guadeloupe

Ipswich Town 1 Maidstone United 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

As working weeks go it’s been a good one, I had Friday off and only worked until a smidgeon after half past two on Thursday, and all week long I’ve been looking forward to Saturday and the FA Cup fourth round, a ‘straightforward’ home tie versus non-league Maidstone United.  On Thursday night I dreamt of Kieran Mckenna. As is often the case with dreams, I don’t really remember much about it,  but I know I  was left with the sort of sensation of calm and well-being you might expect if you’d just had a chance encounter with Jesus or Mohammed, or George Harrison. I had never dreamt about a Town manager before, and the only ‘celebrities’ I can ever recall  entering my dreams previously are Sid James and former Liverpool City Council leader Derek Hatton.

One of two flies in the ointment today however is that the match begins at half past twelve because it is being televised by the BBC and then transmitted on by BEIN Sports, ESPN, SPOTV ON and Supersport MaXimo 1 amongst others; not that I begrudge those Town fans in Eritrea, Guadeloupe, South Korea and Weymouth the sight of our wonderful team in search of FA Cup glory.  But at least there’s no hanging around waiting to set off the match as there’s not much time to do anything more than fall out of bed, have a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, prime the breadmaking machine and fill up the garden bird feeders before I’m smoothly and quietly driving away in my planet saving Citroen eC4 to collect Gary.  There don’t tend to be many flies about in Northern Europe in January but the second one in the ointment today is that there are no trains to Ipswich from the direction of Colchester, only replacement buses and whilst it is possible to travel on these free of charge because no one ever checks your ticket on a rail replacement bus, that would be as dishonest as charging for a rail fare and then providing a bus ride, and then where would we all be?

We park up and stroll across Gippeswyk Park under what approximates to clear, azure skies in Suffolk in winter.  The roads were busy, but the streets are not and in Constantine Road there is still the odd parked car.  We pass by the entrance to the fanzone and I ask Gary if he’d like me to take his photo with Bluey, Ipswich Town’s Suffolk Punch mascot.  He wouldn’t, but was going to ask me the same thing, and I am tempted because it would make a fine addition to my collection, which sees either me or my wife Paulene in the company of Ri-Ri the Nantes canary, Bouba the Monaco elephant and Merlux the Lorient hake, amongst others.  Instead, Gary buys me a programme (£3.00) by way of payment in lieu, for my electricity and chauffeur fees.  Turning away from the programme booth, Gary attempts to hand the programme to the man in the queue behind him, thinking it is me,  but quickly regains his bearings and we amble on towards the ‘the Arb’, after I have tucked the programme away in my coat pocket.

Bursting in the through the door with a raging thirst after our walk, we find ‘The Arb’ is surprisingly quiet, and we also find Mick sat at a table in the middle of the room before he lithely slips off his stool and heads to the bar to buy me a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride and Gary a pint of Lager 43. Beers in hands we head out into the cool of the beer garden where there are no other drinkers until a couple arrive about fifteen minutes later and sit a polite distance away.  I think Mick would have preferred to stay indoors, but I’m having none of it, sitting outside for pre-match  beers feels to me like the most natural thing in the world.  We talk of the operation Mick is to have on his foot, of police identity parades, the locations of the Mauldon’s and Nethergate breweries, the Golden Hind pub quiz team, today’s team selection, the work ethic and how lazy and unpleasant some people are, and the 1978 FA Cup final. Gary kindly buys me another pint of Mauldons’ Suffolk Pride, a Jamieson’s whisky for Mick and another pint of Lager 43 for himself.  I hand Gary and Mick their tickets which I have printed off because I thought it would be easier than the three of us having to pass my mobile phone between us and open each ticket up from the e-mail confirming their purchase.

It’s gone ten past twelve when we leave for Portman Road, but it’s a slightly disappointing walk to the ground because there isn’t the usual gathering excitement of an increasing and purposeful crowd like it must have been marching to the barricades of the Paris commune. There are however queues at the turnstiles in Sir Alf Ramsey Way, although as usual the further we walk, the smaller the queues become, as if most people, like myopic lemmings  just join the first queue they come to. Mick, Gary and I also voted ‘Remain’.

