Ipswich Town 2 Middlesbrough 2

April 20, 2026April 23, 2026 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s been a difficult week of a shingles vaccination, which made me feel so ill I was only capable of falling asleep watching the telly, a televised away defeat at Portsmouth, through much of which I wish I had slept, and a Saturday in which I was tasked with wrestling artificial stone paving slabs into some sort of path around a recently refurbished garden pond. Now, to cap it all the Town are having to perform at midday on the Sunday at the behest of some evil, global media empire, and I am having to forego every person’s human right to a lie-in on their actual or nominal sabbath before enjoying a leisurely breakfast.

More cheerfully, it is a bright sunny morning, albeit tempered by a chilly breeze, as I make my way to the railway station where, arriving on the ‘Ipswich bound’ platform I engage in conversation with the man who very often stands here with me on match days. Today, we continue our conversation on the train and not only does he meet Gary, who as ever boards at the next station stop, but he reveals that his name is Gareth, his grandfather was chairman of Braintree Town Football Club back in the 1970’s and 1980’s when they were in the Eastern Counties League, and one of his earliest football related memories is of his grandmother running the players’ baths at Cressing Road just as the game was about to end, because presumably at that time in Braintree the brand names Mira, Triton and Aqualisa were still unknown.

Being Sunday, the train is busy with faithful pilgrims, all bound for Portman Road, who regrettably seem largely unable to talk quietly, making it difficult for considerate people like Gary, Gareth and me to hold a conversation without raising our voices too. In Wherstead we lean towards the train window, searching the landscape beyond for polar bears; a grubby looking one close to the tracks glances up trying to spot any Middlesbrough fans who she might recognise from the frozen wastelands of the North or from episodes of Noggin the Nog.

Arriving in Ipswich, Gary and I bid adieu to Gareth and make for the Arb as fast as Gary’s dawdling gait will allow. Impatient for beer, despite it not yet being eleven o’clock, I am first through the door, but Gary offers to buy the drinks and I let him. The pub is pleasingly not as heaving as it usually is before a match, although a man tries to form a queue behind us at the bar and I have to tell him that queuing is not required in pubs, it’s why they have bars and not hatches, and bar staff not tellers.

Pint glasses of Lager and Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride in our respective hands Gary and I proceed to the beer garden where Mick is already ensconced with a pint of Blackberry Porter and a packet of cheese and onion crisps. Our conversation begins like an episode of Rumpole at the Bailey; but it’s Gary at Crown Court, as he proceeds to tell us a story of every day criminal folk beating each other up on the mean streets of an Essex town beneath the gaze of CCTV cameras. Gary’s stint as a juror ended this week but the denouement is that all the accused were found guilty of a range of offences and await sentencing.

Another pint of lager, a pint of porter and a double-whisky later Gary, Mick and I are victoriously the last drinkers in the pub when we head downhill to Portman Road where there are queues for the Cobbold Stand. We go our separate ways somewhere close to the statue of Sir Alf Ramsey uncertain whether the final home match of the season is on a Saturday or a Sunday but relatively confident that it will again be stupidly early in the day.

At the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand the queues to be checked for weapons, explosives and scrap metal are blissfully short and although the sacred turnstile 62 is temporarily afflicted by a man trying to gain entry using petrol coupons and a Tesco club card, I am soon stood next to Pat from Clacton waiting for her to finish photographing the flames leaping into the midday air in front of the Cobbold Stand so that I can sit down next to Fiona, next but one to the man from Stowmarket (Paul) and two rows behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood. I think to myself that it’s nice that everyone is present after a few absences for the previous match. Today, I have mysteriously arrived in time to hear the excitable young stadium announcer (EYSA) announce the whole team and I do my best to be like a Frenchman at Le Stadium in Toulouse or the Stade Raymond Kopa in Angers by bawling out the players surnames as EYSA reads them out , but with variable success because he is a beat or two ahead of the scoreboard

Eventually, through an atmosphere of dissipating smoke and fumes the game begins, with today’s guests Middlesbrough, known as The Boro’ to their friends getting first go with the ball, which they are mostly kicking in the direction of the Sir Bobby Robson stand and the Smokehouse live music venue in South Street. Very agreeably, both teams sport their proper kits, with the Town of course in their signature blue and white and The Boro’ in all red with a white band across their chests making them look unmistakeably like Middlesbrough. The only pity is that The Boro’s white band is besmirched with the name of an on-line betting company when it should read ‘Geordie Jeans’.

