Ipswich Town 1 Southampton 2

February 2, 2025February 2, 2025 / martinpbrooks / 1 Comment

It’s not been a particularly good week, I’ve been tired, bored and feeling lazy a lot of the time, and have been trying not to think about football. Ipswich have scored once and conceded twelve goals in their last three league matches, and I’ve dreamt that they will lose again on Saturday. But then it has been January, and the days are mostly still short and miserable, even if they are growing longer and promising to be brighter. Now, suddenly, it’s February and Town are about to play Southampton, by far the worst team in the league. As people are wont to say, what can possibly go wrong?

It’s a dull, chilly day and the train is a minute late, another wasted, pointless minute in which all I do is introduce more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. I sit on the left-hand side of the train carriage because when I did that before, Ipswich beat Chelsea, actually beat them; our only home win in the league this season, so far. Opposite me, a woman stares down at her mobile phone and I have to listen to the annoying jingles and voices emanating from it. Why does she think it’s acceptable to disturb other people’s peace like this? Naturally, I don’t ask her, but instead look at my own mobile phone, checking the latest score in the match between Pen-y-Bont and Haverfordwest County in the Welsh Premier League, it’s nil-nil. I log on to S4C-Clic where the game is being shown live, but it’s half-time so there’s nothing to see. Happily, when we get nearer to Ipswich the woman puts her phone away, as if acknowledging that we’re approaching civilisation where social standards are higher. Descending through Wherstead I spot a polar bear, just the one today.

Arriving in Ipswich there is sunshine and blue sky emerging from behind the clouds; I have my train ticket ready on my phone and opt for human contact, heading for the gate where there is a ticket collector. I show him the weird square bar code thing on the e-mail from Greater Anglia, I think it’s called a QR code, but he says he needs to see the ticket, I thought it was the ticket. “Don’t worry” I tell him, “I’ll go through the automatic gate, it’ll be easier” and it is.

I walk briskly over Princes Street bridge, past the police station and into Portman Road where I pause to buy a programme (£3.50) and find myself approaching the programme seller from one direction, exactly as another man approaches from another; we’re set to collide, which makes the programme seller smile, and I do too, but the other man doesn’t, so I adjust my stride and nip in, in front of him. As I continue on to the Arb, programme zipped into an inside pocket of my coat, I wonder at all the thousands of ‘new’ Town fans in the streets on a matchday lunchtime. What did they used to do when Mick McCarthy was manager? Some of them don’t even look like football fans, more like visitors to a theme park.

At the Arb, I’m soon served with a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£4.14 with Camra discount) and am heading for a seat at the one free table in the beer garden, which seems to have been left just for me. Mick isn’t here yet, so I look at the match programme and enjoy the cover which thanks to the philistines at nasty Umbro (You can stick Umbro up your bum bro’) is inside the back page. Today, the inspirations for the design we are told, are the covers of jazz LP’s and Conor Chaplin, who appears with a halo which, given that he is a Pompey boy, suitably ‘sticks it’ to the Saints of Southampton. My wife, a Pompey girl would approve, and she doesn’t approve of much.

Mick soon appears, saving me from having to read too much of the programme, and mysteriously asks me if I’ve ordered anything to eat. He heads for the bar and returns with a pint of Suffolk Pride and we talk of clearing his dead neighbour’s house, Donald Trump’s insane ramblings, the film of ‘A man called Otto’ and when football club boardrooms were populated with the owners of local businesses. Mick eats a vegetarian Scotch Egg before I buy another pint of Suffolk Pride for me and a Jamieson whisky for him (£8 something with Camra discount for the beer). By twenty-eight minutes to three we are alone in the beer garden and we speculate as to why people are so keen to get to Portman Road early. Mick laughs that there will be queues at the turnstiles for the West Stand in Sir Alf Ramsey Way but he will walk on to the end turnstile where there will be no queue. We agree that ‘people’ are so stupid, “Brexit voters.” I tell him, and we laugh some more.

We leave the Arb at about twenty to three and part ways near the statue of Sir Alf Ramsey. Mick asks what the next match is, I have no idea, and revel in our ignorance, like people do. The back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand is thick with people, so I take the long way round to approach turnstile 62 where the queue moves at an acceptable pace and I ask the security person if he’d like me to strike a pose as he waves his firearm detector over me; he smiles broadly and seems happy for me to do so, and so I go for something that is a cross between John Travolta and Usain Bolt .

The excitable young stadium announcer has already excitedly announced the Town team by the time I join Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood on the bottom tier of the stand. The game begins, and it is Southampton who get first go with the ball aiming it the direction of the goal in front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand. Town are of course in blue and white, but Southampton stupidly sport a pointless, unnecessary away kit of yellow shirts with navy blue shorts. The yellow is of a horribly pale washed out shade, as if their shirts from the 1976 FA Cup final had been very hard wearing and in constant use for most of the past forty-nine years.

I can smell meat pie as the supporters of both clubs exercise their voices beneath a light blue afternoon sky and Town win an early corner through on-loan Paraguayan Julio Enciso. It’s an early chance to chant “Come On You Blues” and I do, which is just as well because unbeknown to me, it will be the only corner Town win. “If you see something that doesn’t look right send a message to the clubs dedicated reporting number” announces the illuminations across the centre of the Sir Bobby Robson stand. I think to myself that Southampton’s shirts fit that description, but is that what they mean?

Ten minutes pass into history and the incisive Enciso has a shot which Southampton ‘keeper Ramsdale saves. “Blue and White Army, Blue and White Army, Blue and White Army” chant the home crowd and Pat from Clacton talks to Fiona about having seen Peter Andre. Back on the pitch, Southampton seem to be unexpectedly dominating possession. I had thought that this might be one of the few games that the Town would dominate. ”Bloody dangerous going forward. Awful at the back” says the bloke beside me of Southampton and I notice that Axel Tuanzebe has had his hair braided, I guess he had a lot of time on his hands when he was out injured.

