fulham

Ipswich Town 0 Everton 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s a grey, wet, autumn Saturday morning and I’m thinking of the last time I saw Ipswich Town play Everton at Portman Road.  It was almost exactly twenty-three years ago, on 13th October 2001.  In fact, that was the last time anyone saw Ipswich Town play Everton at Portman Road. The result that day was a goalless draw, and I have no recollection of it whatsoever.  The first time I saw Ipswich Town play Everton at Portman Road however is a different matter, because that was the first time I ever went to Portman Road; it was the 6th April 1971 and I sat with my father in the then soon to be demolished ‘chicken run’.  We travelled to the match in the family Ford Cortina. It was an evening kick-off and I remember it being light outside the ground, then dark, and the programme having a photo of Johnny Miller on the front; it cost 5 pence but was effectively free because that was also the price of the Football League Review that was stapled inside.  A vague, coincidental symmetry through time meant the result was another goalless draw as it would be thirty-one years later and, just as they are fifty-three years later, Town were fourth from bottom of the league table.  

Today’s family Ford Cortina is a train as I embrace the concept of ‘modal shift’, and it’s on time.  The rain has stopped, the sky is clearing, and I’m sat in the first of the two carriages with pointy ends which makes it easy for Gary to find me when he boards at the next station stop.  Making life easy is a lot about planning.  Gary is a generous fellow and today he is carrying a polythene bag from the Cadbury’s outlet shop inside which is a book called ‘Tinpot’, which is about supposedly forgotten football tournaments such as the Anglo-Italian Cup, Watney Cup and Texaco Cup, although of course no one in Ipswich or hopefully Norwich has ever forgotten that Mick Mills lifted the Texaco Cup at Carrow Road in 1973.  Gary had bought a copy of the book himself and thought I would like one too, so he bought me one.  Such random acts of generosity and thoughtfulness probably make the world go round, and I urge everyone to make them as often as possible and to send postcards when on holiday.

As the train speeds onwards towards Ipswich we talk of my recent holiday in France and the French football results, and as we descend the hill through Wherstead I think it may not only be my imagination that has the train lurching to one side as everyone finds a window through which to gawp at the polar bears; Gary and I spot two of them, bears that is, not gawpers.

Ipswich station forecourt is busy, as is the garden of the Station Hotel, which crawls with and echoes to the sound of Evertonians.  Gary asks me if I’m going to buy an ice cream, and I tell him I am but unusually we don’t make it to one of the blue booths but instead buy our programmes (£3.50 each) from a young man at a sort of blue painted, mobile, metal desk; I ask for a choc ice and he ignores me, possibly because his mind is totally focused on programmes, possibly because he recognises an idiot when he meets one.  To our collective disappointment, the programme cover today does not feature one of the much trumpeted and popular “Call me Ted” poster-like designs, but instead displays just a boring photograph of a running Ali Al-Hamadi.  The poster design is instead on a tear-out page at the back, negating what we were originally told was the point of the exercise to have these posters as the cover.  I ask myself why it is that even when professional football clubs get something right, they then manage to get it so very wrong?

Gary wants to buy a Town shirt for his nephew and says he will see me in ‘the Arb’ a bit later and so I wish him luck as he heads for the club shop and I stride on up the hill, becoming progressively warmer and sweatier as the sun shines down on what is now an unseasonably warm afternoon.

 At ‘the Arb’ the bar is surprisingly not very busy, so I am soon clutching a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.96 with Camra discount) and seeking out Mick in the beer garden, which is very busy.  Luckily, a table is vacated much the same time as I arrive, allowing us to sit and talk of bowels, cancer screening, colonoscopies and prescription drugs in the afternoon sun.  I also explain why Gary will be joining us later but am surprised when he appears sooner than expected bearing a glass of Lager 43 lager but no Ipswich Town shirt.  It seems the only shirts available are in outlandish sizes and apparently his nephew is neither tiny nor vast. 

We talk, we drink, Mick buys another round and we talk and drink some more.  The Suffolk Pride is extremely good today but resisting the temptation to just stay and drink it all afternoon we leave for Portman Road, although not until all our fellow drinkers have done so first.  Portman Road is busy, thick with queues as if the turnstiles are all clogged up with fans who need outsized shirts. Ironically, it is Gary who hears the public announcement that kick-off is delayed by fifteen minutes and so, having bid Gary and Mick farewell somewhere near Sir Alf’s statue, I amble nonchalantly through the crowds and queues past lumps of molded concrete decorated with empty plastic glasses, paper cups, drinks cans and paper napkins.

 Joining the queue for my favourite turnstile, number 62, I am followed by two blokes who are complaining about the queues; they’re the sort of blokes who describe anything that goes a bit wrong as “a fucking joke”.  I explain that the kick-off has been delayed until a quarter past three and they seem disappointed that they can no longer be outraged at possibly missing kick-off.  Then one of them notices a steward, who is not white, at the front of the queue checking people’s pockets, bags and jackets. “I’m not racist but…” says the previously outraged bloke “but all these stewards, they’re…”   As I eventually pass through the turnstile, I hear the bloke who isn’t racist remonstrating with the steward for touching him.

On the lower tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul) , ever present Phil who never misses a game and his son Elwood are as ever all in place awaiting the delayed plucking of the ball from its Premier League branded plinth as flames climb high into the pale blue afternoon sky and everyone cheers enthusiastically.   Since the Fulham match at the end of August, when I was last here, the stadium announcer seems to have completed a degree course in Stadium Announcing,probably at somewhere like the University of South Florida, and over-dosed on vowel-expanding drugs.  He sounds utterly ridiculous, and I think I hear him at one point refer to “The Everton”, but he does at least synchronise his team announcing with the scoreboard allowing me to shout out the surnames of the Town players as if I am at a game in France.  For this I am very grateful.

Eventually, the now heavily choreographed prelude to kick off arrives. A young man in crumpled trousers and jacket, which don’t match, appears to orchestrate the grand arrival of the teams and I think how I miss ‘Entry of the Gladiators’ and how with its acquired circus connotations it would be so appropriate in the Premier League.  The teams pour onto the pitch from beneath what looks like a stack of speakers at a rock concert or a part of the Nazis’ Atlantic Wall fortifications. When everyone settles down a bit, Town get first go with the ball and mostly aim it in the direction of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand. Town are of course in blue shirts and white shorts whilst Everton sport what at first looks like white shirts and blue shorts, but closer up the shirts look off-white and the shorts a sort of bluey grey.  How very moderne, I think to myself.  Confusingly, the front of the Everton shirt appears to bear the word ‘Stoke’, but given how all things football now mostly relate betting it probably says stake, which coincidentally is what the Premier League needs driving through its heart.

Everton take an early lead in corner kicks, the Town fans sing “Blooo and White Army” and Pat from Clacton tells me how she’s just got back from her annual week playing whist in Great Yarmouth, and she won a bit shy of thirty-five quid.  Then excitingly, a break down the right from Wes Burns ends with Jack Clarke shooting hopelessly high and wide of the goal.  As the bloke beside me remarks of Clarke’s shot “That was awful”.  But it’s good enough for the northern end of the ground to break into the joyless dirge that is their version of ‘When the saints go marching in’, substituting the word saints for Town of course.  But despite this, Everton are looking the better team and their players seem much quicker in both thought and deed. Aro Muric makes a save from the Everton number nine who has only Muric to beat after a criminally poor pass from Kalvin Phillips, but then Muric boots a back pass from Luke Woolfenden out for a corner, possibly a comment on the back pass.

