Ipswich

Ipswich Town 1 Nottingham Forest 1

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At the risk of sounding like Michael Parkinson, I think I read somewhere that the city of Nottingham was originally named after a Viking or an Anglo-Saxon called Snot and was known as Snotingaham, which was Old Norse or Old English for Snot’s gaff.   But when the Normans arrived, they had difficulty pronouncing “Sn” and so Snotingaham became Nottingham.  This was possibly also the inspiration for the 1980’s tv advert for Tunes menthol sweets in which a man with a head cold or undisclosed nasal/sinus problem initially fails to make himself understood when asking for a second class return to Nottingham.   I don’t suppose there is anyway of knowing if this is true, but what is certain is that tonight Gippeswic Town are playing Snotingaham Forest and I shall be at Portman Road to see it.

It’s been a nasty, intermittently wet, blustery late October afternoon and according to the message I received on my mobile phone from Greater Anglia, my train to Ipswich is going to be a minute late. But I am not unduly concerned because I am dressed for the weather, as we must in England, with my warm, water-repellent coat, ITFC beanie hat, blue and white bar scarf and home knitted fingerless gloves. My one worry is that I have lost my usual air of mystery and have made it too obvious that I am a football fan heading for a football match.  By contrast, when Gary joins me at the next station stop, he is wearing an orange coat and orange woolly hat emblazoned with a logo that announces hashtag 8 Super-Dry, whatever that means, and there is no way of knowing if Gary is a football supporter, an off-duty vicar or just someone modelling trendy ‘streetwear’.

It’s been a fortnight since Gary and I last spoke and we now talk of what we have done in the intervening period.  I tell Gary I have been in France and witnessed the manifestations (demos in English) by the school students and people wearing yellow vests (gillets jaune).  I ask him if he knows anyone who wants a Dior handbag and then we see one very grubby looking polar bear appearing to stare at a patch of grass as the train descends through Wherstead.

Arriving in Ipswich, the busy station plaza is gently illuminated by a haunting, fading light as the sun sets behind clouds the colour of bruises. We wait to cross into Princes Street to a soundtrack of swishing tyres on the wet road surface.   The aural and visual treats continue as we walk up Princes Steet, Museum Street and High Street to the Arb where, although I am first through the door, Gary gets the drinks, a pint of Lager 43 for him and pints of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me and Mick, who isn’t here yet but is on his way.  We retire to the beer garden to sit with just two other drinkers in the shelter that backs on to High Street where it is wet and miserable.  Occasionally, a strong gust of wind threatens to blow the large garden umbrella opposite us up and away into the evening sky, but fortunately it never does.  Mick, who has been in Felixstowe and got stuck in traffic on his way back, arrives, buys more drinks and a serving of cheesy chips.  We talk of people not having funerals, Mick’s recent visit to Stirling and Mick’s conversation with a Reform councillor who when asked why he stood for selection as a candidate said something along the lines of  “You should’ve seen the others”.  Gary says he feels as cold as he has ever done and we move inside, where I buy a further pint of Suffolk Pride for me and a Jameson’s whisky for Mick whilst Gary doesn’t have another drink at all, realising perhaps that drinking more chilled lager will not help make him feel any warmer.

We leave the Arb at twenty to eight, and I’m surprised to find on arrival in Portman Road that there are few queues for the Cobbold Stand.  This is a first since technology took over from tickets. The queues to be checked for weapons, explosives and scrap metal behind the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand are also shorter than usual, but those for the turnstiles are a bit longer.  The normally illustrious turnstile 62 helps delay mine and everyone else’s entry when it refuses to acknowledge my possession of a season ticket when I hold up my mobile phone to the screen.   A helpful steward takes me to one side and explores the settings on my phone discovering that something called the ‘NFC’ was turned off.   I have no idea what this means and can only tell him I didn’t have problem getting in to see Angers versus Olympique Marseille last Sunday.  I suspect meddling by the Russians as part of their plan to so enrage everyone that they lose all powers of reasoning and so vote for Reform UK Ltd.

After venting spent Suffolk Pride I get to my seat to find I have missed the first one minute and seven seconds of the match, but Fiona confirms that I haven’t missed anything important.  I will later deduce that Nottingham Forest must have had first go with ball, but it is self-evident that they are aiming it towards the goal just in front of me and my fellow ultras, who this this evening only consist of ever-present Phil who never misses a game and Fiona.  Apparently, Pat from Clacton has high blood pressure and feels ‘under the weather’ but Fiona has had a message from her to let me know she has remembered to wear her blue pants this evening, which I find strangely reassuring.

On the pitch, Julio Enciso claims the honour of first shot at goal, after five minutes, but two minutes later Christian Walton is making a necessary save before Abdoul Outtara also has a shot at goal for Town.  But overall, Nottingham Forest in their signature red shirts and white shorts, are looking much the better of the two teams and there is little consolation in the spectacle of the red and blue-shirted players looking like a real-life version of the Subbuteo Continental Club Edition from my childhood.  There is no consolation at all when in the thirteenth minute Nottingham stretch the Town defence for Neco Williams to score a goal, which from my seat I get an excruciatingly good view of.  The only positive is that the goalscorer makes me think of the alluring Christa Paffgen and the Velvet Underground’s weird and wonderful 1967 debut album “The Velvet Underground and Nico”.

The goal inspires Town to play better and they begin to not let Nottingham have the ball so much. Enciso hits a free-kick high over the cross bar, but with the exception of a decent shot straight at the goalkeeper Philogene is giving the sort of performance that in the hey-day of Brian Clough would have had him being labelled ‘a big fairy’. The first half of the first half drifts out of view and both Florentino and Enciso shoot at the economically named goalkeeper Matz Sels, before Nottingham have the only two corners of the half in quick succession and the second one is headed wide.  “Come on Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” entreat the home crowd somewhat desperately. “Fuck off Ipswich, Fuck Off Ipswich” comes the unwarranted reply from the Nottinghamians in the Cobbold Stand as they collectively imagine themselves as modern day Arthur Seatons.