Early exchanges are fast and erratic as if the game was being played by startled spiders. Waiting for the game to ‘settle down’ I ask Pat from Clacton how her knee is and she tells me it still hurts but nothing like it did and of course she can now walk on it and didn’t, as I suggest therefore, need to be lowered into her seat from a helicopter. “I wouldn’t mind, but I was only getting in my car to go and play whist” moans Pat.

Back on the pitch, the first seven minutes have evaporated like the paraffin fumes, and Town are already starting to dominate to the extent that the smog monsters up in the Cobbold Stand (for that is what people from Teesside are called), are plaintively chanting “Come on Boro, Come on Boro”. The atmosphere is tense. “Shall we sing, shall we sing, shall we sing a song for you?” enquire the Smoggies (short for Smog-monsters) through the medium of song, but happily the half-expected medley of works by Chris Rea doesn’t materialise. Looking up into the gap between the roofs of the stands billowing white clouds tower above us in an otherwise clear blue sky. The seventeenth minute heralds Town’s first corner, as the result of a shot from Ivan Azon, but it is all too easily dealt with by the Boro players despite mine, Fionas and ever-present Phil’s chants of “Come on you Blues”. Four minutes on and again our chants are as ineffectual as Nunez’s next corner kick.

With a quarter of the game having faded away into our pasts Town almost score as a low McAteer cross is sent wide of the goal by an unexpectedly far forward Darnell Furlong, who I don’t think I had ever seen have a shot before. Somewhat typically, within a minute Middlesbrough take the lead, predictably perhaps from the Town left where the improbably plainly monikered Alan Browne appears unmarked to cross low for David Strelec to tap the ball in from close range. “Tingly Teds hot sauce by Ed Sheeran” read the neon lights of the Sir Bobby Robson stand not making matters any better.

A deathly silent pall of gloom, which the home crowd always keeps close at hand for such occasions hangs over the stands and consumes all hope for a full five minutes. But then, a bit of space in front of the Boro back four, a pass, a dinky back heel from Ivan Azon, and the re-born Kasey McAteer is drilling the ball into the corner of the Boro net from outside the penalty area and twenty-seven thousand odd people believe again. “By far the greatest team the world has ever seen” sing the Sir Bobby Robson standers. “Well may be not the World, perhaps Suffolk” says Fiona, and Norfolk of course. Town win a third corner and again at least three of us bellow “Come on you Blues”. As the ball is again cleared, I wonder to Fiona whether our chants put the players off rather than encourage them. Meanwhile up in the Cobbold Stand the Smoggies are chanting “You don’t know what you’re doing” to referee Mr Jarred Gillett, who has made or not made some or other decision to annoy them, even though he appears to have also awarded their team a free kick; you just can’t please some people. Boro’ goalkeeper Sol Brynn takes the free-kick and I momentarily think of Uncle Bryn in tv’s Gavin and Stacey.

Half-time is only about seven minutes away and Jaden Philogene has a rare shot on goal which gives Town a fourth corner and a handful of us another opportunity to encourage the team vocally. Town have been the better team this first half, but the Smoggies are blaming Mr Gillett. “You’re not fit to referee” they sing, like chapel-going Welshman and then more experimentally, and as Brynn takes the inevitable goal-kick following Town’s corner, “Shit referee, Ole, Ole, Ole”. The goal-kick skews out into touch and I tell Fiona “I don’t know about the referee, but the goalkeeper’s not that good either”.

After Middlesbrough win their only corner of the half, which they don’t seem very keen to take, a minute of added on time is added on and then it’s time to applaud the team off before going to the front of the stand to chat to Dave the steward, Ray and his grandson Harrison and son Michael. Today Ray tells me how he used to get free tickets for both home and away games when his father drove the team bus in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. On my way back to my seat ever-present Phil who never misses a game tells me how yesterday he went to watch Kings Park Rangers at Cornard and how this very blog came in useful, fore warning him that Cornard United’s Backhouse Lane ground is a real ale desert, so he drank elsewhere.

