Ipswich

Ipswich Town 1 Southampton 2

/ martinpbrooks / 1 Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Little Oakley 1 Barking 1

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The village of Little Oakley in Essex, Wikipedia tells us, had a population in 2011 of 1,171 and is on the outskirts of Harwich.  More precisely, Google maps tells us that Little Oakley is a four kilometre, fifty-eight minute walk from Harwich International railway station.  Now, I reckon I could walk 4 kilometres in less than 58 minutes, but I am nevertheless of a lazy disposition and therefore, today I have opted to drive the thirty-six kilometres from my house to the Memorial Ground, home of Little Oakley FC in my planet saving Citroen e-C4,  rather than enjoy a travel melange of rail, bus and walking, which would take me between one and  half and two and a half hours depending on connections.  Today at the Memorial Ground, Little Oakley FC are playing Barking in the Essex Senior League, the ninth level of English league football.

It’s a beautiful, bright, clear, winter’s day and but for a Luton van pulling out in front of me from a lay-by on the A120, I have a relaxed, trouble-free journey, played out to a soundtrack of the Saturday afternoon pre-match football coverage on BBC Radio Essex, featuring amongst others, the dulcet tones of Glenn Pennyfather and Danny Cowley.  My Citroen’s SatNav doesn’t seem to know about the Memorial Ground, so my journey ends with an abrupt left hand turn when suddenly from the B1414 I see the street sign for Lodge Road, which I remember from looking at a map is adjacent to the Memorial Ground.  I park up at the side of the narrow approach road, beneath an avenue of trees with a deep ditch on one side and wooden fence on the other on which several signs plead with drivers not to park too close to it.  I make the short walk to the clubhouse enjoying the sound of birdsong whilst inhaling the smell of hot cooking oil, probably chip fat.

The clubhouse is welcoming and populated with happy pre-match drinkers.  I buy a bottle of Adnams’ almost non-alcoholic ‘Ghostship’ (£3.20) and the bar maid asks if I’d like a glass, I would. I stand and look up at one of three TV screens showing Sky TV.  From a hatch, behind which is the clubhouse kitchen, a middle-aged woman looks out glumly. “Fed up?” I ask her.  “Bored” she says “It was busy, and now it’s quiet”.  This lady seems responsible for fulfilling the whole crowd’s need for food and hot drink on her own but it will soon be kick-off, so for now she’s not needed.

I sink my low alcohol beer as quickly as I can without burping and head outdoors where a man with a loud, deep voice directs me to turn left beyond the shipping container at the far end of the car park.  A short, friendly man emerges from a hut, a bit like municipal car park attendants used to in the far off days before ‘Pay and Display’, and asks if I’m a concession.  I ask how old you have to be to be a concession; it turns out it’s sixty-five and he apologises when I tell him I’m only sixty-four. But it does mean I’m about six months further from the grave than I would have been if I’d been a concession, even if I will be three quid poorer for it.  Having handed over my £8.00 in cash, I ask if there is a programme and am surprised to find that there is. “Here you are, if you’d like something to read” says the man, handing me six colourful sheets of A4 paper stapled together in the top left-hand corner.  Best of all the programme is free, as if a little bit of France has been re-located to the top right-hand corner of rural Essex.

Pap-rock plays over the public address system as I take stock of the ground, which has two small pre-fabricated metal terraces behind one goal and another pre-fabricated metal stand with seats overlooking the far half of the pitch; it looks as if there wasn’t room behind the dugouts for the stand to be level with the half way line.  The ground backs onto a hedge and a couple of Oak trees on one side and onto the gardens of a row of semi-detached houses on the other.  At the far end there is just a playing field and a trio of teenagers have leaned their bikes against the rail around the pitch. I can also see from here that the clubhouse appears to have a partly corrugated metal roof; I bet it rattles when it rains.

The pap-rock gives way to Jeff Beck’s ‘Hi-Ho Silver Lining’ and the two teams amble onto the pitch; if there is any shaking of hands or other gestures of sportsmanship I miss them. I stand close to the home team dugout and next to me a man talking into his mobile phone says “We got two meal deals at the Co-op before we came out, so we ‘ad them”.  In the ‘technical area’ in front of the dugout, a track-suited man calls out to the home players “Ave a look, ‘ave a look, just be aware of the fuckin’ double bluff”.  I have no idea what he means, and decide not to ask him.

The match begins, and Barking get first go with the ball, their second touch being a hefty hoof out to the left wing.  Little Oakley, known as ‘The Acorns’ are wearing blue and black striped shirts with black shorts, a bit like a destitute man’s Inter Milan and are defending the empty, featureless end of the ground with marshes, Hamford Water and the North Sea a kilometre or two beyond.  Barking are all in yellow, with black sleeves, and they defend the clubhouse and Ramsey end of the ground, with the River Stour and Suffolk beyond that.   Barking win an early corner with some clever play by their number seven Michele Maccari. “Why’s that big guy on the edge? ‘e’s got a massive head on him” asks a lad sat behind me of his two friends, who I think could all be Little Oakley players who are not playing today. The ‘guy on the edge’ is stood at the edge of the penalty box and whilst he is quite tall, I must admit I can’t really see that his head is any bigger than anyone else’s.

