On 5th July 1948,
courtesy of Clement Attlee’s Labour government the people of Britain became the
recipients of a national health service which was free to all at the point of
use, paid for through progressive taxation, a tax system which put into
practice the ideal of citizens contributing according to their ability to do so
and receiving, in this case, according to their clinical need. No longer would sick people feel the need to shy
away from seeking help from a doctor because they could not afford to do so. My mother still remembers her mother living
in fear of the cost of the doctor’s bill. The population had ‘pulled together’
during World War Two and now a new post-war age was dawning in which selfless actions
for the greater good could now be put to peaceful purposes.
I benefitted from the existence of the NHS when I came into the world at the Priory Hospital in Haverfordwest in 1960 and as a child I received all the free inoculations, dental treatment and medical checks that the system provided. Inevitably, as a child I took it for granted and given that tooth extractions and injections were included I did not see it as a good thing; the polio vaccine-laced sugar lump was scant consolation for the promise of pain the health service otherwise represented in my young mind. As an adult I never gave much thought to the NHS because I was rarely ill, and therefore had little need to do so; I visited the Accident & Emergency (A&E) department at Ipswich’s old Anglesea Road hospital when I shut my right forefinger in the door of a Fiat 126 on men’s Wimbledon final day 1980 and then in autumn 1994 I attended the re-located A & E department at Heath Road when I chipped an ankle bone playing football; my darting run into the penalty area coming to a sudden premature halt as my ankle gave way on the uneven surface of one of the pitches up at Gainsborough Sports Centre. But otherwise, the NHS meant little to me despite its apparently increasing profile in the national psyche, which more recently reached a crescendo in the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games, which almost seemed to define Britain in terms of its NHS; to be honest I thought it was going a bit far.
When Town drew at home with Sunderland on August 10th this year I was disappointed because it was a game we should have won, but I was not despondent, I wasn’t going to get ill over it. I went to work the following Monday as usual but on Tuesday morning awoke in the small hours feeling short of breath. I didn’t go to work on Tuesday because I felt lousy; a visit to my GP produced a course of Amoxycillin antibiotic to deal with a perceived chest infection. By Thursday I was no better and my wife Paulene called the doctor’s surgery, they asked me to come in but I was so short of breath by now I was barely able to walk; they said to call an ambulance. I was admitted to Colchester hospital that afternoon; the following morning I was put into a coma. I had pneumonia, but on the following Tuesday lunchtime I travelled at speed under sirens and blue flashing lights to the specialist cardiac unit at Basildon hospital.
The following morning I had open-heart surgery to replace two valves that had been attacked by a bacterium; the pneumonia was a decoy, I actually had Endocarditis, a very rare but potentially fatal condition which infects and eats away at the endocardium (the inner lining of the heart chambers), and at the heart valves.
Town’s two-all draw at Peterborough came and went without my knowledge and then I missed the mid-week home game versus Wimbledon on 20th August, which was annoying, but my ventilator would no doubt have aggravated other supporters in the seats around me and it would have been difficult to give the team much vocal support with a bunch of tubes stuck down my throat. Being comatose however, is not necessarily a barrier to watching the Town at Portman Road, as many season ticket holders in seats all around the ground regularly seem to prove; as animated as some Northstanders get, Portman Road cannot really be described as a cauldron of noise. By the time Saturday came, and Town were heading ‘up north’ to Bolton Wanderers, I was out of the coma and was conscious, but sadly if predictably not fit to travel. Judging by some of the hallucinations I was experiencing due to the pain-killing drugs I was receiving however, I doubt I would have understood what was going on even if I could have watched the game. No one could have blamed me if the 5-0 final score in Town’s favour had seemed like just another weird imagining from my drug-addled brain. A 5-0 away win still seems a bit unlikely.
My recovery was to be a long one
and one which now, almost three months later, is not yet over. As my condition improved and I recovered from
surgery I was moved out of the Critical Care Unit into a Cardiac ward. I caught up on the results I had missed and
as I continued to recover, Town continued to win, with the occasional draw just
to give the other clubs a chance. A
variety of friends and neighbours swapped about my season ticket between them and
sat with Pat from Clacton and ever-present Phil who never misses a game, so it
didn’t go to waste and Town continued to do well.
Whilst everything was rosy at
Portman Road my thoughts however had begun to linger on the fact that there were
eight recent days in my life of which I had no memory. What struck me was that
during these eight days I had apparently come close to death and my life had
ultimately been saved by the NHS. The
open heart surgery I had been given was remarkable enough, but the NHS kept
giving with continuing care of the highest quality. I was struck by just how brilliant the staff
were but also how they were of so many nationalities from all around the
world. As if the ideal of a free health
service wasn’t enough the NHS operates as an international melting pot of doctors
and nurses and auxiliary staff, a caring combination of all races, colours and
creeds, a World health organisation in the service of a single national
population. That combination of being a
health service free at the point of use and its being staffed by people from
all around the world makes the NHS one of, if not the most magnificent
achievement of human civilisation, an international fellowship of people acting
solely for good and not for profit; it is awe-inspiring and achieves what much
organised religion strives for.
If I had to come up with some
laboured football related analogy I would say that the NHS is the World Cup of
healthcare, free to tune in to whenever you want and in an Ipswich Town context
it is a Portman Road where all the gates are open all the time and the team is made
up of a selection of some of our best ever players (loanees included) all of
different nationalities, except there must always be two particular Dutchmen; for example: Bialkowski, Burley, Taricco,
Thijssen, Hunter, Hreidarsson, Legwinski, Muhren, Crawford, Counago, Finidi. Subs: Begovic, Diallo, Thetis, De Vos, Chopra, Dos Santos, Peralta. Other team selections can be made
according to how brilliant or amusing you want your team to be.
But the moral of this tale is not
about football; it is more important than that, it is that matters of life and
death seriously are about life and death. The NHS is always there to save
anyone’s life at any time and it remains free at the point of use; so please
think very carefully about who you vote for on 12th December if you
want that to remain the case.
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Only the 10th of August
and it’s bloody started already. Summer
is still here although today it has the good grace to pretend its autumn; a
howling gale licks around the corners of my house and my Women’s World Cup
bunting, strung joyfully across my back garden, slumps over the patio and plants
in colourful tatters.