The football resumes at two minutes past one and soon it becomes evident that this is going to be a ‘game of two halves’ and it seems that it is Middlesbrough’s turn to dominate. Like some meteorological portent of doom, the sky has clouded over, and the breeze seems even cooler than before. Middlesbrough win a corner. Three minutes later a state of confusion in the Town box has the ball rebounding off a post and Christian Walton saving the ball from crossing the goal line. Things are looking a bit grim and as a diversion I look for poetry in the Boro team names, but Ayling, Browne, Fry, Gilbert and Morris can’t compare to Boam, Brine, Craggs, Spraggon and Woof from the Boro team of the 1970’s.

Brief respite and enjoyment arrive on fifty-three minutes as the afternoon’s first booking goes to Boro’s Matt Targett who has fouled Jack Taylor. I speculate that a matt target is easier to hit than a glossy one which might produce awkward reflections and that he perhaps has a sister who is formally known as Miss Targett. As the game descends into its final half an hour the first substitutions see former Town loanee Jeremy Sarmiento applauded by the home supporters who may never forget his last-minute goal versus Southampton in 2024, before Ivan Azon hurriedly shoots over the Boro cross bar.

As in the first half, Town’s spurning of an opportunity is soon punished and two minutes later the Town defence is as ever penetrated on its left hand side and again a low cross is pulled back allowing little Tommy Conway to score from close range with the Town defence well and truly dissected and pinned out like a frog in a school biology lab. Boro lead 2-1 and substitutions for Town are immediate but not necessarily related, with Mehmeti and Clarke usurping Nunez and Philogene. But Town’s defence doesn’t improve much as Sarmiento’s shot is saved and then another three are blocked in quick succession before Middlesbrough have a corner.

Eighteen minutes of normal time remain when Eggy replaces McAteer, fourteen when Mehmeti shoots straight at Brynn, and Town begin to claw their way back into the contest with a corner seven minutes later and then two more substitutions with George Hirst and Dan Neil saying ‘hello’ and Ivan Azon and Azor Matusiwa saying ‘goodbye’. Six minutes of normal time remain when the excitable young stadium announcer thanks us for our ‘incredible’ support, which numerically speaking today amounts to 29,684. Incredible. Two more minutes have elapsed when a low cross from the right looks to be too far ahead of George Hirst for him to threaten the Boro goal but Adilson Malanda doesn’t make the same judgement and with the sort of slightly violent, gung-ho spirit he might have been infected with whilst playing in the USA, he pulls Hirst back and gifts Jack Clarke a shot at goal from the penalty spot. Clarke scores the penalty and despite another eight minutes of added on time being added on, and two more players for each team being booked, the game is drawn.

The final whistle sees Pat from Clacton departing as quickly as she can and Fiona leaves too for her train. My train leaves in not much more than ten minutes time too, so I don’t linger either. But this has been a good match, not very much use as a result to either team really, but not a disaster either and worth the entry money as a spectator. The Smoggies up in Cobbold stand seem bitter however, and Mr Gillett is the target of their ire as they advise him that he is not fit to referee nor perform other tasks requiring snap decisions and good eyesight presumably, like racing driver and fighter-pilot. It makes a welcome change though for opposition supporters to be singing this particular song, long may it continue.

Ipswich Town 2 Birmingham City 1

April 7, 2026April 7, 2026 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It feels like it’s been a while since I last trekked into Ipswich to see the Town play. In fact, it was only just over a fortnight ago, but so little has happened in my life since then that it feels like eons ago, I think I need to get out more. But at least I don’t live in Gaza, Iran, or the United States of America and this morning the sun is shining brightly as I make my way to the railway station, and the only clouds in the sky seem to be there merely for decoration, although there is a stingy breeze. A message from Greater Anglia tells me that the train is on time, and indeed it’s been a busy morning for messages on my mobile phone, with Mick disturbing my sleep as early as 6:15 to confirm our rendez-vous at the Arb in what was then seven and a half hours-time, and Pat from Clacton telling me that she won’t be at the match today because she twisted her knee last Monday getting in to her car to go to a whist drive.