A visit to the toilet facilities to drain off excess Suffolk Pride is required before we take our seats, and from my position in front of the urinal I hear Murphy the stadium announcer reading out the teams and no doubt failing hopelessly to synchronise with the players’ names appearing on the electronic scoreboards.  It’s a pity to miss out on trying to behave like a French football fan by bawling out the players’ surnames, but Murphy would doubtless have ruined it with his lack of co-ordination, so it’s probably best for my mental health and future comfort that I am down here in the toilet.

Up in the stand, our seats are fairly central and at the front of the middle tier of what to people of our generation is still the Pioneer stand; they are in row B, but there is no row A, so our view is only obstructed by passing late comers, people with weak bladders and the interminably hungry who flit back and forth before us annoyingly on their way to and from the facilities under the stand.  With all the hand shaking malarkey out of the way the game begins; Ipswich getting first go with the ball and sending it in the direction of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand. Ipswich are in their standard blue shirts and white shorts whilst Maidstone sport yellow shirts and black shorts, although apparently their shirts are actually ‘amber’, but they don’t have fossilised insects encased within them, Maidstone’s oldest player Gavin Hoyte being only 33 years old.

“We’re the something Army” ( I can’t make out the third word) sing the Maidstone supporters, who occupy the whole of the top tier of the Cobbold stand and cheer every throw-in that their team win and every tiny perceived mistake by an Ipswich player. They’re clearly not expecting any bigger victories than these and are getting their kicks where they can. Eventually, the home support in the Sir Bobby Robson Stand chips in with some random “Ole’s”. Portman Road is noisy this afternoon but it’s mostly Kentish noise.

Ipswich are dominating possession and with no more than two minutes played a Nathan Broadhead shot is blocked. It’s the fifth minute and Jeremy Sarmiento shoots on goal and hits a post. “ Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, the Norwich ran away” chant the North Stand raising the spectre of Boney M of Christmas past. A minute later Omari Hutchison runs in on goal from the right; he shoots and the ball is deflected onto a goal post before George Edmundson sends the rebound wide. It’s an exciting start to the match and in a parallel universe somewhere, perhaps one where Boris Johnson was never Prime Minister and beer is still 25p a pint,  Town are probably  a couple of goals up already.

“Your support, your support, your support is fucking shit” sing the fans of the plucky underdogs, revealing that they are just as unpleasant and lacking in imagination and vocabulary as supporters of the ‘big’ clubs, even if what they sing has the ring of truth.  “Shall we sing, shall we sing, shall we sing a song for you?” they continue generously, taunting the pensioners who populate the Sir Bobby Robson stand but who tell people they sit in Churchman’s. Fifteen minutes have passed and Town win a corner. “Come On You Blues” I bellow before looking around me to check for signs of life amongst my fellow silent Town fans.  Sam Morsy shoots, the Maidstone goal keeper saves, Town have another corner and the process repeats.

Town continue to dominate completely, and Maidstone aren’t getting a kick as their coach driver apologises to manager George Elokobi for not having been able to manoeuvre his vehicle down the players tunnel.    The Maidstone fans repeat their kind offer to sing a song for us and then chant what sounds to me like “We’re the black pepper army”.  Omari Hutchison shoots and wins another corner before George Edmundson heads past a post.”

In the Cobbold Stand, the Kentish equivalents of Lennon and McCartney, and Rogers and Hammerstein have been thinking furiously, but can only come up with “Doo, Doo, Doo, Football in a library”. Mick asks me what they’re singing and having told him I add that I have e-mailed the club to suggest they paper the walls of the inside of the away  end with that wall paper that looks like the spines of books; I don’t know if they have  taken any notice because all they said in their reply is that they would pass it on to the relevant department – the wallpapering department presumably, who knew?

Jeremy Sarmiento shoots over the cross bar prompting rare chants of “Addy, Addy, Addy-O” from the home support and as the game reaches the point where only two thirds of it remains unknown the Maidstone number ten collapses to the ground, receives treatment and everyone else has an impromptu drinks party by the touchline.  The two-thirds milestone is also the prompt for the Maidstone fans to sing “Championship you’re ‘aving a laugh”, a disarmingly honest admission that if a team hasn’t scored against them after thirty minutes they can’t be much good.  It’s at times like this when one most regrets the overblown, puffed-up  marketing ruse of using the term ‘Championship’ as opposed to plain old ‘Second Division’ .  Singing “Second Division you’re ‘aving a laugh”,  doesn’t quite sound so damning.