With just seventeen minutes consigned to the history of goalless football, Everton score as a result of some poor ball control in the penalty area from Wes Burns, which hands the ball to Iliaman Ndiaye, who only has to score, which he does.  Everton are playing as if on Ecstasy, whilst Town are on Temazepam.   Nevertheless, it’s not as if Town haven’t gone 1-0 down before and Omari Hutchinson is soon being hacked down by number five Michael Keane who is booked by referee Michael Oliver, who from the look of his hair I have deduced isn’t related to Neil Oliver and doesn’t visit John Olivers the chain of East Anglian hairdressing salons.

A free-kick and then a corner follow and then Jack Clarke slaloms into the penalty area only to tumble to the ground and Michael Oliver points to the penalty spot.  In leagues not totally beholden to the wonder of the cathode ray tube this would be enough to give Town a free shot on goal, but being the Premier League VAR must decide and it’s time to place your bets on whether Town will get a penalty or not.  My money is on not and I win the unwelcome jackpot as Mr Oliver decides with the help of video assistance that it was actually Jack Clarke who kicked an Everton player rather than the other way round.  How very convenient.  “You can stick your Premier League up you arse” I chant coarsely to the tune of ‘She’ll be coming round the mountain’.  This is what the Premier League does to people.

Town win another corner and the crowd chants “Come on You Blues” at least twice before Everton win two corners of their own, after the second of which Town fail to clear the ball properly and somehow allow the previously convicted Michael Keane to get behind the defence and score from a narrow angle.  “Everton, Everton, Everton” sing the Evertonians, revealing themselves as true heirs to the lyrical imagination and genius of Lennon and McCartney.

The pantomime of VAR has resulted in six minutes of added on time as well as the mental scars of having been given and then having dashed all hope of a swift equaliser. Kalvin Phillips offers more hope with a free-kick after Leif Davis is cynically fouled, but he then dashes that with his shot over the Everton crossbar instead of under it.  Meanwhile, I can’t help thinking that the name Calvin-Lewin on the back of the Everton number nine’s shirt looks like it reads Calvin Klein. I surmise that this is because I have become overly used to seeing the words ‘Calvin Klein’ on the fashionably exposed waist bands of millennials’ underpants.

Half-time is a sort of relief and I talk to Ray who I haven’t seen for six weeks, but then at twenty three minutes past four the football resumes.  “They’re chasing shadows int they” says the bloke behind me and Everton win two corners as the clock tells us that the game is two thirds over.  Conor Chaplin and Harry Clarke replace Wes Burns and Dara O’Shea.  Pat from Clacton wonders whether she should unleash the masturbating monkey good luck charm from her handbag, and I wonder if Kieren McKenna would have an opinion on that.  Perhaps Pat should write to him and ask when he’d like her to ‘bring him on’.

Sammy Szmodics and Jack Taylor replace Kalvin Phillips and Jack Clarke, and today’s attendance is announced as 29,862, with 2,977 being Evertonians. The excitable stadium announcer uses words such as incredible, amazing and fantastic to describe the support and I begin to wonder if he might need a sponsor for his incontinence pants.

With the changes to the team, Town seem to have improved a bit and are dominating the last fifteen minutes as Liam Delap shoots spectacularly past the post, Omari Hutchnson shoots and wins a corner and Cameron Burgess heads over the cross bar.  Then, as Pat from Clacton worries whether the baked potato she is having for he tea is going to be burnt to a cinder by the time she gets in, George Hurst replaces Liam Delap and from a Town corner Conor Chaplin shoots straight at the Everton goalkeeper before Jack Taylor forces a low diving save from him.  Four minutes of added on time fail to influence events although Muric prevents a third Everton goal as Calvin Klein runs through on his own again.

With the final whistle I am one of many quick to head for the exits to catch trains and buses and without really knowing the exact time I am surprised to get to the station two minutes before my train is due to depart.  It’s a small victory on a day of defeat, but heck, there are still another fifteen home games to endure or hope for better.

Ipswich Town 1 Fulham 1

/ martinpbrooks / 2 Comments

It’s been a grey morning; warm but cloudy and breezy, with two very sharp, short showers.  The apple tree in the garden has provided a good crop this year and I’ve been cooking them ready to put in the freezer and ensure a future that contains crumble and blackberry and apple pie.  I mopped the kitchen floor too after making waffles for breakfast.  We didn’t get any post, but heck, there’s football this afternoon.

The train to Ipswich is on time, but the carriage I sit in is full of people seemingly with no ability to control how loud they talk, or rather shout. Do they all operate pneumatic drills during the week I wonder, or listen to marbles inside tumble driers as a leisure pursuit?  Gary joins me at the first station stop, I have texted him to tell him I am in the second half of the train, in the carriage with the pointy front; I think it’s called streamlining and is all the rage on modern trains. We talk of people we both know and of what Gary has arranged to do to fill his days now he is retired; weeks of badminton, ten-pin bowling, crown green bowls , indoor bowls and quizzing stretch out before him invitingly.  We spot all four polar bears as we glide down the hill towards Ipswich through Wherstead and one is taking a swim.  It’s a highlight of my day so far, has saved me the cost of entry to Jimmy’s farm, about twenty quid, and I’ve had a train ride and conversation with Gary thrown-in.

In Ipswich, the train stops conveniently close to the bridge that takes us across the tracks from Platform 4 to the exit and our walk along Princes Street, Portman Road and up to ‘the Arb’.  In the beer garden of the Station Hotel a chorus of “You’re going down, you’re going down, you’re going down “ rings out noisily. Premier League banter eh?  We buy programmes (£3.50 each) from one of the ice-cream booths that sell programmes on Portman Road.  Today’s front cover is in the style of a childishly drawn cartoon and very good it is too, and reminiscent of the cartoons that used to appear in the ‘A Load of Cobbolds’ fanzine in the 1980’s and 90’s, although not in a ‘My Sweet Lord’, by George Harrison, ‘He’s so fine’ by the Chiffons sort of a way.

‘The Arb’ is predictably busy and Gary gets the first round in, a pint of Lager 43 for him and a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me (£8.58 with Camra discount).  It’s odd how the pub seems even busier than it did last season, even though there will be no more home supporters present than before. Perhaps all the ‘Johnny-come-lately’ fans have been reading up on what to do before a game to enjoy the ‘full Premier League matchday experience’.   We talk of the paralympics, Walton On The Naze, religious observance and the religious persecution of women, Ipswich  Town’s latest signings, how strawberries and blackberries are apparently not berries and other inconsequential matters that I can’t recall, before I buy a second round of Lager 43 and Suffolk Pride. After all the other pre-match drinkers have left for Portman Road, we leave too.

Gary and I part ways near Sir Alf’s statue and I head on down Portman Road, flitting as best as a 64 year old man with a dodgy achilles tendon can through the queues into the Cobbold Stand on my way back to my usual seat in the lower tier of Sir Alf’s stand.  The queues at the turnstiles are long again today, unlike for the Liverpool game where there were barely any queues at all. So slow moving is the queue for the illustrious turnstile 62, that like  an impatient driver approaching roadworks on a motorway I switch lanes and join the queue for turnstile 60, where evidently supporters are more proficient at flashing a bar code in front of a screen.