Having boarded the punctual train, I am soon talking with Gary who continues to remain impressively discreet about his continuing jury service, which is now entering its fourth week. Our journey is again illuminated by the sight of two polar bears in Wherstead, and we briefly speculate as to whether polar bears notice that the clocks have changed given that they are used to winters and summers of almost perpetual darkness or light. Alighting from the train in Ipswich, it feels like that stingy breeze is even stingier here, probably because we’re nearer the coast. Princes Street is well populated with police officers today and I seem to recall this is always the case when today’s visitors Birmingham City come to town. I hadn’t realised that Brummies were such a recalcitrant lot, but then my experience of Birmingham City supporters is limited to a history teacher from when I was at school in the 1970’s, and like most history teachers he never struck me as being much of a threat to public order.

Arriving at the Arb, getting through the door is unexpectedly difficult due to people queuing at the bar, but it’s not long before I’m ordering a pint of Lager 43 for Gary and because there is no Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride available, pints of Mighty Oak Brown Hare for Mick and me. I have no idea of the cost but bravely wave my bank card in the direction of the card reader before we retire to the beer garden and sit at a table at one end of the shelter backing onto High Street. Today is Mick’s birthday and once we have sat down, I present him with a card that I have made especially for him, which features Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch in the guise of a burlesque dancer, a theme which I had correctly guessed he would find very exciting.

Our conversation veers from Gary’s jury service to Mick’s recent visit to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, to today’s team, before Gary buys another pint of Lager 43 for himself, another of Brown Hare for me and a double whisky for Mick. Gary then spills most of his lager down his leg and over his jacket as he finds himself guilty of waving his hands around too much when he talks. It is gone twenty to three when we head for Portman Road and like the bons viveurs that we are, we are of course the last to leave the pub.

Pleasingly, at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand there are no queues to be checked for weapons and scrap metal and the attractive young woman in the hijab soon waves me through once I’ve shown her that my mobile phone is not a ballistic missile or a nunchuk. There is a short queue at the feted turnstile 62, but I’m happy to wait my turn to pass through it and after dispensing some spent Brown Hare I arrive at my seat behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood, and next to Fiona, just as the excitable young stadium announcer reads out the names of the last four players in the Town team today, the ones with the highest squad numbers. Like a Frenchman at the Stade Marie-Marvingt in Le Mans or Stade Velodrome in Marseille I bawl out the players surnames as the excitable young announcer announces them.

Eventually, after an abridged rendition of Edward Ebenezer Jeremiah Brown and a few bars of the Beatles’ Hey Jude the game begins, and it is Town who get first go with the ball, which they are directing towards me and my fellow ultras. Fiona and I share the thought that we wish we could just be told now that we’re going to win, or not. It would spare us the pain. Town wear their signature blue and white kit whilst Birmingham are in an unfamiliar all red ensemble and look like a knock-off Swindon Town or Workington. Mysteriously, Birmingham’s shirts feature a white ‘five bar gate’ on the front as if they are keeping a tally of something like games without a win or consecutive years of crushing disappointment; “Keep right on to the end of the road” sing the Brummies in the Cobbold stand miserably, suggesting it might be the latter.

Within a minute, Kasey McAteer is set up at the edge of the penalty area by Nunez and shoots hard, but over the Birmingham cross bar. It looked like a good opportunity to score but Town are continuing to have the ball most of the time, although after five minutes Birmingham are the first of the two teams to raise and then dash their supporters hopes with a fruitless corner kick. The name RJ Dean follows that of Edison in the illuminations that cross the front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand and in spite of myself I think of Pearl and Dean, and one hit wonder soft rockers Edison Lighthouse (Love Grows (where my Rosemary goes)), although I’ve never had a Rosemary.

Despite Town having the better of the game so far, the Birmingham goalkeeper James Beadle isn’t exactly being forced to pull off a string of fine saves and I sense that the people around me aren’t giving the game their full attention. “Watch out Beadle’s about” laughs a man a couple of seats away from me in what could be a pitiful attempt at humour or more likely a cry for help. I ask Fiona what she’s having for her tea and given that she’s sitting where Pat from Clacton usually sits, I shouldn’t be surprised when she says “A baked potato”. But Fiona is quick to point out that unlike Pat from Clacton she won’t be having any fancy toppings from Marks & Spencer such as prawns, she’ll be having baked beans.

“Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, the Norwich ran away” sing the Sir Bobby Robson standers realising that this is the weekend of a Christian festival, but evidently unsure which one. George Hirst wins a corner for Town and along with ever-present Phil I chant “Come On You Blues”. The half is half over and Birmingham win another pointless corner too. Nearly a third of the match has been lost to the ages and I think to myself that I can only remember one shot on goal. Hope springs eternal however and Town earn two more corner kicks in quick succession but as Fiona and I joke, they might as well have turned them down and said to Birmingham, “No, really, it’s ok, you have a goal kick, it’ll save time and all that pushing and shoving”.

Open play seems Town’s best bet for a goal and within sixty seconds a short pass from George Hirst has Kasey McAteer bearing down on Beadle only for his decent looking shot to be saved. Somewhat typically, Birmingham immediately take the ball to the other end of the pitch and a limp, aimless cross later, the ball is swept into the Town goal net by an unhappy looking Spaniard called Carlos Vicente. “How shit must you be? we’re winning away” chant the Brummies, thoughtfully demeaning both teams at once in the spirit of equal opportunities.

The Birmingham supporters are now in good voice with their team’s goal seemingly having lifted the pall of gloom that their Black Country accent usually conveys. “I can’t read and I can’t write but that don’t really matter, I’m a supporter of Ipswich Town and I can drive a tractor” they chant as they strangely feign a west country burr worthy of the Wurzels. It’s not a chant I’ve heard from away supporters in sometime and it suggests that they might get lost on the way home as they look for the signs to the A45 rather than the A14.

Barring the unknown amount of time to be stolen from our futures and added on, there are seven minutes of the first half remaining as Azore Matusiwa is substituted for Anis Mehemeti and I remark to Fiona that they both have the same initials, like Nigel Farage and National Front. “Is this a library” ask the Brummies up in the Cobbold Stand and the obviously well-read and studious man two seats along from me who likes Jeremy Beadle shouts back “You’ve never seen a fucking a library”.

With the forty-first minute comes the confirmation needed that this isn’t a library at all as Ben Johnson cleverly bounces a cross from Furlong into the Birmingham goal, from where it is quickly cleared but not before it has crossed the goal line. Town are level. Four minutes later, and the last library cards are melted down and “Quiet Please” signs burnt as an incisive passing move cuts through the heart of the Birmingham defence putting the constantly running Kasey McAteer through to slip the ball beneath Beadle, and Town are winning. Six minutes of added on time are added on in which Town win another corner from which George Hirst heads over the Birmingham cross bar; but in the circumstances everyone seems happy for now with the one goal lead.

After a slow start the half has ended very well indeed, and Town are deserving of their interval lead as I head down to the front of the stand to talk to Ray, his grandson Harrison and son Michael, stopping only to speak with Dave the steward before later decanting the dregs of the Brown Hare and getting back to my seat by nine minutes past four, when the football resumes.

It is soon apparent that the second half is not living up to the excitement of the first as Ipswich are incapable of retaining the ball. They try to play out from the back as usual, and manage it to the point where Clarke or McAteer are outnumbered and squashed against the touchline and concede throw-ins. Meanwhile, if the ball strays in-field the Birmingham players are falling over like they’ve heard that the ghost of Mack Sennett is in the stand looking for candidates to star in a re-make of the Keystone Cops movies; referee Mr Adam Herczeg is predictably unpredictable but is generally a sucker for anyone falling over.

Birmingham are the first to make substitutions but with just under a half an hour left to play the Town support is beginning to plead with their team. “Come on Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” they implore before moving onto a current favourite, “When the Town go marching in”, which is delivered at a pace that suggests Town will be limping in and we’ll be “in that number” because well, we ‘re here now and we can’t be arsed to move elsewhere. I try to make myself feel better by looking up at the almost clear, blue, afternoon sky and thinking that the stars are still there, I just can’t see them at the moment.