Ipswich are awarded a free-kick.  “You don’t know what you’re doing” chant the Forest fans and a third of the match is only available as replays on Sky tv.  Ten or so minutes later however it is Forest’s Nikola Milenkovic who doesn’t know what he’s doing as Julio Enciso nicks the ball off him and embarks on an unhindered run at goal before shooting simply past Sels at his near post and the score is one all.  “Oh when the Town, go marching in” drone the home crowd as if in mourning. There’s time for Nottingham to almost take the lead again as Leif Davis clears off the goal line before two minutes of added on time are added on and half-time arrives with the promise of a trip downstairs to the gents.

The football resumes at four minutes past nine and after just six minutes the spectre of VAR appears as Issa Diop slides across the pitch on the wet grass and a Nottingham player sprawls headfirst.  Referee Mr Thomas Bramall plays on initially but then VAR announces a review for a possible red card and having seen the tv camera’s view Mr Bramall shows Diop his yellow card and gives Forest a free kick.  The Forest fans can’t see the wood for the trees and predictably bleat on about Mr Bramall not knowing what he is doing again.  Three-minutes later the bookings are evened up as Town’s Emmerson is fouled by Murillo, a player who interestingly has a haircut that looks like Davey Crocket’s hat.

Nearly an hour has been added to history as Nottingham earn another corner and Walton needs to make another couple of saves before the first substitutions are made and the excitable young announcer introduces “Jack! Clarke!”  and Zian Flemming as Philogene and Emmerson take their rightful places on the bench.

Nottingham are dominating again, but more so.  “Come on Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” we plead en masse, and I give some encouragement to time itself to hurry up a bit.  Maeda replaces the ineffective Fatawu and Rory Delap misses two opportunities for Forest in quick succession as he heads over the cross bar from close in and then shoots past a post. “Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottingham” chant the Nottingham supporters imaginatively but more or less to the tune of John Philip Sousa’s “The Stars & Stripes Forever”.

The final ten minutes of normal time are with us at last and again we plead “Come on Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” and Town grimly hang on as they struggle to get any touches on the ball, which they never manage to retain when they do get it.  Desperate for something to change Matusiwa and Akpom replace Florentino and Enciso but it’s a change that seems unlikely to make a positive difference in terms of ability.  Today’s attendance is announced excitably as 29,198 and we are thanked for out “incredible support” even though it’s a few hundred less incredible than it was for the last match, but perhaps we’ve been noisier per head; it’s the sort of thing they never tell us.

The final minute turns up seemingly on time but is apparently eight minutes early, giving the opportunity for Forest’s Hudson-Odoi to shoot narrowly wide and then, more importantly, Jack! Clarke! to run across the edge of the penalty area and also shoot narrowly wide, although this late in the game he usually scores. Just four added on minutes remain to be added on as Nottingham substitute Rory Delap for Chris Wood, a footballer whose surname hopefully determined that he should play for Nottingham Forest rather than his ability.  Fiona and I agree, now that he has left the pitch, that Delap was rubbish and we’re glad Town sold him.

The final whistle brings relief and with reports of trains being delayed due to the weather, Fiona and I both clear off sharpish, although I needn’t have bothered because there will be no trains south tonight thanks to a tricky tree that has fallen on the line between Ipswich and Manningtree.  As I make arrangements to get home,  I reflect that Town may have been the poorer team tonight but happily they were probably the luckier one, a bit like how Gippa, the bloke after whom Ipswich was named was luckier than the bloke called Snot.

Ipswich Town 2 Fulham 1

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It seems hard to believe that despite it now being a third of the way through October, and with the football season having started in August, Ipswich Town have so far only played two league games at home. But that’s modern football and the Premier League for you, just another part of the mad scramble to concentrate as much money as possible into the hands of as few people as possible before the apocalypse, which will probably be streamed live on tv.  Today, as the season begins for a second time, Ipswich will play funny old Fulham, the jokey little London club loved by Tommy Trinder, Wolfie Smith and Terry McCann.

It had been quite a good week, I had returned home from my personal pilgrimage to Haverfordwest and spent a day with my brother-in-law, which was entertaining.  Yesterday however, I received the sad news that my dear friend Ray had died that afternoon.  As everyone I know who knew him agrees, he was such a lovely bloke; thoughtful, funny and kind, he was so good at being those things he didn’t need to be anything else.  Ray didn’t believe in God and given that he is now dead, but Donald Trump still lives, I think he was probably right.  The existence of Satan might be a different matter, however.  On a happier note, this morning I have been vaccinated against influenza, so that’s good.

The train to Ipswich is late but only by a minute or two and when Gary boards at the next station stop it’s not a topic of conversation, instead we talk of my trip to Wales and of the contrasting customer service of Greene King and Royal Mail. In my recent experience Greene King dispense beer vouchers and complimentary cases of beer whilst Royal Mail witter on in lengthy AI generated e-mails and pay no attention to what you tell them; as Royal Mail pensioners, Gary and I both agree it wasn’t like that in our day.

Arriving in Ipswich, the sky is overcast and the station forecourt and Princes Street are busy with folk. We make our way through the town past the ‘new’ (it was the original town museum) ‘Museum of the Environment’ on aptly named Museum Street to the Arb, where I join a queue for the bar whilst Gary heads for the beer garden to look for a vacant table.  Mick soon appears and he buys the drinks, a pint of Estrella Galicia for Gary and pints (one each) of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for Mick and me.  As we emerge into the light of the beer garden Gary simultaneously nabs a table as other lunchtime drinkers leave.  Our conversation rambles, I buy another round of drinks (Suffolk Pride, half of Estrella and a Jameson’s whisky for £12 something with Camra discount) and we express surprise and amusement at how by half past two we seem to be the only people left in the beer garden.  Mick attributes this to a modern epidemic of anxiety. I worry he might be right.

