league cup

Ipswich Town Reserves 2 Arsenal Reserves 4

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Arsenal fans seem to get everywhere, like those tiny black insects that you find in picture frames, or like ants in your pantry.  I shared a house in Brighton with one called John, an Arsenal fan that is, not an ant, I also used to travel home from work on the train with one called Alan, I still work with one called Felicia, I used to work with two others both called Chris, a friend went out with one called Ellie, I had a lodger called Mark who was one and my mother worked with one called Yvonne.  As if that wasn’t enough, Osama Bin Laden, Ronnie Biggs and John Lydon were/are also followers.  This evening they will be everywhere at Portman Road because Ipswich Town are playing Arsenal in what is nominally the Football League Cup but is likely to be more like a throw-back to the days of the Football Combination with both teams fielding what are effectively reserve teams mostly made up of players who didn’t start in the team last weekend and won’t start in the team next weekend.

I leave home a smidgeon over three hours before kick-off and meet Gary on the train to talk of having not gone to the Chappel beer festival last week because of the rain and how a woman told Gary she didn’t like him when she first met him and he was able to truthfully tell her he didn’t like her either. The descent into Ipswich then reveals three polar bears all doing passable impressions of furry hearth rugs. Ipswich is bathed in soft early evening, late summer sunlight when we arrive and make for ‘the Arb’ heading up Princes Street, Museum Street and High Street against a background of cumulous clouds and several Grade II listed nineteenth century buildings.  Ipswich is the best I tell Gary, it just needs the gene pool pepping up.  

At the Arb I ‘get’, as modern parlance dictates, a pint of Estrella Galicia for Gary and one of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me (£10 something with Camra discount). We repair to the beer garden to wait for Mick who ‘gets’ more beer when he arrives and a portion of “mini fish and chips”, which looks very good and makes me a tad jealous and regretful that I ate Toad in the Hole at lunchtime and then vowed not to eat again and only drink beer.

Some forgettable conversation and another round of drinks later it is gone seven-thirty and hopefully with no other Town supporters showing such cool by not leaving earlier we at last make our way to Portman Road.  Selecting the queue that looks like it’s shuffling fastest we make our way towards men of Asian descent with wands, and the turnstiles but are ushered to a side entrance like three Mr Benns where magically my mobile phone is interrogated by a man with a cross between a taser and one of those ‘guns’ you scan your shopping with at Sainsbury’s. A quick stop to drain off excess spent Suffolk Pride and we’re ascending the umpteen flights of metal stairs to the top tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand.

Arriving at our seats, the queues to be checked for explosives, scrap metal and weapons outside have resulted in us missing the first three minutes and twenty-eight seconds of the match but to our relief the scoreboard still says nil-nil and I check with the bloke who is going to be next to me for the rest of the evening, who isn’t Mick, that we haven’t missed anything.  He reassures me that we haven’t and makes a witty remark, which I quickly forget. I don’t know who got first go with the ball tonight but unusually for the first half the Town are kicking towards the London Road Baptist church end of the ground. Both teams are in their signature home kits; Ipswich beautiful in blue and white, Arsenal with their red shirts and white sleeves looking like Rotherham United in go-faster Adidas stripes . “You know who we are” chant the Arsenal fans and I guess they probably know who we are too or otherwise they would never have found their way to the right football ground. We are of course the team who beat Arsenal in the only Cup final the two teams have ever met in.

Seven minutes are nearly up and some bloke in red with white sleeves with a stupidly high number on his shirt (fifty-six) jinks past a slightly ponderous Cedric Kipre and Arsenal lead one nil.  “Bugger” I say under my breath.  “We are the Champions, the Champions of England” chant the Arsenal fans.  It’s a chant which in its attempt to boast fails almost as one that goes “By far the finest team, Norwich has ever seen”.  We all know that the real words to the song are “We are the Champions, Champions of Europe”, which sadly for Arsenal they are not.  They (Ipswich) were doing alright until you got here” jokes (I think) the bloke next to me who isn’t Mick. He could well be right.

“He shudda gone down there” says a depressingly worldly-wise pre-pubescent voice behind me as Nunez is clipped lightly when traversing the centre circle.  Fourteen minutes are nearly up. “Come to see the Arsenal, You’ve only come to see the Arsenal” chant the visiting fans and I reflect on how hard it would probably be for Town fans to inject sufficient sarcasm into a chant of “Yes, yes, of course we have”, but I wish they’d have a go.  A minute later and Arsenal score a second goal as Town give the ball away and their number twenty passes the ball into the net.

