lacons encore

Ipswich Town 2 Shrewsbury Town 0

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It’s been a beautiful wet morning of silvery grey light beneath a shroud of pale cloud.   I woke early, before six, when the sky was blue and red as the sun came up, but that was too early, so I went back to bed, then overslept.

Earlier this week I woke up with my mind disturbed by vivid dreams of a time over forty years ago when I was a university student coming to terms with base desires to form shallow relationships with members of the opposite sex. Worryingly, in these dreams I fancied girls who at the time I didn’t think I did. Why my subconscious mind should want to re-appraise events of forty years ago I cannot fathom. The week has improved since then, and psychologically re-balanced I’ve now parked up my planet saving Citroen e-C4 and have stepped out across a slippery, soggy Gippeswyk Park, beneath Ancaster Road railway bridge and over the river to the old tram depot and Sir Alf Ramsey Way, where I cashlessly buy a programme for today’s match having waited my turn behind  a man who called the programme seller ‘mate’ at least four times and possibly as many as six during the  course of his brief transaction. I was tempted to address the programme seller as ‘programme seller’ but of course I didn’t. One day.

 At ‘the Arb’, I am a little bemused that there is no Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride today, but on the barman’s recommendation I order a pint of Mauldon’s Silver Adder (£4.00) and retire to the beer garden, which is already occupied by several drinkers of late middle age. I drink alone today because my friend Mick might be required away at any moment to collect a ‘stiff’; my words, not his and is taking the calls. Despite Mick’s absence, death still stalks me as at a nearby table I overhear a man talking of a funeral he had recently been to at the Seven Hills Crematorium.  “They just talked a bit about his life, played some music, and that was it” he says.  Later, he will tell his fellow drinkers about watching football on tv in Arabic by means of his Firestick, and how Richard Keys and Andy Gray are still working for beinsports in Qatar, where their grubby attitude towards women is clearly tolerated.  I would like to hear Andy Gray speaking Arabic.

I read my programme, gleaning from it the fact that Sam Morsy has been booked twelve times this season, which is four more times than any other Town player and twice as many times as the third most booked player, Wes Burns.  Finishing the Silver Adder, I return to the bar for a pint of Lacon’s Encore (£3.51 with Camra discount), by way of an encore.  At about twenty to three I depart for Portman Road. In Crown Street a young man steps out of a barber’s shop and sprays what I assume to be deodorant under his armpits from beneath his T-shirt.  An ambulance speeds by with its siren blaring; “Go, go save that person” shouts a lairy youth, no doubt trying to impress his friends with his off-the-wall ‘humour’.

I reach Portman Road and behind what was the North Stand a bearded man I know called Kevin sidles up to me and says hello. Kevin’s pre-match ritual is to have a pint at St Jude’s Tavern; he would join me at the Arb but can’t not stick to his ritual in case it causes a calamitous result.  We walk to turnstile 61 together; Kevin uses turnstile 61 because 1961 was the year he was born.  On what used to be the Churchman’s terrace I edge past Fiona to my seat next but one to the man from Stowmarket, although Fiona says he’s actually from Stowupland.  Two rows in front of us are ever-present Phil who never misses a game and his young son Elwood.  Pat from Clacton arrives a little after I do; she’s going to Great Yarmouth tomorrow on a ‘whist holiday’.

The teams process onto the pitch and Stephen Foster, the former BBC Radio Suffolk presenter and class-mate of my friends Pete and Ian, reads out the teams.  Along with ever-present Phil, I bawl out the Town players’ surnames, pretending to be French. If I was French, I’d already be retired now, and depending on where I lived I might support Racing Club de Lens, Lorient, Clermont Foot or Montpellier. It’s something I think about a lot in my many idle moments.  After a minute’s applause for former Town director John Kerr who died this week, Shrewsbury Town take the knee and applaud whilst Town players form a huddle, and then the match begins. Shrewsbury get first go with the ball attempting to send it mostly in the direction of the goal just in front of me, Pat, Fiona, Phil and Elwood.  Shrewsbury are sporting a change kit today because their usual, distinctive blue and yellow striped shirts would clash with Town’s all blue shirts.  Disappointingly,  Shrewsbury have opted for all-black, the magnolia of modern-day football kits,  for people who choose club kits but who also lack imagination. The addition of red smudges over the shoulders does nothing to alleviate the depressing absence of colour.  The referees however are doing their best for us and are wearing orange shirts.

An intimidating, brooding wall of silence encloses the ground providing the soundtrack to the games’ opening moves, but a bit of noise eventually emanates from the Blue Action section in the lower tier of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand, followed by the curious chants of “Addy, Addy, Addy-O”.  It’s damp, and a faint mist seems to hang over the pitch.  Town have the ball mostly, but all of a sudden Christian Walton is leaping acrobatically to tip a header from Luke Leahy (I like to think Leahy is pronounced leaky) over the cross bar to give Shrewsbury the game’s first corner. Quickly it has been established that Shrewsbury are going to be one of those teams who are all free-kicks, set pieces and shoving people over.  It’s a style of ‘football’ that is effective for a bit, but people soon get tired of it and that includes the players, just ask Mick McCarthy. 

Town soon re-establish their superiority, which manifests itself in three corners in five minutes as crosses and shots are blocked.  A dozen minutes have gone forever and half the pitch is now bathed in mottled sunlight and the other half wallows in the shadows of the stands.  I am struck by how spindly the legs of Shrewsbury’s number 33, Tom Flanagan, are and just to prove the point he slips over like new born Bambi.  The fifteenth minute arrives and Wes Burns scampers off down the wing, crosses the ball and George Hirst rises high, twists his neck, and heads the ball gloriously into the goal beyond goalkeeper Marko Marosi.  It’s the sort of goal centre forwards used to score all the time, and at half-time Ray will tell me how it reminded him very much of Trevor Whymark’s best work, and he’s right.  Town lead 1-0.

The sun is shining, the Town (Ipswich not Shrewsbury ) are winning and all is right with the world as I sit back and wait for Town’s next goal.  Before that however, comes the first booking as Wes Burns is tripped by Jordan Shipley, who forty years ago might have been called Gordon Shipley.  All twenty outfield players are within forty yards of the Shrewsbury goal as the resulting free-kick is taken, but the ball goes straight into the arms of Marosi.

With the game entering its second quarter, it feels like Town ease off a little as what had been a busy period of crosses and constantly probing possession comes to an end.  But the rest, is just a rest and soon Town are winning more corners. “Come On You Blues” I bawl.  “ They can’t hear you” says Pat from Clacton.  “I don’t think anyone can” I tell her, disappointed that all across the bottom tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand people haven’t joined in with me. “I can hear you” says Fiona, sounding like she wishes she couldn’t.