At twenty to three we drain our glasses and set off for Portman Road.  As ever, there are queues for the Cobbold Stand in Portman Road and at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand.  Making a quick assessment of the relative length and speed of each queue I join the shortest, fastest moving one where I stand behind two men discussing their holidays. “Yes” says one “We went on a cruise down the Rhine” and then as if it was the most natural thing in the World “It was drink all you want”.  I’ve stopped smirking by the time I reach the front of the queue where I congratulate and name as ‘employee of the month’ the young, handsome man of Asian origin who is so quickly scanning us for weapons and scrap metal and letting us go onto the second challenge of the afternoon, the turnstiles.  The queue for illustrious turnstile 62 looks a bit sluggish so I go for the next best thing, turnstile 61, which turns out fine once a steward explains to the bloke in front how to present his mobile phone, and I’m soon shuffling past Pat from Clacton and Fiona to my seat where I say hello to the bloke next to me and to the man from Stowmarket (Paul), and see the backs of the heads of ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood.

The game begins beneath grey clouds after the Fulham captain Bassey (Shirley) has got up off his knees and finished praying, to whom or what, or for what it is impossible to say.  It is Ipswich who get first go with the ball though, sending it when they can, mostly in the direction of the goal in front of me and my fellow ultras.  Ipswich are of course in classic blue and while, whilst Fulham look a mess in red and black chequer-board shirts and red shorts, when their traditional white shirts and black shorts would have suited the occasion perfectly well.  We can but hope however, that they will lose as a result.  “Fulham, Fulham” chants the Fulham supporters, supportively, before launching into a rendition of Frankie Valli’s 1967 hit “Can’t take my eyes of you” which sadly sort of peters out after the words “I love you Fulham”, as if nobody was really sure of the words after that.  “MSC, moving the world together” announce the neon advertising boards on the Sir Bobby Robson stand and I feel we should get the United States government to fund a message directly after it reading “Donald Trump, moving the world further apart”.

“Super Fulham, Super Fulham” sing the Fulham fans and after eleven minutes and a spell of pressure Ipswich become the first team to win a corner. “Come On You Blues” everyone chants, more or less.  “Create more space with a mezzanine floor” announces that neon sign, which seems to have taken to providing surreal in-game coaching advice to the team.  Two minutes later and Town have another corner, the game is fast and Portman Road is noisy, a few of us again chant “Come On You Blues!”!  A further three minutes pass and the highlight of the half for Town arrives with a neat move down the right, a touch back and a measured, curling, low shot past the post from Julio Enciso.

The first half is never as good again for Town and Leif Davis is soon booked for a not particularly bad foul. “Sets a precedent” says the bloke beside me suggesting anyone could be booked for anything from now on.  The sky remains cloudy and grey, Fulham win a corner, “Come On Fulham” chant their fans and the neon sign says “Hot Sausage Company” and then “The ideal pre-match meal”, hopefully information that any watching scouts from Town’s next opponents, Manchester City will take to heart and implement. On the touchline, Gary O’Neil strikes a pose which if he was wearing a white suit with wide lapels and flared trousers rather than a zip-up cardigan might make him resemble John Travolta.

Fulham have begun to dominate possession and in one of the growing number of dull moments Pat asks if I’ve seen her new blue and white earrings, which she then displays by turning her left ear towards me. I ask if she’s wearing her blue pants too and a look of horror crosses her face as she realises she has forgotten them, although happily she does have some underwear on, although apparently it is beige.   Fulham’s dominance of possession continues and chants of “Blue Army!” fail to reverse the tide. Fulham win a second corner and hit a shot wide of the Town goal.  “The future of flat roofing today” says the neon signage.  The half concludes with a minute of added on time and an equalising booking for Fulham’s number seven Gonzalo, who tackles Lukic in a different financial year to the current one.

At half-time, the scoreboard wishes happy ninetieth birthday to Sheila who sits across the gangway from Pat from Clacton, and who miraculously doesn’t really look any older than Pat does. I use the remainder of half-time to vent spent Suffolk Pride and then chat briefly with Dave the steward, to whom I proudly reveal that I am now retired and it’s marvellous. Dave won’t retire for another four years, poor devil. The football resumes at two minutes past four and Leif Davis is soon launching a really lousy free-kick high over the Fulham cross bar before at the other end Fulham players come out with some very imaginative appeals for a penalty before hanging about in the Town box winning three corners in quick succession.  The third corner is headed clear by Diop but falls to Fulham’s Ryan Sessegnon, who is lucky enough to see his speculative low shot from 25 yards avoid all of the thirty to forty ankles and boots in between and then nestle in the corner of the Town goal. “Super Fulham, Super Fulham FC, the finest football team the World has ever seen” chant the Fulham fans and then “We are staying up, We are staying up”, which seems an unusually modest ambition for the greatest football team the World has ever seen.

Within five minutes, Ipswich come close to equalising but Emmerson ’s close range header hits a post instead of the net and the Fulham fans begin to get a bit cocky with chants of “No noise from the Tractor Boys” and “How shit must you be we’re winning away”.  Without the gift of foresight they are living in the moment, blissfully unaware of what is to come.

It is the sixty-second minute, and Town bring on Exequiel Palacios and Jack Clarke for Florentino and Philogene, immediately improving the team. “Come on Town!” shouts the bloke beside me with rekindled optimism “These are fucking rubbish”. Palacios soon helps Town to gain and keep more possession whilst Clarke runs at defenders.  Nine minutes later and Akpom and Flemming replace Enciso and Emmerson.  The grey cloud has lifted, the sky is blue and the sun shines into the faces of the Fulham fans in the Cobbold stand.  Fifteen minutes remain and Daizen Maeda prompts VAR into action after he falls to the ground in the penalty area, but predictably no foul is acknowledged. The best substitution of the match follows soon afterwards when Fulham replace Bobb with Kevin, although regrettably the excitable young stadium announcer wastes the opportunity to pronounce Bobb in the way that Rowan Atkinson did in the first episode of Blackadder 2.