Another eleven minutes pass by and Southampton score, getting down Town’s left and pulling the ball back for Aribo, the Premier League player whose name most resembles that of a brand of jelly sweets, to awkwardly bounce a shot past a diving Aro Muric. “Oh bugger” is surely the collective thought of twenty-seven thousand people, even those in the family enclosure, whilst the two-thousand nine hundred odd Southampton fans in the top tier of the Cobbold Stand begin singing about saints going marching in, confirming what Martin Luther already knew centuries ago that the Roman Catholic church has a lot to answer for. Buoyed by their religious fervour and one-nil lead, the Southamptonites attempt to be humourous by singing “Sit down if you love Norwich” before moving on to chants of “Your support is fucking shit”. Crushed by their untamed wit, grown men in the top tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand openly weep.

Ten minutes have passed since the fateful goal and Southampton are now playing a game of strategic fouls to break up play, but when Liam Delap bundles past Bednarek with a pass from Nathan Broadhead, he is through with only Ramsdale to embarrass, which he does and Town are deservedly level. “Our number nineteen, Liam Delap” shouts the excitable young stadium announcer adding ear popping emphasis to the letter ‘P’ in Delap. “Hot Sausage Co” say the illuminations between the tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson stand, and Nathan Broadhead almost adds a second goal, but his shot is saved by Ramsdale.

Half-time looms with Town on top. Southampton’s number forty, Welington is booked for a very blatant foul and I tell Fiona he used to play for Wimbledon, with Orinoco, who, along with Tomsk, she seems to know all about. Omari Hutchinson runs and shoots at Ramsdale, and three minutes of added time are added on as the excitable young stadium announcer confirms “That’s three minutes added time”, just in case we weren’t paying attention the first time he said it.

With half-time, I eat a Slovakian Horalky wafer and syphon off excess Suffolk Pride before, as tradition dictates, speaking to Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison. Ever-present Phil who never misses a game expresses surprise that I’m not wearing a Pompey favour on account of Mrs Brooks being a Pompey fan, but I tell him I am just under strict instructions that Town must win. At four minutes past four the football returns beneath a clear blue sky with all clouds having dispersed, and the roof of the Sir Bobby Robson stand turns pale orange like Donald Trump in the soft glow of the winter’s afternoon sunlight.

Southampton have made a substitution replacing a local Hampshire firm of solicitors Taylor Harewood-Bellis with Jack Stephens, who himself is substituted ten minutes later to be replaced by Will Smallbone, a character from Charles Dickens’ Old Curiosity Shop, possibly. Jens Cajuste treats us to one of the worst shots ever seen at Portman Road as his shot fails to travel in the general direction of the goal at all. An hour has passed and Southampton, the ‘Scummers’ as my wife and many others call them, win a corner. Nathan Broadhead takes a rest and Philogene replaces him, and with game two thirds over and Town not winning against the league’s biggest duffers, the crowd seems impatient. Pat tells us that at the end of May she’s going on cruise around the western Mediterranean which takes in Rome, Corsica and Sardinia; it should be better than this match is turning out to be.

Only sixteen minutes of normal time remain. “Come On Ipswich, Come On Ipswich” chant the crowd, beginning to sound desperate. Jack Taylor replaces Jens Cajuste and the excitable young announcer tells us that we number 29,902, with 2,961 of us not really being ‘of us’ ,but of the other lot. “Pompey get battered everywhere they go” sing the other lot as they display, given their status as the only club in the English professional leagues not to have reached double figures in their points tally, considerably less grasp on the concept of irony than even the average American.

With the match into its last ten minutes, Southampton edge into the lead in the corner count before a break down the left from substitute Sulamana ends with a shot, which Muric initially saves. But Muric cannot hold the ball and Southampton’s number thirty-two, Paul Onuachu , a man so huge he didn’t need to be in the Town half to do this, just sticks out a leg ahead of Jacob Greaves and pokes the ball into the net . Defeat was unthinkable, but now it’s not being thought, it’s actually being witnessed. Some of Town’s famously loud and loyal supporters leave, and some of their famously less loud, less loyal ones do too.

It doesn’t look like Town are going to win this now, even though when eight minutes of added time are announced I tell Fiona this gives us so much time we can probably win four-two. Of course, it doesn’t, and the eight minutes evaporate into a cloud of frustration, which finally condenses with the referee’s final whistle into a stream of boos, mostly, I hope to think, from the people who weren’t present when Mick McCarthy was manager.

So, the Town have lost to the team which is likely to go down in history as the one with the worst record of any top division team, a team we all expected to beat. Whatever, we’ll just have to beat some teams we’re not expected to beat, or get relegated; that’s what comes of running towards adversity I guess, death or glory.

Haverfordwest County 1 B36 Torshavn 1(aet)

August 6, 2023January 20, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

(B36 Torshavn win 3-2 on aggregate)

Haverfordwest County’s progress into the second qualifying round of the European Conference League was a beautiful thing and a tremendous way to witness my long-awaited first ever Haverfordwest County match. It brought its own problems, however. I hadn’t honestly expected that win, as welcome and wonderful as it was, but having started out on the ‘European adventure’ I now had to see the next game and consequently arrange time off work, match tickets and somewhere to stay in Cardiff. Lovely, first world problems, but to a fundamentally lazy person committed only to bobbing through life like a cork on the tide, a challenge that had me feeling unpleasantly like Odysseus or other heroic figure charged with completing onerous tasks.