On seventy minutes Birmingham’s Ibrahim Osman gets to the by-line and his cross strikes the chest of Dara O’Shea and drops into the Ipswich goal. From where I’m sat it looks like a perfectly good own goal but happily and perhaps fortunately it’s not. According to the referee’s assistant the ball had gone over the line before it was crossed. The close shave is enough to stir Keiran McKenna into action and he embarks on a mass substitution the like of which has usually occurred about a quarter of an hour before now. Off go Clarke and Nunez, on comes Jaden Philogene and from the excitable young stadium announcer’s announcement it sounds like George Hirst is replaced by both Jack Taylor and Chuba Akpom. Jack Taylor is almost immediately booked for throwing the ball into the crowd, suggesting that his role will be to “manage the game” by just mucking about as much as possible.

From the low point of the near own goal, Town are now improving, looking more resilient. Luckily, although Birmingham are big and strong, with the possible exception of Osman they seem to lack skill and guile. A chant of ”Ole, Ole Ole” , albeit a brief one, suggests some Town fans are confident Town will hang on and I am surprised by how quickly the time passes as we lurch into the final ten minutes. Eighty-four minutes are gone and the excitable young stadium announcer thanks us for our “incredible support” before announcing that we number 29,381 and I cringe as people applaud their own existence. A minute later I gasp as Osman shoots low and Christian Walton dives to tip the ball onto the right-hand post before it is booted clear. But that’s as bad as it gets and four minutes and another four minutes of added-on time slip away into the past without further undue pain, and Ipswich win.

With the final whistle, Fiona is quickly away, but with twenty minutes until my train is due to depart, I linger to applaud the Town and sing another verse or two of Edward Ebenezer Jeremiah Brown. It has been a mostly uncomfortable second half for Town supporters, but Town have won, we have reasons to be cheerful.

Ipswich Town 2 Derby County 2

August 31, 2025August 31, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s been a week in which summer, previously baked by the hot sun, has started to crumble away, buffeted by cool breezes, drenched by heavy showers and obscured by clouds. As an Ipswich Town season ticket holder however, I am used to disappointment, and more than just believing it is, I know this is the natural order of things. This morning, after a breakfast of sausage, egg, mushrooms and toast I put a coat of white gloss paint on the inside of my upstairs toilet door. The paint was old and past its best, another coat or two will be needed and probably from a new tin.

Outside, the sun shone this morning, and it still does. A wild array of billowing white clouds decorate the blue sky as I walk to my local railway station to catch the train to Ipswich, which is delayed by two minutes. Three blokes sat up straight on scooters, scoot past noisily. At the station, a grey-haired man wears a T-shirt proclaiming, “Punk’s not Dead – The Exploited”, of course even in 1981 when that album was released, that wasn’t true, Punk inevitably committed suicide or took an overdose long before that.

Gary joins me at the first station stop and we discuss his injured achilles tendon, which means that on arrival in Ipswich we will not be walking to ‘the Arb’ but will drink in the Fanzone. There are of course also still polar bears in Wherstead, although I only spot one today, which like a lot of other things is a little disappointing. Gary asks if I will be buying an “ice cream” today and I think I probably will not because it feels like a football programme that costs four quid has lost sight of what a football programme is meant to be; not that football programmes can really see of course.

It feels like a long arduous walk down Princes Street and Portman Road and into Sir Alf Ramsey Way alongside a gently limping Gary, and our lack of speed worsens the confused pangs of longing I feel as I pass numerous programme sellers. Eventually, we make it to the Fanzone with its loud music, ice cream van, beer tent and huge tv screen, which today is telling us how lucky we are we aren’t from ‘Up North’ by showing Middlesbrough versus Sheffield United. Many people seem strangely mesmerised by it, however.

In the beer tent queues of uneven length line up for young women to dispense plastic cups of dull yellow liquid. Gary says he’s on a diet, so should not really have a drink but he’s going to anyway. We look up at the list of beers, the names of which mean nothing to me. Why doesn’t it just say Lager and Bitter? Gary has something that sounds Spanish and out of sheer cruelty I get him to ask the young woman server if they’ve got a bitter. She looks worriedly at a list and says there’s a lager and then describes something else as an IPA, although she also mentions fruit. Foolishly, half remembering IPAs as amber coloured beers I opt for the IPA and receive a cloudy looking tub of yellow liquid that tastes only of grapefruit; that was the fruit, I guess. The ‘beers’ cost a staggering £6.50 each and miraculously I suddenly realise that in December 1976 the programme for the Ipswich v Liverpool match, which coincidentally advertised the Sex Pistols ‘Anarchy in the UK’ tour, cost 15 pence, whilst at that time a pint of beer cost about 23 pence. So, in a world where the retail price index is based solely on beer and football programmes, in nearly forty-nine years the price of programmes relative to the price of beer has actually fallen a little. Nevertheless, given the choice, and I have been, I will give up football programmes before I give up beer.