The teams are on the pitch by the time I take my seat and of course ever-present Phil who never misses a game, his son Elwood, Pat from Clacton and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) are already present.  Fiona however is not, and instead a man who quickly identifies himself as Ian, tells me that he is not Fiona.  Ian is in fact Fiona’s next-door neighbour.  On the pitch, a tall, slim, young man in a suit announces the teams enthusiastically and does a reasonable job of co-ordinating with the scoreboard so that ever-present Phil and I can bawl out the Town players’ surnames as if we were at the Stade de la Licorne or Stade Felix Bollaert, two of my favourite places in northern France. Beside the tall, slim young man, is a shorter young man in a suit and I think of Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo.  The last strains of The Beatles’ Hey Jude drift away as the game begins and Fulham get first go with the ball, aiming it roughly in the general direction of the telephone exchange and London Road Baptist church.  Town wear their signature blue shirts and white shorts, whilst Fulham are in their signature white shirts and black shorts, but with vivid red go faster stripes on their shorts too, that surprisingly look rather good, I think it’s the contrast with the red and the black.  Feeling a little pretentious, I think of Stendahl.

“Blue and White Army” roar some of the crowd above the general loud hubbub of nearly thirty thousand excited people. “Temporary Boiler Hire” flash the electronic advertisement hoards that sit between the upper and lower tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand.  I think to myself that that could come in handy in the winter if the water from the taps in the Alf Ramsey stand toilets is as cold as it usually is.  After only three minutes Leif Davis is lying on the turf clutching his back. “Looks serious “ says the bloke behind me, but happily it’s not, and the crowd are soon merrily singing “Addy, Addy, Addy-O” as if imagining the soundtrack from “A Taste of Honey” starring Rita Tushingham and Dora Bryan, which is what I’m doing.

Five minutes in and Town win the game’s first corner; Jacob Greaves’ far post header is saved  athletically by Fulham goalkeeper Bernd Leno who I do not think is related to American TV presenter Jay Leno, but I don’t honestly know. Leno is wearing a slightly dull looking lime green ensemble, if lime green can be dull.  It takes two minutes for Fulham to level the corner count. “Come On Fulham, Come On Fulham, Come on Fulham” is the entreaty from a large part of the top tier of the Cobbold stand, but happily for Town, the Fulham football tean doesn’t oblige.  Two minutes later and Fulham step ahead in the corner count as Luke Woolfenden clears accidentally towards the Sir Bobby Robson stand from distance.  The Fulham fans chant “Come On Fulham” twice as many times as for the previous corner, but it makes no difference, although it adds to the already febrile match-day ambience.  Seeking reassurance after their team’s corner related failure, the Fulham fans sing “We are Fulham, We Are Fulham” and I think I even hear some reference to their postcode, SW6, which is nice for Royal Mail pensioners like Gary and myself.

After twelve minutes, Fulham have another corner as Woolfenden blocks a low cross from Adama Traore. “Quick aint he?” says the bloke behind me of Traore. “He aint normal.”  The Fulham fans have given up on their chants of “Come On Fulham” for the time being at least and switch to “No noise from the Tractor Boys”, which, as prophetic football chants go, turns out to be one of the worst of all time as within sixty seconds Leif Davis breaks out of defence, runs, squares to Liam Delap who also runs, but at the goal, and then diagonally, before turning slightly to leather a shot past Leno, who can touch the ball but not stop it rocketing  high into the net. Wow. Town lead 1-0. “Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, The Norwich ran away” sing the Sir Bobby Robson standers feeling prematurely, but understandably festive.

The goal lifts Town, who set about levelling the corner count and Liam Delap heads wide when there wasn’t anything or anyone really preventing him from scoring. Town are dominating. “For a team that’s still gelling, we don’t pay bad” says the bloke behind me, and he’s right.  Like someone recently injected with morphine, I sit back and just enjoy the sensation of watching some excellent football.  “Get your head up” shouts a berk from somewhere a few rows back as Sam Morsy wrestles to retain possession.  As if anyone in the crowd could possibly teach these players anything.

Then Fulham equalise, the game has just under an hour left of normal time.  Fulham weathered Town’s onslaught then steadied themselves with a bout of prolonged possession, which was on the verge of becoming boring before a pass out wide, a run to the goal line, a low cross, and a shot swept in by Traore running into an open space.  It’s how good football works I believe.  “Who are ya?” chant the Fulhamites inquisitively, perhaps worried that we are Fulham too, but luckily for them we’re not.   Fulham are now on top and Rodrigo Muniz heads at the Town goal, but straight at Aro Muric.  “We are Fulham, We Are Fulham” chant the Fulham fans again, clearly weirdly obsessed with people’s identities, and possibly postcodes.

Sam Morsy’s standard booking happens in the thirty-seventh minute as he clatters Muniz, but a fine passing Town move follows, which earns another corner, although Kalvin Phillips wastes it by hitting it hopelessly beyond the goal.  The young announcer announces two minutes of added time very excitedly and in a manner that personally I would only think was appropriate if announcing free beer.  At half-time the score is 1-1 and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) is very content with what he considers to have been an even first half.  I concur, but add that Fulham have probably had more possession, although they’ve not done much with it.

During the break, I speak with Ray and his grandson Harrison and Ray tells me that they have tickets to see Oasis at Wembley.  I am pleased for them, especially Harrison, who then further pleases me by asking about Robyn Hitchcock’s book ‘1967: How I got there and why I never left’ and the accompanying album (1967: Vacations in the past) which is released in the UK on 13th September. I tell Harrison I shall be seeing Robyn play in Hackney, the weekend after next.

The football resumes at three minutes past four and I’m soon noticing the raspberry blancmange like colouring of Aro Muric’s shirt and shorts, and how from a distance the ball looks a bit like a very un-ripe wild strawberry.  Back in the game itself, Sasa Lukic kicks Liam Delap’s feet away from under him and is booked by referee Mr Lewis Smith, whose first name makes me think of Lewis Carroll and Alice Through the Looking Glass.  “The Hot Sausage Company” appears in bright lights across the electronic advertising boards and Liam Delap shoots over the Fulham cross bar. Ipswich win a corner. Antonee Robinson, the spelling of whose first name would only be improved if it was Antonknee is booked by Mr Smith for shoving over Omari Hutchinson and then Town win yet another corner.  An hour of the match is lost to history and recorded highlights, and the Sir Bobby Robson standers come over all festive again and sing about endlessly fighting Norwich.  “Quick, Easy, Affordable Balustrades” announce the bright lights of the electronic advertisement boards and I try to think of the occasions when I have needed a cheap balustrade in a hurry before deciding that Adama Traore looks a bit like he could be a handy weightlifter when not playing football for Fulham.

The second half belongs to Ipswich and the game is mostly taking place up the other end.  When Fulham do win a corner, it dissolves into a series of wild grabs and shoves and I’m surprised Mr Smith doesn’t tell the players that if they can’t play nicely there won’t be any more corners. The game hurtles into its last twenty minutes and the first substitutions are made, Jens Cajuste replacing Kalvin Phillips for Town.  “I liked him the other night” says the bloke behind me, possibly revealing details of his private life, but more probably that he saw the midweek League Cup game against AFC Wimbledon.  Not to be outdone, Fulham make a substitution too and then today’s attendance is announced as 29,517 with 2,952 of that number being of a Fulham persuasion.  Fulham win a corner, Traore is shown Mr Lewis’s yellow card for tugging at Leif Davis. I’m surprised the hulk look-alike didnt tear Davis’s shirt clean off.