The last ten minutes of normal time arrive with a final substitution for Town as Eggy replaces Daizen, which is nice for our Norwegian supporters but less so for our Japanese ones.  Today’s attendance is announced as being 29,445 and we are thanked for our “…incredible support”, and without a hint of sarcasm. Town are dominant but I am far from convinced that we are going to do anything other than lose one-nil. Pat from Clacton debates whether or not to get the masturbating monkey charm out of her handbag but she probably shouldn’t, Fiona’s niece is here with us today and she’s only twelve.  Town are getting plenty of crosses into the Fulham penalty area. Another goes in and is cleared by Shirley (Bassey) but only to Abdoul Outtara who has been brilliant at right-back all afternoon.  Outtara takes a touch, steps forward and unleashes the proverbial ‘rocket of a shot’ from may be 30 metres out; it arrives instantaneously just inside the far post, and the score is one-all. As if being an 88th minute equaliser isn’t enough it’s fantastic, it’s spectacular and makes Sessegnon’s earlier flukey goal look like a tap-in.

There will be five minutes of added time and having scored so late we could be happy with a draw, but the feeling is we can win this, it’s like Escape to Victory all over again.  The match is now into time added on and Chuba Akpom wins a freekick on the left; Jack Clarke takes it, flighting the ball to the near post, and then the ball bulges the net from Dara O’Shea’s imposing header.  Town lead two-one and there are ecstatic arms, legs, bodies and other things joyously jumping, flailing and hugging and being thrown and bounced around all over the place.   There’s still time for Christian Walton to make a match winning save with his left leg from Kevin but in yet another marvellous climax Town emerge victorious and Fulham live up to the comedy billing of their eternal association with Citizen Smith.

Fiona and Pat from Clacton make their customary sharp exits with the final whistle but I hang on to applaud and sing of Edward Ebenezer Jeremiah Brown, who everyone calls Ted.  In truth, Town have only been good in parts, but what parts they were and of course football punditry wisdom tells us that it’s good to play badly and win, even if in fact we didn’t play badly. Whatever, it was a magnificent win and although I’m not a sentimental man it feels to me like a win for Ray.

Clacton Town 8 Diss Town 0

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It’s just under 37 kilometres from my house to the Rush Green Bowl, home of Clacton Town Football Club, but as far as I can tell the quickest that it is possible to make this journey by public transport is one hour and thirty-six minutes, and this involves a challenging degree of co-ordination of buses, trains and footsteps, probably not possible on a Saturday and not convenient for a 3pm kick-off, and then I still have to get home.  Never mind, I think to myself, I have an electric car so can save an hour for worthy purposes and still try and save the planet too whilst travelling to watch non-league football, and so that’s what I shall do today having chosen to watch Clacton Town versus Diss Town in the snappily monikered Thurlow Nunn Eastern Counties League First Division North.

It’s been a while since I last saw Clacton play; eleven years and eight months to be almost precise, but rocking up at the Rush Green Bowl it doesn’t seem that very much has changed in all that time but for a superficial and recent switch from being FC Clacton back to being Clacton Town, and as William Shakespeare might have said if in a sarcastic mood, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. 

It’s a gloriously sunny, early autumn day as I step out of my neatly parked Citroen, breath in the briny scent of sea air and walk to the turnstile along the back of the clubhouse beneath an ugly gable and a sign bearing the Clacton Town crest, the word ‘Welcome’, a CCTV camera and a burglar alarm.  The turnstile itself is a magnificent piece of iron work but is set at a somewhat impractical angle as if an overly large person had tried to force their way through it or it had been rescued from a shipwreck. I ask the lady operator if it’s from the pier, but she doesn’t know.  Entry for a ‘senior’ costs a fiver, but more importantly and satisfyingly Clacton Town still produce a programme (£2.00), an impressively glossy twelve-page effort between stiff covers. Through the turnstile, a man sells old programmes and ‘goes’ on a pub card on which the pubs are football clubs. Seeing that Ipswich Town has already been bagged by someone called Richard, I plump for Burnley, who Ipswich beat to the 1962 version of what is now called the “Premier League” title.

There is still most of a half an hour until kick-off and so I look about a bit. I poke my head in the club house, a large, gloomy space that smells of body spray and has a large bar at one end; the back of the door is where the team line-ups are posted.  Returning outside, I take in the architecture comprising three small stands and a gathering of blue portacabins linked by a porch that looks like a massive nesting box and features another gable, which in this case grandly announces, “Hospitality Suite”.  Mostly blokes stand about awaiting kick-off as last-minute adjustments are made to the goal nets at the clubhouse end of the ground.  Some blokes hold plastic pint glasses of pale beery liquid.  One of the blokes not holding a plastic pint of beery liquid turns out to be Richard of pub card fame, who I know from our mutual historical association with Wivenhoe Town. Richard had booked a trip to the nearby Essex County Council dump to dispose of some garden rubbish and to my amusement had decided to combine that trip with one to the Rush Breen Bowl, which handily is next door.  We stand and talk and listen as the Clacton Town club secretary, a man called Karl, looks at his mobile phone and reads out the teams over the public address system.  Richard and I look at each other askance as the name of Clacton’s number three is announced as Lincoln Green.  “Surely, that’s a colour not a left-back” we almost say as one.

When the football begins, it is visiting Diss Town who get first go with the ball, which they despatch in the general direction of the club house and the North Sea, whilst hoping the goal net stops it from going that far.  Diss, known as “The Tangerines” wear an attractive kit of orange (more accurately tangerine) shirts and navy-blue shorts.  Richard and I agree that you can’t go far wrong with an orange football shirt. Clacton meanwhile sport white shirts with royal blue trim and royal blue shorts.  To avoid doubt they have the words Clacton and Town printed across their shoulders where players at professional level have their names.  Any musings about the comparative merits of the team kits are quickly forgotten as Diss Town soon lose possession and inside a minute Clacton dismantle the Diss defence and number seven Sonny Carr scores with a low, casually placed shot into the corner of the goal to give Clacton a very early lead.  It’s a lead which is almost doubled very soon afterwards as Letts’ header is saved and number two, Logan Green has a shot cleared off the goal line.