We descend towards half-time and from another  Wes Burns cross it looks as though the until now excellent Massimo Luongo has an open goal, but somehow he contrives to head the ball where we and presumably he didn’t want it to go, not into the goal.  In the interests of variety, Shrewsbury are awarded a corner as Cameron Burgess clears the ball behind from a rare, but awkward foray forward by the visting team, and Christian Walton saves a shot from that Gordon Shipley, before Conor Chaplin restores order but shoots wide of the Shrewsbury goal.  The half closes with an homage to BBC tv sitcom Dad’s Army as Shrewsbury number 15, Rekeil Pyke  fouls Luke Woolfenden, and hopefully referee Ollie Yates adopts a German accent to say “ Your name will also go into the book, what is it?”  From the touchline I think I hear Shrewsbury manager Steve Cotterill shout “Don’t tell him Pyke!” and both benches and Mr Yates fall about laughing.

With half-time, I hasten away beneath the stand to make use of the facilities and enjoy the luxury of the new hand dryers which since the last home game have replaced the old asthmatic ones.  I return to talk with Ray and his grandson Harrison at the front of the stand. Ray seems disappointed with the first half because Shrewsbury have had a couple of reasonable chances and Town have only scored once, but he liked the goal and talks of Trevor Whymark and Alan Lee.

The football resumes at seven minutes past four and I eat a Nature Valley honey and nut cereal bar, which I finish before Town seemingly score again as Conor Chaplin taps the ball in at the far post after a deep cross, but apparently he is offside; he doesn’t argue so he probably was, or he is the first player to work out that referees do not change their decisions.   The disappointment is only temporary however, but what isn’t?  Two minutes later there’s a cross, a Conor Chaplin shot is blocked and Massimo Luongo places a precise hooked shot inside the far post to put Town 2-0 up.

It feels to me like we’ve won already and it’s just a matter of how many goals Town can get. Shrewsbury are putting up decent resistance but we’re too good for them and almost proving the point George Hi⁸rst thumps a shot against a goal post, although he must ask himself why he missed the 7.32m wide gap to its left.  A minute later  Shrewsbury’s Matthew Pennington is booked for reacting childishly to a perceived dive by Nathan Broadhead and then an unseemly melee ensues with all the usual posturing and macho behaviour that you would expect from the drivers of enormous black SUVs.   When the free-kick is eventually taken, Leif Davis uncharacteristically launches it wastefully over the cross bar.

Ipswich’s early dominance of the second half nevertheless inspires some noise from the home crowd and the Sir Bobby Robson stand treat everyone else to the usual truncated rendering of Harry Belafonte’s, or may be Boney M’s, Mary Boy Child with specially adapted lyrics that tell of what now seem like mythical fights with Norwich on Boxing Day.  Shrewsbury are first to blink with regard to substitutions and two are made together, one of them being the aforementioned Pyke. 

Time rattles on by twenty minutes and Shrewsbury win a corner and Nathan Broadhead is booked for being fouled in the Shrewsbury penalty area despite Shrewsbury players concernedly helping him to his feet rather than pointing accusing fingers.  Todays’ attendance is announced by Stephen Foster as 26, 432 with 343 from Shropshire, and weirdly but as per usual, people applaud themselves  or each other, or may be they’re applauding Stephen Foster.  On the Clacton supporters coach the guess the crowd competition is won by Pat from Clacton’s great nephew Liam, who is just visiting for the weekend and is a West Ham United supporter.  Understandably, Pat seems disappointed that this ‘part-time supporter’ has won the prize and suggests various other guesses  on her list to Fiona and me that might be closer, but none of them are.

Fifteen minutes remain and it’s time for Town to begin their usual catalogue of substitutions and Freddie Ladapo and Marcus Harness replace George Hirst and Nathan Broadhead.  Another Shrewsbury corner sees Chey Dunkley strike the Town cross-bar  with a header, but typically for a team reliant on ‘big blokes’  there has been a foul, and Town are awarded a free-kick and Christian Walton receives lengthy treatment whilst everyone else enjoys a break by the touchline.  “Get Up!” shouts a frustrated pre-pubescent voice behind me.  His dad explains that you don’t shout “Get Up” at your own players, but the child simply replies ”But it’s taking forever”.  When he’s older he’ll realise that some of life’s best moments are when nothing is happening.

The last ten minutes of normal time have found their way here and it still time for two more Shrewsbury players to be shown Ollie’s yellow card  for fouling Conor Chaplin, and Kayden Jackson, who has replaced Wes Burns, although they probably would have fouled him too given the chance.   The eternal treatment to Christian Walton results in only seven minutes of added on time and whilst I hope for a third Town goal which would mark out the result as a modest thrashing rather than just a satisfactory win, it doesn’t happen, despite two more Town substitutions and an outbreak of rhythmic clapping.

Finally, at a minute before five o’clock the game ends and my little band of ultras and I bid our adieus until Good Friday.  It’s been a fine performance from Ipswich and ultimately a comfortable, if hard fought victory.  I will travel home this evening content, and safe in the knowledge that in forty years’ time it is unlikely my subconscious mind will unexpectedly want to re-appraise todays events, because I expect I will be dead.

Ipswich Town 4 Burton Albion 0

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Another Saturday, another football match at the end of another week, another few hours from which to extract fleeting pleasure, one hopes.  That is the nature of life, it’s what makes it bearable unless of course you are lucky enough to be constantly in awe and wonder of everything around you and struggle not to stand with mouth agape at the multitude of different arrangements of atoms and molecules before us and of which we are of course just a tiny part.  All this, and football too.

The vanquishing of Burton Albion is the source of today’s hopeful pleasure for many; it’s a fixture that reminds us of life’s elixir, beer.  Historically, Burton-On-Trent was Britain’s beer brewing capital and it would be nice to think that in the same way that Grimsby Town once made gifts of boxes of fish to their opponents, so Burton Albion donate crates of beer to the needy wherever they go.  Perhaps in the past, when Burton was the epicentre of responsible drinking they did, it would perhaps help to explain the demise of Burton Albion’s predecessors Burton Swifts and Burton United.  Burton Swifts were members of the inaugural Football League Division Two back in 1892 when Ipswich Town were still mucking about playing nothing but friendlies when not getting knocked out of the Suffolk Senior Cup and the FA Cup respectively by the public schoolboys of Framlingham College and Old Westminsters.  The beautifully named Swifts lasted until 1901, when due to failing finances they merged with Burton Wanderers to become the boringly but accurately named Burton United. The new club lasted in the Football League until 1907 when they finished bottom of the table and were voted out. It would take well over a century for Burton Albion to get the town back into the Football League, although they didn’t start trying until 1950.

My mind teeming with thoughts of football history, the nature of existence and beer, I park up my planet saving Citroen e-C4 and step out across Gippeswyk Park towards Portman Road football ground.  The streets around the ground are quieter than they have been before recent games, but there are still people sitting out in the cold enjoying grilled meat products and leaning on Sir Alf Ramsey’s plinth to eat chips. I stop at one of the blue booths where I dream of one day of buying an ice cream as well as a programme.  Today, I must make do with just the programme (£3.50), which I pay for in the modern cashless way.  I carry on to ‘the Arb’ past the spiral car park, which I would like to see become one of Ipswich’s many listed buildings.  On the steps nearby I overtake a man and a woman who possess two of the largest heads of hair I ever seen in Ipswich; the style is hippie rather than beehive, although either makes a good match with the 1960’s car park. 