I look out of an upstairs windows
to glimpse a silver Vauxhall Astra slip past; it’s Roly, he’s going to park on
my back drive. Roly is not the name of
the Vauxhall Astra, he’s the driver. We had planned to meet at the railway
station but seconds after he bought his ticket his train was cancelled; the
result of a fallen tree, possibly two. We walk to the railway station, the usual
journey ensues. Roly tells me how his partner Sarah would castigate him for catching
the train and not driving all the way to Ipswich, but he’s not going to tell
her. Roly wants to save the planet, like me, and he also hates having to find
somewhere to park and then sitting in traffic after the game.
Ipswich appears to be in a state
of emergency, a police van sits in the middle of the station plaza but in fact
everything is okay, it’s just ‘Norfolk and Suffolk working together for you’. Football chants in thick far northern accents
are carried up on the wind from the beer garden of the Station Hotel. We cross the road and hurry away; we pass a
lairy looking youth who suddenly bawls something unintelligible.
After a successful relegation season it’s a new dawn for Ipswich Town in division three and entering Portman Road I think I might buy a programme for every match this season to mark the newness, the difference. I am looking forward to seeing the slightly unfamiliar clubs deemed ‘unfashionable’ by dullard journalists. I approach a programme booth; I don’t think I will buy a programme after all, they’ve put the price up to £3.50 a copy, that’s an increase of 16.6%, way above the rate of inflation, not that I know what that is. Why couldn’t they just make the programme less glossy, a bit smaller, add a couple of adverts and take out some of the drivel no one reads? I want to blame Brexit.
At St Jude’s Tavern Roly buys two
pints of the Match Day Special (£2.50) which today is Mr B’s Plan Bee, he gives
one to me. We invade the space of a man
sat at a table on his own, but I ask him first if the seats are free, they
are. Mick arrives and buys a pint of
porter and a packet of crisps, which he opens upon the table for us all to
share, I don’t ask him how much the porter or the crisps costs. It only takes one person with a loud voice in
St Jude’s Tavern to make it difficult to hear what my fellow drinkers are
saying and such a person is here today so I end up nodding and smiling as the conversation drifts in and out of my
comprehension. I buy two more pints of the
Match Day Special, Mick doesn’t want a second, but I get him a bag of dry-roasted
peanuts (90p). It’s barely half past two
but Roly wants to get down to the Portman Road so that he can eat. We hang on
ten minutes or so but soon give in to his gluttonous cravings.
At the corner of Portman Walk I leave our trio andI head for the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand whilst Roly and Mick head west to the East of England Co-op Stand and the posh seats. I tell them I will wave up at them and doff my cap from amongst the groundlings behind the goal. I make my way to the far end of Portman Road, following the pointing finger of Sir Bobby Robson’s statue; the parked up away supporters coaches either side of him displaying the names of County Durham towns he would have been familiar with.
Nearby, a ginger-haired bloke in a yellow hi-vis jacket sells Sunderland
fanzines. There are queues at the turnstiles, possibly because not all
the turnstiles are open. I pause to select the fastest moving queue and
am quickly in the ground. I speak briefly with Dave the steward with
whom I once worked and then use the toilet facilities before proceeding
to my seat. Nothing has changed, Pat from Clacton is here and so of
course is ever-present Phil who never misses a game and his young son
Elwood. On the pitch before us the serious looking steward with the
enormous headphones looks as worried as ever, as if fearing that a
violent supporters’ rebellion might start at any moment. To confuse the
operators of the improved CCTV surveillance system I have moved my seat
slightly, I no longer sit in front of the old dears behind me, but
behind them, a couple of seats to the left of Pat from Clacton.
Otherwise it seems like the first day back at school, “Have you had a
good summer?” asks Pat from Clacton, “It’s not over yet” I tell her,
not really answering the question but subconsciously implying that the
start of the football season doesn’t mean an end to ‘summer fun’.
Ever-present Phil and I shake one another’s hand “Happy New Year” says
Phil, which seems apposite.
It’s busy here today, with plenty of seats occupied that may not be sat upon again all season. The attendance will eventually be announced as 24,051. The Sunderland supporters are present in large numbers (1,847) and mostly seem a humble, self-effacing lot. No unduly boastful or mean spirited songs can be heard from the Cobbold Stand, which is nice. Their continuing, numerically impressive support for a club which was successful in the 1890’s but otherwise is most notable for a level of mediocrity which puts Ipswich Town’s recent averageness in the shade is such that mass sainthood doesn’t seem unreasonable. In nineteen eighty-something Sunderland even lost a League Cup final to Norwich, for heaven’s sake. That careless catastrophe aside, Sunderland have good reason to be forever loved a little by everyone outside West Yorkshire because of the 1973 FA Cup final, which not only saw hated Leeds United beaten by the then Second Division team, but gave us the joyful sight of a man in a trilby hat and pale raincoat running with arms and hands outstretched to embrace his victorious players. Manager Bob Stokoe’s joyfulness is now captured forever at The Stadium of Lights in a statue to him and by association his team of Montgomery, Malone, Guthrie, Horswill, Watson, Pitt, Kerr, Hughes, Halom, Porterfield and Tueart. They might have won the FA Cup before in 1937, but seeing the world through a filter of ‘Ipswichness’ and TV pictures then 1973 was Sunderland’s 1978.
It’s three o’clock, the game
begins; Sunderland in their excellent traditional kit of red and white striped
shirts, black shorts and red socks get first go with the ball. Town parade this
season’s version of whatever Adidas is peddling, a similarly traditionally
plain blue shirt, white shorts and blue socks number. The crowd is noisy but
there’s little co-ordinated chanting or singing. The football is fast and uncontrolled; the
long ball is favoured. After not many minutes the child sitting behind me is
bored; I can understand why, it’s not exactly recognisable as the ‘beautiful’
game, but to the trained eye Town are already looking better than Sunderland. Kayden Jackson is very quickly booked for
trying to con the referee Mr Neil Hair, a man who I wish was German, into
awarding him a penalty. I quite liked
Kayden Jackson last season, I hope he isn’t going to be an arse this season.
A fraction of the match passes that is equal
to the percentage increase in the cost of the match programme since last season
and a long throw is helped into the Sunderland penalty area; the ball is cut
back, Luke Garbutt controls it and surges through a mass of players towards the
touchline before striking a finely angled shot through the legs of Sunderland
goalkeeper Jon McLaughlin and just behind the far post. “Garbutt, 1-0”, as
David Coleman might have said had he not been long dead. How we cheer. This is what we came for. Joy abounds.