After thinking that Clacton might run away with the game, it settles down into one of scuffs and miskicks on the hard, uneven and dusty surface.  More than one hoofed clearance is propelled at an unexpected angle and into the undergrowth beyond the pitch.  Diss make it into the Clacton penalty area to win a couple of corners but seem to lack attacking players.  “’kin ‘ell” shouts a Diss player in response to a high boot and the game is held up as the Diss physio runs on carrying what looks like a first-aid kit from the glove compartment of his car. The game resumes with a Diss free kick which is booted straight out beyond the goal line from a good 40 metres out.   Cirrus clouds wheel above us, a small plane takes off from the adjacent airfield.   “We’re fuckin’ walkin’” shouts the totally bald Clacton coach as the game fleetingly descends into the not unusual swearing match often associated with local football.  “Keep it down for the kids” says Richard to me quoting the Thurlow Nunn League’s long-time mantra, and weirdly it seems to do the trick.

It’s now twenty-six minutes past three and all of a sudden Clacton lead two-nil as the speedy but diminutive number nine Adam Wrathall runs at goal, number seven Carr has a shot blocked at close range and number ten Letts bundles the ball into the roof of the net from even closer range. It’s a goal which owes its existence to pace and poor marking and the home crowd cheers. The Rush Green Bowl as its name more than implies is shaped like a bowl and on three sides there are mostly overgrown banks of grass on which spectators stand like the occupants of broken-down cars at the side of a motorway.  In front of us Diss’s number eight Ellis shepherds the ball out putting himself between it and the Clacton number five Cooper-Macklin. As the ball crosses the touchline Cooper-Macklin kicks Ellison on the ankle in what might generously be described as an act of petulance. The referee Mr Mills explains to Cooper-Macklin that the ball was already out but fails to book him for his spitefulness.  Soon afterwards, karma takes a holiday and after a Clacton corner kick the ball runs to Cooper Macklin on the edge of the penalty area and his low shot is deflected into the Diss goal to make the score three-nil.

The bald Clacton coach standing near the touch line in his blue tracksuit continues to shout and encourage.  Clouds of dust accompany almost every kick, and such is the apparent lack of any reaction in the Diss Town dugout I wonder if Diss have a coach at all, or whether the team functions as some sort of autonomous collective.  There are five minutes of the nominal first forty-five remaining as Clacton score their fourth goal from the penalty spot courtesy of captain Emmanuel Ikwuegbu after Wrathall runs at and around the Diss centre-half Viner and seems to be about to shoot when Mr Mills points to the penalty spot.  Richard and I agree it looked a soft penalty decision (shirt tugging?) and we wonder if Wrathall wouldn’t have scored anyway.  As if to let the world know that yes, he would have scored, five minutes later Wrathall rattles in a fantastic shot into the top corner of the Diss goal from something like 30 metres out.  When the half-time whistle is blown at twelve minutes to four the score is a probably decisive Clacton Town 5 Diss Town 0.

Richard and I have, during the course of the match, been making our way around the pitch and with half-time, we move from the sunny eastern side to the more shaded area next to what passes as the main stand.  On our way, we go onto the pitch to get around the subsiding terrace stand behind the goal that is now closed off for safety reasons.  It is at the same time a shame that the stand cannot be used but it also strangely adds to the character of the place and the delightfully depressing sense of decay and dilapidation that often characterises lower league football. 

The football resumes not much after four o’clock and at three minutes past Clacton score a sixth goal as number eleven Morton receives a square pass and from about 10 metres shoots the ball into the top right-hand corner of the Diss Town net.  The game resumes again and a man in a blue shirt, Diss Town club tie and possibly stay-pressed trousers, walks past us from the direction of the hospitality suite.   Earlier this afternoon as we stood near some of the Diss Town committee members I reflected on how even now some club officials come to games looking like refugees from the 1950’s with their collared shirts and club ties and sometimes even blazers and as a result they can’t help but also look a bit like coach drivers.    Richard suggests that if Diss have a bus in the car park they should make a note to park it in front of their goal in future. Our reverie is broken as the ball flies off the pitch and lands in the long grass next to me.  As I throw it back, I think it feels a bit soft, but on a rock-hard pitch that’s probably a good thing.

A Diss player is the first to be booked by Mr Mills, possibly for tugging a shirt, we’re not sure, and  as a cool breeze blows in off the sea the players shadows begin to lengthen across the mottled green of the pitch.  Diss win a freekick outside the Clacton penalty area, the Clacton captain is booked and from the kick Clacton’s goalkeeper Palmer, palms the ball away for his only save of the game.  Four minutes later and Clacton score their seventh goal as Wrathall scurries into the penalty area holding off a towering defender before sending a scorching shot high into the top corner of the net at the goalkeeper’s near post.

The last fifteen minutes of the match have arrived and to their credit Diss Town continue to do what they can to score and Ellis should do so when confronted with an open goal, but instead he boots the ball high over the subsiding stand. Four minutes later and once again I have to throw the ball back onto the pitch for a second time, I think I’ve now had more touches than the Clacton Keeper’ and the Diss centre forward.  Clearly a sympathetic man, Richard is hoping for a Diss goal but all they can manage is a shot that sails higher above the subsiding stand than the previous one and another which curls increasingly wide of the goal after leaving the Diss player’s boot.  It is a quarter to five when Clacton score an eighth goal, an audacious lob over the luckless Diss goalkeeper’s head from 50 metres after he misguidedly leaves his penalty area and clears weakly.

Finally, after an uncomfortable sounding clatter of shin guards on studs there is a late caution for Diss Town’s number three and captain Bray, who had deserved a booking for some earlier successful attempts to con freekicks out of Mr Mills.  With the final whistle, an understandably appreciative crowd applaud the teams and Richard and I make for the car park only to wonder if either of us had won the pub card.  Although it’s been a one-sided game in terms of goals, it has still been an entertaining one and on a beautiful autumn afternoon. After a rotten day for Diss Town however, we can only wish them and their coach drivers a safe journey home.