The final ten minutes witness mass substitutions for both teams including a first sight of another new signing for Town, Jack Clarke, but disappointingly nothing more leaps out at me from the electronic advertising boards. Pat from Clacton is feeling nervous and we’re not even winning, but there seems to be a commonly held belief that a point today will be good enough; Fulham are a decent side.  The allotted ninety minutes have expired and the young man in the suit announces that there will five more. “Five added minutes” he concludes portentously, and the crowd responds with a final roar of encouragement, perhaps inspiring Town to win a corner and Omari Hutchinson to turn and shoot and have his shot saved by Leno.

The final whistle draws a torrent of appreciation from the stands as Pat from Clacton and Ian make a swift exit, but with no train home for half an hour, I hang around to watch the ensuing love-in and reflect on what has been a really good match.  I thought last season’s matches were fast and intense, probably because I had become used to what went on in the loveable old third division, but this football, now, has stepped up to a far higher level again.  Happily, it looks like this evolving Town team are capable of playing here.  I don’t like the Premier League, I strongly disapprove of it and its greed, but I have to admit the football we’ve seen at Portman Road in these first two games has been brilliant. But what can you do? Let’s hope we find out soon, and do it.

Ipswich Town 3 Millwall 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

The promise of an evening kick-off at Portman Road has been enough to drag me through the drudgery of a Wednesday at work, albeit only the at-home form of work, which doesn’t involve having to go outside in the cold and travel on public transport early in the morning.  Today, I get to use public transport at a far more civilised hour, when the late afternoon becomes early evening and people have their tea.  Outside it is bloody cold. But I have an extremely warm coat, a hat, scarf and fingerless gloves so I’m ready for anything.  A slightly less than circular, pale, golden moon hangs low in the sky and the train arrives a minute late; I board and find I’m in a carriage where all the seats seem to face where I’ve just come from rather than where I’m going.  But it’s dark now so it doesn’t matter, it’s like being in a very, very long tunnel. “Shudda scored, it was all Fiorentina second ‘alf” says a voice from somewhere behind me.  On the other side of the carriage sits a man who looks like a bearded Trevor Eve, but shorter. “Second time this season, Scum two-nil up and lose three-two” says the voice. From the seat in front of me I can hear snorting noises.  I tune out and text my sister to ask her how she enjoyed Thanksgiving (she’s just got back from New York) and what she wants for Christmas.

I exit the train hastily on arrival in an Ipswich wreathed atmospherically in winter fog and police officers in day-glo jackets. I think of Poly Styrene and X-Ray Spex as I head up Princes Street and Portman Road towards ‘The Arb’, pausing only at one of the blue booths to buy a match programme (£3.50).  It’s too cold for ice cream tonight, but the streets look wonderful, everything looms out of the mist and is almost monochrome.  In ‘The Arb’ I am quickly to the bar and order a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride, whilst a woman next to me talks to her accomplice about Nethergate White Adder, before buying a glass of Rose.  The bar is busy and as I head for the beer garden I meet Mick coming in the opposite direction.  We meet again in the beer garden after Mick has bought his own beer.  We talk of Ipswich Town conceding early goals, of the person whose funeral I went to last week, of bowels and food diaries, of houses of multiple occupation, of the Lord Lieutenant of Suffolk and what is to be done about the poor.

Our conversation rattles on, breaking only while Mick returns to the bar for a whisky for himself and another pint of Suffolk Pride for me.  It’s a good job it’s an eight o’clock kick-off tonight or we’d miss the start of the game and Mick momentarily panics when I tell him it’s nearly twenty to eight.  We bid each other adieu until Saturday at the corner of Sir Alf Ramsey Way.  Portman Road is less thick with crowds than usual and at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand I do not have to queue at all at turnstile 62 and am soon standing between Fiona and the man from Stowmarket whose name is actually Paul.  A row or two in front of us is ever-present Phil who never misses a game, but tonight there is no Elwood or Pat from Clacton, who I suspect has been kept indoors by the cold and her arthritis. 

Murphy the stadium announcer speeds through the team names as if they’re not important and I give up trying to call out their surnames as if I was French because Murphy is onto the next name before I have uttered a syllable; the names flow freely from Murphy’s mouth like diarrhoea.  As the teams parade onto the pitch flames shoot from little black boxes arranged around the touchlines, and we hold our hands out as if warming them by the fireside. I’ll bring marshmallows next time. An enthusiastic hand-warming minute’s applause for the recently deceased Terry Venables follows before tonight’s opponent’s Millwall are given first go with the ball, which they mostly try and direct towards the Sir Bobby Robson stand, and the goal in front of it.  Town are as ever dressed in blue and white, whilst Millwall are dressed perfectly for a foggy night, in all over orange, looking like Lyons Maid Mivvis, or how Ipswich will look when we play away to Millwall.

“Millwall, Millwall – Millwall, Millwall, Millwall – Millwall, Millwall, Millwall- Millwall, Millwall“ sing their fans imaginatively to the tune of Que Sera Sera. “Blue and White Army, Blue and White Army” is the quite a bit less tuneful Ipswich response, and the mist and fog rolls in over the roofs of the stands to replace all the condensing moisture burnt off by the flames moments before.  “Addy-Addy, Addy -O” sing the Sir Bobby Robson Stand .  Barely six minutes of the usual opening exchanges passes and Wes Burns takes on the Millwall full-back and gets beyond him to cross the ball for George Hirst to head down and back for Conor Chaplin to half volley into the Millwall goal past Bartosz Bialkowski, and Ipswich lead one nil having not conceded an early goal.  Conor Chaplin thanks Goerge Hirst who thanks Wes Burns and Sam Morsy gives thanks to Allah.

The cold and the fog are forgotten, everyone is happy. “We’ve got super Kieran Mackenna, he knows exactly what we need” sing the north stand,  but it’s only in my imagination that they carry on to chant  “Wolfy on the bench, Ladapo on the bench and other people in the team instead”.   Town are dominant and surge forward on the end of through balls with regularity.  Wes Burns hurdles the perimeter wall to join the people at the front of the West Stand as he evades a challenge from Millwall’s Murray Wallace.  The twelfth minute arrives and following an eye crossing sequence of short passes, Conor Chaplin sets the ball back for Massimo Luongo to belt into the net from near the edge of the penalty area ; it’s the second life enhancing goal of the evening and it’s possible Bialkowski never saw it.

A minute later Bart tips a first time George Hirst shot over the cross bar to give Town a corner and ever-present Phil and I manfully chant “ Come On You Blues” as the rest of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand looks on in puzzled silence.  Behind me a bloke who doesn’t sound like the usual ‘bloke behind me’ explains Town’s recent success to his accomplice as something to do with passing, but with liberal use of the word ‘fucking’. I don’t think it can be the same as Ruud Gullit’s ‘sexy football’.   Town win another corner I don’t pause for breath between lonely shouts of “Come On You Blues”.  I can only think all the noisy people I stood alongside in Churchman’s forty years ago have gone to an early grave.

