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.
and the warm glow of spitting hot fat and cones of chips that emanates from a shiny white burger van.
always features local non-league teams and tonight there is a piece on Halstead Town; 
it is hilarious. Halstead goalkeeper Luke Banner has swallowed a lexicon of footballspeak and cliché “…you never know” he is quoted as saying “If we take one game at a time and keep picking up wins and points then who knows what can happen”. Wise words Luke. Whatever you do you don’t want to be one of those clubs that plays several games at once and loses them all; that’s a recipe for disaster if you ask me. I don’t blame Luke for the banality of his comments though, I blame the reporter on the Gazette who he was apparently talking to.
a blue void at one end of the sparsely populated stadium barely creating echoes; it must miss that joyous throng of Portsmouth fans that occupied it at the weekend.
it says on the paper cup, but that sort of play on words doesn’t impress me; I should hope it bloody does begin with the tea, although we all know it really began with the motivation of profit. That’s why a few crushed up dried leaves and some hot water costs a quid. I am going to smash capitalism one day you know; it’ll probably be between May and August when there’s no football.
trippingovertheball 