Ipswich Town 1 Havre AC 0

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

According to the Chargemap app on my mobile phone, the 495 kilometre trip from my house to Stade Oceane in Le Havre, home of Ligue 1 football team Havre AC, would currently take seven hours and twenty-five minutes including two stops totalling fifty minutes to re-charge my planet saving Citroen e-C4.  This is a trip I made only last month and is one I would recommend, provided you have the cash to pay for the motorway tolls and the fare for le shuttle.   Le Havre is a fascinating port city and on account of its being re-built in concrete by Auguste Perret after the RAF flattened it, it is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.  Disappointingly however, Havre AC were not at home when I visited last month, so I made do with a trip to the Museum of Modern Art to see Ai Wei Wei’s Lego interpretation of Monet’s Water Lillies, several beers in the excellent bars of le brasserie L’Havrais biere, and wandering amongst some of my favourite buildings.  But the world and time are nothing if not round and a month later Havre AC have come to see me, playing a friendly versus Ipswich Town at Portman Road.

Unusually, my wife Paulene is coming to the match tonight, attracted by the promise of French footballers, although having grown up in Portsmouth she was, and as far as I know still is, always wary of French sailors. Our journey this evening is by planet saving Citroen e-C4 and we pick-up Gary on the way before parking very conveniently just around the corner from the Arb’.    Gary is sporting the very latest replica Ipswich Town away shirt this evening, and gets the drinks in first; a pint of Estrella for him, a small glass of dry rose for Paulene and a pint of Nethergate Stour Valley for me.    A woman in the bar compliments Paulene on her earrings before we retire to the garden and a table in the shade to talk of relatives and friends and other stuff, and Gary is impressed by my Havre AC T-shirt.  In due course, I buy another round of drinks the same as before, but I opt for a pint of the weaker Nethergate Voyager this time and am disappointed that it tastes a little like the pipes have been cleaned but not rinsed very well afterwards, as in fact  did the Stour Valley.

It’s about twenty past seven when we head for Portman Road and thankfully an easy downhill walk, because once again it is a very, very warm evening.  There are long queues for the Cobbold stand in Portman Road, but what I notice first is that there are no programmes on sale again, which vexes me greatly; even in the days of Marcus Evans there were always programmes for pre-season friendlies, weren’t there?   But my spirits lift slightly when I find there are no queues for the Sir Alf Ramsey stand and this gives me time to photograph Paulene with Town mascots Bluey and Crazee who are hanging around in the car park with a small man in spectacles.  I tell Bluey and Crazee that Paulene has been photographed with an army of mascots, including  Bouba the elephant in Monaco, Ri-Ri the Canary in Nantes, Auguste the lion in Reims, Merlux the Hake in Lorient, Erminig the ermine in Rennes, a very dodgy, moth-eaten looking Leopard in Rouen, but sadly not Sali the salamander in Le Havre.   Bluey and Crazee unfortunately do not reply, and I commiserate with them that they do not speak.

Having been checked for scrap metal and explosives, I am ushered by a lady steward towards turnstile 61, but I tell her that I have to use turnstile 62, although I don’t know really know why and tonight’s match is only a pre-season friendly. “You never know” she says, and I think to myself “You never know what?” but like Bluey and Crazee I can’t say it. After venting excess spent Stour Valley and Voyager I meet up again with Paulene and Gary at our seats, which until we sit on them are an oasis of blue plastic amongst a sea of parents and children, many in last season’s replica kits.  None of them are at all familiar and I look in vain for Pat from Clacton, Fiona, ever-present Phil who never misses a game, his son Elwood and the man from Stowmarket (Paul).  I feel rather uncomfortable, like a walrus stranded amongst roosting penguins on a stoney beach somewhere in the South Atlantic.  They seem to be giving off a lot of heat too because it is incredibly warm.

Eventually, the football begins with Town in their natural blue and white getting first go with the ball and kicking it towards the goal just off to our right.  Havre are most disappointingly in all black rather than their signature pale blue and dark blue halved shirts and dark blue shorts, although a look on their website suggests they have no away kit, at least, perhaps not one they think anyone would want to purchase a replica of.  Havre don’t know it, but they are of course kicking towards Cumberland Towers, a concrete building which is unlikely to earn Ipswich UNESCO World Heritage site status, but which I like because it looks a bit like a very big match box stood on its end.

In terms of football, the first half is awful, but this is at least consistent with most pre-season games.  We amuse ourselves by working out which players are which on both sides.  Gary asks who Mendel is and is more amused than he should be when I tell him that he is Mendelssohn’s father. This is probably the highlight of the half but only if I ignore the fact that Town’s new Japanese signing Daizen Maeda looks about sixty-five and nearly ready for his pension, but this is solely due to the strange silvery colour of his hair. Otherwise, all I recall are the numerous seagulls swooping overhead (have Le Havre brought their own?) and that Havre have a player whose surname is Pembele, which because it rhymes Dembele sets me off thinking about an imaginary team whose names all sound a bit like those of other, far superior players, like Zinedine Sedan, Bobby Carlton or Lionel Nessi.

The welcome relief of half-time is spent talking to Harrison, who Gary has never met before, although Paulene has. Harrison’s grandfather Ray is watching the match from his Heath Road hospital bed, from where he at least might have access to drugs.  I will visit Ray a day or two later and he will tell me that he missed the first fifteen minutes because Town TV is not very good.  I reassure him that in fact he missed absolutely nothing at all.

The match resumes at nine minutes to nine, predictably with a new Ipswich team.  As happened in last week’s pre-season game versus Osasuna the more or less wholesale substitution of the team seems to do the trick and thirteen minutes later a Town goal is being celebrated as Chuba Akpom directs a free header into the Havre net after some startlingly bad defending from the Norman team and Town lead one-nil.  On the touchline, the seldom smiling Havre manager Didier Digard, who incidentally played three games on loan for last week’s opponents Osasuna about ten years ago, is grim faced, looking as if he’s already deciding who to hit first when they all get back in the dressing room in half an hour’s time. Havre soon begun substitutions of their own, bringing on the players with the evening’s two most pleasurable surnames, Yanis Zouaoui and Hakim Dongopandji.