Town are cruising and even let Millwall have a corner, and Vaclav Hladky also makes a neat save. As the man from Stowmarket will say at half time, it’s as if we’re inviting Millwall to have a go and then we’ll just hit them on the break.  I feel a little sorry for Bartosz Bialkowski, although he has the consolation of a psychedelic purple kit with abstract shapes that make him look like he’s wearing the sort of “dazzle” camouflage applied to ships during World War One, which Picasso claimed was invented by Cubists, the camouflage that is, not World War One.

With a quarter of the game gone for ever, except on Sky tv highlights, Massimo Luongo is the first player to see the yellow card of referee Mr Bramall, apparently because of a supposed foul.  Wes Burns makes things a bit better with a shot that hits a post that  almost lives up to the description “cannons off”.  I notice that I am being dripped on by droplets of moisture condensing on the cold steel girders of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand roof, and the North stand deliver a funereal version of “When the Town go marching in” before upping the tempo for a brief encore.

I’m beginning to think it’s been a while since I saw a goal, but as half-time beckons Wes Burns crosses from the right and Cameron Burgess moves into space in front of the penalty area. Everyone wants him to shoot thinking that he’s been possessed by the spirit of Bobby Charlton, but wisely he lays the ball off to an overlapping Leif Davis whose cross is met full on by Nathan Broadhead, who lives up to his name with a very straight and well  directed header into the far corner of the Millwall goal net. Town lead 3-0 and every goal has been a sight to commit to memory and treasure.  There is not a hint of irony tonight as we all sing “Ipswich Town, Ipswich Town FC, the finest football team the world has ever seen”.  Three minutes of added on time are surprisingly not enough to give Town a fourth goal, but the applause and appreciation are not diminished by this as the teams leave for their half-time break and I make the short journey to the front of the stand to chat with Ray and his grandson Harrison, who is much taken with ‘new’ Beatles single, which I can’t remember the name of.  I tell him it’s not as good as their old stuff, so everything they ever did before really, even Yellow Submarine.  I haven’t seen Ray for several weeks and I learn that he has been on two back to back cruises and not on the Orwell Lady either, but down to Madeira and southern Spain.

Back in my seat, I quickly scoff a Nature Valley cereal bar as the fog is thickened by use of the Versailles fountains on the pitch, before the game resumes and Nathan Broadhead is viciously hacked down by some Millwall oik who is then shoved by George Hirst who seems to have come over all protective of his team mate Nathan.  An unseemly melee ensues as if the players hadn’t been drinking tea or isotonic drinks at half time but pints of Stella.   Eventually however, the original perpetrator, the deceptively bitter George Honeyman,  is booked by Mr Bramall and everyone simmers down.

More bookings follow for both teams before the game reaches its 60th minute birthday ,and Millwall make a double substitution with the plain sounding Billy Mitchell replacing the more exotic Casper de Norre and the boring sounding Kevin Nisbet replacing the equally dull sounding Tom Bradshaw. Town have a brief flurry of attacks, Massimo Luongo shoots very narrowly wide and Bialkowski makes a save, but the fog has thickened  and I couldn’t swear to having seen any of it very clearly, and up in the Cobbold stand the Millwall fans are singing “ We can’t see a fucking thing” to which the wittiest of the  Ipswich fans in the Sir Alf Ramsey stand reply “We forgot that you were here”, and all to the tune of Cwm Rhondda.

The second half is not as entertaining as the first and with twenty minute to go Keiran Mckenna, who must be freezing in what my friend Pete’s mum would have called “just a shorty-arsed jacket”, commits to a mass substitution as Marcus Harness, Omari Hutchison, Dane Scarlett and Kayden Jackson usurp Nathan Broadhead, Wes Burns, George Hirst and Conor Chaplin.  Moments later Murphy tells us that there are 27,702 of us here tonight of whom 1,270 are from Millwall, and no one likes them.  Murphy thanks us very much for our support, but unusually applies no adjectives to it, which is a good thing.

With time slipping away, empty blue seats are appearing in the Cobbold stand and Millwall supporters would seem to be slipping away too, but then with twelve minutes of normal time remaining a deep cross drops to the far post and Nisbet’s leg reaches in front of Cameron Burgess and he hooks the ball into the net for a Millwall goal.  ”We’re gonna win 4-3” sing the Millwall fans admirably, and then “How shit must you be, we’ve just scored a goal” showing a streak of self-deprecating humour not expected from fans of London clubs, although Fulham supporters also have it.  For a few minutes Millwall’s supporters have renewed hope as their team get forward, but don’t really threaten the Town goal.  It might just be that they are trying to keep warm, but there are some roars of encouragement , a chorus of “We Are Millwall, No one likes us” and one of “One-nil in the second half”, all healthy signs of supporters who know winning isn’t essential and have learned to get their fun where they can.

As the cold begins to get to grips with my woollen socks the sound of the final whistle can’t come soon enough. Jack Taylor replaces Massimo Luongo with a minute of normal time left and, we quickly learn there will be a mercifully brief four minutes of added on time.  Man of the Match,  Murphy tells us is Conor Chaplin, which draws an impressively uninterested response from the crowd and the final whistle is met with a sharp exit into the fog on all sides of the ground.

It’s been yet another enjoyable game at Portman Road, made even more memorable by three excellent goals, fog and freezing temperatures.  Whilst I loved the football, what I think I learned  most from tonight is that fingerless gloves do work, I have a very warm coat, but my socks could be better.

Ipswich Town 4 Accrington Stanley 1

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Before starting this account of Ipswich Town’s latest fixture I must let you the reader know that I am sick and tired of people droning on, repeating that 1980’s advertisement for milk whenever Accrington Stanley is mentioned. There is no excuse for not knowing the name of Accrington Stanley and that child in the advert was an ignoramus and possibly an imbecile and deserves to suffer from calcium deficiency.

Today, I am extremely excited; as excited as a Liverpudlian child with weak bones or a deficiency of vitamins E, B6 and B12 should be when offered a glass of milk. Today for the first time in five months I am returning to Portman Road to watch the latest chapter in the Superblues’ epic march back towards world domination, and today Town face the famous Accrington Stanley. The last game I saw was Town’s tepid one-all draw with Sunderland in August, soon after which I was found to have pneumonia, was put in a coma, diagnosed with Endocarditis, given open heart surgery to replace two valves eaten away by bacterial infection and placed on a two-month long course of industrial strength anti-biotics. Sunderland AFC was not implicated in these events.   Unlike Gloria Gaynor, who after all these years is still all about what she will do, I actually did survive, thanks to the fantastic NHS, and at last I now feel fit enough to once more brave the streets and terraces of Suffolk’s capital city. Consider Emyr Huws’ return to the team after long-term injury, Andre Dozzell’s return to the team after torn ligaments, Ian Marshall’s return to the team after being run over by a shopping trolley; roll them all into one and you will come close to how I feel today. Today is, as those who speak in modern parlance say, ’massive’ or at least quite big.

It is a grey and windy Saturday, becoming of early January, and the trains are not running. Refusing to pay train fares to travel by Corporation bus, yesterday I experimentally sought the assistance of fellow Ipswich Town supporters on social media and attempted to politely solicit a lift to Ipswich. With the sole exception of a sensible answer from a kind man in his sixties called Ian, the responses I received were at worst rude, ignorant or stupid and at best unhelpful. These responses included one from a man whose profile indicates somewhat worryingly that he is chairman of governors at an infants’ school, whilst another respondent claimed to be three years old after I notified him that his initial response implied he was not able to offer me a lift and that was all I needed to know.  Depressed that idiots and dumb arses trying to be smart arses are also Ipswich Town fans, I muse that at least Ian proves that decent people do exist and today I convey my gratitude to him as we travel up the A12 in his grey Volkswagen Tiguan. We talk of football and our plans for the pre-match period. Once the VW is parked up we go our separate ways, departing each other’s company with the reciprocal wish that we might enjoy the drive home on the back of a good win.