“Barking, Barking give us a song” chants a bloke tamely, somewhere off to my right.  “If you all ‘ate Dagenham clap your ‘ands” comes the response from three or four other voices.  Unfortunately, Little Oakley has no such choir. It’s just gone a quarter past three and despite Barking probably playing, or at least attempting to play the more attractive and neater football, it is Little Oakley who have the first decent shot on goal, as number ten, Daniel Rowe spectacularly volleys the ball against the foot of a goalpost creating a pleasing metallic pinging sound. Recovering from the momentary excitement, I notice that between the semi-detached houses on the far side of the ground and across the water inbetween, I can see two dockside cranes at the Port of Felixstowe, beyond which and unbeknown to me, Felixstowe & Walton Football Club are on their way to drawing nil-nil with Haringey Borough in the Isthmian League.

Barking make claims for a penalty as one of their number tumbles between two Oakley defenders and at this point the referee seems to lose any affection the visitors might have once had for him. “You’re a joke ref” calls a man from behind a camera with a tele-photo lens, “Absolute clown ref”.  It’s nearly twenty-five past three and all of a sudden Barking take the lead; a clever, arcing cross being headed in at the near post by number six and captain Fahad Nyanja.

As the game is about to resume, an Acorns’ player calls out “We keep going, we fucking keep going”.  It is stating the obvious and I for one would feel a bit short-changed if this early in the game they’d all along been secretly playing ‘next goal wins’ .  As unnecessary as it should be, these apparent words of encouragement nevertheless almost work but in an unexpected way, as a low cross from the Oakley number seven, Idris Namisi is diverted against a goal post by Barking number four Sam Edwards.  Idris Namisi seems a popular player amongst the home crowd, and I can’t help but like him too, even if it’s probably because his first name is the same as that of the dragon who lived in the firebox of Ivor the Engine.

Oakley’s number ten, Rowe claims the honour of being the first player to be booked as he pulls back a Barking player and I agree with the old boy stood next to me, whose grandson is the Oakley number eleven, Luke Hipkin, when he says it was a needless, stupid foul.   The old boy asks me if I’m from Harwich and I tell him I grew up in Shotley just over the river from here. “Not far away, then “. He says. ”Not if you’ve got a boat” I reply.  Back on the pitch, the Oakley players are arguing amongst themselves. 

The half ends with Rowe being put through on goal for Oakley with just the Barking keeper to beat, but his shot is saved and Idris the popular dragon blazes the rebound high and wide.   I check my phone and Ipswich are losing 0-3 at Liverpool, which makes me glad I’m here and not on Merseyside.   With the half-time whistle I make for the club house to drain off excess low alcohol Ghostship and invest in one pound fifty’s worth of tea, because under a clear sky it’s beginning to get cold as the sun sinks in the west.  The middle-aged woman in the kitchen is being cheerfully rushed off her feet serving tea, frying chips, griddling burgers and taking cash and card payments. I can’t help but think it’s a pity the players and managers of both teams can’t just get on with what they’re meant to be doing with as little complaint. I haven’t heard her say ‘fuck’ once.

I take my tea outside into the softening, late, winter afternoon sunlight and the match resumes at two minutes past four; I stand by the Barking dugout. “Get ‘old of the fucker” barks the Barking manager  a seemingly irascible  man sporting a stylish grey cap and white goatee beard, who sounds like Ray Winstone and mostly never says ‘fuck’ or ‘fuckin’ in a sentence unless he can say it half a dozen times.  Mostly, his exasperation seems to be directed at his own Barking team who, I can only guess, aren’t playing so much like the Spanish national team, as may be he told them to.

Time goes on and Barking’s number eleven Ugonna Emineke is booked for time wasting as he delays taking a throw-in because there is a rumpus happening in the penalty area and he’s waiting for it to subside.  Unfortunately for Emineke, the referee only had eyes for him and hadn’t noticed the pushing and shoving in the penalty  area, although before the throw is eventually taken he has to go and sort it out and speak to his assistant about it. Then, with twenty minutes of the half gone Oakley equalise, Idris Namisi nipping in to poke a cross over the goal line from close range.

As it has progressed, the game has become increasingly fractious, with a number of Acorns players being quite aggressive, whilst Barking players have acted out fouls where none has been made, sometimes squealing and moaning for additional effect.  All this has been against a  background of some of the most  liberal use of the word ‘fuck’ I have ever heard and I wonder what people do during the week to make them so angry on a Saturday.

Things don’t improve when at twenty-seven minutes to five Emineke is sent off for a ‘professional’ (or, as this is only the Essex Senior League perhaps ‘semi-professional’) foul, and The Acorns are awarded a penalty, which the balding and bearded Darren Mills takes and Daniel Purdue saves, diving excellently to his right.  “How many more fucking chances do we get?” moans The Acorns’ number three Adie Cant.  “Calm the fuck down” shouts the coach “Fuckin’ ‘ell”. It’s as if Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s Derek and Clive had had an afternoon out at the football.

With the aftermath of the penalty, the worst of the afternoon’s fractiousness is over and much  of the final twenty minutes plays out against the back-drop of a glorious, blood red sunset,   A friendly man wearing a day-glo gilet bearing the words ‘LO Media Officer’ on the back, talks to me briefly and asks if I’m a ground hopper, “Not really” I tell him, “ I usually watch Ipswich”,  although I don’t let on that for forty years I’ve kept a list of every game I’ve ever been to.  He’s soon photographing the main stand against the sunset however, and the match plays out shifting freely from end to end,  but with neither side looking much like scoring the winning goal. Meanwhile, I wonder at the name of a local fish and chip shop, Pieseas Chippy, which is advertised at the pitch side.