At ‘the Arb’ I invest in a pint of Lacon’s Encore (£3.59 with 10% Camra discount), but only because the Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride has reached the end of the barrel.  I retire to the beer garden and sit in the shelter between a man reading a book whilst eating from a piece of slate, and a family of three.  I sip my beer and read the programme, intrigued that Lincoln City have only lost seven games  but are fourteenth in the table. I begin to read a five page interview with Harry Clarke, but to my shame lose interest at the end of page three; in my defence however, I have read “Remembrance of Things Past” by Marcel Proust.  Mick rescues me from the pages of the programme and after collecting a pint from a new barrel of Suffolk Pride, he joins me.  Barely has our conversation got on to the usual subject of death before Gary unexpectedly arrives carrying a pint of lager.  We continue to talk of death, sciatica, terminal illness, TV programmes we always watch (I always record Sgorio on S4C), and a friend of Mick’s who has a lifelong collection of football and speedway programmes, which he keeps in a shed.  When his friend dies, says Mick, he expects his wife will just throw them all away.  None of us consider that his wife might die first.  Filled with bonhomie by the joy of pre-match conversation, I return to the bar to buy a half of Lager 43 for Gary, a single blended whisky for Mick and a pint of Suffolk Pride for myself; I casually pay for the drinks having no idea of the cost. 

It takes a while for any football to break out and it’s the team in black who win the first corner of the game, neither with nor against the run of play, but following a poor kick by Christian Walton. “Blue Army, Blue Army” shout the home crowd after the corner leads to Town breaking away with Conor Chaplin whose deep cross is easily claimed by the goalkeeper. “Pushing high, in’t they” says the bloke behind me of the away team, and he’s right, they are putting Town players under pressure as they attempt to pass the ball about at the back; this should be creating gaps in the middle of the pitch for Town to exploit, but mysteriously the gaps are  not appearing.  Ten minutes have disappeared into the past and whoever this away team are, they win another corner.The twelfth minute and Freddie Ladapo impersonates Pele. The ball is played high towards him, he’s going to jump for it, but then doesn’t and instead turns and chases it as it sails over his marker’s head. It’s a piece of inventiveness that’s worth a goal, but the referee, Mr Boyeson, has no soul and soon awards a spurious free-kick to the opposition.  To celebrate the first sixth of the game passing Harry Clarke  gets booked. “If you can’t get the ball get the player, it’s what they’re taught” says the bloke behind me and Harry Clarke holds up his hands as if to say “It’s a fair cop guv’nor” .  It’s a booking that underlines the fact that the away team, whoever they might be in their mysterious all-black kit, has so far had the best of the game, although they have not once come close to even threatening to score a goal.

At some time around twenty to three we depart for the ground, going our separate ways in what used to be Portman Walk.  The portentous turnstile 62 sees me safely into the ground and once in the stand I edge past Pat from Clacton and Fiona to my seat next but one to the man from Stowmarket and a couple of rows behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game, although his young son Elwood isn’t here today.   As former BBC Radio Suffolk presenter Stephen Foster reads out the Town team, Phil and I shout out their surnames like a French football crowd would and hope everyone else will join in, but they don’t.  Phil remains optimistic that everyone will have ‘got with the programme’ by the time of the play-off final at Wembley.

After some boisterous “Na-na-nas” and re-wording of The Beatles ‘Hey Jude,’ the game begins, and Town get first go with the ball , heading for the goal at the far end of the ground from me and my band of crazy Ultras.  Town are as ever wearing blue shirts and white shorts, but sadly Burton have decided to forego their proper kit of yellow and black and have instead opted to appear disguised as every other dull, anonymous team that ever played an away match,  and they wear all-black; it feels like they’re not really interested in being Burton Albion, they might as well give us the points now.  In their yellow shirts and black shorts the referee and his assistants look more like Burton Albion than Burton Albion do.

The bloke behind me says something about the game changing now Town have scored, and clearly he is on as good a form as the team today as once again he’s proved right.  An injury to Wes Burns allows time for both teams to gather by the dug outs for a remedial coaching class and drinks party, and it’s Town that benefit most. When play resumes Harry Clarke heads off down the right flank, passes to Wes Burns who crosses low for Nathan Broadhead to put Town two-nil up. Even from the far end of the pitch it’s a thing of grace and beauty.Another visiting player is booked for fouling Conor Chaplin and then in an act of clear revenge Conor slips the ball to Freddie Ladapo to score Town’s third goal. Unlikely events notwithstanding, Town have won the match in the space of ten minutes and despite not having the mythical forty-goal a season striker, they are still the division’s top scorers. 

Fear amongst Town supporters remains however and as the final minutes of the half and four minutes of added on time are played out there are desperate shouts of “Get rid of it” whenever Christian Walton has the ball at his feet.With the half time whistle I watch Mr Boyeson leave the pitch zealously holding the match ball, before venting some pre-match beer and chatting with Ray and his grandson Harrison who wants to hear all about the Robyn Hitchcock concert I went to in London last Saturday at the Alexandra Palace Theatre. I tell him it was fab because it was.  Ray lets me know that he and his wife Ros have decided to help save the planet too and get solar panels fitted, and we laugh about the Tory government and how Rishi Sunak tells us with an almost straight face that Northern Ireland will benefit from something wonderful and new due to unique access to EU markets.

The football resumes at six minutes past four and, as with the Morecambe match a few weeks ago, the fear is that we’ve had our fun for the afternoon, and although logic predicts a 6-0 win, in all likelihood there won’t be any more goals because half-time cups of tea are laced with beta blockers and regret.  This proves to be only partly correct however, as within a minute Massimo Luongo launches a curving shot wide of the post after Wes Burns runs down the wing and lays it back to him, then the all-purpose visiting team even dare to shoot past the post too;  our post, not theirs. The fun continues as Wes Burns again makes hay on the right pulling back the ball again , this time for Conor Chaplin to not score the fourth goal. “Blue and White Army” shouts the bloke behind me unable to contain himself, but then Cameron Burgess makes a superb ‘last-ditch’ tackle after Luke Woolfenden is all too easily turned by someone in black shirt and shorts.  Town concede another corner and then a number of throw ins which the opposition cunningly employ as attacking moves in the absence of proper passing football.

An hour has passed and Ray Reardon is substituted, Christian Walton makes a low diving save and the team in black win three successive corners.   Three Canada Geese fly over in tight formation and from another long throw the ball pings about the Town box like we’re suddenly watching Bagatelle or the Pinball Wizard.  Mr Boyeson indulges himself with a final yellow card for the afternoon as Nathan Broadhead is fouled by Conor Shaughnessy and a pigeon lands on the cross bar of the goal at the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand end of the ground.  The pigeon remains unmoved as Nathan Broadhead sends a curling shot narrowly passed the angle of the post and cross bar with a bit more than twenty minutes still to play.  Two minutes later, and Town lead 4-0 as Leif Davis sets up Conor Chaplin and his shot catches a slight deflection to take it past the goalkeeper.