Twenty minutes of the second half have upped and left, and Jack Clarke has an early tilt at the worst shot of the season award as he shoots spectacularly wide and high.  A minute later George Hirst is brought on to see if he can do better.  Twelve minutes later, Havre produce what might be their only shot of the game, from substitute wide player Enzo Koffi, and the waning of interest in the stands begins to manifest itself with depressing calls of “Blue Army” from both adult males and small children. It’s something that doesn’t happen during ‘proper’ games and is another compelling argument for not attending pre-season friendlies.

The match nears its uninteresting conclusion and over the public address system we are told that collectively we number 6,669.  It’s probably close to a capacity crowd for the limited areas of the stadium that are open, but I remain disappointed that I have not seen or heard a single French person in the crowd this evening, or smelled a Gauloise or even a faint whiff of garlic.  I hope that we get to see RC Lens, Paris St Germain or Olympique Marseille at Portman Road before too long.

Ipswich Town 3 Queens Park Rangers 0

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I was awake before my alarm went off this morning, which was a good thing because being awoken by an alarm clock on a Saturday morning is plainly wrong.  What was not a good thing however was that I had thought it necessary to set my alarm because the evil media moguls of Sky tv had decreed that Ipswich Town will begin their last match of the season, against Queens Park Rangers at just half an hour past noon and I am therefore having to catch a train to Ipswich before the clocks have struck ten o’clock.   Having noted that the weather forecast from the met office predicted temperatures of almost 20 degrees centigrade today I decided to wear a lighter pair of trousers.   Feeling in the pocket of these “cargo pants”, which I probably hadn’t warn since late last summer, I discover the receipt for a cheap bottle of champagne.  I take it as a portent of celebrations yet to come.

At the railway station I wait with a man called Gareth who introduces me to Sally who is also going to the match.  “How do you feel about the match?” asks Gareth. “Relaxed” I reply.  Gareth and Sally laugh as if that can’t possibly be so.  But it is. I always want Town to win, but if they don’t, then they don’t. I don’t want to get ill over it.   I have no idea if the train arrives on time but I’m soon talking to Gary as we speed towards the promised land, Ipswich.  Our only disappointment is that as we descend the hill through Wherstead a train passes in the opposite direction obscuring our potential view of the polar bears, but I still manage to see one.  In Ipswich, the sun is shining as we walk to the Arb stopping only to purchase a programme from one of the kiosks that look like they should also sell ice creams.  I explain to Gary that I am, exceptionally, buying a programme (£4.00) today because it will potentially be an auspicious occasion, although if Town don’t win I will likely be left with a programme I don’t really want, although the front cover does feature a picture in profile of Darnell Furlong staring moodily off into the distance.

Inside the Arb there is a queue for the bar and not wishing to cause a scene I reluctantly join it. Queues at the bar in pubs? The world has gone mad.  Happily, the queue moves quickly, and I am soon looking for Gary in the beer garden whilst holding a tray on which sit a pint of Estrella Galicia for Gary and two pints of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride, one for me and one for Mick, who has texted me to say he will be arriving late.  Our conversation today soon establishes that our lives are currently quite boring and uneventful although Mick is considering going to Venice by rail and is exploring the possibility of getting a ferry to Bilbao and then a train across southern France into Italy, perhaps stopping in Marseille to take in a match at the Velodrome.  Two more pints of Suffolk Pride, a pint and half of Estrella and two whiskies later we are alone in the beer garden because all the other drinkers left a good ten minutes ago or more and we are ready to depart for Portman Road too.

There are no queues at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand when I arrive and I even manage to use the side access normally reserved for people with disabilities, before accessing the stand through the illustrious turnstile sixty-two. I am venting spent Suffolk Pride when the excitable young stadium announcer announces the team and imagining I am in a pissoir, like a Frenchman at the Stade Jean Bouin or Stade Abbe des Champs I bawl the surnames of the few players whose squad numbers I can remember, or whose first names are long enough for me to work out which surname they belong to before the announcer finishes saying them.  Up in the stand Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood are of course already here.

Eventually, with huddles having huddled, bursts of flame having died down and plumes of smoke having settled, the game begins with the Park Rangers of the Queen getting first go with the ball in their strikingly metrosexual livery of black and pinked halved shirts and black shorts.  The Rangers try to point the ball in the direction of Norwich Road and local twentieth century public housing landmark Cumberland Towers.  The Town are as ever in our signature blue shirts and white shorts and the teams wear Halos on their shirt fronts, instead of above their heads.

Inside two minutes Leif Davis is bearing down on Joe Walsh in the Rangers goal, but his low shot is saved by the former Eagles guitarist at the expense of a corner and an early rendition from me and as many as half a dozen others of  ‘Come on You Blues’.  As usual our shouts fall on stoney ground and the ball is cleared. But the Town are relentless, assaulting the Rangers goal with wave after wave of running at them with the ball down both flanks and through the middle. Within another two minutes Town lead, George Hirst kicking the ball over the goal line from improbably close range after slick passing finds Leif Davis crossing the ball low into the deepest recesses of the goal mouth. “E-I, E-I, E-I, O, Up the Football League we go!” fills the void, although in truth we can’t actually go any further up the Football league because Coventry have already bagged first position.

Behind me a bloke sings loudly and out of tune, like an international footballer rendering his national anthem as a tv camera looks up his nostrils.  “Ipswich Town, Ipswich Town FC, the finest football team the world has ever seen” we bellow with tearful sincerity to the tune of The Wild Rover.  This is how the match was meant to begin; it was how it began in Town supporters’ dreams and those dreams are becoming a reality.  The onslaught continues with what seems like a season’s worth of attacking intent and desire rolled into one as if making up for lost time. It’s the tenth minute when more joyful running and passing leaves Jaden Philogene in front of goal and a jink and a twist later to avoid a Park Ranger he’s rolling the ball into the Rangers’ goal from about six metres away. Two-nil to Ipswich Town and that’s it; I reckon we’ve won.