My wife Paulene arranged everything of course, except the time off, which I managed, and after intermittently aquaplaning and queuing along the M4, waking up to a spectacular view of the Bristol Channel from our ninth-floor hotel room and whiling away the day marvelling at the cuddly dragon and sheep souvenirs available in Cardiff gift shops, we now find ourselves on platform 3 of Cardiff Queen Street station awaiting the 18:31 for Radyr, calling at Cardiff Central (Caerdydd Canelog) and more importantly Ninian Park (Parc Ninian). On platform 2 are two well-built women, one carries a large koala bear on her back, the other an even larger red and white fluffy octopus; they gaze across the tracks then descend the stairs into the subway that connects the platforms and disappear from view forever. When the ‘train’ eventually arrives, seven minutes late, it is sadly no Ivor the Engine, but instead an aged sort of bus on rails, which chugs and grinds and squeals its way past Cardiff’s ripped backside towards once elegant Cardiff Central station where, the guard explains, we are held by a red light. “A riddle for you while we wait” says the guard, “What starts red and ends on green?”. The riddle solved, some passengers alight and others climb aboard before we continue what is probably the shortest and slowest train journey I have ever been on (£2.60 return with Senior railcard). Ninian Park station consists of two windswept open platforms and if the train hadn’t stopped there to disgorge, we might have thought it had been closed since the days of the evil Dr Beeching.

It’s a short and now familiar walk to the Cardiff City stadium, across Sloper Road, past the Jubilee Recreation Ground where a rugby team is about to begin a practice session, and then through the Lidl car park. Entry to the stadium tonight is again through Gate 9. Approaching the nest of steel barriers around the turnstiles, I spot a man wearing a day-glo coat featuring an Ipswich Town club crest. Being an Ipswich Town season ticket holder myself we accost him but don’t learn much. He’s lives in Torquay, would very much like a Haverfordwest shirt, was an Ipswich season ticket holder several years ago and claims Ipswich is a dump nowadays and Colchester is better. I re-educate him as best I can about the relative merits of Ipswich and Colchester and tell him Ipswich still has its beautiful buildings and parks and history and is therefore as good as it ever was, it’s just that the inhabitants buy everything on-line, so the town centre shops have shut and for some of them being miserable and a bit racist is all that keeps them happy, hence we have a Tory MP.

Having previously mastered the concept of my mobile phone having a wallet, entry to the stadium is a breeze tonight and I am soon eagerly presenting my bank card to pay for a replica Haverfordwest County shirt (£45) and a bucket hat (£15) which both commemorate the Pembrokeshire club’s presence in this season’s European Conference League. Excited beyond words and now sporting my commemorative bucket hat, I head with Paulene for our seats. Emerging from beneath the stand back into the evening sunlight we talk to the steward at the top of the stairs who tells us where we will find our seats, but also points out there are free Haverfordwest T-shirts randomly draped over the backs of the seats; they’re in different sizes so it’s a question of looking until we find two our size. The tag inside the neck of the first shirt I pick up reads ‘L’ and on the back of the shirt is the surname of the current French president. That’s me kitted out, but the search for a ‘S’ for Paulene continues. A man with two sons says all the ‘kids’ have been looking for them, then another younger man says “What size do you want?” I tell him I need a small. “Here you are” he says, almost immediately turning up the required shirt on the next seat he comes to. What a kind bloke, I think to myself as I thank him.

We watch the two teams warm up and the seats about us fill up with Welsh bottoms; I return ‘below’ to buy two bottles of water (£2.50 each), but experience no urge to pay £6 for a paper carton of insipid Amstel beer, I did that before the previous match, so do not need to do it again. I reminisce that the only other occasion when I ever drank Amstel was in a bar in Amsterdam before the second leg of the 1981 UEFA Cup Final, I don’t know how many guilders and cents it cost but I expect it was my father’s round anyway. When the game eventually kicks off, B36 Torshavn get first go with the ball and are kicking from left to right towards far off Pontypridd and Aberdare; they wear yellow shirts and socks with navy blue shorts, a bit like Oxford United or the Swedish national team, which is unexpected because the Faroes are Danish. Haverfordwest are in this season’s signature kit of all navy blue with pale blue and white chevrons on the front, and to my knowledge resemble no one else but Haverfordwest. Away from the pitch and back in the stand, people are still emerging at the top of the stairs like bubbles from a crack in the seabed, but they’re much more annoying as they dither on the steps trying to find their seats and blocking my view. I can at least console myself with the thought that they have arrived too late to nab a free T-shirt, that’ll teach them.

“Blooobi-irds, Blooobi-irds!” chant several people like demented evening paper vendors as the excitement of the game having actually started takes hold. “What seat is your number?” says a bloke behind me confusedly to the person next to him and in a not overly Welsh accent. I don’t catch the answer, and I’m not really interested. On the pitch, Torshavn’s number 8 Taufee Skandari hacks down Haverfordwest number 3 Rhys Abbruzzese, and whilst escaping punishment from the referee, other than a free-kick, he will hereafter be roundly booed by the crowd whenever he touches the ball. Barely ten minutes have passed, but it’s always good to identify a pantomime villain early on.

“That’s blown my mind a little bit” says the bloke behind me about something which disappointingly I didn’t catch. The game is close at the moment and cagey, and perhaps therefore a little dull, so I would have liked to have known what blew his mind, even if it did only get blown a little. After ten minutes Haverfordwest get the kudos of winning the game’s first corner. “Blooobi-irds” chant the blokes who like to chant, and when Skandari touches the ball they boo too. “ ‘kin ‘ell man” says the bloke behind me as the ball seems to wilfully run away from a Haverfordwest defender as he shapes to clear it. “Aaah, talk man” continues my neighbour as the ball is booted out for Torshavn’s first corner kick just a goalkeeper Zac Jones arrives hoping to gather it up in his arms. The Faroese number three takes an age to take the corner as if he’s first having to calculate precisely the trajectory of the ball before kicking it. A second corner follows but thankfully to no effect.