I think this is better than I
expected, although even last season we took the lead in a few games. The remaining
half an hour of the first half sees Sunderland fail to do anything to threaten
Town’s lead. It takes them forty minutes to even have a shot at goal. Kayden
Jackson pines for attention and has an ice bag pressed against his head. Garbutt develops a mystery ailment and is
substituted by little Alan Judge. Everyone in a blue shirt is playing well, but
no one scores another goal. This new
system of two players ‘up-front’, isn’t working that well; James Norwood and Kayden Jackson
sometimes get in each other’s way, they’re no Johnson and Whymark or Crawford
and Phillips, not yet anyway.
Half-time arrives and I dash from
my seat to stand before the stainless steel urinals beneath the stand before checking
on the half-time scores, which are singularly unremarkable. I return to the stand to speak with Ray and
his grandson Harrison. Our verdict on the
game is that it’s okay and Ipswich are by far the better team, but the quality
of the football could be better.
Harrison predicts a final score of 3-0.
Ray and I reserve judgement, our capacity for unbridled optimism beaten,
squeezed and drained out of us by decades of bitter experience.
The second half disappoints. The
blue skies over the Sir Bobby Robson Stand are as lovely as ever and I bask in
the warmth of the August sun, but Town have lost their way; all they can do is
pump in inaccurate cross after over-hit cross after inaccurate cross, Alan
Judge buzzes about doing nothing very successfully. An hour has passed and a Sunderland
throw is punted forward. Luke Chambers
has this covered; he is a yard or two ahead of Marc McNulty even though he
cannot run as fast. But Chambers doesn’t
decide what to do and as he waits for an almost static ball to roll into touch McNulty
dispossesses him and then simply has to pass the ball into the path of the incoming
Lynden Gooch who side foots the ball into a gaping wide goal. It’s like last season all over again.
There’s plenty of time for
another goal but Ipswich have no inspiration, no means to prise an
opening. Fortunately Sunderland have even
less idea and their forays forward are both rare and ineffective. “Your support is fucking shit” sing some Sir
Bobby Robson Standers to the Sunderland fans, demonstrating a complete absence
of any concept of irony. Mr Hair annoys the home crowd with a series of
decisions that penalise imaginary infringements and favour Sunderland. Pat from Clacton offers me a sweet from a
plastic bag and shows me her new blue and white watch that she’s only going to wear
on match days. It’s a nice looking watch,
but I’m feeling very self-centred and prefer the crumbly peppermint I took from
Pat’s pick’n mix selection; it’s probably my highlight of the second half. The attendance
is announced and I verify that Pat from Clacton’s brother has won the guess the
crowd competition on the Clacton supporters’ bus; his guess was the highest of
all, 24,001.
After three minutes of added on
time the game ends. I rise from my seat and
quickly leave. It’s been an afternoon of three thirds, Sunderland, Wonderland,
Blunderland……all infused with Peppermint.
Today my favourite name of an
opposing team’s player was Denver Hume.
I also liked the names Dylan McGeouch and George Dobson.
This week I have been reading ”The
man who hated football”, a novel by Will
Buckley (2005)
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And so, in the words of what was
reputedly Sir Bobby Robson’s favourite song, Ipswich Town face the final
curtain of this singularly unsuccessful season in Football League Division
Two. There have been a few regrets, some
too painful to mention or admit to, but we’ve seen the season through,
we’ve laughed and cried and not really
succeeded in doing what we had to do; there have been a lot of doubts and we’ve
had more than our fair share of losing.
I can’t imagine anyone would own up to it being their way of doing
anything, unless they set out to get relegated.
It is with a sense of blithe resignation therefore that I set off for
Portman Road beneath cloudy grey skies into the teeth of a cold northerly
breeze. It’s not even ten o’clock yet
and I curse Sky Sports and their dictat on reality, which is that if something
doesn’t happen on subscription television, it doesn’t really happen. There are supporters of both Ipswich Town and
Leeds United at the railway station and sadly, Chelsea. The train is three minutes late although the
electronic display claims it is on time; another example of the truth being
what we are told it is. The train is
busy with Bank Holidaying passengers; middle-aged women dressed up to the nines
cackle excitedly, one wears a semi-transparent wide brimmed-hat like a gossamer
sombrero. Legs apart blokes stand by the
sliding doors and drink cheap lager from shiny blue cans. An invisible cloud of acrid body spray
creates a tickling sensation in my nose, it spreads and transforms itself into
a stabbing pain in what feels like the root of a tooth, I reminisce about
hay-fever.
In Ipswich a state of emergency
has been declared and would-be passengers vie for space in the railway station booking
hall with a platoon of police, all hand-cuffs and hi-vis. On the station
‘plaza’ more police; fashionable police in baseball hats with riot-helmets
swinging casually from their utility belts.
Opposite in the garden of the Station Hotel the marauding Yorkshire hordes
enjoy some drinks and a barbecue, the smell of charcoal smoke wafts across the
river. I head for St Jude’s Tavern taking a detour along Constantine Road past
the Corporation bus garage because Portman Road is closed. The Leeds United
team bus sweeps by, it’s blacked out windows hiding its precious cargo from the
gaze of the common people; a BMW waits where parking has been suspended; it’s
always a BMW. At the corner of Portman
Road early diners wrestle with paper napkins of meat-based, bun encased lunches,
jealously guarding their sauce and onions. I buy a programme, a souvenir of the
end of a sixty-two-year-long era.
St Jude’s Tavern has been open
five minutes, but already a bevy of fifty-something drinkers crowd around the
bar. “We’re all going on a League One
tour” chants one before expressing his excitement at the prospect of an away
match against Southend United. I turn to
the barmaid “It doesn’t get much better than a day out it Southend, does it” I
say with a hint of sarcasm. She looks
confused, so I ask for a pint of the Match Day Special which is St Jude’s
Elderflower Bitter (£2.50). It doesn’t
taste too good. “It’s the elderflowers” she tells me and swaps it for a pint of
Nethergate Venture at no extra charge. It
makes me think of the ‘French’ John Cleese in ‘Monty Python and the Holy
Grail’. I talk to one of the regulars about his replacement knee and
elderflower cordial before Mick arrives; he buys me a pint of Elgood’s Plum
Porter (£3.60), which is characteristically kind and generous of him. Mick and I discuss his current affliction
with bursitis (Housemaid’s Knee) and I wince at the size of the bump on his
leg.