The final whistle blows at eight minutes to five and an appreciative crowd applaud the efforts of both teams in a match which whilst mostly not a thing of beauty, apart from the sunset, has been entertaining and hard fought.  I think a draw is a fair result although home fans might not agree, and as I head for my car I hear a man muttering to himself about the ‘village team’ holding the team from the city (Wikipedia tells us that in 2011 Barking had a population of 59,011) as if the moral victory belongs to Little Oakley.  Perhaps it does, but even if it doesn’t it’s been a lovely afternoon out.

Ipswich Town 0 Newcastle United 4

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I had hoped that I might be able to acquire an extra ticket for today’s game, which I would have given to my friend of forty years or more, Jah, who is a Newcastle United fan.  Predictably perhaps, the slender avenues of opportunity were few and they proved to be culs-des-sacs.  I’m not a member, and having a season ticket continuously for over forty years counts for nothing; I was resigned to my fate.  There are now, no doubt some who having read the above are apoplectic with rage that I should consider buying a ticket for someone supporting the opposition team.  To them I say “Grow up, it’s only a game” and “Yah boo, sucks”.

It’s the Winter Solstice today, a grey day, like most days lately, but the train is on time and I see a polar bear through the window  as we descend into Ipswich through Wherstead, which is better than seeing one inside the carriage.  Gary is not with me again today; after going to previous matches with his brother and then having hurt his chest, which made him unable to make the hike up to the Arb, he has now awoken to find a toenail hanging off and so once again cannot make the trek to the pub.  Alone, but in the company of hundreds of other people sporting blue and white favours, I make my way to Portman Road to buy a programme (£3.50) from one of the booths that I hope will one day also sell ice creams, and observe the gathering crowd.  The Bobby Robson statue sports a “half and half” scarf, which controversially suggests he was what people younger than me call a “plastic fan”, when in fact he’s probably made of bronze.  People are having their photographs taken with the statue and I think of two songs by the Kinks, ‘Plastic Man’ and ‘People take pictures of each other’

At the Arb, I am mercifully served quickly and take my pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£4.14 with Camra discount) into the beer garden where I sit at one of the tables in the shelter, opposite a couple who are probably in their forties and seem pleased that this part of the shelter has the benefit of two electric heaters, even if it’s not going to help save the planet. I am a minute or two early; I’d arranged to meet Mick at 13:45 and an exchange of text reveals he is only now leaving home, so I read the programme I bought earlier and reflect on how the pieces by the manager , CEO and captain are just like every other piece by a manager, CEO or captain I have ever read before , but then, what is there to say?  Today’s front cover, which isn’t the front cover (it’s inside the back page) is by a designer called James Hobson, who if his picture is to be believed, wears 3D glasses possibly as a fashion accessory, or possibly when working or just when having his photo taken. Either way, I decide that I like his design, which is reminiscent of some of the more graphically adventurous programmes of the early 1970’s, of which Ipswich Town’s was sadly not one.  

In due course, Mick arrives and we talk of my wife, our siblings, Mick’s recently deceased neighbour, the smoke detectors in the flat in Felixstowe where Mick’s paramour lives, Christmas, how sentimental people are nowadays, and Gary’s absence.  At some stage I obtain a further pint of Suffolk Pride for me and a Jameson whisky for Mick (£8.80 with Camra discount) and we talk until a quarter to three, by which time we are alone in the beer garden and this makes us wonder why everyone is so keen to not just turn up as the game is about to begin.   After the easy downhill walk to Portman Road, we part at the junction of Sir Alf Ramsey Way and I make it to my seat in time to bawl out the surnames of three of the Town team as the excitable, although today very serious sounding young announcer reads the team line-up to us.  Naturally, Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood are already here.

Ipswich get first go with the ball this afternoon, but you wouldn’t know it, because no sooner has the game begun than Newcastle are one-nil up as a long ball forward, a cross, a very poor clearance and a bouncing shot puncture all our hopes of the sort of straightforward home win we crave.  There is a long wait of over a minute for VAR to dismiss the possibility of offside and predictably it does so.  “ Newcassul, Newcassul, Newcassul” sing the Geordies in the Cobbold stand and then “Haork, noww heeya …” with their accents coming across far clearer than the words they’re singing, in a way that is unmatched by supporters anywhere else in England.  The Town fans fall silent but then a brief chorus or three of “Come On You blues” rings out, before fading feebly into the gloom as darkening drizzle sweeps across the pitch and Newcastle dominate play, seemingly at times just through being bigger blokes.  Fifteen minutes up and it should be two-nil as Anthony Gordon heads down and the ball bounces over the Town bar.  Ipswich are incapable of holding onto the ball for more than a couple of passes, being brushed off the ball by these bigger boys; it’s like watching Under 15s play Under 13s.

The worst of it is that whilst Town are of course in blue and white, Newcastle have not turned up as Newcastle United in their famous black and white stripes, black shorts and stockings; no, they’re in some weird, needless arrangement of white shirts with green sleeves and green shorts, the colour of the Saudi Arabian flag.  “He’s good that thirty-nine” says the bloke behind me.  “He’s always available” .  “It’s Graham Harbey, isn’t it?” says the bloke next to him.   Twenty minutes gone and Jens Cajuste conjures Town’s first shot on goal, one that flies above the cross bar and hits a woman a few rows away.  Sam Morsy makes a saving tackle and is serenaded; I hope he likes Oasis.  “We’ve been a bit more involved, the last five minutes” says the bloke behind me and the drizzle has become rain and has begun sweeping in beneath the roof of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand. My trousers are flecked with spots of rain.