It takes a half an hour before Haverfordwest have a shot on goal, although a diving header is required from Torshavn defender moments before to clear the ball for a corner and a few minutes before that Oscar Borg sent Martell Taylor-Crossdale away down the left to optimistic and encouraging cheers, but the Faroese goalkeeper got to the ball first. To even things up, Skandari volleys over the cross bar to inevitable jeers and his team are on the up as they win two more corners and Haverfordwest captain Jazz Richards goes down injured and has to be substituted with ten minutes still to go until half time. It’s not a good time for the home team as a shot now has to be cleared off the goal line after a Torshavn free-kick; I thought it was going to go in. As if by way of desperately trying to restore the balance in favour of Haverfordwest, the boos when Skandari next touches the ball are even louder.

After another Torshavn corner and a shot which narrowly misses the Haverfordwest goal but ‘scores’ in the staircase up into the seats behind the goal, Haverfordwest’s Lee Jenkins misses arguably the best chance for a goal so far as he heads a fine cross back across the goal instead of into it. With half-time two minutes away a mass exodus occurs, which includes the bloke behind me and his friends who it seems are heading for the bar. Above us, a gang of three or four seagulls circle and swoop over the crowd, perhaps on the look out for someone who has already obtained a hot, half-time carton of chips or someone who has discarded a cold one. Paulene is intrigued by the men in suits stood by the players’ tunnel and remarks that at every game there are always men in suits stood by the players’ tunnel. We wonder who they are, and I speculate that they are no one in particular, but that for a fee football clubs will hire anyone a suit and let you stand there, like a sort of adult mascot. Then half-time arrives.

I usually like to take a wander at half-time, but tonight I don’t. I think the sight of that mass exodus a few minutes ago has made me want to stay put; I‘m not one to follow the herd. The match resumes at twelve minutes to nine and Haverfordwest set off as if the first half was just a warm-up and now they’re going to play properly. A corner is soon won and then Ben Fawcett is free in space and time at the edge of the penalty area, but he shoots wide of the Torshavn goal.

As always seems to happen in the second half of games, players start getting shown the referee’s yellow card. Like in life, the more time goes on the less one cares, but perhaps others become more desperate. The names of Lee Jenkins, Ricky Watts and Torshavn’s Isak Jonsson all enter the referee’s notebook in just seven minutes of deviant behaviour. From the crowd a new song is heard to the tune of Jeff Beck’s ‘Hi-Ho Silver Lining’, with the words ‘Silver Lining’ being substituted rather neatly and amusingly with ‘Hav-er-ford-west’. Twenty-minutes of the second half pass and the ball is knocked down in the Torshavn penalty area. Messy moments of uncertainty follow before the ball is slamming into the roof of the goal net; booted there by Ben Fawcett. Haverfordwest have scored, and the tie is level on aggregate; I begin to mentally prepare for penalties and Fawcett slides across the turf towards the adoring, cheering crowd before disappearing under a pile of his excited team-mates.

TV pundits tell us that goals change games, but Torshavn change their team by bringing on a couple of substitutes. It works to an extent as they reverse the traffic towards their goal and win a corner, and their number nine has a shot on goal which draws a few worried gasps from fellow spectators around me, but happily the shot goes wide.

Tonight’s attendance is announced as 2,119, and as often happens at football matches nowadays some people break into a round of applause. I can’t decide if they’re clapping themselves, each other, the announcer or whoever it was who counted everyone. There are seven minutes of normal time remaining and Skandari falls to the ground with an anguished groan; naturally he is booed. When he gets up a bloke behind me somewhere shouts “Miracle!”. The final minutes belong to Torshavn who win a succession of corners as Kai Whitmore joins the gang of Haverfordwest renegades who have been booked and Torshavn substitute Valerijs Sabala shoots over the cross bar. Only two-minutes of added on time are added on, it’s as if the referee thinks it’s pointless adding any more because no one’s going to score so we might as get on with extra-time.

Extra-time begins at twenty-one minutes to ten and I realise there will be no prospect of catching the five to ten train from Ninian Park back to Cardiff Queen Street, or the ten-thirteen. The first half of extra-time sees Haverfordwest’s Oscar Borg stride forward and shoot over the cross bar, but then disaster strikes as a mess in the Haverfordwest goal mouth ends with a shot which is blocked on the goal line by Rhys Abruzzese and the referee awards a penalty for handball. Jann Julian Benjaminsen accepts the referee’s gift to the people of the Faroe Islands and scores high into the net as Zac Jones dives, conveniently for Benjaminsen, in the opposite direction. A minute of added on time is played and the final fifteen minutes of the European tour beckon.

Naturally, Haverfordwest attack. A shot is tipped over the bar for a corner, Martell Taylor-Crossdale is crowded out and falls down in the penalty area; was he shoved? A shout of “The referee’s a wanker” from somewhere behind me suggests someone thinks he was, but it could be cramp. When they get the ball, Torshavn pass it around just to retain possession, which they do quite well. With the game into two minutes of added on time, Zac Jones heads up field to join the throng in the penalty area for a corner but, there’s to be no glorious goal from the goalkeeper tonight, and no glorious penalty saves.

With the final whistle, the applause from the crowd is every bit as loud and appreciative as it might have been had Haverfordwest won, it just lacks the roar and the beaming smiles. Paulene and I stay for a while to pay our respects before heading off into the night for Ninian Park station. It’s 10:30 when we get there; the last train is at five to eleven, but the information screen says it’s not expected until eight minutes past. With over half an hour to wait on a bleak cold platform we decide it will be quicker to walk, and this is how our European Tour ends.