Time passes quickly and I am soon
drawn down Portman Road by the beaming blue face of Sir Bobby Robson peering
between the bright green foliage of the trees beyond Handford Road. I enter the ground from Constantine Road past
the array of planet-destroying, over-sized, show-off cars owned by the players
and through the little used turnstile number 60. “It’s a quiet little number
having this turnstile, isn’t it” I say to the young woman enclosed in her brick
and mesh cubicle, she smiles nicely and doesn’t disagree. I stroll to my seat via the WC facilities
beneath the stand where I hear the recorded stadium safety announcement; “If
you hear this sound – wooooh, wooooh…”
says the disembodied female voice with a faintly Irish accent. I imagine a woman from Donegal called Sheila who
is capable of creating the strange whooping sound with her natural voice, like some
sort of gainfully employed banshee.
Emerging up the steps from beneath the stand my eyes are met by a long blue and white banner at the Sir Bobby Robson stand end of the ground. “There is a light that never goes out” it reads. I like the music of The Smiths and Morrissey as much as the next miserabilist, but wonder at the relevance of this random snatched lyric and also if Morrissey will be pursuing a royalty. The lyrics of the Smiths are an odd choice if looking for uplifting words, and I would like to see the banner that announces “Heaven knows I’m miserable now”. Recovering my joie de vivre I see in my mind’s eye a banner at Carrow Road which reads “Ha ya got a loight boy?” and wonder what other lyrics from popular song are suitable to ‘celebrate’ relegation. I decide that “Wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave, no one was saved” sums up my feelings nicely and I imagine makes Morrissey jealous that it isn’t one of his lyrics.
As ever, ever-present Phil who
never misses a game and Pat from Clacton are here today, but far fewer of the
seats about us are vacant and I marvel at the increased level of support the
club has garnered from becoming the plucky underdogs. Town kick-off towards us in their traditional
blue and white shirts, befouled by the hideous logo of a firm of on-line
shysters. Leeds United are also the
lackeys of an on-line betting company, but with a nicer logo and they wear
yellow shirts and socks with blue shorts, looking like Newmarket Town, but with
more expensive and exotic haircuts and tattoos.
Having had first kick, Town
quickly lose the ball to their opponents and struggle to get it back. “Marching on together, We’re gonna see you
win” sing the Leeds support presumptuously from the top tier of the Cobbold
stand. Below them in front of the
executive boxes a couple of rows of Leeds fans sit with flags spread out on the
seats in front of them, they look like they’re all together in a giant bed. If they were Norwich supporters they would
be.
Eleven minutes pass and I’m a
little bored already, Ipswich are sadly
not doing much but chasing Leeds players and the ball. For a few moments Leeds
play the ball around across their penalty area like a French or Brazilian team,
confident in their ability to pass and control the ball, Town captain Luke
Chambers looks on, mouth agape. The
Leeds United goalkeeper Kiko Casilla appears to be somewhat bandy-legged; I
ponder the likelihood of anyone from sunny Spain suffering with rickets.
A smattering of Leeds fans swing
their scarves about their heads like slingshots, recalling the Gelderd Road end
of Leeds’ ground in the 1970’s whilst the Town fans in the Sir Bobby Robson
Stand sing “Que Sera Sera, whatever will be will be, we’re going to Shrewsbury”
which is a worthwhile boast because the Shropshire town is a one of the
Football League’s loveliest, up there with Oxford and our very own
Ipswich. It is the nineteenth minute of
the game and Town win a corner, bucking the trend of Leeds dominance. Andre
Dozzell’s kick fails to travel beyond the Leeds defender at the near post
however. A conversation ensues behind me
the final words of which are “We need a new team, mate”. On the touchline Leeds manager Marcelo Bielsa
adopts his customary squatting pose. The
Argentine is sometimes considered to be an eccentric character and his moving
to Leeds having managed Lazio and Marseille rather proves the point; he was a
legendary figure at Marseille, adored by the Ultras and I am proud to say I saw
him sit on a cup of coffee at the Velodrome, which may be why he is choosing to
squat today.
The game is not living up to
expectations and to pass the time the Sir Bobby Robson Stand goad the Leeds
support by singing “Top of the League and you fucked it up” which is a bit rich
from supporters of a team that has been bottom of the league virtually all
season. Compared with our own team’s
performance this season Leeds United are world beaters. “One Mick McCarthy”
sing the Yorkshiremen in response, which is fair enough, but easy to say given
that he’s only ever bored them until they cried with his attritional, joyless
football as manager of the opposition.
I’ve been watching this game for
almost half an hour and all of a sudden a couple of passes send our angular on-loan
German Collin Quaner through on goal with just Casilla to beat; Casilla comes
out of his penalty area and runs straight at Quaner who pushes the ball beyond
him and hurdles the Spaniard’s lunging frame before crashing to the turf. The lower tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand
bay for blood but referee Mr Gavin Ward proffers only a yellow card in the
direction of Casilla, possibly because he couldn’t conceive of the current
Ipswich Town team of having a goal scoring opportunity, let alone being denied
one. But the resultant free-kick proves
Mr Ward wrong as the ball sails high into the six yard box and no one is able
to send it decisively in any direction, so it drops to the ground and Town’s
Flynn Downes is nearest and able to hook it into the goal net. Ironically, it’s the sort of goal that owes a
lot to the methods of Mick McCarthy.
“We’re winning a game, we’re
winning a game, how shit must you be, we’re winning a game” sing the Town fans,
once more invoking the sound of ‘Sloop John B’.
Surfing on a wave of a single Beach Boys tune the Sir Bobby Robson Stand
ill-advisedly seek to push home their perceived advantage. “Premier League,
you’re having a laugh, Premier League, you’re having a laugh” they chant to the
tune of Tom Hark. If only they’d stopped
to think about the probable response.
“Championship, you’re having a laugh” is the inevitable short-vowelled
response. A battle of wits, it’s not.