At about a quarter to three a man in a day-glo coat effectively tells us to leave and go to our seats. He seems a little curt, even rude, but I let it pass considering that a lot of people have strange jobs nowadays, and Gary and I soon bid our farewells. The blue skies punctuated with white cloud have given way to grey cloud and there is a queue to the Sir Alf Ramsey stand, but it moves as if well lubricated and I am soon passing through the hallowed turnstile 62, named in honour of Sir Alf Ramsey’s team’s achievements back in 1962. I arrive at my seat moments before Fiona arrives at hers and not long after Pat from Clacton reached hers. The man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood are already here too and I’m in good time to join in, in the manner of a Frenchman at the Stade Marie Marvinght or Stade Marcel Picot when the excitable young stadium announcer, who today has seemingly mislaid his jacket but wears a shiny brown waistcoat, reads out the team.

“Be loud, be proud” announces the excitable young stadium announcer as a final gesture, before the strains of The Beatles “Hey Jude” begin. With Jude’s na-na-nas fading away arm in arm with August, the game begins and it’s Derby who get first go with the ball, booting it where possible in the direction of the old telephone exchange, Coes and the Halal butcher on Norwich Road. Derby sport a modern, plastic looking version of their traditional kit of white shorts and black shorts, which sadly fails to conjure spectral visions of Kevin Hector, Archie Gemmill or Colin Todd. Town are similarly in a modern incarnation of blue and white that doesn’t really suggest David Johnson, Jimmy Robertson or Trevor Whymark were once here either.

A man arrives and sits in the seat in front of me but then continuously turns around, his arm hanging over the back of his seat, to talk to the bloke beside me. I try to watch the game. The bloke in front stays mostly turned round to talk to my neighbour. The space in front of me has always been small and now it’s smaller, the seat is pressing against my knee, I’m trying to watch the match, I’m feeling a bit annoyed, a bit grumpy, that pint of IPA in the Fanzone was truly horrible, the bloke in front of me is still turning round. “Look, why don’t you just sit here, and I’ll sit there, this is getting on my nerves” I say, standing up and gesturing the bloke in front to climb over his seat whilst I do the same in the opposite direction. The manoeuvre seems to cause a bit of consternation around me and I think the bloke now behind me is explaining what’s happened to the blokes behind him. “I’m sure we can all read about it later” says ever-present Phil who never misses a game.

“We are Derby” sing the Derby fans. “Create more space with a mezzanine floor” reads the illuminated advertisement between the two tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson stand. “We hate Nottingham Forest” continue the Derby fans and it feels like the world is falling in on me. On the pitch, Derby seem very enthusiastic, running and jumping and barging about like they’ve all over-dosed on pre-match Sunny Delight. It’s not pretty to watch but it’s stopping Ipswich from playing much football. “Windows that Wow. Doors that delight” announces the Sir Bobby Robson stand as a Derby player takes a throw. The Derby goalkeeper is wearing a dayglo orange kit that looks like it might also be worn by staff of the Derbyshire County Council highways department.

Nineteen minutes have gone the way of the previous twenty-nine and a half days of August and the Derby fans chant “Football in a library, do-do-do”, illustrating how human evolution seems to be standing still. A break by Kasey McAteer, and a cross leads to Leif Davis having Town’s first decent shot on goal but it bounces conveniently into the arms of the man from the highways department, and Town begin to get to grips with Derby’s WWF inspired style of play. Twenty-seven minutes are up and Town earn a corner. “Come on you Blues” chant a handful of us lamely. Five minutes later a Conor Chaplin shot earns another corner. More half-hearted chants but they’re all Town need and as the ball sails over the flailing fist of the bloke from the Council, Jacob Greaves applies a stooping header, the humblest of all headers, to put Town one-nil up.