The game is now as good as over and the mass substitutions can begin, not to affect the result, but just so fewer people feel left out.  First to go are Broadhead, Chaplin and Ladapo who have all been excellent.  The clock ticks down further towards going home time and today’s attendance is announced as 25,003, with 147 of that number turning up from Burton-On-Trent to watch a team who based on their boring away kit might have been from anywhere.  The crowd applauds itself and the travellers from Burton, who I like to think blush a little in the face of this show of affection.  On the Clacton supporters’ bus the winner of the ‘guess the crowd’ competition is just forty-five out with an estimate of 24,958.  Ten minutes of normal time remain and Leif Davis requires treatment leading to another opportunity for remedial coaching on the touchline, but it’s too late for that and Burton are left to just guzzle their isotonic drinks and regret their choice of kit. Davis is replaced Janoi Donacien and the Sir Bobby Robson Stand sing what sounds like “Bluey, Bluey, you’re a cunt” at the cuddly and permanently startled looking Town mascot, striking the only unseemly note of an otherwise pleasant afternoon’s football.  Bluey reacts playfully as if the crowd are merely chanting something like “Bluey, Bluey, you’re a one”.  Perhaps they are and it’s me who is coarse and reliant on sexual swearwords to amuse myself.

Despite the stoppage for the injury to Leif Davis, and both teams making the utmost of available substitutes, the fourth official sensibly calculates that only three minutes of additional time should be played, what’s the point of playing more.  It’s been a lot of fun, but no one wants to stay here past five o’clock and the final whistle brings the final joyful release of the afternoon before we all head off into the deepening gloom of a damp, grey Ipswich evening. The mometnts of fleeting pleasure have been many for Town fans today, as for Burton, at least they’ve still got beer.

Ipswich Town 4 Morecambe 0

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One of the many potentially good things about the FA Cup for supporters of third division clubs, is that if your team gets to the third round or beyond, then Saturday fixtures get postponed and are magically transformed into midweek games under floodlight.  This is a good thing if your re-arranged games are at home, not so good if you feel the need to travel to every away game.   Those good people of Morecambe for whom supporting their football team is a kind of religious devotion must wonder what they have done wrong. Not only is it a particularly cold and damp month, but they live in an out of season seaside resort somewhere up North and now the Football League are telling them that to support their team they must travel the best part of five hours on English motorways  to the far end of the country on a grey Tuesday afternoon in January.  At lunchtime today I was told that the Morecambe FC coach was already in the West End Road car park. When I walked past later I took a look, it had a parking ticket on the windscreen.

I have suffered too today,  I have been to work in the office instead of staying in the comfort of my own home.  But now, at a quarter past four, after almost eight hours of ceaseless toil I am meeting Roly and we are heading for the pub.  By way of a change we are in the Three Wise Monkeys where we drink coffee like the sophisticated metrosexuals that we are, I have an Americano and Roly has some frothy milky looking thing.  We settle in two large arm chairs beneath the stairs and discuss the late Cyril Fletcher, the ridiculousness of BBC tv’s That’s Life,  and football.  I detect a level of pessimism in Roly that I attribute to his long Suffolk heritage.  Coffee can only take a man so far along the path to enlightenment however, and we eventually move on to The Arb to drink beer and eat:  a pint of Lacon’s Encore (£3.90?) and Cajun Chicken Burger (£13) for Roly and a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride(£4?)  and a Scotch Egg with thick cut chips (£9) for me.  Unusually, we sit inside the pub and not outside, probably because we have arrived early enough for there to be a vacant table.  After a while Mick arrives, walks through the bar and out towards the garden, returns, presumably because we aren’t there, and finally buys us both very low alcohol beers brewed by the Big Drop Brewing Company and has a pint of Suffolk Pride for himself. The conversation continues mostly courtesy of Roly who occasionally interrupts if someone else speaks, apologises for interrupting and then carries on, before apologising for interrupting again.  It sounds worse than it is because I don’t have much to say anyway, which is just as well.

When Roly finally draws breath, I take the opportunity to suggest it’s time to leave for Portman Road and that’s what we do. We part in Sir Alf Ramsey Way, Roly strangely and quickly joining a queue for a turnstile into the West stand, whilst Mick walks further on to a turnstile where there is no queue; I make my way to turnstile 60 and the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand, which perhaps ought to be in Sir Alf Ramsey Way, but isn’t.  Inside the ground, Fiona is here and so is ever present Phil who never misses a game and the man from Stowmarket, but Elwood and Pat from Clacton are not.  Pat had sent me a message at twelve minutes past three to say she wouldn’t be coming tonight on account of her not fancying sitting in the cold with her arthritic pains; I guess sitting in the cold without her arthritic pains was not an option; like a faithful dog, wherever she goes they go too.

I’ve missed the start of Stephen Foster reading out the Town team, which is a shame, but I join in just as soon as I can, shouting out the surnames of the players as he announces them.  No one has started joining in with me yet,  but I  live in hope.    The game begins, Town get first go with the ball, we win a corner and the ball drops kindly; Freddie Ladapo is more alert than anyone else and scores from close range.  We’re winning and I’ve not really had time yet to notice that Morecambe are in red shirts and shorts with white socks, which I am a little surprised to find is a pretty good combination, and shows just how important socks are.

 Of course we scored in the first minute against Fleetwood a few weeks back and that didn’t end as well as we’d  hoped, so no one’s getting too excited and after a brief bit of shouting and cheering and  even a brief chant,  which fades out like no one knows the words after the first line, the crowd becomes quiet. “ I missed the first goal didn’t I?” says a voice from somewhere  behind me.

Leif Davis breaks down the left flank at high speed and weirdly the referee, Mr Rock, appears to be chasing him.  Mr Rock , what an example he is to all football officials, cut him in half and you’ll find the word ‘referee’ is written all the way through him.  Lee Evans steps forward and from nothing unleashes a shot against the Morecambe goalkeeper’s righthand goalpost. I probably say “Phwoarr!” or something similar.  Meanwhile, the bloke behind me sounds impressed with new signing Harry Clarke.  “That Clarke likes to take the ball forward” he says, before adding “He likes travelling with the ball”  making me imagine him on the bus with a ball on the seat next to him.  Harry Clarke will go on to have one of the best home debuts I’ve seen since Finidi George dazzled us over twenty years ago.

It really is very quiet in Portman Road tonight. There aren’t many Morecambe supporters here but I can hear them singing “Oh when the reds going marching in” . A Morecambe player, Jensen Weir, is down injured after a foul by Wes Burns and silence reigns as if everyone is holding their breath to see if he’s going to be alright; he is. Within seconds of the game resuming another new Town signing, Nathan Broadhead, plays the ball forward, Freddie Ladapo runs around his marker, gets sight of goal and shoots against the foot of the far post.  Normally the ball would defy the laws of physics and bounce out to be cleared by a fortuitously placed defender,  but the alignment of the  planets and stars must be on the huh tonight and the ball spins across behind the goal line and against the net on the far side as if it’s doing a little celebratory dance,  and Town lead 2-0.