Happiness reigns until the final
minute of the half when Myles Kenlock omits to prevent Luke Ayling, who incidentally
sports the day’s daintiest coiffure, from crossing the ball and Pole Mateusz
Klich is allowed a free shot at goal, from which he scores Leeds’ equalising
goal. It’s disappointing of course and a
little ‘out of the blue’ but not really unexpected. What I have come to enjoy most about this
season is how little it now hurts when the opposition score; I have perhaps
achieved some kind of state of grace.
The half-time break allows time
to relieve myself of more surplus liquid, consume a Panda brand liquorice stick
and gawp up at the half-time scores on the TV screen beneath the stand. Once again the statistics shown on the TV
screen are inaccurate, with neither team apparently having had a player
booked. If that stat is wrong, and it
blatantly is, I cannot trust the others.
Thwarted again in my search for truth I climb back up the steps into the
stand and talk with Ray, a reassuringly honest man. I tell him that next Saturday I shall be
watching Dijon FCO v RC Strasbourg at the Stade Gaston-Gerard; Ray tells me
that he’s heard good things of Dijon, “they’re mustard” he says without any
trace of embarrassment. In fact Dijon
face relegation, so even Ray lied, albeit in the name of ‘comedy’.
The second half begins at
thirty-four minutes past one, and before twenty-five to two the Towen are
winning; Collin Quaner passing to Andre Dozzell in the sort of space usually
only seen between Ipswich defenders.
Dozzell scores with aplomb; it’s the first time Towen have scored as
many as two goals at home since New Year’s Day. Leeds are quick and inventive but lack
accuracy, although they still get chances they contrive to waste them. “That’s
a ruddy good save” says the old boy behind me appreciatively, but with an odd
hint of grudging reluctance as Bartosz Bialkowski dives to his left to tip a
shot away for a corner. “One Bobby
Robson, There’s only one Bobby Robson” sing the overly nostalgic and
sentimental supporters in the stand that bears the dead man’s name. The Leeds supporters are not similarly moved
to mention Don Revie OBE, despite the marvellous picture of the man in the
match programme in which he looks a bit like Grouty (Peter Vaughan) in the TV
sit-com ‘Porridge’. It’s easily the best
thing in the programme.
All is going well and I dare to
dream of seeing Town win. But I should know
better by now. Ayling of the hair
crosses the ball; the weirdly named Kemar Roofe hits the cross-bar with a close
range shot and the ball seemingly just bounces off Stuart Dallas and into the
net. There is a suspicion amongst Town
fans that Ayling’s pony tail was offside and that Dallas handled the ball into
the net, and to make the point ever-present Phil is off his seat and waving his
arms in anger and frustration, but referee Mr Ward pays no heed; if he only
knew how many consecutive Town games Phil has seen he might be more sympathetic.
Heartless, ignorant git.
As the Towen kick-off the game once again a long line of riot police string themselves out along the front of the lower tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand and the disabled enclosure, sitting themselves down on the cold concrete floor. To a man, woman and child, the occupants of the stand are bemused. “Do you think they’ll get piles?” asks the old dear behind me, laughing. Ever-present Phil may be disgruntled but he’s never been known to lead a pitch invasion, neither has Pat from Clacton nor Ray, nor the old boy behind me, despite his occasional vitriolic tone. Ray’s grandson Harrison has got a pretty nifty new wheelchair so he’s not likely to throw it onto the pitch in a fit of pique, even if we helped him pick it up. Perhaps Police Intelligence (ha-ha) has identified me; I do have previous after all, having fallen foul of the stewards on separate occasions for banging a tambourine, sitting in the seat behind my allotted one and taking photographs; I might be considered dangerous, I like to think so, but really, as my own Smith’s inspired banner might say “ I’m not the man you think I am”.
With my mind racing Town’s
defence lose concentration too and after a corner to Leeds Kemar Roofe drops to
the ground after contact, of a sort, with Town captain Luke Chambers, who
appears to have tried to tickle him. Mr
Ward is decisive and doesn’t stop to think twice, or perhaps even once as he
awards Leeds a penalty and sends Chambers off, which is a pity because it’s his
name that features on the front of the match programme and he was also voted
the supporters player of the year. Mr
Ward should really do some research before refereeing his next match; today he
is just making social faux pas after social
faux pas. I doubt we’ll ask him back after this.
The ticklish Kemar Roofe dusts
himself off before stepping up to take the penalty. What happens next is probably the funniest
most blissful thing I have seen at a game since Robert Ullathorne’s back pass
at Portman Road in April 1996, as Roofe appears to cross himself and then deftly
kicks his own leg away from under him and sends the ball high and wide,
appropriately towards the roof of the stand; I can’t swear to ever seeing the
ball land, perhaps it hasn’t. If Charlie
Chaplin or Buster Keaton had taken the penalty they couldn’t have bettered Roofe’s
effort for pure slap-stick. I’d like to see it again in flickering black and
white, slightly speeded up. If goals that go in are followed by Tom Hark or
Chelsea Dagger over the public address system, moments like this deserve the Looney
Tunes music and the scoreboard proclaiming “That’s All Folks!”
I feel satiated, enough has gone
on this early afternoon to tide me over until next season. It might be disappointing not to win having
twice had the lead, but this is 2019 in Ipswich, it’s good enough. But no, for the first time this season at
Portman Road fate has something good in store and in the final minute of normal
time Casilla and a Leeds defender both jump for a cross at once and succeed in
knocking it on to Collin Quaner who has time and space to simply kick the ball
into an open goal for another moment of high comedy and delirium.
The game ends and the season ends
and at last Ipswich have a decent win in front of the Portman Road crowd. But I can’t help but feel a little sorry for
Leeds; I grew up hating them like everyone else but they are part of the
landscape of my football following life and I like them to be there looming large. I hope they get promoted if that’s what they
want; although they should be careful what they wish for.
So Town have been relegated and
will be a third division club next season, but it’s been rather fun getting here
and Portman Road is a far nicer place to come now than it was last season. I
just hope it’s as good or better come Christmas. Relegation isn’t so different to promotion
really; we will still just end up playing a load of different teams to the ones
we played this year. As a fan of the
Smiths might print on a large banner
“What difference does it make?” Norwich may have been promoted and we
have been relegated, but let’s see who wins more games next season.