With the game won, the excitement subsides a little and Town allow the Rangers a little more of the ball.   Up in the Cobbold Stand, the Rangers’ supporters make the attacks that their team is unable to conjure by chanting “Football in a library, do-do-do”.  I cope with the insult by thinking of tv’s Crossroads and inwardly laughing to myself that their number twenty-three is called Bennie, even if the spelling is wrong. The Rangers fans respond with “Two-nil and you still don’t sing”.  The first half is half over and the bloke next to me says “It’s all about game management now”.  I think to myself that our game management in the first ten minutes was pretty flippin’ good.  Back on the pitch George Hirst goes to stamp on a balloon but it escapes from beneath his boot and he stamps on fresh air, which looks decidedly uncool.  To escape further embarrassment and to punish the balloon George proceeds to pick it up and crushes it with his bare hands.

Town are managing the game well enough now that with six minutes to go until half-time the blokes behind me and a few from further along the row feel confident enough to repair to the bar for an early half-time beer.  Within two minutes the Rangers win their first corner, but the ball is easily gathered by Christian Walton because generally, as Fiona remarks, corners are equally ineffectual for all teams.   The words “Hot Sausage Company” scroll across the face of the Sir Bobby Robson stand in yellow on a vivid red background and we learn that five minutes of time are to be taken from our futures to make up for players lying prone on the turf during the previous forty-five minutes.

Unusually, the stolen five minutes provide some excitement as Town are awarded a free-kick just outside the Rangers’ penalty area and referee Mr Gavin Ward gets carried away marking out a line ten yards from the ball, applying his white spray with aplomb like a cross between Banksy and Jackson Pollock.  From the free-kick a corner ensues, presenting the last time this season in which the Churchman’s ultras will chant “Come on You Blues” and share the disappointment of not scoring again.

With the half-time whistle I go for the final time, until August that is, to the front of the stand to speak with Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison and in passing to Dave the steward before venting more spent Suffolk Pride and returning to my seat in time for the re-start of the football at twenty-three minutes to two.

The second half is not unexpectedly different to the first, football mostly being a game of two halves.  Rangers have made two substitutions, one having the unusual first name of Tylon to rhyme with Skylon and Nylon, and the players have evidently received a reminder from their French coach Monsieur Stephan about the need to try and score les buts. As a result, an early Town shot at Walsh becomes an isolated incident as Rangers proceed to soon win a corner and a free-kick and their supporters become optimistic enough to chant “Come on you R’s” with genuine enthusiasm.  It seems that Monsieur Stephan has successfully injected a bit of va-va-voom and even “Je ne sais quoi” into his players.   I am particularly impressed by Ranger’s number ten Ilias Chair, although he is quite small, more of a footstool or a pouffe than a chair really.  

Despite the Rangers’ improved showing I don’t get the impression anyone is getting over-anxious.  “Another goal would knock the stuffing out of them” says Fiona, and I agree with her, my only quibble with her analysis being that it makes QPR sound a bit too much like cuddly toys and I wouldn’t want to see the Portman Road pitch festooned with kapok. 

With an hour gone the Rangers’ fans launch a final attempt to goad the home supporters with a chant of “Football in a library”. But their efforts fall on deaf ears, which is hardly surprising given the age of some of us in the Sir Alf Ramsey stand.  Two minutes later and the traditional ‘half an hour left’ substitutions are made by a thoughtful looking Keiran McKenna as Philogene and Burns are replaced by Clarke and McAteer.  Almost instantly, Town win a couple of predictably disappointing corners but it’s enough to re- invigorate the home crowd,  who are soon back to chanting “E-I, E-I, E-I, O, Up the Football League we go” in the simple style of a class of primary school children.  Twenty-one minutes of normal time remain when Jack Clarke shoots wide of the goal. A minute later and Nunez and Hirst depart for the bench to be replaced by Azon and Mehmeti in the well-rehearsed fashion.  Across the illuminated centre of the Sir Bobby Robson stand the spirit of optimism is echoed in the words “The future of flat roofing today”.

Another goal would be good, and I sense some frustration that it hasn’t been scored yet as everyone yearns to see the game ‘put to bed’, perhaps with a milky cup of Horlicks or Cocoa.  Leif Davis getting booked barely registers in the scheme of things now and the longed-for goal almost comes as Jack Clarke is fouled and from the free-kick the ball is headed across the face of the Rangers’ goal.  Eleven minutes of normal time remain, and Rangers’ Smyth makes his mark on the game by having his name taken by Mr Ward for a foul on Darnell Furlong.  Eight minutes of normal time remain, and the Sir Bobby Robson standers are now confident enough to test out a chant of “We are going up, We are going up”, which almost seems to be the signal for a parade of stewards and police in what look like uniforms that can easily be wiped clean to surround the pitch.

Seven minutes remain, and Christian Walton is forced into a flying save to keep out a shot from one or other of the Park Rangers and it’s as if the surrounding of the pitch by people dressed in black and day-glo orange might have been distracting.  But three minutes later play is at the desired end of the ground again as Jack Taylor storms towards goal, the ball is blocked but runs to Kasey McAteer who guides it into the net and Town lead three-nil. 

Now the game is truly over and promotion is secured, again. It doesn’t really matter that Dan Neil replaces Jack Taylor, that we number 29,636 today or that four minutes of added on time will be added on.  With the final whistle, within seconds a swarm of supporters cover the pitch and Town are definitively promoted to what is called the Premier League.  The last time I saw this many people on the pitch at a match versus QPR they were fighting each other.

Very few people leave to catch trains or buses today.  I was going to, but against my better judgement I hang about pointlessly looking on at people milling about the pitch whilst the excitable young stadium announcer tells them that there will be no presentation of the runners-up trophy until the pitch is completely cleared. I am wasting my life away here.   The game ended at twenty past two and its three o’clock by the time the presentation of the trophy is made but there are too many other people on the pitch to see that and then the team don’t parade it around the pitch, they just hang about near the halfway line enduring very loud music. A blast of Status Quo at getting on for two-thirty is the final straw and I head for the railway station and home to find that I must have already drunk that bottle of champagne for which I found the receipt.