Town win another corner, the Sir Bobby Robson stand sing “We’ve got Super Kieran McKenna he knows exactly what we need…” and the floodlights seem to be producing a lot of glare in the lenses of my glasses tonight, it could be because it’s a damp evening or may be my glasses are just a bit grubby.  Town treat us to some quick and attractive passing, running and movement; the working man’s ballet as Alf Garnett called it. “Champagne football” says the bloke behind me to his neighbour, as you would if you were watching Stade de Reims versus Troyes in Ligue 1.  The crowd is very quiet again, almost as if they are in awe of what they’re seeing on the pitch, or are concentrating very hard to understand it.  In the Sir Bobby Robson stand the lights keep turning off and on as if someone is leaning on the switch.  “Ladapo’s got the touch of Messi tonight” says the bloke behind me in an unrelated incident.

In their defence tonight Morecambe have the exotically named Farrend Rawson, a tall player made more conspicuous by his totally bald head and goatee beard. It makes me think how different Flash Gordon could have been if Emperor Ming had also turned out for a third division football team.  “Come On You Blues” is an unexpected if faint chant from the bottom tier of the Cobbold Stand. Another corner to Town, a header from Richard Keogh and a flying save from the talented Conor Ripley in the Morecambe goal , who is probably the chunkiest goal keeper  at Portman Road so far this season.

Thirty-seven minutes are up and Wes Burns escapes down the right wing, crosses the ball and Conor Chaplin shoots low inside the far post to make the score 3-0 to Town. “Ole, Ole, Ole” sings the crowd for all of five seconds before returning to quiet contemplation. There are six minutes of additional time to be played and it’s enough for Chaplin to score again, this time with a typical snap shot inside the near post and the score is 4-0.

As ever I take a half-time stroll to the front of the stand to say hello to Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison.   Michael and Harrison have a new van, Harrison has tickets to see Noel Gallagher  and The Zutons and has discovered that ‘psychedelic folk’ artist Robyn Hitchcock is some thirty years older than his wife Emma Swift.  Otherwise, talk is of how many more goals can Town get in the second half.

The game resumes at six minutes to nine and Morecambe bring on three substitutes in one fell swoop, which includes the replacement of Curly Watts with Aleister Crowley, something which the writers of Coronation Street were never brave enough to do.  Also entering the fray is Michael Mellon, one of the few players in league football whose surname is a mis-spelt fruit.

Four minutes in to the half and Mr Rock displays his yellow card for the first time after the sophisticated sounding Jacob Bedeau assaults Nathan Broadhead.  Morecambe’s Crowley is a tiny man who one might think was a child if it wasn’t for his five o’clock shadow.   Nathan Broadhead produces a superb shot which is heading for the inside of the goal net until the huge flying frame of Ripley hoves into view and a Ripley arm extends and pushes it away beyond the post.  Ripley is having a fine game and five minutes later performs a sort of break dance after he slips when making a hasty  clearance from in front of the looming Freddie Ladapo. A little while later he does it again after taking a goal kick.

Almost an hour of the game has receded into history and Morecambe have their first attempt on the Town goal, a speculative near post header than arcs slowly beyond the far post.  Two minutes later and after some fabulous skill from Conor Chaplin, Kayden Jackson sprints away down the right and lays the ball back for Nathan Broadhead to place a firm shot in Ripley’s midriff.  It’s now Town’s turn to get in on the multiple substitution act as the unlikely firm of solicitors Morsy, Broadhead and Ladapo leave to be replaced by Cameron Humphreys, Kyle Edwards and George Hirst.  Fiona reveals that she once had a cat called George.

Just under twenty minutes of normal time remain and Morecambe earn their first corner and  appreciation of their travelling supporters who get their kicks where they can and celebrate disproportionately.  Marcus Harness replaces the excellent Conor Chaplin and Stephen Foster tells us that tonight’s attendance is 21,948 with one-hundred and two from Morcambe, although I have a quick count and can only spot sixty-four.

After such a goal laden first half, the second half has been less thrilling, but it has nevertheless passed quickly.  Apart from already being four-nil up, the crowd has had not very much to sing about in the second half, but the quiet at Portman Road has at times been almost oppressive, as if some people had turned up for a bit of a moan after Saturday’s defeat at Oxford and are now sulking.  As the final minutes roll by and just three more are added, the Sir Bobby Robson stand at last break into song with some celebratory Ole, Ole Oles and a drum can be heard too.  Perhaps the Rio de Janeiro branch of the supporters club were late getting here tonight.

With the final whistle I swiftly depart, erroneously thinking that I will quickly be able to get out of the Portman Road car park and away into the night.  It seems that far too many people had already left and have clogged up the streets.  But I didn’t turn up tonight just so I could get away early, that would be daft.  I came for the football and that’s been excellent, it’s been a night to remember for Town and I doubt Morecambe will forget it either.

Ipswich Town 1 Fleetwood Town 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Back in the late 1960’s when Ipswich were climbing out of the second division and I was at primary school, I would walk home for lunch most days except on a Friday when, having checked with the head cook, who conveniently was my mother’s cousin, that fish and chips was on the menu, I would stay for a ‘school dinner’.  Like a lot of people of I’ve always liked fish and chips and for lunch today I had a polystyrene box of cod and chips with mushy peas at the Suffolk County Council canteen.  As much as I like fish and chips however, and savour those first few delicious mouths full, by the time I get to the end the batter on the fish and the oil on the chips is beginning to get the better of me; I feel a bit bloated and in a couple of hours it’s going to repeat on me.

Tonight, in a second bout of Friday night football at Portman Road in the space of six weeks, Ipswich Town are playing Fleetwood Town, from the Lancashire fishing port probably once responsible for most of the cod dished up on Fridays in East Suffolk primary schools.  The game has been moved to Friday because there is little hope that most people will be boycotting the Qatar World Cup, and had England qualified for the last sixteen by finishing second in their group, they would have been playing on Saturday afternoon.  Football at three o’clock on a grey winter’s afternoon is great, but an evening match under the bright white glow of the floodlights is always a beautiful thing; it seems to heighten and enhance the usual match day sensations a bit like listening to The Beatles’ best album Revolver whilst sucking on a sherbet fountain or having smoked something illicit.  A night game also provides the opportunity to go straight from work to the pub, which is really living.

I cross the Cornhill as the town hall clock strikes six o’clock and hit “The Arb” as I have decided to call the Arbor House (formerly The Arboretum), no more than ten minutes later, seconds after Mick has phoned me to tell me he is already there, and is thinking that sitting out in the beer garden on what is a cold and intermittently drizzly and blowy December evening might be an overly hardy thing to do.  I point out that we are going to be sitting outside watching football for the best part of two hours anyway. Mick concedes that this is a fair point.  Ultimately, fate dictates that there is nowhere left to sit inside the building and so, having ordered a pint of Lacon’s Encore and a mushroom and chestnut burger with sweet potato fries for Mick and a pint of Tindall’s Ditchingham Dam (£4.10) and  a scotch egg (£4.00) for me, we step outside again into the beer garden,  where we are warded off sitting at one table by an elderly man who says he has reserved it for his family. When the man’s family do arrive, they all sit at the table he’s sat at.  The man then causes confusion by trying to accept an order for a full-stack burger and a half-stack burger with fries which aren’t his.  He manages to eat a chip before his family arrives from the bar and points out that they have only just ordered the food so it is unlikely to be here already; the food is quickly whisked away to the rightful diners.