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Despite being fortunate enough to grow up and go to school in Suffolk, I
was born in Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, Wales, where I lived until I was a
few months old and my parents moved to my mother’s home village of Shotley and took me and my sister with them, like the
good parents that they were. The nearest
Football League club to Haverfordwest is Swansea City, (still Swansea Town when
I was born) and there is an argument that says I might follow their fortunes, but
I don’t. The dual nationality comes in
handy when Wales do well in the rugby and I like leeks, cheese on toast, Ivor the Engine, Sgorio and daffodils; but that’s as Welsh as I am
see. I wouldn’t normally mention it but today
Town play Swansea City, and I’ve written this first paragraph in a Welsh
accent.
At the railway station it’s another gloriously warm, cloudless day and sunlight glints off the tracks. The only travellers are all bound for Ipswich and the match; the train is on time. The carriage is sparsely populated and I share it with a hard looking woman and two young children, a girl and a boy. As the train arrives into Colchester she scolds them in a harsh voice that sounds like a man’s. “Drake, McKenna get away from the door”. I can’t help but derive amusement from the names of children nowadays, it’s my age. The children seem almost to roll their eyes as she speaks. Pleasingly they leave the train at Colchester and twenty five minutes later I arrive peacefully in Ipswich.
Ipswich is best under a blue sky and everything is beautiful as I walk up Princes Street and past the peeling paint of Portman Road with its ragged club flag to St Jude’s Tavern, which is dingy and the customers are reassuringly as old and ugly as ever. I order a pint of the Match Day Special (£2.50) Nethergate Venture. At the bar I meet Kev’ who I know from my days with Wivenhoe Town. Kev’ is wearing a dark flat cap which in the gloom of St Jude’s looks like a beret. I am wearing my “Allez les bleus” T-shirt today and tell him I thought the French had come to take me “home” to where I imagine I belong – that’s France, not Wales. I sit with the regular old gits who assemble here on match days. I talk to one of them (Phil) about statues of footballers and tell him that even Carlisle United has one, although I can’t remember who it is a statue of. Phil suggests it’s not a footballer but one of the Hairy Bikers because he knows one of them is from Cumbria. I tell him the Hairy Biker he’s thinking of is from Barrow In Furness, where the nuclear submarines come from. I drain my glass and fetch a pint of Butcomb Gold (£3.60), which seems livelier than the Venture even though I can’t help thinking Butcomb might be a West Country word for anus.
With the big hand heading up the clock face towards the figure eight, the
pub empties and carried on a gentle human tide I soon find myself back in
Portman Road. A selection of people are
hawking copies of the Turnstile Blue fanzine where Portman Road meets Sir Alf
Ramsey Way and I buy one (£1); it’s
issue 20 and it’s much like the previous nineteen in its tone, but it’s nice
when things are familiar. Unusually there
are queues to get into the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand; not because of weight of
numbers but because not all the turnstiles are open. Nevertheless, despite my desire to be French
I like a good queue to get in the ground; it carries a faint hint of the ‘big
match’ atmosphere, which is the best 17,247 people can really hope for in a
30,000 seat stadium. I enter turnstile
number seven and wish the bespectacled female operator a happy Easter as she
returns my freshly scanned season ticket card to me. She looks up, surprised as if she’d forgotten
about the resurrection.
Bladder drained, I occupy a seat near ever-present Phil who never misses
a game and just along from Pat from Clacton.
Pat is fed up because a large man in a red hat is sat directly in front
of her today and she’s only short; whichever way she looks a big red head is in
her field of vision. We sit and wait for
the teams to appear from the tunnel.
Town have been officially relegated for over a week now and today’s match
is amongst the most pointless they have ever played, childishly I live in the
hope that they will therefore treat it
as a bit of fun, a bit like testimonial games are supposed to be. Would anyone be bothered if the two teams each
agreed to play a 2-3-5 formation? I am
not optimistic for this however as professional football tends to take itself
much too seriously, like many of the fans, as the drivel that appears on social
media testifies. The teams are announced and my hopes of football
for fun are dashed.
The flags of tiny mascots and larger furry mascots sway to an amplified soundtrack of swirling music giving an undeserved aura of grandeur to the two teams as they walk out for this meaningless encounter, but I stand and applaud nevertheless, swept up with the lie that this match is bigger than really it is. As the game begins the noise level simmers down and a degree of reality returns. Town are hopefully aiming at the goal just to the left of me, ever-present Phil and Pat from Clacton; they inevitably wear blue and white shirts adorned with the unwelcome red adidas stripes and that nasty sponsors’ logo. In crisp white shorts and black shorts Swansea look like Germany, they are the Teutonic Taffies.
“One Dylan Thomas, There’s only one Dylan Thomas” sing the male voice choir from Swansea from the top corner of the Cobbold Stand, or perhaps they don’t. A serious looking steward collects blue and white balloons that have drifted from the stand, thereby suppressing someone’s expression of joy; no
doubt the balloons had strayed dangerously close to the pitch. I like to think
that as part of the club’s Community programme the balloons will later be released
at the birthday parties of deprived children. Next to me Pat from Clacton continues
to glower at the big red hat on the big head of the big man sitting in front of
her. On the touchline Paul Lambert is celebrating Easter with a new jumper, a
grey one, an infinite number of shades lighter than his usual black one, and
people still accuse Scots of being dour.
On the pitch referee Mr Darren England, which seems a good name for a football referee, makes himself unpopular with the home support by seemingly giving fouls against Ipswich players and not Swansea ones. “You’re not fit to referee Subbuteo, you tiny little bugger” bawls an incensed voice from somewhere behind me, failing to notice that being tiny is actually one of the main requirements of being a Subbuteo referee along with being made from brittle plastic and glued into a circular base. The game is rather boring and Swansea are hogging the ball; like every other club that has been to Portman Road this season, they have the better players. into the Swansea penalty area and wins a corner. Will Keane misses a header and scuffs the ball against a post, the ball bounces about like it’s made of rubber bands before Trevoh Chalobah sends it flying past the other post into the stand. Sixty seconds later, give or take, another corner is won and Toto N’siala heads Alan Judge’s kick solidly over the cross bar. The supporters behind the goal are getting almost as much possession of the ball as Andre Dozzell. Pat and I are breathless at the sudden burst of attacking football from Town and are glad for the rest that half-time soon brings.