It’s the thirty second minute, Newcastle have the ball, just passing it about around the Town penalty area, then they’re two-nil up.  A bloke with the unpromising name of Jacob Murphy just fires the ball into the roof of the goal net. Apparently he used to play for Norwich City, and Wikipedia tells us he is a nephew of former Town bench-warmer Tommy Parkin.  The goal happened so quickly it feels like Newcastle have scored without even bothering to have had a shot.  Hurt, but not beaten I chant “We’re going to win 3-2”, to the tune of Blue Moon, the 1934 song by Rodgers and Hart, but I feel as if I’m being ignored.  I tell Fiona that I recall Town beating Newcastle 5-4 back in March of 1975 “I remember it was a wet afternoon like this….” I tell her wistfully.  I also recall Town losing 0-3 to Newcastle the following August, but I don’t mention that.

The bloke sitting beside me and the blokes behind me leave for the bar, being two-nil down is evidently more than they can bear without the crutch of alcohol, they may need help.  “Bruno, Bruno” chant the Newcastle fans, and then “There’s only one Bobby Robson”, although in truth there is either no Bobby Robson anymore or there are several of them, all of whom remain, so far, unknown to us.  There are ten minutes until half-time and Conor Chaplin takes his usual sit down on the turf to allow everyone a few moments of remedial coaching on the touchline and to put in their orders for half-time refreshments.

With play resumed and half-time fast approaching, Muric makes a flying save from a shot by someone metaphorically draped in the Saudi flag. The approach of half-time is then slowed down as four minutes of added on time are announced and Sam Szmodics replicates Jens Cajuste’s earlier shot over the cross bar, meaning Town have at least now had two attempts at scoring.  But seeing a goal not scored at the far end, Muric then seemingly decides to try and create one at his own end as he suggests belief in the infallibility of Jens Cajuste by passing to him when there is a Newcastle player directly next to him.  Sadly, Jens is not infallible, and an outstretched leg robs him of the ball which runs to Alexander Isak who has the embarrassing task of scoring from a just a few yards out.  Now trailing three-nil, Town win their first corner of the game and I chant “Come On You Blues” with decreasing enthusiasm as hope is sucked from me by the aura of gloom all around. Inevitably the bigger boys get the ball away.

Half-time is a relief as I get to jettison excess Suffolk Pride, look at the half-time scores and eat a Nature Valley Crunchy Oats & Honey bar.  It is six minutes past four when the match resumes with Ali Al-Hamadi having appeared in place of Omari Hutchinson; within four minutes a busy Al-Hamadi has a shot blocked.  A glowing advert for Hawk Express Cabs makes its way along the front of the North Stand offering a number to call for anyone lacking the mental strength needed for Premier League football and seeking a means of escape.  Fortunately, none of the Town players’ shorts look large enough to conceal a mobile phone inside, except perhaps Jack Clarke’s, but he’s only a substitute today.

The situation nearly worsens as Bruno hits a post with a header in the fifty-first minute, but this  is a mere stay of execution as three minutes later Isak completes a hat-tick  of goals, unexpectedly stabbing the ball into the net past Muric as Town defenders flounder all around him. “Damage limitation now” says the bloke behind me, although I’m feeling that the damage is already done.  Over in the Cobbold stand, the away fans go all folksie and start singing  the Blaydon Races and Fiona says “ I can’t hear you singing we’re going to win 5-4” .  Perhaps because we’re not going to.

Town substitutions are made in the sixty-second minute as Cajuste and Chaplin wish good luck to Phillips and Taylor.  A minute later Wes Burns gets down the wing and puts in a deep cross, or is a shot? Either way it evades the far post, but is worth a round of applause before Newcastle make their own substitutions and Sam Morsy is booked.  “Is it worth getting Monkey out? “ asks Pat from Clacton, hoping to revive the Town via the mystical properties of a key ring from Vietnam featuring a masturbating monkey.  “He’ll have his work cut out” I tell her “it’ll exhaust him”.  But it’s Newcastle who win a corner and when it’s passed, I ask Pat what she’s having for her tea.  The answer is a baked potato with chicken in sticky sauce from Marks & Spencer.  Fiona doesn’t know what she’s having for her tea yet, and I don’t either. 

Twenty minutes left until we can go home and Town win a second corner of the game, Leif Davis holds the ball above his head before he takes it to indicate that it’s one which a Newcastle player will boot clear.   Six minutes on and Al-Hamadi is booked before Town’s final substitutions bid a farewell until next time to Szmodics and Wes Burns, and “Hello” to Ben Johnson and Nathan Broadhead, who is soon having a shot saved by the diving Newcastle goalkeeper, which possibly makes Nathan our man of the match in an attacking sense.  Today’s attendance is announced as 29,774 with 2,991 being potential extras for TV series such as ‘Vera’, ‘Spender’, ‘Our friends in the North’, When the Boat Comes In’ and ‘The Likely Lads’.