It is the nineteenth minute, and Town have their first shot at the Arsenal goal courtesy of a bloke called Florentino whose signing for the Town must have passed me by; I felt I had to admit to Mick that I hadn’t heard of him before, but found that nor had Mick.  “ITFC!” shouts the worldly-wise kid behind us and the clock ticks forward to the point where Gary exclaims “We’re kicking the wrong way” and a woman walks up the gangway next to us who I think looks a bit like the late Tony Hancock.

With the twenty-sixth minute, possibly the highlight of the first half for the Town is Outtara overlapping down the left, crossing the ball, Flemming touching it back and Nunez shooting over the bar to general applause. Six minutes later and the Arsenal fans in the Cobbold Stand still can’t stop telling us that they are the champions, the champions of ….England!  It’s a chant whose repetitiveness inspires Town to gain two corners in quick succession before the Arsenal fans begin to enquire “Is this a library?”, a question which I always understood was ‘invented’ at the famously dull Emirates Stadium.  In front of us, a man who looks a bit like the late Jimmy Savile might have looked with short hair leaves his seat in anticipation of the half-time break and behind us a woman complains loudly about people standing in the gangway, which as far as I am aware never happens in the Suffolk County library Northgate Street.  It’s an incident that has me suggesting to Mick that people should be strapped into their seats like on a fun-fair ride. “Ah, I knew there was a fascist in you somewhere” says Mick.

The half ends with the Arsenal fans’ most ironic chant of the evening as they sing “Bus stop in Norwich, you’re just a bus stop in Norwich” when Arsenal literally is a tube stop on the Northern Line.  A minute of added on time is announced with an air of excitement, which it inevitably fails to live up to and half time arrives.

The football resumes at four minutes past nine and at six minutes past nine Town are losing by three goals, although Mick and I blame this on a sudden distracting explosion of white light from the advertising hoardings around the pitch. It reminds me, with a bit of artistic license, of the lighting at the Brighton Centre in 1981 when I saw The Who perform ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’.  Coincidentally, but perhaps not, Roger Daltrey is an Arsenal fan.

Despite the early disappointment, Town rally as Anis Mehmeti is put through on goal but fails to shoot, although Arsenal are then awarded their first corner and two minutes before the match enters its final third a fourth goal results from a shot from the edge of the Town penalty area, which strikes the inside of one post and pings across to the corner of the net behind the other.  It’s another good goal and I reflect that it’s a bit like watching Paris St Germain, except of course that they’re not the champions of England.

With an hour passed into history, now is the time for substitutions, and Chuba Akpom and Jack Clarke replace Jaden Philogene and Zian Flemming.  The results are instant as Clarke typically jinks past some bloke in a fake Rotherham shirt, squares the ball and Mehmeti passes it into the Arsenal net like a hot knife through butter, which has already been out of the fridge for several minutes. Easy.  Flushed with success, Gary O’Neill soon makes more substitutions with Davis and Eggy replacing Outtara and McAteer.  Nothing much happens at first, but with ten minutes left Town trash Arsenal in the corner count by three to one, unless I missed some, but then Arsenal get one back before tonights attendance is announced as being 28,566 and seemingly the greatest excitement of the evening for some home supporters is the sight of Arsenal fans in the ‘home’ stands revealing themselves as such and being ejected from the ground.

Finally, a sensible two minutes of added time turn up and another break down the right and a squared ball for Town finds Chuba Akpom, who pirouettes and scores into the corner of the Arsenal net with a smidgeon of help from an Arsenal player’s back.  There’s barely time for the scoreboard to catch up with the present and the game is over, with Ipswich yet again out of the League Cup, but not to lower league opposition as so often used to happen under Mick McCarthy, but to the champions of England, or at least their reserves.   

Ipswich Town 3 Leicester City 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

The English Football League Cup, as it was originally called back when participating in or watching the sport of football was more important than just the money that could be extracted from people in the process, is a curious competition.  The French abandoned their version of it, the Coupe de la Ligue, a few seasons ago, and I’m pretty sure the Germans, Italians, Spanish, Dutch and Belgians have never even had one.  But the Scots have one and it seems that in Britain we are suckers for a secondary cup competition, and as if to prove the point non-league football has tertiary, quaternary and probably quinary cup competitions too; more than you can shake a floodlight on a stick at in fact, floodlights on sticks being essential on the late summer and autumn evenings when these early round cup ties are played.

I liked the League Cup more in the past, before the invention or discovery of “energy drinks”, when the early rounds were over two legs, guaranteeing away trips to exotic locations such as Torquay, Wigan, Exeter and Stockport.  But despite Ipswich having reached the semi-finals four times (losing all of them of course) I do wonder “what is the point?”, and possibly so did the Town XIs that in recent years lost at home to Newport County, and Colchester United.   Famously, for former Town manager Mick McCarthy, it was a badge of honour to exit all cup competitions as soon as possible.  Tonight, Town have drawn five times finalists and three times winners of the competition, third division Leicester City.