I use the facilities beneath the stand, eat a Panda brand liquorice stick
and catch up on the half-time scores. A
young man in a shirt and tie and smart trousers compliments me on my ‘Allez les
Bleus’ T-shirt, “Cool T-shirt” he says brightly. He’s not wrong. The match stats on the TV screen above the
concourse are blatantly wrong however, claiming Ipswich have had eight shots to
Swansea’s six; it’s as if the stats are being reported by Donald Trump or the
Brexit campaign. I return to the stand
to talk to Ray who confesses to being underwhelmed by the first half.
At six minutes past four the game resumes. I laugh when Gwion Edwards stretches to head the ball by the touchline then tumbles out of sight over the perimeter wall; “well for me” to quote Mick Channon, it’s the best move of the match so far. Happily, Gwion quickly bounces back up and plays on, but that’s the sort of entertainment end of season games need. Minutes later Dean Gerken makes a quite spectacular low, diving, ‘finger-tip save’ from a Daniel James shot before the very tiny, thirty-four year old Wayne Routledge, whose shorts almost reach his calves, runs the ball over the goal line and is met with jeers and guffaws from the appreciative crowd in the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand. But Wayne has a friend in fate today and within a few minutes a shot rebounds off Town’s right hand post and straight onto the turf in front of Wayne who is quick enough not to miss an open goal and Swansea are winning.
The attendance is announced as 17,247 with 557 of those being from
Swansea; Collin Quaner and Kayden Jackson replace Andre Dozzell and Will
Keane. Wayne Routledge is replaced by Nathan
Dyer. “I can’t believe we’re losing
again” says Pat from Clacton. I make a
sympathetic humming noise in reply, I couldn’t think of any proper words to
say. Behind Pat sit two large middle
aged women. “We don’t really get the sun here, do we” says one obviously engrossed
in the game, before adding “Coronation Street’s on tonight”.
Town struggle to equalise and Pat and I are a little despondent, “I don’t really enjoy coming here anymore” she says “It’s not like it used to be”. We are Ipswich’s spoilt generation who remember the 1970’s and early 1980’s. But Pat is already planning to renew her season ticket and might get one for her young niece too. Of course, I am going to renew mine as well, as will ever-present Phil who never misses game; I’m looking forward to the big discount when the other 13, 996 sign up. Pat takes a photograph using the 20x zoom lens on her compact Sony camera and picks out her brother stood in the North Stand, it’s one of the most impressive things I’ve seen all afternoon.
Time drifts by under a hazy blue sky and at last the stadium clock turns nine minutes to five. It’s been a disappointing hour and a half of football and to add insult to injury we are forced to sit through six minutes of time added on; as if relegation wasn’t bad enough we are now all in detention. Hopes are raised with a last minute corner and Dean Gerken leaves his goal to join in the penalty area melee at the far end; I stand up and lurch forward as if to join him too, but realise just in time that that sort of commitment is generally frowned upon nowadays. Little Alan Judge’s corner kick is poorly judged and sails away over everyone’s heads anyway. Finally Mr Darren England makes a belated and vain bid for popularity by blowing the final whistle.
Normally the team does a lap of honour or appreciation around the pitch after the last game of the season, but because the last game of this season will be against Leeds United, that lap is occurring today. Having been relegated, the Town players don’t want thousands of oafish Yorkshireman flicking v’s at the them and screaming at them from the Cobbold Stand to “Fuck Off” as they wander round clutching assorted babies and toddlers and waving nicely. The players re-emerge from the tunnel without delay and I slavishly applaud as they drift by beyond a wall of stewards; within a couple of minutes I go home for my tea.
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It’s Easter and it is unseasonably warm. The mercury hit 23 degrees in my back garden yesterday and today could be warmer. In holiday mood and beneath a clear blue sky my wife Paulene and I set off in our trusty Citroen C3 on the short journey to Coggeshall to watch Coggeshall Town play Felixstowe & Walton United in the Bostik League, Division One North. We are taking the scenic route today in order to drop off Easter eggs for the grandsons; I feel like the Easter Bunny.
On arrival at their house, their father Colin is slouched watching Tottenham Hotspur on the telly, he responds mono- syllabically to our attempts at conversation. Tottenham are losing, I quietly hope that they continue to do so. Grandson Harvey is as loquacious as his father, but does let Paulene know as economically as possible that it’s the same type of Easter egg we bought him last year.
With Easter eggs delivered we obligingly pop to the Co-op as their advertisements tell us to, so that I can draw some cash and Paulene can buy chocolate of her own; non-dairy chocolate, white vanilla by i-choc; Paulene is dairy intolerant. Leaving the treasures of the Co-op behind us we complete the third leg of our journey, heading along West Street before turning left in to the bouncy car park of what was once known colourfully as ‘The Crops’, but has boringly been re-christened the West Street Ground; how dull. Our Citroen C3 wishes it was a 2CV. A steward directs me to pull up close “to that one over there” a large Vauxhall. We disembark and a car load of Felixstowe followers park up next to us in another, smaller Vauxhall. At the turnstile I hand over two ten pound notes and receive £3.50 is change (Adult £10, Pensioner £5, programme £1.50). “Enjoy the match” says the turnstile operator “You too” I tell him “If you get to see it”. Oddly, the cost of entry has gone up a pound since I last was here for the FA Cup tie versus Witham in August last year, maybe FA Cup ties are just cheaper
We walk along the concrete path to the clubhouse, looking down upon the pitch on to which water sprinklers gently play. The path along the ‘top of the ground’, behind the main stand is one of the things I like best about “The Crops”. In the clubhouse Tottenham are still on the telly and they’re still losing. To celebrate I order a glass of Rose and a pint of Adnams Ghostship (£7.90 for the two); disappointingly the Ghostship is of the fizzy variety, but at least it’s not Greene King.
Drinks in hands we step back outside and sit at a “Yogi Bear–style picnic table”, I order a sausage roll (£3.50) from the ‘tea-hatch’. £3.50 might seem a lot for a sausage roll but there is more sausage meat in this sausage roll than in all the sausage rolls ever sold by Greggs put together; and this is real sausage meat, not a weird pink paste. I exaggerate perhaps, but not much. In truth, there is perhaps so much sausage meat that I would recommend bringing a small selection of pickles to help it down and add further to your enjoyment.