“Na Na, NaNa, Na Na” sing the Newcastle fans to the tune of the 1969 hit “Na Na, Hey Hey, Kiss Him Goodbye”, just as Bob Ferris and Terry Collier might have done at the time had they been real people.   Less than ten minutes of normal time remain and Al-Hamadi shoots high and wide and the advert for the Hot Sausage Company makes an appearance between the tiers on the front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand, but the power of advertising is waning because of a mass exodus from the stands as people believe that missing the final whistle will help them deny they were ever here.

Before we all finally slope off into the night, four minutes of added on time produce another goal for Newcastle, for a short while anyway, but this time VAR is the Town supporters’ friend as the messy goal line event is deemed to have been an offside incident.  This is a rare good thing on an afternoon of mostly bad things, and I may cherish the memory of it for some time.  My friend Jah will later send me a message to say that he was glad he wasn’t at the match because despite Newcastle being “imperious” (pfft) it’s not nice being present at the death of hope.  What he doesn’t know is that I’ve witnessed the death of hope dozens of times at Portman Road and it’s not dead yet.

Ipswich Town 1 AFC Bournemouth 2

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It was a dark and stormy night, but luckily today is just grey and stormy…and wet.  The illuminated reindeer in the garden over the road, which actually looks more like a somewhat effete ‘Monarch of the Glen’ has fallen over, and I think its head might have come off too.  But life is not all good, and sadly I have to venture out on this inclement Sunday afternoon to watch Ipswich Town play AFC Bournemouth at the very un-footbally time of two o’clock.  I imagine the kick-off time is dictated by the match being broadcast on some obscure subscription tv channel owned by a billionaire, who likes to tinker with the lives of us little people.

Before AFC Bournemouth were AFC Bournemouth, this happened in 1972, they were Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic and had a club crest featuring birds, fish, lions, and a tree, all things I like to think were commonplace in the two seaside towns.  The crest also featured the Latin motto ‘Pulchritudo et Salubritas’, which isn’t a pithy line from the Catholic mass but rather translates as ‘beauty and health’, and sounds a bit like the name of a magazine for nudists, much enjoyed by schoolboys in the 1960’s and 1970’s, called Health and Efficiency.  As well as changing their name for the worse in an attempt to at least be top of an alphabetical league of football clubs, if not top of one based on footballing merit, AFC Bournemouth then changed their club crest to one in which a football hovers above the head of man with a receding hairline, who looks a bit like Ron Futcher, the former Luton Town and Tulsa Roughnecks centre-forward. The 1970’s would also see AFC Bournemouth provide a manager to Norwich City in the form of John Bond; such is their place in history.  I think Bournemouth was also possibly the only town in Britain where I ever rode on a trolleybus, but I can’t be sure. 

The train to Ipswich is on-time, but the journey is dull like the weather as the high-backed seat in front of me shields my eyes from glimpses of fellow passengers, but at least I see a polar bear through the train window,  albeit a rather grubby looking one.  I guess it’s difficult staying a whiter shade of pale when you should be in a snow field, not a muddy field.  Emerging from Ipswich railway station, I am met by wind and rain and murk.  I hurry across the bridge over the river and down to Portman Road, where I buy a programme (£3.50) from one of the blue kiosks, which look they should sell ice creams.  Reaching ‘the Arb’ I swear under my breath at the throng of people just inside the door who are between me and the bar.  One of them it turns out is Mick and he buys pints of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride while I head outside into the beer garden to find seats. Mick’s eventual arrival outside with the beers more or less coincides with the departure of another group of drinkers and we take their places in the shelter to discuss defeat to Crystal Palace, Syria, ultra-processed food, a forthcoming trip to Reims, what it’s like in Monaco and a text from Gary telling me he’d pulled a muscle in his chest and wasn’t going to make the walk up to ‘ the Arb’ today.  Another pint of Suffolk Pride and a Jameson whisky for Mick follow before with everyone else having left for Portman Road, we do too.  We part on the corner of Sir Alf Ramsey Way.

Unexpectedly, I make it to my seat alongside Fiona and next but one to Pat from Clacton and the man from Stowmarket (Paul), and two rows behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood before the excitable young stadium announcer in the cheap looking suit has read out the teams, and I am therefore happily able to bellow out their surnames in the manner of a Frenchman.  “What a match we have for you this afternoon” witters the gangly announcer ridiculously, “Bournemouth”.   “Super Kieran Mckenna” chant the North standers, and Town get first go with the ball, kicking it towards me and my fellow ultras.  The Bournemouth fans up in the Cobbold stand sing the ‘Red Flag’ perhaps in solidarity with the Tolpuddle martyrs who would probably have been Bournemouth fans given the chance, being only 35 kilometres away.    Sam Morsy wins an early corner.

“You got here on time today then” says Pat accusingly. “Only by accident” I tell her. But now Bournemouth head towards the Town goal and their fans reveal that they probably bought their SatNavs from a dodgy looking bloke down the pub as they sing “Small Town in Norwich, You’re just a small town in Norwich”.   Liam Delap is booked for the sort of foul that school bullies commit, and I imagine him smirking as the referee tells him off; he is the Nelson Muntz of the current Ipswich team.  Bournemouth earn a corner of their own, but Ipswich have started the game very well and Sam Szmodics now wins a corner for Town after a flick at goal is deflected away.  “Come On You Blues” I bellow, just like everyone seemed to years ago.