As usual, our conversation is diverse and as usual includes death, as we speak of the demise a day or two ago of his former partner’s 20-year-old cat Archie, and how long ago it was that I had my dog Alfie put down.  Lightening up matters, I tell Mick that yesterday I had an electric charging point installed at my house and Mick tells me that his now deceased father once had an affair with the village post mistress.  Time passes quickly as we eat our food and then I buy a Dalwhinnie single malt whisky for Mick and a pint of Woodforde’s Norfolk Nog for me (£8.90).  Unhappily the Nog is on the turn, so I swap it for a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride.

By the time we come to leave, we are the only people left in the beer garden, but we carry on our conversation as we head purposefully and full of expectation to the ground.  Crossing the Portman Road car park, I tell Mick of Decimus Burton the nineteenth century architect who planned the centre of Fleetwood and built the North Euston Hotel as a staging post for rail travellers on the way from London to Scotland, expecting that railway lines would not be able to cross the Lake District and that journeys would continue by steam ship. 

Mick and I part in what was Portman Walk where he enters the Magnus west stand and  I proceed to turnstile 61, the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand and the delights within.   Kick-off is imminent as I take my seat in the company of ever-present Phil who never misses a game, Fiona, and the man from Stowmarket. But Pat from Clacton is still wheezing having had covid and is staying home to watch the game on the interweb; Elwood is not here either.  Stadium announcer Stephen Foster reads out the teams, introducing Fleetwood as the Cod Army and the game begins with Ipswich getting first go with the ball and unusually for the first half, they are aiming at the goal at the Bobby Robson Stand end of the ground.   Town are rightly in our traditional blue and white whilst Fleetwood are impersonating Arsenal, or Stade de Reims if you are in France and Rotherham United if in South Yorkshire.  Quickly Town are on the attack, win a corner, have a Conor Chaplin shot blocked, have a Freddie Ladapo shot saved and then score from very close range as Luke Woolfenden appears heroically at the far post; the game is less than two minutes old.  As Fiona says,  almost complaining, we haven’t really got ourselves settled in yet, and in all the unexpectedly early excitement we forget to take a photo of ever-present Phil celebrating the goal to send to Pat from Clacton.

In the row behind me someone has missed the kick-off. “Did you see the goal?” he asks. “Some of us got here on time” is the answer, “I’ve been here since the Buxton game”.   For the benefit of someone who missed the goal it is described as an eighteen-yard pile-driver.  A goal up, Town continue to be the better team.  Fleetwood briefly break away in a moment of confusion and the ball drifts past Christian Walton’s far post before Conor Chaplin and Freddie Ladapo hit shots straight at the Fleetwood goalkeeper whose first name is the same as Homer Simpson’s middle name, which I’d like to say is appropriate because they’re both big and yellow, but sadly it’s not true as the goalkeeper is wearing green.   Drizzle sweeps across the pitch and into the front of the stand and people sat at the front are offered transparent ponchos, which could be quite alluring on the right people in the right circumstances.

Freddie Ladapo forces a fine save from the goalkeeper and Fiona says “Quick, you can get your photo taken with Bluey” as the Town mascot moves amongst his people behind us.  Only 20 minutes have gone and Fleetwood substitute Penny’s brother Paddy Lane with Nora’s brother Dan Batty before referee Mr Sam Purkiss, who sounds a bit like he could be a character from a Charles Dickens’ novel, makes an appalling decision.   Wes Burns and Fleetwood’s Josh Earl both slide in on the wet turf to claim a loose ball, Burns gets to it first and races away, but Earl stays down on the ground and Burns is booked.  At this moment I take a strong dislike towards Purkiss and it’s not long before I’m turning to Fiona and asking if she would agree that he looks a bit like Matt Hancock MP.

The crowd had been in good voice when Town dominated and looked likely to batter the ‘Cod Army’, but they quieten down as Fleetwood have a spell of possession before the zeitgeist amongst the home crowd switches again to positivity and the occupants of the Sir Bobby Robson stand chant “Blue and White Amy, Blue and White Army”, at least three times.   Town are worth another goal, but Fleetwood are taking an increasingly physical approach to play and the worst example is when Kyle Edwards is scythed down, but the Hancock lookalike referee doesn’t even give a foul, when a caution for the Edwards’ assailant looked the only possible outcome. 

Four minutes of time added on are announced by Stephen Foster and when Conor Chaplin is given a free-kick after being fouled, the decision is met with ironic cheers from the stands.   Town win a final corner of the half, but it comes to nought and at twenty-five to nine the first forty-five minutes of the game finish.  “You don’t know what you’re doing” chants the young bloke in front of me at Hancock’s double as he passes by and a bloke a few rows behind rants furiously and possibly in a foreign language whilst I boo enthusiastically. I love a good boo at the referee, especially when he looks like a former member of the Cabinet, and even more when he seems bent enough to be one.

After a short pause to calm myself down after all that booing, I take a trip to the front of the stand to speak with Harrison and his dad Michael.  Michael’s dad Ray is away on holiday, cruising somewhere in the Azores.  Harrison tells me he has now heard Robyn Hitchcock’s new album ‘Shufflemania’ on Spotify and his review is positive; I’m not sure I could have spoken with him again if it hadn’t been.  We speak of the World Cup, although I haven’t been watching it, and Michael makes the very good point that this World Cup doesn’t seem like a World Cup because it’s not summertime, and so there is still real Ipswich Town-based football to occupy our minds and to leave the house for.

At seven minutes to nine the game resumes and it’s Fleetwood who are the team who mostly have the ball at their feet, which isn’t what we’ve come to expect at all.  Faintly heard chants carry on the wind from the upper tier of the Cobbold Stand where the small, loyal band of Fleetwood fans are sat, no doubt sucking on Fisherman Friends lozenges to lubricate their vocal chords.  The easterly breeze that buffets the flags on the roof of the stand whispers something about a red and white army. 

“Filthy fucker” bawls a bloke from somewhere behind me as Josh Earl floors Conor Chaplin at thigh height and inevitably Mr Purkiss doesn’t think the foul worthy of a booking. “Shit referee, shit referee” is the verdict of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand before they simultaneously clear their minds of such negativity and worries about cultural appropriation with a burst of “I-pswi-ch To-wn, Ipswich To-wn FC, They’re by far the greatest team the world has ever seen” to the tune of the Irish Rover.   They must be in the mood for traditional music tonight as a short while later they’re trudging their way through the dirge version of “When the Town go marching in”, sounding like they’ve learnt it by listening to a 45 rpm record being played at 33 rpm.

Fleetwood are the better team this half without ever having a decent attempt on goal, a bit like they’re being managed by Paul Lambert.  Kyle Edwards is replaced by Kayden Jackson, and Fleetwood’s Dan Batty vainly dives in the penalty area, perhaps to test out just how bad a referee Mr Purkiss is; bad, but thankfully not that bad.  For his trouble Batty is serenaded with a chorus of “Who the fuck, Who the fuck, Who the fuckin’ ‘ell are you?” by the Sir Bobby Robson stand.