Haverfordwest County 1 FK Skandija 0

July 25, 2023July 26, 2023 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

(1-1 on aggregate, Haverfordwest win 3-2 on penalties)

Entering the world in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire just a couple of days before the great Welsh statesman Aneurin Bevan departed it, in July 1960, I sadly didn’t hang about in Wales for very long and instead grew up on the far side of neighbouring England, in Suffolk. I always liked the idea of being a bit Welsh however, and having developed an interest in football I quietly hankered for the day when I might watch Haverfordwest County play; but distance, idleness and following Ipswich Town home and away each week conspired for over fifty years to deny me the opportunity, although I did twice get as far as Swansea and have become an avid viewer of S4C’s Sgorio. Then, earlier this year, having finished seventh in the twelve team Welsh Premier League, Haverfordwest unexpectedly won two penalty shoot-outs against Cardiff Metropolitan University and Newtown in an unlikely European qulification play-off success. Haverfordwest, known also as The Bluebirds, were drawn to play FK Shkendija, a team from North Macedonia and the second leg of the tie was to be played at the Cardiff City Stadium in Cardiff. Cardiff seems a lot closer and indeed is quite a bit closer to my home near Colchester than Haverfordwest; I’d been to Ninian Park and the new place a few times before to see Ipswich play Cardiff City and as this would be a landmark game, being only the second time ever that Haverfordwest had qualified for European football I decided that this was the time to at last fulfil my ambition and see Haverfordwest County in the flesh.

Travelling to Cardiff was a breeze in my planet saving Citroen e-C4, even if the initial stop to recharge the batteries at Membury Services had to be abandoned because the touch screen on the electric charger didn’t work. But the chargers at Leigh Delamere services were all functioning and my wife Paulene and I arrived in plenty of time at our hotel to sample the delights of Cardiff Bay with its Norwegian sailors’ church, Welsh Assembly building, National Arts Centre, pierhead building and shops and bars, which seemed almost exactly the same as the shops and bars in every other waterfront development we’d ever been to.

Today, we traipsed round Cardiff Castle, sampled the local Brains beer (it’s great saying “I’ll have a pint of Brains please”) and dodged hundreds of students in mortar boards and gowns and their parents and siblings all dressed up to the nines to be there when the degrees are handed out. We ate in Wally’s delicatessen and coffee house, which is in one of the many arcades in Cardiff. Wally, I learned, was a refugee from Nazi Austria in 1939. Luckily for him, we didn’t have a Tory government in 1939 or else his café might be a floating one on a hulk in Cardiff Bay.

It’s a good forty-minute walk from our hotel to the Cardiff City Stadium, which means it takes Paulene and me an hour, because she’s only short and doesn’t walk very fast. We pass the railway station and what was the Millenium Stadium; a bloke in the pub told me it’s now known as the Principality Stadium, not because Wales is a principality, although it is, but because since 2016 the Principality building society has been paying for the privilege. We walk across the bridge over the River Taff and into Tudor Street, which leads into Ninian Park Road. As well as houses, Tudor Street has many small shops and takeaways, and realising I have forgotten to bring a pen and paper to jot down notes from tonight’s match, I go into the Al-Ismah shop at number 52 where, unable to find me a small enough notebook, the very kind man behind the counter tears five pages from his own notepad. “Would you like them stapled together?” he asks. “…and do you need a pen? Thanking him gushingly, I let him staple the pages for me, but happily I do already have a pen. “What a great bloke and perhaps another refugee” I think to myself.

The Cardiff City Stadium is a disappointing looking structure, clad in grey metal and standing across a large car park beyond a Lidl and a retail park. I photographed it from the top of Cardiff Castle earlier today, but it could be anywhere; Southampton, Derby, Leicester, Reading, they all look much the same. With no sites to see here we head quickly for the turnstiles. My ticket says to go to Entrance 9, but as we look to step beyond the first turnstiles we come to, a steward steps in front of me and says that’s been changed, it seems we’ve been downgraded to Entrance 5. Getting into the stadium is not easy, I’ve got the e-mail ready on my phone, but apparently I needed to put it in my ‘wallet’, whatever that is. I saw on the e-mail that it said “Click to put in wallet” but I thought I could equally not click if I didn’t want to put in my wallet, and not really understanding how a phone could have a wallet I didn’t want to put the ticket in there anyway. As usual in these situations my wife Paulene takes over and downloads a wallet and puts the tickets in it. The steward at the turnstile, a man with grey hair not unlike myself, tells me he leaves all this kind of thing to his wife as well. Experience now tells me that on balance, matrimony is probably a good thing.

Just inside the stadium, a well-located man with what looks like a huge fold-out suitcase-come-wardrobe is flogging scarves for £15 that announce when you hold them up “Haverfordwest European Tour”. Naturally, I buy one. With no ticket stub or programme from this fixture, I need a souvenir of some sort to put away in a cupboard and never look at again before I die, when my stepsons will finally put it in a skip as they clear my house. Glowing with pride at the scarf around my neck, I am now in the sort of mood where I will pay a staggering £6.35 for a paper carton of Amstel beer, possibly the World’s most bland fizzy beverage. Paulene gets more intoxicated on a bottle of water for £2.50 and we head for our seats, but stop to chat with the stewards at the top of the stairs. They tell us there is an expected crowd of 1,200 tonight and we can sit where we want regardless of what it says on our tickets, although the visiting supporters are sitting mostly to the left, so we might want to turn to the right.

We wait for kick off and enjoy the music over the appalling public address system, which includes The Jam’s version of The Kinks’ David Watts and Jeff Becks’ Hi-Ho Silver lining; it almost sounds as if I’m back in 1984 when, with my friend Stephen who I’d known since primary school, I first visited Ninian Park, arriving by train courtesy of half-price rail tickets from a promotion by Persil washing powder. We walked down Tudor Street that day too as I did today; it hasn’t change much. As I recall, the match was an FA Cup third round tie and Ipswich won 3-0.

Eventually, kick-off approaches and the teams are announced, albeit incomprehensibly over the echoing public address system by a seemingly dyslexic announcer for whom Bluebirds’ Kai Whitmore swaps first names with a make of Korean car. The names of the visiting team sound like random animal noises transmitted through the medium of a bowl of water, but we don’t care too much and in truth it only adds to our enjoyment. The sun sinks slowly below the stand at the Lidl supermarket end and the game begins. Haverfordwest are a goal down from the first-leg but get first go with the ball as the sun goes down behind them. Haverfordwest wear all navy blue with pale blue and white chevrons on their fronts and Shkendija are all in white. The hollow sound of clapping and the cheers of a handful of excited individuals echo briefly around the thirty-one and a half thousand empty blue plastic seats that surround us all on three sides.