It’s only a quarter to one and Portman Road is still open to motor traffic; I assiduously keep to the pavement because it would be a waste to be mown down by a car now, having dodged death only a few months before and at public expense too. After stopping to buy a programme (£3.50) I continue up the gentle incline, across Handford Road to St Matthews Street, passing a few early-arrivers walking in the opposite direction.  I have time on my hands and rather than fall prey too early to the demon drink I walk on past St Jude’s Tavern to Francesco’s Hair Salon at 61 St Matthew’s Street.  My long period of convalescence has left me looking like Howard Hughes and I need a haircut, so I get one (£15.50) courtesy of a charming lady hairdresser with whom I chat about going to football, Christmas, family, drinking enough fluids and fruit.  Francesco’s is incidentally the same establishment where Bobby Robson would get his hair cut.  Although Francesco has moved premises since Sir Bobby’s time, I nevertheless can’t helping feeling I would have had Bobby’s endorsement for this match-day tonsorial, although it is only in my imagination that I see him smiling back at me from the mirror giving me the thumbs-up.

Looking like a new man I leave Francesco’s and make the short walk back to St Jude’s Tavern; upon entering I think I hear a small voice say “Martin”, but I pay no attention believing I have just happened to walk in on the end of a conversation about relatives of the polecat or cast members of ‘That was the week that was’.  I proceed to the bar, but before I can order a pint of today’s Match Day Special (£2.50) my friend and colleague Roly is at my shoulder and wishing me well, for it was he who spoke my name.  I have not seen Roly for several weeks and we talk agreeably, making jokes of everything we can think of, none of which we will remember.  Soon, my mouth parched from incessant conversation, I get a second pint of the Match Day Special which today is Mr B’s Hexagon, a name which refers to the shape of the honeycomb, but which I as a lover of all things French prefer to think of as celebrating the mainland part of metropolitan France, which the natives often refer to as l’hexagone due to its approximate shape.  I treat Roly to a half a pint of the same drink; he is on reduced ration because later he will be driving home in his second-hand Vauxhall Astra.

Before we leave St Jude’s for the match, Mick pops in to give me my season ticket which he has been using whilst I have been confined to my sick bed. Mick doesn’t stay for a drink but lingers long enough to tell us how he met his friend Chris at the railway station and they had a drink in the Station Hotel, which on match days is dedicated as the ‘away supporters’ pub.  Unable to spot any away supporters Mick asked a bouncer where they all were; the bouncer turned and pointed to two blokes drinking quietly in the corner of the bar.  Later the number of away supporters attending the match will be announced on the Portman Road scoreboard as 155 in a crowd of 17,536.  I do not believe that 153 of these 155 Accringtonians are teetotal and I am pleased therefore that they paid no heed to being confined to the ‘away pub’ and sought their pleasure like free men and women, wherever they could find it.

Time passes and eventually with glasses and bladders drained Roly and I descend Portman Road in time for kick-off; the day remains dull and defined by grey cloud. I dodge my way across the stream of supporters flowing out of Portman Road car park and into Sir Alf Ramsey Way; I enter the Sir Alf Ramsey stand through turnstile seven after a brief internal dialogue about which is the luckier number, seven or eight; I decide I don’t believe in lucky numbers. I say a hearty, smiling ‘hello’ to the lady turnstile operator and a little bizarrely also bid her ‘goodbye’ as the turnstile clicks; my excuse is that I am out of practice with this match-going lark, but I am also feeling a lot of love for the world and everyone in it.  After another brief visit to the toilet facilities I ascend the steps from the concourse into the lower tier of the stand to reacquaint myself with Pat from Clacton, ever-present Phil who never misses a game, Ray, the old dears who formerly sat behind me, Bluey, Crazee and my view of the green, green turf and its dramatic, part human, part concrete, part blue plastic and steel backdrop.

It is with a heavy heart that I learn from ever-present Phil that Pat from Clacton is not at the game today because she is on a cruise, but I speak excitedly with Ray and his grandson Harrison before taking up a seat two along from ever-present Phil and in front of the old dears.  With all that lining up to shake hands malarkey out of the way referee Mr Charles Breakspear, whose name sounds like he might have played Association Football for Old Carthusians in the 1870’s, parps his whistle to begin the match.  Accrington Stanley get first go with the ball all dressed in a strong shade of red, which makes them look a bit like Liverpool and is ironic given that at least one fictional, undernourished child from that city has never heard of them.  Incidentally, my earliest contact with anything Accringtonesque was a short, balding bloke called Steve who I met when at university; he came from Accrington but shamefully supported Liverpool, I think if I described him as dwarfish and ugly it wouldn’t be an injustice.  My second contact with something touched by Accrington was by contrast an attractive lady work colleague who was a native of Oswaldtwistle or Ozzy as she called it, a town contiguous with Accrington or Accy as she called it. She was well versed in the names of Burnley players of the 1970’s  and rarely wore a brassiere, two possible reasons why I remember her over thirty years later.

With Town in their customary blue and white and the turf glowing green beneath the floodlights this could be a scene conjured up from a Club Edition Subbuteo set. Town start well, passing the ball accurately, playing towards me and ever-present Phil and looking keen to do well.  My attention is taken however by Accrington’s enormously tall number 5 whose name, the shoulder of his shirt tells me is Sykes, not Eric or even Bill sadly but Ross, like the fish fingers.  “Cor! He’s skinny” shouts a voice behind me. Sykes’s gangliness is however overshadowed by that of Accy’s number 36 Jerome Opuku, a player on loan from Fulham whose flailing arms and legs give him the appearance of a piece of nineteenth century agricultural reaping machinery or a drunken octopus; when tackled he collapses to the floor like a puppet that has had its strings cut.  That said he’s a half decent player.

After kick-off just twelve minutes pass and Ipswich take the lead; a glorious passing move involving the eye-rubbingly strange sight of Luke Woolfenden surging into the penalty area in open play (‘underlapping’ as ever-present Phil christens it) from his centre back position. I can’t recall having seen such a thing before at Portman Road, it’s tantamount to ‘Total Football’; a marvel, even if the ultimate finish from Kayden Jackson looks a bit scruffy as he slides on his bum side by side with an Accrington player to get the ball over the goal line.

“Come On Ipswich” chants the crowd, bemused or tentatively intrigued by the stylish football before them. Two minutes later another passing moving ends with James Norwood hopelessly mishitting the ball when well placed to score. In a rare idle moment I watch a seagull arc above the pitch, but this is a game that demands to be watched and before a half an hour has passed Norwood runs on to an instinctively reactive, first time volleyed pass from Emyr Huws and casually lobs the ball over the head of the Lambeth born Accrington ‘keeper Josef Bursik.  Time slows down as the ball follows a graceful arc, although I’ve yet to see an arc that isn’t so, and descends perfectly beneath the cross bar before striking the net.  The goal inspires a thankfully brief dirge version of “When the Town going marching in” from the North Stand and I decide that Jerome Opuku’s squad number of ‘36’ refers to his inside leg measurement.  Life is good if you’re a Town supporter inside Portman Road football ground today and just to prove the point a third goal is scored by little Alan Judge a minute before half-time. It’s the result of another fine passing move which this time has seen centre half Luke Chambers push forward in open play to set it off.  Luke Chambers mostly looks angry when he’s playing football, some might say he is pulling a determined face perhap. His snarly reaction to the latest goal today seems to imply he is claiming some responsibility for it, almost as much as Alan Judge; perhaps scoring again was his idea. 