On the touch line, Kieran Mckenna signals obscurely with his hands as if communicating to the players that the odds on a draw are shortening if they want to place a bet now.  Being as close as I’ve ever been to Keiran Mckenna feels a little odd having dreamt about him the other night; it’s a bit like when you’re a teenager and the shock of finding yourself sat on the bus next to a girl you really fancy.  Jeremy Sarmiento has another shot and Town win yet another corner; minutes pass and another corner follows a deflected Jack Taylor shot. From the corner Maidstone break, it’s the first time it’s happened, it’s almost the first time Maidstone have been close to having possession in the Ipswich half as the man with his team’s most exotic sounding first name and prosaic surname, Lamar Reynolds bears down on goal and then clips the ball over Christian Walton and into the Town goal net. The Maidstone supporters are understandably very excited, but not it seems as much as the collection of people in the peculiar car seats allocated to Maidstone which pass for a substitute’s bench nowadays.  They race onto the pitch to form a human mound with the team and most impressively substitute Chi Ezennolim gets booked by referee, the completely hairless Mr Anthony Taylor, even though he will not end up getting to play any other part in the game.  Somewhat bizarrely, Maidstone lead one-nil, but Ipswich will surely soon equalise and then win comfortably.

Two minutes of added on time are announced by Murphy as the Maidstone fans channel the clean-living optimism of Doris Day and sing  “ Que sera, sera, Whatever will be, will be, We ’re going to Wem-berley, Que Sera, Sera.”  With the half-time whistle it’s time to discharge more excess Suffolk Pride and as Mick queues for a vegan pie I return to our seats to enjoy the names on the list of one-hundred people, mostly children I imagine, who are attending Portman Road for the  first time today.  Perhaps I shouldn’t, but  I can’t help laughing at the names Ember, Maverick and Rogue, and pine for the days of Moon Unit and Dweezil;  it’s probably my age.

At twenty-six minutes to two, the match re-starts and Mick returns, pie-less, I guess they ran out of vegans.  As the Maidstone fans resume their chants of “Black pepper army”  Gary explains that they are actually singing “Black and Gold Army”, which makes me think I should perhaps get a hearing aid like his. Ten minutes of Ipswich domination pass and then Jeremy Sarmento cuts in from the left, shoots, and scores. I leap up and wave my arms about like a man with only a sketchy understanding of semaphore and receive a text message from a friend in Weymouth that reads “That’s more like it”. Town have equalised and will surely soon score a second, third and probably a fourth goal as the Earth returns to its normal orbit around the sun and the clocks stop going backwards.

A mass substitution follows shortly after the goal as Sone Aluko, Dominic Ball and Cameron Humphreys bow out in favour of the superior Conor Chaplin, Harry Clarke and Leif Davis.  “You’re not singing any more” gloat those Town fans who know the tune of Cwm Rhondda and can be bothered to sing at all. Not to be outdone,  Maidstone make substitutions of their own, but only two of them, and then chalk up another yellow card in the form of the ageing Gavin Hoyte.

As chants of “Championship, you’re ‘aving a laugh” resurface, Town fans retaliate with “Sunday League you’re ‘aving a laugh” and the wit and ready repartee of the football crowd reaches its peak for the afternoon.  Town still dominate of course, but just as it seems travellers might be able set up camp in the Town penalty area, or sheep might safely graze, Maidstone break away for the second time in the match and lightning strikes again as Sam Corne, who sounds like a character from rustic folklore, smacks the ball into the Ipswich goal net with aplomb, and Maidstone are leading for an improbable second time.  “Who are ya?” ask the Maidstone fans, temporarily losing their memories in the excitement of it all and capable of only following this up by stating the obvious with “ You’re not singing anymore”.