Seven minutes pass and the Shkendija supporters begin to chant. “Bluebirds, Bluebirds” comes the response from somewhere up over my right shoulder as Pembrokeshire rises to the challenge. Fifteen minutes have gone and Haverfordwest win a corner in the aftermath of a free-kick.

“Why are their numbers so high” says the bloke behind me to the bloke next to him, having presumably spotted that two Shkendija players are sporting shirts numbered seventy-seven and ninety-five. “I don’t know” replies his accomplice, “I think it’s an east European thing”. “You wouldn’t get a ninety-seven unless you were a development player” he continues, strangely sounding both knowledgeable and a bit clueless at the same time. I notice the bloke in front of me is wearing a top with the crest of Undy Athletic FC emblazoned on the back; I joke feebly to myself that rival fans probably think Undy Athletic are pants. It smells like the bloke in front or the bloke next to him might have farted. Nearly half an hour has passed and Haverfordwest have their first real shot on goal.

“Blueb-i-rds” bellows a voice sounding like a foghorn from a ghostly collier in Cardiff Bay. There’s a little less than ten minutes until half-time and a Shkendija player shoots straight at Haverfordwest goalkeeper Zac Jones. It’s a rare bit of excitement in a cagey first half when the loudest cheers have been for Shkendija players dribbling the ball into touch or for timely interceptions by Haverfordwest defenders. Personally, I’ve mostly been learning about the geography of Malaysia; reading adverts around the ground beseeching me to visit Sabah, Johor, Terengganu and Pahang, places I’d previously never even heard of. Courtesy of their club’s owner, Cardiff City fans must now be the EFL’s most knowledgeable on the tourist traps of Malaysia.

Five minutes remain until half-time and Haverfordwest have what might be a chance to score as a cross is swung in from the right, and their massive number 18, Tyrese Owen, a man seemingly double the size of anyone else on the pitch, swings a leg, but can only divert the ball over the cross bar from six yards out. As if provoked, Shkendija respond, and number seven puts number five through on goal with just Jones to beat for a 2-0 aggregate lead, but he can only boot the ball wide of the Haverfordwest goal post. In the final minute of the half Haverfordwest then make desperate calls for a penalty as the ball passes in front of number five at hand height, but the referee is understandably not impressed and after the game’s first booking (for Haverfordwests’s Ben Fawcett) and a minute of added on time it’s half-time, a time to wander beneath the stand and enjoy a welcome burst of the Undertones’ Teenage Kicks over the tannoy. Paulene admits to having become bored and a bit cold.

Within three minutes of the re-start a Shkendija player flashes a header past a Haverfordwest post and six minutes later, perhaps by way of revenge Haverfordwest earn a corner. I’m becoming more familiar with the Haverfordwest team as the game progresses and particularly like full-back with Oscar Borg with his mop of dark woolly hair and the bald-headed and bearded, chunky Emperor Ming lookalike Jazz Richards. Haverfordwest win another corner and the ball is cleared off the goal line. A yellow glow now shines through the Perspex at the back of the stand at the Lidl end and the game is clearly getting more competitive as the booking count racks up for both sides. Shkendija’s Eraldo Cinari and the wonderfully named Kilsman Cake go onto my list of players who impress.

Shkendija win a rash of corners, Adents Shala heads wide, Ennur Totre shoots straight at Zac Jones and Haverfordwest lead 4-2 on bookings as the first substitutions are made. Ten minutes of normal time remain and Zac Jones makes a brilliant diving save from a header to keep the score on the night goalless. Off to our left a Shkendija supporter in a red shirt and black bucket hat stands to conduct his fellow supporters in songs and chants, although he seems to forget the words at one stage, but gets a laugh.

Full-time is looming and I’m beginning to resign myself to Haverfordwest being knocked out, but they win another corner as the stewards line up at the front of the stand; presumably anticipating a possible a pitch invasion, but I’m not sure by whom. Three minutes to go and Haverfordwest appeal more in hope than expectation for a penalty and are awarded a free-kick at the edge of the box, which requires a decent save from the Shkendija goalkeeper. Was that the last chance of an equaliser? There’s a minute left of normal time but it turns out not to be normal at all as the ball skitters across the back of the penalty area and Lee Jenkins swings a leg at it. The ball strikes a defender and deflects off, high up into the goal net beyond a hapless, flailing goalkeeper and Haverfordwest have only gone and equalised. I leap from my seat in disbelief with fifteen hundred others. The goal is so unexpected, so late, and so precious it ranks as one of the ‘best’ I’ve ever seen. Being one of a relatively small crowd in a stadium much too large for us somehow just adds to the experience, it makes me feel like we are in a world within a world, an alternative reality. Wow.

“You’re not singing anymore” chant the Pembrokeshire contingent to the tune of Cwm Rhondda, but the visitors clearly understand some English because they immediately begin to sing again; perhaps we should have sung in Welsh (dydach chi ddim yn canu mwyach? Blame Google if it’s wrong). There’s still time for a corner for each team as time-added-on is added on and Shkendija almost equalise with a header that skids past the post, and then it’s extra-time, but it feels like we’ve won already.

Extra time sees an early exchange of corner kicks and Cinari whacks a 35 yarder over Zac Jones’ cross-bar. “Oi Borat” shouts a female voice, which doesn’t seem very politically correct and Shkendija win a couple more corners and a free-kick as they begin to dominate a visibly shattered home team, who one by one seemingly all fall victim to cramp. Shkendija are full-time players, Haverfordwest are not, this doesn’t seem fair. But breaking through the pain barrier Lee Jenkins chases back to execute a brilliant saving tackle. From the corner a shot is touched past the post and from another Cake heads over the bar. The final minute of extra time arrives with Shkendija taking yet another corner and then appealing for a penalty for handball, which the referee, who remains anonymous, waves away with wonderfully dismissive and assertive body language.