Applause is the sound of the day as the teams clear off for half-time and I head down to the toilet before consuming a Nature Valley Protein Peanut and Chocolate bar which I had had the foresight to put in my coat pocket before leaving home almost four hours ago.  The queues for the refreshment kiosks are long and I’m pleased I am not in one.  I check the half-time scores on one of the overhead TV sets beneath the stand but get bored waiting to see anything of interest and consider how literally pointless half-time scores are.  My already cheerful mood is enhanced further however when I learn that Norwich City are losing and in my mind’s eye I see a poky, high up corner of Old Trafford where funny looking folk in yellow and green knitwear have paid exorbitant Premier League prices for the privilege of seeing their team humiliated.  I return to the stand and speak again with Ray before the teams return to play out the second half which with a satisfying sense of symmetry begins at four minutes past four.

The greyness of the afternoon deepens behind the stands making the floodlights seem to shine all the more brightly.  Predictably perhaps, the second half does not reach the heights of the first, in spite of the efforts of the glowing beams of electric light illuminating the pitch. Town begin well enough and continue to dominate possession, but the gaps in Accrington’s defence have been plugged and whilst the football is not bad, it’s been downgraded from the first half’s Copacabana-style to something more like Felixstowe-at-low-tide-style.  It’s been a game pleasantly devoid of histrionics or naughty fouls but at half past four Accrington substitute Ajibola Alese, who is on loan from West Ham United and is only 18 years old commits a foul on little Alan Judge which Mr Breakspear considers worthy of yellow card style censure. Cole Skuse replaces the wonderfully Welsh Emyr Huws, which is nice because their surnames rhyme, and then Teddy Bishop replaces little Alan Judge.   There are now two Bishops on the field as Accrington also have one in Colby Bishop, although to be honest he sounds more like a firm of estate agents than a footballer.

It’s getting on for a quarter to five and an Accrington player, possibly Dion Charles is left unmarked close to Ipswich’s goal; he shoots with his right boot; he should score but Town’s James Wilson, who makes me think of Labour prime ministers of the 1970’s moves across to deflect the ball away above the angle of the goal post and cross bar with his calf. “Lucky Ipswich” says the old boy behind me, but it wasn’t luck, it was good defending, eventually.  If it had been luck that stopped an Accrington goal it would have been of the sort that didn’t last because within a minute or so Accrington’s Congolese substitute Offrande Zanzala, who has previously played for Stevenage, Barnet and Chester, is pulled back and has a leg swiped across his chest courtesy of James Wilson. Zanzala manages to beat off a team mate who seemed to want to take the resultant penalty before he could and then scores.

There is still time for stomping Luke Chambers to get himself booked un-necessarily, which he does, and for Accrington to score two more goals, and that’s the sort of scenario that wouldn’t surprise an Ipswich supporter considering Town’s aggregate form over the last thirty years or so.  Today proves not to be the sort of day for that to happen however, and with the game into the time added on to compensate for substitutions and any nihilistic attempts to fritter away existence, Town’s third substitute, the imposing Will Keane robs an Accrington player of the ball, turns back towards the away team’s goal and sends a low shot past the man known to the French as le gardien and to Emyr Huws as the gol-geidwad.  With his hair drawn back in a scrappy pony tail Keane has the look from a distance, a long distance, of a poor man’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic and his record of three goals in the last four games is worthy of the big Swede.

The game ends amid much clapping and self-congratulation and after bidding ever-present Phil adieu I make a final visit to the toilet beneath the stand and then walk out into the evening, towards Ian’s Volkswagen, the soporific tones of Mick Mills on the car radio, the voices of assorted opinionated people calling to give Mick their worthless views and the journey home.

Finally, after Ian drops me off I walk around the corner to my house; a small coach drives by with the name ‘Enigma Travel’ painted on the side; “Probably on a mystery trip” I think to myself.

Halstead Town 2 Fire United 1

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Had today’s fixture in the Thurlow Nunn Eastern Counties League Division One South been played at pretty much any time between April 1860 and January 1st 1962 I could have travelled to it by train. However, thanks to the evil Dr Beeching I am making the twenty minute journey to Rosemary Lane Halstead by Citroen C3. It’s not an unpleasant twenty minute drive on a bright, September afternoon along the winding and undulating rural roads of north Essex, through Earl’s Colne with its three pubs and finally down the hill of Halstead’s High Street and over the River Colne, but I can’t help thinking I would have arrived happier if I hadn’t been personally responsible for the burning of fossil fuel and release of carbon monoxide and other noxious gases. If I was Donald Trump I don’t suppose I would give a shit, but he is an ignoramus. There is a bus service via Colchester (Hedingham Omnibus route 88) but I’m 58, so time isn’t on my side.

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In Rosemary Lane I reverse between two marks of Ford Fiesta and scrunch across the shingle, Halstead Town’s own beach, to the turnstile where I pay £6 for entry and £1 for a programme. An impatient youth wants to push past me and I tell him to hang on ten seconds until I have my change. Although the car park is full there doesn’t seem to be

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any one much here yet, it’s only twenty-five past two. A man stands at the end of the main stand and copies down names from today’s team sheet, the tea and food bar isn’t open so I take a look inside the club house. A cluster of drinkers stand at the bar and some sit at tables. I consider buying a drink, but there’s no real ale on offer and I can still taste the cup of tea I had before leaving home, so it’s not like I’m thirsty and I never have any real desire for a glass of artificially carbonated beer. I return outside and ‘do’ a circuit of the pitch to the soundtrack of some awful, sub-disco, bland pop playing over the public address system.

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The referee and assistants are warming up; I noticed from the team sheet that the referee and one of his assistants share the surname Williams, and whilst they do stretches against the rail around the pitch I impudently ask if they are related. They are not, but the referee confirms that Messers Arnot, who officiated at the game I saw last week in Harwich are father and son, although they looked like grandfather and grandson to me. Unusually, but less so than in the not too distant past, the other assistant to the referee is a woman, Ms Withams. They form a contrasting threesome, the referee typically neat and fastidious looking, his male assistant older and almost frail in appearance and his female assistant a somewhat full-figured woman.

Halstead Town football ground, known for now as the Milbank Stadium, has only one stand, it is plain, a little dark and very utilitarian, but to a football fan it is a thing of beauty, arguably the finest stand in the Eastern Counties League after Great Yarmouth’s, which is a Listed Building. May be Heritage England should be listing buildings like this one; its corrugated pitched roof and steel stanchions are redolent of the 1950’s and it was indeed erected in 1950; its plain, post-war utility makes it a sort of football prefab. Most Football League clubs have already demolished their stands like this; it may be small but it’s perfectly formed.