It sounds like the Bournemouth fans are singing “Down with the Palace”, which I don’t think is some republican protest to accompany their singing of the ‘Red Flag’, but rather a reflection of where they think Ipswich will finish in the league table. I realise later that they’re not singing “Palace” either, but rather “Scummers”, because seemingly everyone on the South Coast hates Southampton.  The Bournemouth No15, who very peculiarly given his team’s fans singing of the Red Flag is called Adam Smith, is rolling on the ground whilst the crowd serenades him with a chorus of “There’s nothing wrong with you”.  It’s an enjoyable interlude, but although we don’t know it, the football will soon be more so.

Almost twenty minutes have gone when Cameron Burgess heads an Omari Hutchinson cross over the bar in the aftermath of a corner, “Come on you Blues!”. Then Hutchinson shoots over the bar himself.  If this was a wrestling match Town would have Bournemouth in a headlock, and a minute later the ball is pulled back from the left for Conor Chaplin to despatch into the goal net with his customary aplomb, and Town lead 1-0.  “Conor Chaplin, Baby” sings the other end other ground to the tune of the Christmas number one record from 1980.

The goal is followed not by Bournemouth pressure and an equaliser but by two more Town corners, the second one of which is headed imperiously into the net by Cameron Burgess to give Town a 2-0 lead for a second or two until it is disallowed by referee Mr Salisbury, whose name suggests to me some sort of Wessex conspiracy.  VAR confirms that it was Liam Delap’s fault because he fouled someone, but no one really believes it. 

The disappointment of the disallowed goal is followed by more anguish as  a Bournemouth shot strikes a post, but fortunately rebounds back out, and to make us feel a little better Mr Salisbury conducts a long distance booking of someone on the Bournemouth bench.  “Wanker, wanker” chant the Bournemouth fans at Mr Salisbury and then “Down with the Scummers” as they struggle to find anything nice to chant about anything.  Bournemouth win a corner and the words “Hot Sausage Co” shine out in lurid, illuminated lettering progressing across the front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand as if it’s a seaside pier.

The last ten minutes of the half belong more to Bournemouth than to Ipswich as a brilliant last ditch Cameron Burgess tackle saves Sam Morsy’s embarrassment after he loses the ball, and  Bournemouth win a succession of corners, but still the home fans sing “Blue and White Army”.  Three minutes of added on time are added on but cause no pain or joy.

Half-time, and it’s time to talk to Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison,  and Dave the steward.  So deep is our conversation that I leave it a bit late to visit the facilities and by the time I have adjusted my attire and come back up the steps into the stand again, the match has already re-started.  “At least you’ve managed to miss the start of the second half today” quips Fiona, although ironically this afternoon we will all live to regret not missing the end of the half.

Nine minutes gone of the second half and Leif Davis wins a corner for Town, but then mysteriously his team-mates go to pieces allowing an admittedly busy, hyper-active Bournemouth team to run all over them causing mayhem on the grass right in front of us.  Only the ball going into touch and Conor Chaplin having a sit down on the turf until everyone has calmed down and received some remedial coaching prevents footballing catastrophe.  When order resumes Bournemouth make two substitutions and win a corner all in the space of three minutes, and we start descending into the final fifth of the game, and like characters in a Thomas Hardy novel unknowingly towards our terrible fate.

Sixty-nine minutes lost,  another Bournemouth corner and a shot straight at Muric the Town ‘keeper. But Town have a chance too as Szmodics shoots and Delap can’t get to the re-bound off the Bournemouth ‘keeper.  I wonder to myself if Pat from Clacton has had her lunch today or will she eat when she gets home, but I’m too engrossed to ask.  “I—pswich Town, I-pswich Town FC, the finest football team the world has ever seen” sing the crowd with earnest belief.

Seventy-four minutes closer to a Town victory and Bournemouth make more substitutions, including David Brooks, who makes me think of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Mrs Brooks the owner of the stylish lodging house in Sandbourne (Bournemouth) where Tess murders Alec d’Urberville.  This afternoon’s attendance is announced by the excitable young stadium announcer as 29,180 of whom 2,144 are crusted characters from Hardy’s Wessex.  “Thank you so much…” gushes the fawning young announcer.  “Your support, your support, your support is fucking shit” sing the Bournemouth boys, perhaps ironically, perhaps not.

The seventy-eighth minute is here with a Bournemouth corner and then Town’s first substitutions, Al-Hamadi and Jack Clarke replacing Delap and Szmodics.  Eighty-three minutes, and Bournemouth have another corner. Surely, we will win now, we haven’t really looked like conceding, as nippy and nimble as Bournemouth are.  Eighty-six minutes and Bournemouth replace someone called Ryan Christie, a relative perhaps of Julie Christie who played Bathsheba Everdene in the 1967 film of Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding  Crowd, with James Hill. Surely we’ll win now with Bournemouth resorting to bringing on Jimmy Hill.

A minute later, a punt forward, Muric rushes out, the ball goes over him and is bundled into the goal at the far post as for once Cameron Burgess can’t get his foot to it to clear.  Bugger. Bugger Bournemouth as King George V should have said.   Perhaps we’ll score again, we’re good at scoring late goals, aren’t we?   “Who are ya?” chant the Bournemouth supporters, seemingly having lost their memories in all the excitement.