There are still twenty minutes left so there is no need for Ipswich fans to worry, but just as insurance Town replace Omari Hutchison with Wes Burns, and Jeremy Sarmiento with Gerard Buabo although a little alarmingly Wes Burns has had his hair cut.  Nevertheless, Town pretty much instantly win a corner as the afternoon’s attendance is announced as 27,763  of whom a stonking 4,472 are from Maidstone,  despite Maidstone’s largest home attendance this season being only 4.024. Not to be outdone, Maidstone again try to show that they can make double substitutions too and introduce Perri Iandolo for Sam Bone and for Lamar Reynolds a man who sounds like a block of Council-owned flats, Riley Court.

Town continue to keep possession of the ball except when Maidstone boot it away. George Edmundson appears to be fouled in the penalty area but is booked for just pretending by the overly suspicious and imaginative Mr Taylor.   Conor Chaplin has a shot saved and corner follows corner follows corner.  Harry Clarke has a shot saved, a Conor Chaplin header is saved, a Wes Burns header is saved and before we know it, time is being extended by eight minutes. In the netherworld of compensatory time a Jack Taylor shot is blocked, corner follows corner again and Nathan Broadhead shoots wide; a Jack Taylor header is saved, a Nathan Broad header is saved and then that’s it. Ipswich haven’t won at all and we’re out of the FA Cup despite a ‘straightforward’ comfortable home tie to a non-league team. 

I’m a little shocked, I thought I’d seen it all in fifty years of coming to Portman Road but there’s no denying I hadn’t seen this before and in truth I  didn’t really want to. I hope I dont see it again. As we leave the ground Gary says he expects we’ll wake up in a minute and it will all have been a bad dream.  I’m still waiting.

AFC Wimbledon 0 Ipswich Town 0

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

After six months off-work due to illness, today is my first day back, albeit for a shortened day of just six hours toil.  Keen to prove to the world and myself that this really marks a return to normal life, I am going for broke and also making my first away trip of the season, catching one of three supporters’ buses from Portman Road (£21, but half price with my Season Ticket holder’s voucher) to Kingsmeadow (aka the Cherry Red Records Stadium), Kingston, current home of AFC Wimbledon.  At the start of the season I drew up a list of six third division football grounds, of which Kingsmeadow was one, that I would be able to visit for the first time following the Town; four of those away fixtures have already passed with me in no fit state to attend, so for someone who is blissfully transported by the sight of unfamiliar arrangements of floodlight pylons, coloured polyurethane seats, corrugated sheet metal and concrete steps tonight is an opportunity not to be missed.

Leaving my office at 3pm I make the short walk to Portman Road and approach the back of the short line of three buses. I am booked on Coach Two, which as logic demands is helpfully parked in front of Coach Three and behind Coach One.   I prepare to board but stood by the door and subtly blocking my path is a stern, un-smiling woman with a clipboard and passenger list; “Surname” she says and a subversive voice in my head says “Don’t tell her Pike!”. There was a time not long ago when it was possible to travel on these supporters’ buses anonymously, but times change and football clubs seem to have become ever more controlling and paranoid. In a spirit of mild rebellion and in an attempt to inject the friendly face of humanity I give her my first name also, she eyes me suspiciously as I mount the steps into the bus acknowledging the driver with a nod and muffled greeting as I climb.

The bus is almost full with the usual misfits that travel like this and most pairs of seats are occupied by at least one person; after checking that it is not taken I settle down on the first vacant single seat I come to next to a balding, grey haired and bearded man in a blue polyester football shirt.  Within not many minutes the buses set off one by one to make the left turn onto Handford Road and the highways beyond.  As the bus slows at the Tesco roundabout at the edge of town I check my watch; we’ve been on the road for ten minutes, it seems like hours.  I know I have to take my copy of “Soccer Empire The World Cup and the Future of France” (Laurent Dubois, University of California Press 2010) from my blue cloth bag decorated with the stars of the EU flag (a 2 Euro purchase from the gift shop at the EU Parliament in Brussels )and begin to read to pass the time.

Whilst I learn of Jules Rimet, Guadeloupe and Felix Eboue the buses speed beyond the Suffolk border and on past Colchester with its football ground sitting remote and detached from the town by the A12, past dull Witham and bland Chelmsford towards the M25.  The buses bear the name Suffolk Norse on their flanks, it’s a curious moniker for a fleet of coaches, but then I see the vision of us all lined up in pairs side by side down the length of the bus and I see a longship full of Vikings, of Norsemen, albeit Vikings and Norsemen who have lost their oars. The fleet name makes sense; we are a collection of middle aged blokes led by one severe woman setting off to metaphorically rape and pillage a small corner of metropolitan Surrey. 