Haverfordwest might be clinging on to parity by the tips of their studs, but Shkendija are desperate and number 77 Florent Ramadani shoots wide with an extravagance to match his shirt number. Being the only Bluebird not suffering from cramp, goal keeper Zac Jones feigns an equally extravagant dive for the ball to ease the tension and it works, the game is over and it’s penalties.

I’m happy to say I’ve not seen many penalty shoot outs; the one I do remember I do so because it was so bad, Ipswich beating Luton 2-1 in the long forgotten Zenith Data Systems Cup. Tonight’s penalty shoot-out starts badly for Haverfordwest; missing the first one is horrible, even more so when Shkendija score theirs, it feels like that’s it; over. But it isn’t and soon Haverfordwest have taken a 3-1 lead. If Kamer Qaka now misses or Zac Jones saves we win; but Qaka scores. It’s 3-2. Now Ben Fawcett only has to score and Haverfordwest win. Surely he will score, he has to, but instead he blazes the ball out into Cardiff Bay, just so we get our money’s worth. Shkendija have already missed two penalties, they won’t miss again and then it will be 3-3, and then who knows? Florent Ramadani of the extravagant number 77 shirt and extravagantly wide shot steps up. He shoots. Zac Jones saves! Haverfordwest win! Bloody Hell!

What a night this has been. I have seen a lot of football in fifty odd years of going to games, I’ve seen Ipswich Town win the FA Cup and the UEFA Cup and a play-off final, but tonight is up there with the most memorable of matches and tonight I’ve never been so happy and proud to have been born in Haverfordwest. Come On You Bluebirds!

Ipswich Town 2 Accrington Stanley 0

October 18, 2020October 18, 2020 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s Saturday again. It’s football again. The week has been worthwhile after all. Today sees a return to Portman Road for Ipswich Town, after a very successful excursion to Blackpool, and a return to the ifollow for me after the football of imagination through the commentary of Radio Suffolk. Today has been a good day already, the postwoman having delivered a brown cardboard sleeve containing a pristine copy of ‘Snapshot’ – Scenes and stories from the heartlands of Scottish football. I’m hi on the stink of glossy ink after burying my head in this wonderful book intermittently throughout the morning. I’ve only ever been to one football match in Scotland (Hibernian v Raith Rovers, a one-all draw in January 2015), but leaving aside the boring duopoly of Celtic and Rangers I perceive the same humanity and lack of pretence in Scottish football that pervades much of English non-league football, with an added bleakness courtesy of its latitude. The reverent prose of Daniel Gray and photographs of Alan McCredie bring it to life and are an absolute joy; recommended (£12.99 from Blackwell’s with free postage).

Clearing my head with a walk over the fields near my house I return for a lunch of last night’s leftover home-made curry and a pre-match ‘pint’ (500ml) of Dark Star Revelation (£1.50 a bottle from Waitrose). Agreeing to let my wife Paulene enjoy the comfort and warmth of the living room to watch the Giro d’Italia cycle race on the telly, I consign myself to the kitchen where I log on to my lap-top and connect it to the kitchen telly in time to catch the announcement of the names of today’s virtual mascots; kids lucky enough to have parents with 25 quid to ‘spaff’ on a video message and signed letter from a favourite player, a choice of drawstring bag, gym bag, pencil case or beanie hat all costing a tenner in Planet Blue, a programme with their name in, a certificate and that ‘shout out’ on the Radio Suffolk ifollow commentary. The fact that I am firmly into the second half of my lifespan is brought home to me as I smile at what I perceive to be the weird first names of today’s under tens; they sound to me like place names, surnames, occupations and the names of random objects not the names of people, but a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Brenner Woolley and Mick Mills snap me from my ageist reverie as Brenner asks Mick to provide some sort of summary of the state of the team, which he does, but stutteringly at first as he punctuates his monologue with frequent ‘you knows’ until he gets into his stride, when he begins to talk quite normally. It’s as if Brenner had asked him when he wasn’t quite ready. In the background the teams appear and the Portman Road tannoy is blaring out the recently deceased Eddie Van Halen’s “Jump”, a tune I had hoped, vainly it turns out, would die with the sixty-five year old Dutch born rocker. Brenner comments on how the Accrington manager John Colman and Town’s Toto Nsiala embrace, describing them as the “two Merseysiders”, which I like to think was the working title for the 1970’s BBC tv situation comedy the Liver Birds. Clearly Brenner has still not caught up with the fact that Toto was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The game begins. “A throw in for Accrington inside 90 seconds” says Brenner as if that is significant and thereby suggesting that he is perhaps commentating for the benefit of some sort of spread betting syndicate. Meanwhile on screen, views of the interior of the stand roof and empty seats suggest that Luis Bunuel, Yoko Ono and Marcel Duchamp are taking it in turns to direct the camera. Town are looking timid and Accrington have the ascendency. “Trying to play football, Accrington Stanley” says Brenner trying to construct a sentence in the right order whilst simultaneously being patronising and stating the obvious.

“Accrington goalkeeper, young goalkeeper, very alert” says Brenner still struggling with his sentences and possibly implying that he would expect a young goalkeeper to be a bit sleepy. Out on the left Miles Kenlock and Andre Dozzell pass the ball between each other four or five times without moving as if saying to each other “No, you have it, I don’t want it”. It’s a cameo from the two Town starlets that sums up the team’s apparent absence of a plan. “Sears scythed down by Sykes” says Brenner offering some satisfying alliteration in the absence of exciting action. But then out of very little Freddie Sears is as good as through on goal, only for the Accrington ‘keeper, Toby Savin, who is sporting a shirt and shorts ensemble the same colours as the Ipswich Buses livery, to make a good save. Quickly Toto Nsiala is making a weak, headed back pass and Stanley’s Matt Butcher, appropriately wearing the number six shirt, has his shot saved by Tomas Holy. The goalkeepers are the best players on the field and Brenner tells us that we “…don’t see many 20 year old goalkeepers at this level” implying that Savin is very young but clearly forgetting that Town’s last opponents at Portman Road, Rochdale, had a ‘keeper who is just 18 years old.

