a recipe for disaster if you ask me. I don’t blame Luke for the banality of his comments though, I blame the reporter on the Gazette who he was apparently talking to.

The game begins and Mansfield Town are kicking towards the goal right in front of me. “Mansfield, they’re non-league” shouts a familiar voice from the back of the stand whose understanding of promotion and relegation is clearly still strained. He says the same thing another four times before half-time. The game carries on. Briggs the Colchester left back carelessly scythes a clearance onto the roof of his own goal. The empty north stand looks on sullenly, 32634760104_740916ac06_oa blue void at one end of the sparsely populated stadium barely creating echoes; it must miss that joyous throng of Portsmouth fans that occupied it at the weekend.

The game is end to end, although probably more Colchester end than Mansfield. Mansfield’s number 10 shoots over the bar from all of 7 yards but atones, in my eyes anyway, by dancing around and over the ball a bit later in the manner of John Travolta, I bet he looks good on the dancefloor I think to myself getting Mansfield and Sheffield muddled up. Meanwhile the Mansfield supporters are a stoic bunch. We’ve not heard a peep out of them. I imagine a collection of dour characters drawn from the pen of DH Lawrence. Meanwhile again, the Colchester ‘lads’ (I can’t imagine them being lasses) break into a chorus of “Oh Colchester is won-der-ful, Oh Colchester is wonderful, It’s full of tits, fanny and United, Oh Colchester is won-der-ful.” So, once we’ve kicked racism out of football we should probably get right on to sexism. No wonder you don’t see many black women at football.

Twenty minutes pass and Colchester score, a low shot from Brennan Dickenson cutting in from the left. Soon after, Mansfield’s No 2 misses the ball completely about five yards from goal; but yes, it was a difficult angle. Still not a murmur from the Mansfieldians in the stands. Eight more minutes pass and Dickenson passes the ball into the box and after a neat turn the ball is sent into the corner of the Mansfield net by Sammy Szmodics, a man whose name is somewhat notable for its S’s and M’s; his goal make us smile.

Colchester are cock-a-hoop, Mansfield are mithered and losing 0-2. The scoreboard advertises a tribute to Robbie Williams; he’s not dead too is he? Half-time comes and I buy a tea for a pound; “Tetley, it begins with the tea”33321899142_18a137fb0c_o it says on the paper cup, but that sort of play on words doesn’t impress me; I should hope it bloody does begin with the tea, although we all know it really began with the motivation of profit. That’s why a few crushed up dried leaves and some hot water costs a quid. I am going to smash capitalism one day you know; it’ll probably be between May and August when there’s no football.

Mansfield’s number 10 continued to please once the game re-started as he shot hopelessly wide of the far post when practically stood in the Colchester penalty area on his own. The the U’s support howled with derision as well they might. The second half became a bit dull after that with Mansfield hogging the ball without really looking like scoring. In a particularly dull period of play I blew on my tea and enjoyed watching the game through a fog as the condensation very slowly cleared from my glasses. Then I did the same again. “Stand up if you love the U’s” sang the sexist Colchester fans in a moment when they weren’t thinking about lady-parts.

Then a Colchester player stayed down on the pitch after a challenge, apparently hurt; only now did the Mansfield supporters stir as they subjected the injured U to a tirade of abuse. I could see fists being shaken and fancied I heard the sort of incomprehensible angry ramblings uttered by Tom Bell in the early 1980’s BBC adaptation of DH Lawrence’s Sons & Lovers. The sudden burst of life from Mansfield didn’t go un-noticed by the U’s fans “keep the noise down over there would you please” quipped one.

The ball and players moved about as if governed by Brownian motion and it was inevitable that someone would get booked. Mansfield’s number 2 was the referee’s first choice and having been shown the yellow card he hung his head and swung his right leg stiffly as if miming “Aw shucks” and in the realisation that he would get a clip round the ear from his Ma when he got home. The score board advertised Comedy Nights the first Thursday of every month and right on queue a free-kick ended with the Mansfield No 10, who amusingly is called Matt Green, like the paint, missing the goal hopelessly once again.

Mansfield were getting nowhere fast despite restricting Colchester to breakaway attacks. Change was needed thought their manager the un-loved Steve Evans and up went the number board to withdraw Number 18. But ever the prankster it was our old friend Matt Green who started to walk off; may be it was his eyesight that had been letting him down all evening. With his dancing skills and comic timing he would have been a star in Variety, but we’ll probably need a new Bruce Forsyth before too long.

Another injury to a U’s players provoked the Mansfield support again, “Cheat, cheat, cheat” they howled. Injured opposition players seemed to be the only thing that really floated their boat. To be fair to them though, what with their rough mining heritage they probably have a fixation about soft southern jessies and if they see someone go down with all four limbs still attached to his torso they just see red.

The game was now petering out; Eddie the Eagle looked on, arms folded and Colchester just had to see out the last few minutes. When Sammy Szmodics got word he was to be substituted he made his way to the far side of the pitch first, so he had farther to walk and then stopped to shake the referee by the hand as he went off. That use of precious goal scoring time was practically enough to win the U’s the game and in the moment it took referee Mr Kinesley to blow his whistle for the last time, it was possible for most of the 2,526 in attendance to be up and on their way home.