Despite not playing very well at all in the second half, Ipswich nevertheless retain the ability to make one match-winning opportunity and with thirteen minutes of normal time remaining Sam Morsy moves forward and passes wide to Wes Burns who releases an overlapping Janoi Donacien and his low cross from the goal line is met by Cameron Humphreys, who bounces the ball wide of the goal.  I clutch the sides of my head like the bloke in Edvard Munch’s painting ‘The Scream’.  John Wark would have scored, Tommy Miller would have scored, Matt Holland would have scored; but that was then and this is now, I don’t know why I mentioned it.

Smothering our regrets, Stephen Foster delivers tonight’s attendance figure which is 22,801, of whom a stonking 66 are from Fleetwood, although the bloke behind me doesn’t think there are that many and I will admit to having tried to count them and I came up with barely fifty. It seems that about sixteen ‘Codheads’, for that is what natives of Fleetwood  are known as, have gone AWOL, caught in a net somewhere perhaps, or victims of diminishing fish stocks.

Ten minutes to go and Freddie Ladapo makes way for the rangy Gassan Ahadme.  “This is fucking embarrassing  ,I tell ya” says the bloke behind me as Mr Purkiss makes another characteristic non-decision when Conor Chaplin is pushed over from behind.  But at least Fleetwood don’t look like scoring, even though they are still the ones with the ball at their feet most of the time.  They can pass, but they don’t create any chances, although one goal line clearance has been needed.

Town make their final substitutions and for Fleetwood Dan Batty suffers the ignominy of being a substitute who is substituted. There will be six minutes of added on time and for five of them the same pattern continues. It’s a bit frustrating that Town don’t seem able to keep the ball themselves, when we’re usually so good at it, but it seems pretty safe letting Fleetwood have it because if they don’t shoot they wont score and if we don’t have the ball Fleetwood can’t attempt limb threatening tackles that they won’t get punished for.   Then Cian Hayes seems to realise there is no time left to do anything but shoot, so he strides forward a couple of paces and does so, it’s not a great shot, it shouldn’t be a worry, but it hits someone and arcs up and over Christian Walton onto the far post, off which it deflects into the goal in exactly the way that Town shots that hit posts never seem to.  Fleetwood have equalised.

It’s not much of a consolation, but as the Fleetwood players celebrate wildly there’s one who goes too far, and it happens to be Josh Earl who is sent off by the hopeless Mr Purkiss, perhaps in a mis-guided attempt to atone for his earlier leniency.  Enough time remains for Purkiss to wave away appeals for what seems from the nearby Sir Alf Ramsey Stand like a clear penalty as Kayden Jackson looks to be barged over, but that’s all the time there is, and the appeals are still being heard as Purkiss blows the final whistle.

As I leave the ground I see the disappointment etched on supporters faces.  What had started out like cod and chips with that delicious first mouthful of an early goal has ended like cod and chips, feeling a bit bloated and uncomfortable and knowing it’s going to repeat on me.

Ipswich Town 3 Cambridge United 0

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

If I had known on the third of April this year, as I made my way home from seeing Town lose 1-0 to Cambridge United, that tonight Town would again be playing Cambridge United, I would have been looking forward to it, even then.  I had been looking forward to that game back in April because I wanted revenge for a 2-1 home defeat to Cambridge over thirty years before in the season that Town last won the second division championship.  Back in 1991, entertaining, skilful, sexy Ipswich were beaten by a horrible Cambridge team managed by John Beck who had reduced the beautiful game to something like a cross between rugby league, cage fighting and carpet bombing. I’m a mild-mannered fellow, I don’t think I’m one to bear a grudge, but in this case, I seem to have made an exception; I hated that bloody Cambridge team and want revenge.

After over eight hours of my one day a week in the office, I decide that I have been here long enough and break free of the shackles of my desk, tablet and screen; I start to roam, then I’m in town; it’s a sadly depressing place at this time of day, everything is closed, it’s like a ruin. After I’ve browsed the books in Waterstones and bought my mother a bottle of Croft original sherry (£12.50) for her birthday from Sainsbury’s, where the very old man at the checkout struggles amusingly to remove the magnetic security tag, there’s nothing to do.  I take the sherry back to my car and head for the Arbor House, formerly known as the Arboretum.  I walk past the Axa Insurance building (formerly Guardian Royal Exchange) and through the window I see one those supposedly inspiring quotes printed on a wall. “Don’t be afraid. Be focused. Be determined. Be hopeful. Be empowered” it says. “Sod that”, I think.

At the top of High Street, what was once the Arboretum shines out like a beacon in the fading evening light, as pubs do. I order a pint of Lacon’s Encore (£3.80) and a portion of ‘Very French French Fries’ (£7.00) which consists of thick cut chips intermingled with bits of bacon and brie. Out in the beer garden I sit and wait for Mick and cannot avoid hearing the conversation of three lads sat a few tables away.  They are talking football, it’s a boring conversation.  My Very French French Fries arrive before Mick does, but he’s not far behind and he orders some chips covered with stuff too; we talk of my recent holiday in France and the six football matches I went to, of the French resistance and German U-boat docks, of Rennes, Nantes and the long deceased (1514) Duchess Anne of Brittany and driving in French cities.

With beers drunk and chips eaten, we depart for Portman Road, a bit earlier than usual but it’s dark now and the lure of football under floodlights is drawing us in like moths to a flame, or even a floodlight.  Leaving Mick at the turnstiles to the Magnus Group Stand (formerly the plain old West Stand) in Sir Alf Ramsey Way (formerly Portman Walk), I wish him ‘Bon match’ and strike out for turnstile 60 at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand (formerly Churchman’s). The cheery young turnstile operator bids me hello, cheerily, and I thank her for doing whatever it is she does to let me into the temple of Sir Alf.

In the lower tier of the stand ever-present Phil who never misses a game is already here, but Fiona isn’t and Pat from Clacton still has Covid, and for the first time ever I have arrived before the man who is definitely from Stowmarket. As I reach my seat stadium announcer Stephen Foster tells us that kick-off will be delayed by 15 minutes because of an earlier incident on the Orwell Bridge, which has apparently caused traffic congestion in the town. I am left to stand alone and watch the pitch being heavily watered and  the stands fill up inexorably, which of course they do and before I know it the teams are striding onto the pitch and Fiona and the man from Stowmarket are sat beside me.  Before kick-off we observe a minute’s silence as mark of respect for the 174 football supporters killed in a stampede or crush at a match in Indonesia between Arema FC and Persebaya Surabaya. But for the roaring drone of a jet aeroplane above and a few coughs the silence is perfect and still.

When kick-off comes it is Town who get first go with the ball and are quickly into their swift passing game, producing slick interchanges of the ball down the right and crosses into the Cambridge penalty area.   Up in the Cobbold stand close to 2,000 Cantabrigians are gathered and many ramble through some unintelligible, tuneless mantra as the lower tier of the Sir Bobby Robson stand launch into their signature version of Boney M’s million-selling Christmas number one from 1978, although credit must also go to Harry Belafonte who first recorded it in 1956.  “Who the fuck? Who the fuckin’ ‘ell are you” continue the Cambridge boys rather mysteriously, as if they’d forgotten where they’d come to in the course of an 85 kilometre one hour journey.  