The camera work is moving from avant garde to a hint of inebriation in the cameraman and I wonder if James Norwood has arrived by taxi to join Luis, Yoko and Marcel up on the gantry. Hopefully the ineptness is not a symptom of Covid-19, but it seems to have become contagious as a goal kick from Savin carries all the way through to Tomas Holy who boots it straight at Andre Dozzell; the ball falls to Stanley’s Colby Bishop who instinctively shoots wide of the open goal. In midfield, Gwion Edwards keeps pushing the ball past opponents and forgetting to run after it, whilst the camera work evolves further to a state where it seems to be predicting where the ball is going to go, thereby showing an empty patch of grass whilst unseen Savin takes a goal kick.

Mick Mills’ first meaningful contribution to the afternoon is to remark that Stanley’s Ross Sykes, who incidentally is a towering 1.96m tall, reminds him of Allan Hunter or Jack Charlton, players who had retired almost 20 years before Sykes was born. Brenner suggests that Sykes would be flattered, but I think Mick was merely implying that Sykes main ability is to kick people up in the air. Accrington are looking more likely to score than Town and Tomas Holy saves a free-kick with a smart dive to his right .“ Well done by the Czech” says Brenner reducing our goalkeeper to a mere nationality.

Town win a corner and the camera zooms in on the corner flag before travelling up into the Cobbold stand for a close up of the rows of blue seats. I expect Brenner and Mick to quote lines from a poem by Andre Breton. The corner comes to nothing and my frustration grows. I am happy to get to half time with the score still goalless.

I enjoy my fifteen minute respite from the combined hopelessness of Town’s performance and that of the ifollow cameraman through the medium of tea and a Nature Valley chocolate and peanut protein bar. Adverts for products and services I do not fully understand are interspersed with the half-time scores from League One and match statistics, which reveal Ipswich have had three shots on goal to Accrington’s ten. Ipswich however have had about 10% more possession and a slightly better passing accuracy; a paltry 73% for Town against a miserable 69% for Accrington. But it is generally easier to pass the ball accurately if you don’t pass it forwards.

The games resumes and Brenner enlightens his radio listeners that it is blues versus reds with Town kicking off from right to left. I of course already know this thanks to my possession of a colour television and having witnessed the previous 45 minutes. Mick soon adds to the new found clarity advising that Sears and Edwards are now playing in their preferred positions (the middle and the left respectively). Accrington however have the first half-chance of the half as a through ball outpaces their number eight Jonathan Russell, who Mick tells us “…didn’t look like he could get away from the defenders” with something Mick calls “ a turn of foot”; I’m not surprised.

Fifty-two minutes have passed and Teddy Bishop shoots past the post, “Better from Ipswich Town, a lot perkier” says Brenner. Two minutes later and Town lead after Gwion Edwards finishes a fine passing move. “Really incisive football from Ipswich Town” is Brenner’s wholly accurate assessment. I cheer loudly out of sheer relief. The lifting of spirits caused by the goal is palpable and Mick introduces some jocularity into his co-commentary as he refers to the former Allan Hunter and Jack Charlton imitator Ross Sykes as “Big Sykesie”, an epithet Brenner considers “Brilliant” for its “familiarity”, something which is in itself brilliant.

The goal has worked wonders and Mick is now clearly smitten with Ross Sykes. Gwion Edwards runs in to the penalty area again. “Edwards absolutely ghosted past Big Syksie” says Mick now unable to stop saying “Big Syksie”. This is the ingredient Mick’s co-commentary has been missing all season, a catch phrase character to liven it up like a few well-placed jokes in a best man’s speech. I’m feeling a lot happier now and am still confident when Tomas Holy is forced into making another low diving save with about twenty-five minutes still to go. My confidence is well placed and four minutes later a poor pass out of the Accrington defence is seized upon by Town and Freddie Sears is released in to the penalty area to ‘dink’ the ball over Sivon and make the score two-nil. I cheer loudly because I think Freddie deserves it.

Nolan replaces Huws. Town play the ball around at the back like they’re in Ligue 1 not League One. Accrington’s Cameron Burgess becomes the first and only player to be booked as he fouls Luke Chambers. The oddly named Keanen Bennetts replaces little Alan Judge. Bennett has a shot on goal but “ It’s a trundle straight at Savin” says Brenner, unintentionally reminding me of Lee Trundle, the former Neath, Haverfordwest County, Llanelli Town, Rhyl, Swansea City and Wrexham striker.

An Accrington corner is cleared and an Accrington player is left in a heap on the ground. The game carries on but is eventually stopped by referee Mr Lewis. “He let play go on too early, he should’ve stopped it” says Mick confusingly, seemingly muddling up not stopping play soon enough with the abstract and illogical concept of letting it carry on too soon. The game enters time added on, “Long kick from Holy and Sears is on his bike” says Brenner, attempting not to be outdone by Mick’s efforts to rival the weirdness of the earlier camera work. Sears and his bike are quickly substituted before the referee notices, with Tyreece Simpson coming on in their stead.

Ninety four minutes have passed and a bit more and Mr Lewis the referee confirms Town’s third consecutive two-nil home win. Despite entreaties from Brenner during the game to phone 0800 212121 after the game to speak to Mick or to comment by text I decide that like all the people who will phone and text I have nothing worth saying and nothing to say that anyone should want to hear. Anyway, I’d rather return to the heady smell of the pages of Snapshot – Scenes and stories from the heartland of Scottish football.