With Town ahead, it’s only a matter of two minutes before the first Derby player is booked for dissent as the Sunny Delight hangover begins to kick-in. “Come on Town, this is good” shouts the bloke behind me and Town win another corner from which Dara O’Shea hits a post with a header before the referee laughably books McAteer, seemingly for over-optimistically jumping alongside the man from the Council who is eight centimetres taller than him. Two minutes of additional time follow, in which Town win a fourth corner but nothing more.

Half-time is a time to talk to Ray, reflect on his forthcoming birthday which features a zero at the end and discuss why Kasey McAteer was booked. Even as a former county highways department employee Ray does not know. On my way back to my seat Pat from Clacton tells me not to swap my seat with the same bloke again because he’s been getting on her nerves too.

The game re-starts, and I eat a Slovakian Horalky wafer bar to help my body forget the memory of what I consumed in the Fanzone. I’m not sure if my lack of concentration whilst eating is partly to blame, but there is also a sudden lack of concentration in the Town defence and some bloke in a white shirt has to be chased into the penalty area by Leif Davis, who is then adjudged to have handled the ball as he dives in to block a shot and Derby are awarded a penalty, which one of them scores. Despite the equalising goal, which the balance of play suggests they should be slightly embarrassed about, Derby’s players are haranguing the referee seemingly wanting Davis sent off for the handball. Quite why these players are not booked or even sent off for unsporting behaviour is a mystery, especially when George Hirst is then booked for alleged diving and weirdly we’re all wishing we still had VAR.

With the scores once again level, Derby clearly intend not to go behind again and have evidently decided the best way to do this is to ensure as little football as possible takes place in the remaining thirty-five minutes. At times the game now resembles a match involving the Keystones Cops and American Civil War soldiers as players comically fall about and then lay on the pitch like extras from the scene in Gone With the Wind after the battle of Atlanta. “Shit referee, shit referee, shit referee” chant the home support imaginatively. “We forgot you were here” reply the Derby fans also failing to roll back the frontiers of witty ripostes before doing it again by once more chanting “Football in a library, do-do-do”.

Time moves on and the inevitable rash of substitutions are made with twenty-two minutes left of normal time. Two minutes later another lack of concentration in the Town defence sees both O’Shea and Greaves miss the ball to allow some brutish part-time actor from Derby to score and give his team the lead. Town win a corner, another substitution is made and we are told by the excitable young stadium announcer that we number 29,155 and 1,144 of us are supporting the bunch that are currently winning and have a road mender for a goalkeeper.

With time not unexpectedly continuing to ebb away into the abyss, Town struggle against Derby’s “tactic” of not wanting any one to play football and the bloke behind me announces that “Nobody seems to want it”, although Chuba Akpom’s shot that goes narrowly over the bar doesn’t really back him up. Certainly, it seems many supporters don’t want to witness the final whistle, and the stands would only empty out more quickly if Nigel Farage had made a guest appearance. Help eventually comes from an unexpected source as it is announced that there will be a minimum of thirteen minutes additional time, and I think I detect a sudden dash to the toilets amongst anxious Derby fans. As the additional time, unfortunately, proves no better than the wasted time it replaces, it seems like maybe my prevailing emotion on a Saturday evening will once again be disappointment.

But then, as once more and then once more again Town sling the ball into the Derby penalty area, the referee awards a penalty. I couldn’t see why from the far end of the ground, but in the absence of VAR I trust the referee who obviously knows what he’s doing, on this occasion. Jack Clarke steps up to take the penalty as the blokes behind me agree that they would have Ashley Young take it and the bloke next to me holds his head in his hands and seems to weep as he says “Not, Jack Clarke, please not Jack Clarke.” But happily, yes, Jack Clarke, as he takes one of the best penalties by an Ipswich player that I think I’ve ever seen, striking the ball hard and into a corner and with a bit of a curl on it too for good measure. There’s still time to win I say to myself, but it turns out there isn’t.

Inevitably, with sixteen minutes of additional time having been played, on hearing the final whistle people don’t hang about. I too turn and head for the exit and my train home to reflect on what despite the last minute goal, still feels like a disappointing afternoon; that beer in the Fanzone was disgusting.