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Time ticks away, more spectators arrive, I choose a seat in the main stand and in due

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course the teams appear in the tunnel at the centre of the stand, beneath a metal cage. The programme tells me that Halstead are top of the league having played seven games, but suffered their first defeat of the season in midweek at home to nearby Coggeshall United, not to be confused with Coggeshall Town. Fire United languish in sixteenth place in the nineteen team league having played only four games, they lost the first three but won 4-0 in midweek.

Fire United Christian Football Club (fortunately they don’t use an acronym) are one of a small number of oddities amongst teams in the non-league football pyramid in that they don’t represent a town or geographical location, but rather people who share a common faith and who largely have a Brazilian background. Founded by a Christian ministry in only 2012, the club has progressed quickly into senior football and is made up of mainly Brazilian ex-pats living and working in London. Whilst they are a new club, interestingly Fire United’s Christian foundation echoes the earliest days of organised football in Britain in which many clubs including the likes of Fulham, Everton, Liverpool, Tottenham and Swindon Town all had their nineteenth century roots in local churches. For Fire United’s sake I hope they don’t end up like them.

The teams line up and the announcer receives a round of applause for his thoroughly plausible pronunciations of the Brazilian/Portuguese names of the Fire United team; but perhaps he was ‘speaking in tongues’ (see Acts of the Apostles 19:6). The Halstead Town chairman resplendent in shorts and T-shirt, no show-off club ties and blazers here, makes a presentation to a player (Nick Miller) making his 100th appearance for the club and then referee Mr Chris Williams begins the game. Fire United, wearing a kit of two

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shades of blue kick-off, playing towards the River Colne and small industrial units between the ground and the river. Halstead Town wear black shorts and socks with black and white striped shirts from which they derive their nickname “The Humbugs”, which as nicknames go is one of the very best. More teams should make reference to sweets and confectionary in their nicknames instead of birds and animals. Halstead are playing in the rough direction of the redundant Holy Trinity Church, a Grade II* Listed Building of the 1840’s designed by George Gilbert Scott (architect of the Midland Hotel at St Pancras Station) in the Gothic Revival style and well worth a look if you like such things.

Early on, ⁹Halstead look eager and have the ball at their feet more than Fire United do. It is a Fire United player who commits the first foul and the one after that and their number seven, Diego Bitencourt is the first player to be spoken to by Mr Williams. Bitencourt is a balding, wiry man, greying at the temples and he looks like he could be any age between thirty and fifty; he can play a bit though. Despite Halstead’s early dominance, it is Fire United who earn the first corner and from then on they don’t look back and win a procession of corner kicks as they begin to dominate the match themselves. The Fire United number four Paulo Grigorio fails to make the best of a few headers from corners but it is his team’s play between the penalty areas that is most impressive. Unfortunately, this team of Brazilians are conforming to the stereotype that I thought had lazily earned them the nickname of the Samba Boys. But they do genuinely play a languid, smooth style of passing game. On the left, number eleven Daniel Lopes is quick and dribbles with both feet, and in the middle and everywhere else number twenty Felipe Melgaco flits and energetically dances about with the ball. At the back number three Rui Semedo is in the mould of OGC Nice’s Dante or Olympique Lyon’s Marcelo as he is unafraid to stop and look up, to stand with the ball at his feet, then nicking and dinking it away from on-rushing forwards before passing it again. It seems that even your average group of working or church-going Brazilians can just form a team and quickly make the ranks of English senior football, so superior is their understanding of the game to ours. Latin American rhythm versus boiled sweets.

Halstead have disappeared from the game largely and when in the twenty third minute Fire United take the lead it is thoroughly deserved, although it is an own-goal from Halstead’s number six Jack Schelvis, who diverts a cross after the Halstead defence give the ball away. Having taken the lead, Fire United fail however to build on their advantage. The game is punctuated by injuries; Paul Grigorio goes down and requires

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treatment; the trainer a large man in grey tracky bottoms and polo shirt runs on holding just a can of spray; miraculously it’s enough and Grigorio is soon back on his feet. As half-time draws near Fire United are comfortable, so much so that like Holland in the 1974 World Cup final they perhaps take things a little for granted. A nascent move down the right is stopped and played all the way back to the goalkeeper for no particular reason. Square passes are played between the Fire United defenders and Halstead close them down; the goalkeeper Lincoln Marques scuffs his clearance into touch. Halstead string a few short passes together from the throw and get into the penalty area, Fire United haven’t picked everyone up; a shot is blocked and runs to Joe Jones who has space to send a low shot beneath Marques and give Halstead a barely deserved equaliser with possibly their first shot on target. Within moments it’s half-time.

I wander down to the clubhouse behind the stand. There is an orderly queue for beer at the bar and two giant TV screens flash images brightly but silently on the walls. There is a print of a painting of the ground back in the 1950’s when the railway line still ran behind the end that doesn’t back on to the river, the painting is entitled “Playing to the whistle” proving that football and puns have never been strangers to one another. When I last came here there were some marvellous old photos of long dead Halstead Town teams on the walls but they seem to have gone, which is a shame. Just inside the door to the clubhouse an area is divided off from the main room and a small sign announces that this is the hospitality area. A long table is covered with plates of sandwiches, sausage rolls, cakes and biscuits, some wrapped in silver foil. It looks like a child’s birthday party minus the balloons and a cake. Rows of stackable chairs surround the table, upon which committee members and life members sit with paper plates on their laps. I head outside to the tea bar and invest in a pounds worth of tea.

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From the very start of the second half Halstead Town are quicker and more energetic than before and they soon impose themselves on the game through sheer effort. Marques makes good saves from both Jones and Vincent and Jones heads wide when unchallenged. Pavett produces a hard low shot for which Marques throws himself down to his left to push away around the goal post. Fire United bring on a substitute, number eighteen Vasco Jardim, who is large in girth and rivals Humbugs’ number four Ben Morgan and goalkeeper Jack Cherry as the stoutest player on the pitch. Jardim has short legs and amuses several people in the crowd when he falls over spectacularly to claim a free-kick, but is the booked by Mr Williams.

It looks increasingly like Halstead will score again, it is just a question of when, but Fire

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United still create one or two opportunities of their own on the break. I wander around a bit to take in some different views that form the back drop to this game. The fourteenth century church of St Andrew is visible at the top of the hill and behind what is now the Halstead goal, where the railway track once ran a hedge row follows the line of the old embankment; berry laden bushes billowing out in a line like steam from a ghostly locomotive. As the sun begins to

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sink in the west, the shadows of trees envelope one corner of the ground in dappled shade.

I return to the main stand. Fire United’s Daniel Lopes shoots over an empty goal as Gabriel Dias and Jack Cherry collide, and after receiving treatment from the coach’s spray can, Dias is then substituted for number nineteen Glory Lukombo. “ What a great name” says a bloke behind me and I can’t disagree. The Mr Williams holding a flag has to defend not giving an offside decision against Halstead and seems to be talking to himself as he runs back up the line. Then Halstead score. Number eight Jordan Pavett chips a perfect pass over the Fire United defence onto which Callum Vincent runs before placing the ball beyond Marques with what could accurately be called aplomb. Purely on their second half performance Halstead probably deserve it, but as a naturally lazy person I am slightly disappointed that effort and hard work has seemingly won out over strolling about stylishly.

It’s not long before Mr Williams blows his whistle for the final time and with it an appreciative crowd of ninety-three make their respective ways back into the clubhouse or out into the car park and down Rosemary Lane. I and a few others wait a short while to applaud Fire United from the field, before I head back to my Citroen and the journey home.