Darkness falls somewhere in Kent and crawling through the endless pre-war Tudorbethan suburbia of Chessington, Tolworth and New Malden, two hours and fifty minutes after leaving Ipswich, we eventually spy the floodlights of Kingsmeadow, which shine like beacons to these weary, but in my case well-read travellers.  The buses draw up in front of a parade of suburban shops and I alight as fast as good manners will allow, turning back towards the entrance to the ground where I  have arranged to meet a longstanding friend who is known as Jah on account of his love of reggae music.  Jah lives nearby in Kingston (Surrey not Jamaica) and has sourced our tickets for tonight’s game.  With handshakes and greetings out of the way I buy a match programme (£3) and we head for what is not by any means the nearest public house; however, knowledgeable of my loathing of ‘rubbish beer’ Jah has selected a pub called The Norbiton where he says the beer is ‘decent’. It’s a 15 minute walk through anonymous residential streets to The Norbiton which appears gloriously out of the gloom, light spilling from its tall Edwardian windows and beckoning us in.  Inside we meet Jeremy a friend of Jah who already nurses a pint of what looks suspiciously like lager; he buys me a pint of an Espresso Stout the exact name of which I forget, whilst Jah has a pint of Sambrooke Junction Bitter.   Jeremy is kindly providing one of our tickets.  We talk of our past, our age, of my health, of politics, of women’s football and of Jeremy’s unusually small Toyota IQ car in which we will soon travel back to Kingsmeadow. Jeremy is impressed that I have travelled all the way down from Ipswich for tonight’s game.  Part way through our conversation I realise that although I paid for my programme back at the ground and took my change (four fifty pence pieces) I never actually took the programme.  Bugger.  After Jah treats me to a second pint, this time the Junction Bitter, and has a half himself, it is about twenty-five minutes past seven and time to head for the match. I fold myself into the back of the tiny Toyota whilst Jah, who for a man who is not yet sixty years old is very inflexible, clambers into the front passenger seat.  Jeremy tells us that he usually parks the Toyota directly outside the ground, but tonight the kerbs of Kingston Road are tightly packed and no spaces can be found, and kick off is fast approaching. We drive around the block again and praise be,  in a side road just opposite the ground we find a couple of metres of tarmac between a Vauxhall and a dropped kerb into which the Toyota will fit.

It’s a matter of yards across the street to Kingsmeadow; we enter through the main entrance beneath a high metal arch that announces the name “Kingsmeadow” and spotting the programme sellers beneath  I explain how I didn’t take my programme earlier; he must have realised too as he straightaway hands me one. Around the corner on Jack Goodchild Way we meet a man called Jonathan who incidentally has a Mexican wife, but more importantly the other ‘spare’ ticket and he also hands us each a programme; together we head for the entrance to the main stand.  Entering the stadium is like walking into a social club and it is self-evident that this is very much a non-league stadium. There are no turnstiles as such but we form two orderly queues and pass our bar coded tickets beneath a scanner; looking ahead through a short tunnel beneath the stand I can see the players are already on the pitch, it’s like a snatched glimpse into another world through a magic portal.  A few steps on and we are into the stand and stood at the side of the pitch; our seats are a little to the left beyond the players tunnel which we cross in front of, in the front row behind a thickly painted blue metal crush barrier.

The illuminated scoreboard in the corner of the ground shows that we have missed the first two minutes of the match but it also confirms that we haven’t missed any goals; no real surprise there.  Our seats are within a couple of metres of the pitch and it feels like we are truly part of the game, as indeed the crowd should be.  The atmosphere in this small stand is sociable and happy, clearly everyone here is a regular; club officials, coaches and players mingle in the stand and plainly know some of the supporters, this is like being at a non-league match.  Behind me a man who shouts to the referee that he’s a muppet sounds just like a man who shouts the same thing at Coggeshall Town.