Our depression is barely relieved by six minutes of added on time, time to win, time to lose.  We lose after three Town players are attracted to the man with the ball, another runs past un-noticed and rolls the ball into the six-yard box where legs flail and one with a black sock on strikes it into the roof of the Town net.  I’ve not felt so bad in a while.  Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory has seldom been so unpleasant because victory was so sorely wanted and for the most part deserved.  The truth about the Town team bus running over a whole cattery full of black cats will surely make the papers any day now.

The game ends and  I forget what happens next. I can’t even think of any tenuous links to Thomas Hardy.

Ipswich Town 0 Crystal Palace 1

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It’s been one of those days. At work there have been time-wasting e-mails to answer about things over which I have no control from people who seem to have suddenly flipped from ordinary rational beings into marauding psychos.  There isn’t a full moon, so it must be all the early Christmas decorations sending people potty.   I was going to meet Gary on the train to Ipswich for tonight’s match versus Crystal Palace and a pre-match pint, but he’s cried off to go to the game with his brother because evidently blood is thicker than Lager 43.  Mick is going to be a bit late getting to the Arb he told me in a text, but I blame the trains for not running at the times when I most want them to, which isn’t two an hour but fifty minutes apart.

After a ‘dinner’ with my wife Paulene of roast chicken breast, potatoes, parsnips and carrots at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, there’s time to relax with a small coffee and a Speculoos biscuit before donning my fat coat and gloves, and giving the Ipswich Town branded ‘bronx’ hat a first outing of the season.  It’s cold out, but the train is on-time and warm and busy with folk returning from London.  A small, elderly woman sits opposite me; I have to ask a bloke to shift his feet off the seat opposite him so I can sit down.  On the other side of the gangway a man wearing a T-shirt adorned with pictures of mushrooms has hair like John Peel circa 1971; he’s with a woman with curvy, plump lips and metal rimmed glasses.  Standing by the doors a man has tassels of straggly ginger hair falling down over an unevenly shaved scalp, he’s with a woman who looks like Caroline Aherne, they have a baby and strike me as good castings for an up-dated re-make of “Some mothers do ‘ave’em”; they wouldn’t be Frank, Betty and Jessica though, they’d be Jordan, Shannon and Ava.

At Ipswich railway station the QR code on the ticket on my phone fails to open the automatic barrier as two surly blokes with “Revenue Protection” printed on the backs of their day-glo gilets look on disdainfully.  When I turn I to them for assistance one tells me a woman stood on the other side of the barriers “might” let me through. “Well, I flippin’ well hope she does” I tell them grumpily “seeing as I have paid for a ticket”.   “Unhelpful, ill-mannered bastards” I think to myself, momentarily turning into my late father on a bad day.

Incredibly, given that it is December,  this is the first evening match of the season at Portman Road and the first opportunity to see the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand lit up magnificently in blue with huge, white, illuminated letters announcing ‘Ipswich Town Football Club’.  I buy a programme (£3.50) from the blue booth where once stood an office supplies store, the name of which I can no longer remember.  In Portman Road metal barriers form a snaking path to the entrance to the back of the visitors’ section of the Cobbold Stand. Two plastic buckets are labelled “Amenesty Bin”.  “What’s an amenesty bin then?” I ask a passing steward, pronouncing amenesty as it has been printed.  “It’s for cans and bottles and prohibited items” she says informatively.  “Oh, it’s spelt wrong then,” I tell her. “There’s only one ‘e’ in amnesty” and she hurries off like someone with a fear of spelling tests . 

I look at the time and see it’s still only twenty to six.  I doubt if Mick will be at the Arb until gone six, so I take a detour along Westgate Street towards Cornhill. In Westgate Street there is a phone shop called iCrack and I can’t help but wonder if they sell more than just phones.  The town hall and  former Post Office look fantastic, it’s just a shame more people aren’t here to see them.  The Arb looks good too when I get there, and it’s heaving with customers, so I have to wait for my pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£4.14 with Camra discount) although I refuse to join what looks like a nascent queue at one end of the bar.

Conveniently, I’ve almost finished my first pint by the time Mick appears, and so he buys me another before we sup together and talk of films, living a useful life, age differences, tonight’s team line-up, political illiteracy, French colonial atrocities and how neither of us ever liked Gregg Wallace. I go to find a third pint of Suffolk Pride, but it’s all gone, so I have to make do with something I can’t remember the name of (£4.41with Camra discount); but it was possibly brewed by Moonraker Brewery. Mick is waiting for a vegetarian burger, which eventually arrives but he has to eat it quickly as typically the match is on some obscure tv channel and therefore kicks off at the now uncommon time of 7.30pm.  Pointlessly nostalgic, I remember when all evening kick-offs were at 7.30pm, but oddly Mick says he doesn’t.

In Portman Road there are long queues to get in the ground and the same is true at the back entrance to ‘Sir Alf’.  I can hear the excitable young puppy of a stadium announcer going through the teams and I hear ‘Hey Jude’ and I’m still queuing, although I can’t hear any crowd noise.  There was a time when missing kick-off would have really irked me, but I don’t really care anymore. I believe I’ve only ever missed one Ipswich goal; away to Northampton Town in the League Cup (7th October 1987). The supporters’ bus was late.

Tonight, I miss the first five minutes of the game but no goals, and I am in time to witness what turns out to be a rare Ipswich corner.  “Did you come by car?” asks Pat from Clacton, who along with Fiona, ever-present Phil who never misses a game and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) is naturally already here.  Pat no doubt think I have been delayed in traffic.  “No” I tell her brazenly, “I’ve been in the pub” and she looks at me disapprovingly.