A steady stream of locals and visiting Felixstowe supporters make their way to the clubhouse from the turnstile and car park beyond, along the concrete path. Eventually I finish my sausage roll and we decide to take shelter from the sun in the shade of the main stand, which the Coggeshall Town website tells us was erected in 1964. We find seats near the middle of the stand at the very back, two seats behind Keith and Jim, who are in the front row and kindly share their team sheets with us.
Keith and Jim went to watch Colchester United play Grimsby Town yesterday; Keith nearly fell asleep he tells us. A friend of Keith and Jim arrives and hands out bars of chocolate, explaining that he won’t be at the game next week.
The teams are announced over one of the clearest sounding PA systems I have ever heard at a football ground and the teams line-up for the ritual shaking of hands; “See, home team on the left, away team on the right” points out Paulene, giving closure to a conversation we had over dinner a few days ago. It’s something I had never noticed, perhaps because I don’t care enough.
Coggeshall kick-off in the direction of the clubhouse and Braintree far beyond, wearing their red and black striped shirts with black shorts and red socks; it’s a fine looking kit. Sartorially however, Felixstowe do their best to match them with an attractive away ensemble of pale blue and white striped shirts with white shorts; if the two-teams swapped shorts and Coggeshall bleached their socks it would look like AC Milan v Argentina. Felixstowe, known as The Seasiders, aim in the direction of the car park and downtown Coggeshall, with its clock tower and the Co-op. Coggeshall, or The Seedgrowers as they are known informally are swift going forward and dominate the early stages.
Felixstowe don’t look much good. The play is rough and the Felixstowe No3, Henry Barley goes down two or three times, much to the disgust of some of the home crowd. “Pussy” shouts one, “Watch him, he doesn’t fancy it anymore” says the man next to me, “It’s a man’s game” calls another. “Erm no, Aussie Rules is a man’s game” says Paulene as a quiet aside, just to me. So far the game has mostly been Coggeshall’s Nnamdi Nwachuku and Michael Gyasi harrying the Felixstowe defence with their speed and nifty footwork. Seventeen minutes pass, Coggeshall piece together a few passes down the right and a cross finds No8 Tevan Allen; he is on his own at the near post. With time on his hands Tevan kicks the ball up in the air and then, as it drops back down to head height, executes a spectacular overhead kick sending it into the far corner of the goal. It is a remarkable goal, even more so if the initial kick up in the air was intended rather than being a case of not quite controlling the ball, but the latter sadly seems more likely. Tevan celebrates appropriately.
With the breakthrough made, Coggeshall will surely go on score more. But no, with the breakthrough made Felixstowe improve and begin to get forward themselves, often on ‘the break’ with their No9, the heftily built Liam Hillyard, a sort of non-league version of former Ipswich Town player Martyn Waghorn, making the runs into the penalty area. The game stagnates a bit as it becomes more even, with neither side playing particuarly well. The referee Mr Karl Sear makes himself unpopular with the home supporters because he doesn’t book any Felixstowe players, only talks to them, whilst also awarding Felixstowe several free-kicks, seemingly for not much at all.
My attention wanders and I admire a rusty hole in the corrugated iron roof of the stand; ventilation is just what’s needed on a warm day like today. With a fraction more than five minutes until half-time, Liam Hillyard breaks down the right for Felixstowe, he confuses the Coggeshall defenders sufficiently to pass the ball across the penalty area to Henry Barley who looks to have taken the ball too close to goal before booting it high into the net from an acute angle. After the comments made towards him earlier, Henry Barley might allow himself a wry smile (geddit?).
Things look bleak for Coggeshall; having failed to make the most of their advantage they have now lost it. But football as a game apart from being old is nothing if not funny and soon The Seedgrowers win a free kick. The ball is struck hopefully into the penalty area, players jump and the ball hits random body parts, boots are swung in the direction of the moving ball but none makes proper contact, a Felixstowe player sends the ball towards his own goalkeeper, two Felixstowe defenders go to aim a kick but politely leave it to one another; tired and bemused by its long journey across the penalty area the ball gives itself up to a surprised Nnamdi Nwachuku who happily scores a close-range goal as ropey as the Seedgrowers’ first goal was spectacular. The goal is greeted almost with jeers and laughter, but it still counts and it makes Nnamdi and this little corner of Coggeshall very happy. Half-time soon follows and we leave our seats; Paulene to use the facilities, me to take our coats back to the car, we really won’t need them today. “Are you leaving?” asks Keith. I reassure him that I’ll be back for the second half.
Returning from the Citroen I meet my next door neighbour Paul and his eldest son Matthew on the concrete path as they head to the car park end that Coggeshall will be attacking in the second half. Paul has captured the glory of Coggeshall’s second goal on his mobile phone, I think the best bit is where the two Felixstowe defenders let each other boot the ball and neither does. On the grass bank below the concrete path is Colin with his wife Tessa and grandson Harvey and Paulene; I join them in the sunshine and eat a coconut based flapjack that I bought at the Co-op and on which the chocolate has melted. I get just four out of ten in the “Seedgrowers’ half-time quiz” in the programme; how is any one supposed to know that Jamie Carragher has the middle names Lee and Duncan? The second half begins.
The expectation amongst those around me is that Coggeshall will score a
third goal, but it doesn’t happen. The game becomes niggly and
fractious with lots of swear words; Coggeshall Town is the place to come
for sweary football. I kick back and stretch out on the grass enjoying
the warmth of the Spring sunshine and the stillness of the afternoon,
the peacefulness only punctuated by angry curses from players and
supporters and frantic scribbling in his notebook by referee Mr Sear who
books six players, three from each team including both Coggeshall
goalscorers. Some decent chances to score are missed by both teams and
Felixstowe perhaps have the best ones, but if you’d never been to a
football match before and had come along because you’d heard about “the
beautiful game”, you’d think Pele was a liar. The final act sees
Felixstowe’s Callum Bennet sent off by Mr Sears for a poorly thought-out
tackle, although conveniently for Bennett he didn’t have far to go
because he committed the foul quite close to the corner of the field and
the steps to the changing room; so it wasn’t all bad.
With the final whistle I reflect upon what has been a beautiful
afternoon in the sun before we head back to the clubhouse for another
drink; it’s that kind of a day. I look out for Jim and Keith as the
ground empties but don’t see them, I worry that Keith thinks I didn’t
return for the second half, which would make me no better than Pele.
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trippingovertheball 