The football is unexceptional.  Ipswich, playing in red and blue with pale yellow socks towards the beautifully and exotically named Chemflow Stand, also known less interestingly as the Athletics End, pass the ball about a bit and if this was a competition to see who could pass the most and most accurately they would win, but inaccurate hoofs and hopeful punts play their part in ensuring that incisive moves are kept to the barest minimum.  The Wimbledon supporters whose team is in all blue get their kicks where they can and cheer with more enthusiasm than perhaps the players’ abilities deserve.  Architecturally Kingsmeadow is a dull little arena, but beneath the floodlights with the backdrop of a few gaunt, grey, leafless trees it springs to life.

Jah and I point and chuckle and guffaw as play after play come to naught. We observe that the referee Mr Craig Hicks has very, very neat hair and Jah mentions the recently aired TV programme Inside Number Nine.   I admit to Jah that I have often wondered about referees’ sexuality.   Mr Hicks may just be light on his feet as he tiptoes away from a tete-a-tete with an errant player and then flicks his wrist theatrically for a free-kick, after which Jah and I spontaneously raise our arms to mimic his slightly camp wrist action whilst the people behind us probably wonder about our sexuality.

“Go on Piggy” shouts Jeremy at Wimbledon number thirty-nine Joe Pigott and I tell him how much I envy Wimbledon supporters having a player they can call Piggy.  Jeremy adds to my jealousy, telling me that they also shout “Feed the Pig”.   Joe Pigott is featured on the front of the match programme. Jonathan asks if I was at the 1978 FA Cup final and seems impressed when I tell him I was.  There are very few sustained songs or chants coming from either set of supporters and Jah and I lament the loss of the great tunes of Gary Glitter and the Glitter Band which are no longer socially acceptable.  When I returned to work this morning I would have very much liked to have sung to my colleagues “Did you miss me when I was away, did you hang my picture on your wall? Did you miss me every single day? I bet you didn’t miss me at all, at all, I bet you didn’t miss me at all. Hello, Hello. It’s good to be back. It’s good to be back.”

Ipswich hit the cross bar in a moment of madness and half-time arrives, and I am in great need of a visit to the small toilet beneath the stand; it’s a cold night and those two pints are trying to get out, but first we must wait for the players to leave the pitch and the blue polythene players’ tunnel to be retracted.  This stadium is the antithesis of the theatre of dreams and it’s great because it is full of the inconveniences that reflect real life.

Relieved we return to our seats for the second half.  If the first half was unexceptional the second is exceptional for being even more unexceptional. It’s as if the players have become frustrated or bored by their inability to do anything much very successfully and have given up.  Weirdly however, it’s not the sort of game that people boo because it retains a kind of competitive tension, either side could score because they are both so inept that either one could just hand victory to the other at any moment.  Hope remains but of course our hopes are foolish.  The absence of appreciable football does at least let me appreciate the fine oak tree that stands and spreads itself behind the covered terrace opposite in which the Ipswich supporters are stood. Jah and I also enjoy the mask worn by Town’s on-loan number three Josh Earl who inspires a conversation about the TV series “My name is Earl”.  When Earl is substituted a man behind us, possibly the “You’re a Muppet ref” man attempts to riff on the problem of a masked player taking off his mask when substituted and then coming back on to the field unrecognised. If anyone laughs, they do so quietly.  Meanwhile a small knot of Ipswich supporters try to scuff-up the bonhomie that has existed for most of the match with a chant of “Who the fucking hell are you?” but it is in no way clear to whom they are addressing their song and no one seems to care.

My hands are cold but I remember I have gloves in my pocket and I put them on, but warmer hands don’t make up for the poor standard of football in the second half, nor does a half volley by Town’s Will Keane which is spectacularly kept out of the goal net by Wimbledon goalkeeper Joe Day, a name which is impressive in its economic use of syllables.  Keane’s attempt is as close as Ipswich come to scoring and the game ends with Wimbledon pretending to be the attacking team as they win a couple of corners and generally mill about threateningly in the Ipswich penalty area.  The final whistle comes as a relief to all and Wimbledon’s supporters, again displaying the pragmatism of the lower leagues, seem happy with claiming a point, realising it’s better than not existing at all.

The evening is over so quickly and I bid Jeremy, Jah and Jonathan good night before heading back to my six-wheeled golden long ship and the voyage home. I’ve had a lovely time and look forward to coming back next season.