I’m still settling in when the bloke behind me says “He looks like a flippin’ albino” of the Crystal Palace number 19, Will Hughes who has bleached hair.  But he reminds me more of Sick Boy in the film of Trainspotting.  Hughes and his Crystal Palace chums are all in primrose this evening and kicking towards Handford Road and the Burlington Road Conservation Area beyond. Of course, Town are in blue and white and kicking the other way. The North Stand sing about Sam Morsy to the tune of an Oasis song as Crystal Palace ‘set out their stall’ by falling over a lot to win free-kicks courtesy of the gullible Mr Craig Pawson, who unusually is all in black, like referees used to be when beer was 25p a pint.

Crystal Palace’s tactic of falling over has blunted the Town because it’s difficult to play when the opposition is having free-kicks all the time and this has allowed Palace to dominate, albeit in a second division sort of a way, which fortunately involves not really threatening to score goals.  And so the crowd becomes quiet.  “Addy, Addy-O” sing the Town fans. “We forgot you were here” reply the visiting suburbanites of Croydon, masquerading as south Londoners.  When Jens Cajuste is fouled and Town are awarded a free-kick, the home crowd cheers ironically.  A booking for Dara O’Shea is quickly evened up by Mr Pawson with one for  Palace’s Doucoure a minute later.  “Is this a library?” sing the Palace fans and it’s like being back in the second division all over again, before they cleverly trick all the home fans by singing “Sit down if you love Norwich”. I look forward to reminiscing about tonight far away in the future, what larks.

Crystal palace win a couple of corners and I notice that it’s possible to still read the word “Pioneer” on the front fascia of the west stand before Pat from Clacton tells me she’s already eaten today, she had dinner down at the Greensward on Marine Parade West, and she won’t have anything when she gets in after the match. It’ll be gone half past ten I tell her,  “and the  rest” she says.  Feeling increasingly disappointed with life I bawl “Come on Town, it’s only Crystal Palace, they’re rubbish” and then “They’re the team of the 80’s, they must all be about sixty-five.”  This is what the Premier League does to people.  But despite three minutes of added on time nothing changes.

I talk to Ray at half time as usual, and bump fists with his grandson Harrison and sense we’re all depressed but hopeful.  At twenty-five to nine the football returns and the same pattern of play as before more or less continues as Crystal Palace close Town down, and we largely do the same to them, but  they have a more precise outlet with their forward Jean-Philippe Mateta seeming to have more of a plan than Liam Delap, I think it’s because Mateta is French.

O’Shea shoots over, Palace win a corner, Sick Boy is booked and then a Town attack falls apart  and Palace quickly move forward through Eze, who places the ball with precision in front of Mateta to run at goal; Greaves is with him but stumbles ,slips and falls over, and Mateta lifts the ball over Muric to give Croydon the lead; it’s a fine finish.  “Who are ya?” chant the visiting pseudo-Londoners as if to say whoever you are you can’t be much good if we scored against you.  All of sudden the Palace supporters seem very loud indeed, and I gain a sense of a release of the pent-up frustrations of their boring suburban lives; this is the sound, the sound of the suburbs I sing to myself, remembering 1978 as I often do.

Sixty-five minutes will never been seen again because time travel is impossible and it would potentially render Rothman’s Football Yearbooks pointless, but substitutions now seem necessary and Burns, Cajuste and Clarke (J) depart, usurped by Taylor, Chaplin and Broadhead But Palace win more corners and Muric saves as Mateta fails to complete the same finish twice in the same match.  Pat asks whether she should bring on the masturbating monkey lucky charm, but decides against it for animal welfare reasons; it is a very cold evening.   Town win possibly only their second corner of the game before the excitable young stadium announcer thanks us for our “incredible support”, which amounts to 29,539, of whom 2,339 could own a privet hedge and greenhouse somewhere in Surrey, but I might have misheard the figure.

“We’re not playing particularly badly, they’re just better than us” says the bloke behind me as straight-forwardly intuitive as ever, and Crystal Palace begin to make substitutions too, probably to ensure they hold on to their slender lead.  We know Keiran Mckenna is making a last roll of the dice as Ali Al Hamadi replaces Liam Delap. A minute later Sam Morsy shoots over the Palace cross bar.  An atmosphere of quiet resignation punctuated by moments of hope and a memory of belief pervades.  The illuminated advertising hoarding between the two tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson stand reads “Home of the XL vent shipping container” and I wonder what it would cost me to have half a dozen random, silly words run around the stadium in lights.

There are four minutes left of ‘normal’ time and a deep cross is headed back onto the far Palace post by Jacob Greaves before predictably deflecting away from the in-coming Nathan Broadhead and out for a goal-kick. Three minutes of not-normal time will be added on, but they don’t prove that unusual, although Jean-Pierre Mateta is booked for ignoring the ball and just looking at his feet when Mr Pawson and the Town players want to get on with the game.   Mateta feigns annoyance but I doubt he really cares because a minute later the game is over.

Pat from Clacton and Fiona bid me farewell as they and the majority of the home crowd make a sharp exit into the cold night, keen to get home and catch the latest news about Gregg Wallace.  A few of us with nothing better to do, because our train doesn’t leave for another twenty minutes hang about forlornly and applaud our beaten heroes much as any remaining Trojans might have done as Hector’s dead body was dragged through the streets of Troy. It’s been one of those days.