After the initial burst of noise from the excitement of kick-off, the stands fall quiet for a while, then Freddie Ladapo chases a through ball to raucous encouragement before being flagged offside. Town are on top, but the ball is moving too swiftly over the wet turf and through balls and forward passes are eluding the likes of Wes Burns and Freddie Ladapo.  When Cambridge get the ball they try to break quickly too, causing ripples of concern amongst the home crowd.  In fact, it is Cambridge who have the first shot that isn’t blocked, although the player responsible might have wished it had been as Jubril Okedina’s effort poses more threat to the people sat behind the goal than it does to Christian Walton’s clean sheet. 

The man from Stowmarket and I are swopping comments about the wet pitch; he says he is expecting to see a submarine surface any minute.  As long as the torpedoes are ours I tell him, and it’s not a Russian submarine,  he adds.  Nearly twenty minutes have been lost to history and talk of underwater craft; Conor Chaplin wins a free-kick on the edge of the Cambridge penalty area as he appears to be lifted off the ground by a challenge.  Chaplin gets back on his feet to lift the ball over the defensive wall nicely enough, but it’s an easy catch the Cambridge ‘keeper Dimitar Mitov. “De, de-de-de, de- fuckin’ useless” chant the Cambridge boys to the tune of Pigbags’ ‘Papa’s got a brand new pigbag’, which they obviously know reached number three in the UK singles chart in 1982.   The Town fans retaliate with the same chant just a few minutes later as full-back George Williams wellies the ball hopelessly into touch with all the finesse and control of Boris Johnson’s hair stylist.

In a break from tradition tonight at Portman Road, it is the away supporters who are telling the referee that he doesn’t know what he is doing as he resists the temptation to award free-kicks whenever a Cambridge player comes in contact with the wet grass.  Some habits die harder however, and the Cambridge fans are still the ones to ask “Shall we sing, shall we sing, shall we sing a song for you?” and as per usual no one takes them up on their kind offer.

Nearly half an hour has gone and whilst Ipswich are dominating, their frequent crosses and forays down the flanks aren’t producing many shots that Mitov is having to save. Again, Cambridge spurn a rare chance when Sam Smith shoots both high and wide after a free-kick and low cross.  Cambridge are frustrating Town with their dense defending and as usual the Town supporters clam up when their team aren’t winning.  “Your support is fucking shit” sing the Cambridge fans, quickly following it up with “You’re supposed to be at home”, and I imagine a youth up in the Cobbold stand sat thinking “which chant criticising their support shall we sing next?” and someone else is saying “Oooh yeah, that’s a good one, let’s do that”.

Wes Burns can’t keep the ball in play from another forward pass and Pigbag’s only hit is heard for a third time; it’s getting boring now. But then Wes has more luck and Janoi Donacien heads one of his crosses narrowly wide before another cross sets up Leif Davis for a header which is blocked to give Town a corner. Both teams then win aimless corners and Town produce one of the finest moves of the half as Marcus Harness threads through a through ball for Wes Burns who then crosses to the far post for Leif Davis to strike the ball into the side netting.  Another corner follows and a minute of time is added on, but the score remains disappointingly blank which means that Cambridge are effectively winning.  The players leave the field to the opening bars of Elvis Costello’s ‘Pump It Up’, another song from that wonderful year 1978.

With the half-time break I leave my seat to go and speak with Harrison and his dad; Ray isn’t here tonight because he is at the Ipswich Regent watching Steve Hackett, another of the community of literally immortal prog rockers from the 1970’s who just can’t stop playing.

The football resumes at seven minutes past nine and for the opening minutes the Sir Bobby Robson stand lower tier have renewed voice. “Come On Ipswich, Come On Ipswich” they chant. “Fuck off Ipswich, Fuck Off Ipswich” respond the lads from the Cambridge Footlights Review satirically, before quickly remembering that they were meant to be criticising us for our poor support and switching to  “We forgot that you were here”.  We are no match for the untamed wit.

The second half is a repeat of the first,  but with more square passes from Ipswich and fewer successful through passes and crosses, but equally Cambridge hardly get forward at all. Something better change I think and with sixty-six minutes of the game gone forever Kyle Edwards replaces Wes Burns, Lee Evans usurps Dominic Ball and Tyreece John-Jules is the new Conor Chaplin.  Tonight’s attendance is announced as 26,414 with 1,745 being Cambridge fans and they sing “Football in a library, de-de-dur” as they continue to riff on the familiar theme for just a short while longer and sing another song in which at least half of the ‘words’ are really just noises made with their front teeth.

Everything is in place for the seventy-second minute, which arrives on time and sees Lee Evans play the ball out to Marcus Harness whose low cross is brilliantly but inadvertently flicked up in the air by a Cambridge defender. From where I’m sat it looks like the ball spins up and drops down under the cross bar, but in fact Tyreece John-Jules is the man to apply the coup de grace and Town lead 1-0.  What a relief, and once again the substitutions have worked almost instantly, as if some sort of magic wand has been waved.  Tonight, there is no fear that the magic will be undone with a sudden unwarranted equaliser and the reason for this is that within two minutes Town score again, this time Kyle Edwards possibly shaping up to cross the ball, but instead launching it into the far top corner from an improbable distance and bearing. It’s not luck, it’s the law of averages; if you cross the ball enough sooner or later a defender will deflect it favourably for you or a cross will go straight into the goal.

With fifteen minutes of normal time remaining Portman Road is filled with the noise of the home supporters emitting “lo-lo-los” and “Ei-Ei-Os” for all their worth. The transformation from the relative quiet of five minutes before is astonishing and the Cambridge chants of “Sing when you’re winning” don’t really begin to describe how fickle we are in our support for our team.

Kayden Jackson replaces Freddie Ladapo and Cambridge makes substitutions too, one of whom is former Town starlet Jack Lankester; the other is Fejiri Okenabirhie whose name is pronounced by PA man Stephen Foster with the verbal dexterity one would expect of a former BBC presenter, even if he was on Radio Suffolk.  The goals haven’t changed the game tonight, Town continue to plug away and Cambridge can only defend.  Sam Morsy hits a post with a shot which looked to be about to hit the net, and then with four minutes remaining of normal time a Tyreece John-Jules shot is blocked and spins across the penalty area, Kyle Edwards reacts with an alacrity that makes the Cambridge players around him look like they’ve been rolling joints for the past hour and steers the ball into the Cambridge goal with the outside of an outstretched foot.  

The ensuing joyful songs and chants are too much for the Cantabrigians, many of whom begin to head back to the sanctuary of the A14.  Four minutes of added on time are played and then it’s history, Ipswich Town have beaten Cambridge United 3-0, it’s the sound thrashing that we’ve been waiting to give them for thirty years.  It’s just as well revenge is a dish best served cold.