It’s been a bright, warm, late August day beneath a clear blue sky, although I’ve been mostly indoors, eking out the final sixteen days of my working life.  Just before five o’clock I catch the train to Ipswich, which might be on time, and Gary joins me at the next station stop to talk of couples in which one partner is much older than the other and to look for polar bears; we spot two, both not surprisingly and reassuringly in Wherstead.  On arrival in Ipswich, the train draws unexpectedly into Platform Two, but it doesn’t worry us unduly and we stroll calmly across the forecourt-cum-plaza and up Princes Street towards ‘the Arb’, where I am first to the bar to order a pint of Estrella Galicia for Gary and one of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for myself (£10.70 with Camra discount). We retire to the beer garden and a table where we can sit without the sun in our eyes.    Gary wears his replica 2026/27 season Ipswich Town away shirt this evening and I remark that this cream top with narrow black and red bands appears to be a popular choice for the mature gentleman, with at least two other grey-haired old duffers sporting one in the beer garden this evening. As expected, time passes and Gary buys a second round of drinks, a repeat of the first.  We talk of TV quiz shows and attending the Chappel beer festival and I ask Gary if he is no longer on his diet; he isn’t.  Gary doesn’t manage to finish his second pint of Estrella Galicia before we decide to leave for Portman Road and judging by the loud fart he emitted earlier as we walked here, for which he did apologise, I think he’s probably a bit dyspeptic this evening.

In Portman Road, at one of the booths that look as if they might sell ice creams but don’t, we each buy a programme after I first ask how much they cost.  I am prepared to pay £3 but not £4 for a programme and whilst Gary points out that the £4 programme is probably better value for money in terms of pages, I tell him that the programmes are full of “old rubbish” anyway, so I am therefore happy to pay proportionately more for less.  Tonight’s programme has an interesting and unusual front cover depicting an unlikely scene of a flying carthorse about to knock over the League Cup with its front right hoof whilst an upset looking fox takes evasive action.

The queues to be checked for weapons, explosives and scrap metal are shorter than on Saturday and move more quickly, and we are soon breezing through the commemorative turnstile, No 62 and ascending multiple flights of metal stairs to our seats in the top tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand, where the public address system is so loud I imagine it might be possible to successfully sue the club for causing hearing damage.  When the teams eventually appear from the ‘tunnel’ I don’t notice them at first because of the absence of the usual accompanying balls of flame, confirming this fixtures’ status as something more akin to a meaningless pre-season friendly.  The game begins with Leicester City having first go with the ball, which they try and kick mostly in the general direction of Vets4Pets on Handford Road, where they are bracing themselves for a sudden influx of squashed foxes, and carthorses with bruised fetlocks.

Leicester are parading a necessary change kit of burgundy, maroon or possibly dark red shirts ,with white shorts.  Ipswich are adorned in their signature blue shirts and white shorts. It might be my failing eyesight but momentarily from time to time, when they’re at the far end of the pitch, I can’t tell the two teams apart.  Ipswich start well and Chuba Akpom is shooting wide of the goal within thirty-five seconds, with a noisy crowd fully behind him.  But the joie de vivre doesn’t last long and before ten minutes are up the Leicester fans are asking “Is this a library?” through the medium of opera.

Fifteen minutes of our lives have been lost to history and the game is dull. All around me people sit impassively, staring ahead, not speaking.  The sky above the Sir Bobby Robson stand is pale blue but growing darker and a faint red smudge can be seen through the metal girder above the roof as the sun goes down. Three or four silhouetted seagulls ‘bust some shapes’ on the roof the West Stand as if auditioning for the opening credits to a new Bond movie. A man in a smart suit, who looks like Ken from the BBC tv sitcom Citizen Smith, appears at the top of the steps into the top tier of the stand and then turns around and goes back down the steps.  “Sorry mate” says a girl in her teens to a man in his seventies as she gets him to stand up as she returns to her seat having perhaps been for a pee.

Twenty-four minutes have been lived and lost and something vaguely football-like happens, the home crowd stirs from its slumber. “We forgot, we forgot, we forgot that you were here” chant the Leicester fans to the tune of Cwm Rhondda; I wish they’d forget they were here too.  Town win a corner and then another and Dara O’Shea’s header is saved by Leicester goalkeeper Stolarczyk. There are now ten minutes left until half-time and Town win a third corner before Leicester get one too, courtesy of an interrupted shot from Conor Chaplin and with five minutes remaining Leicester’s Olabade Aluko is the first player to feel the wrath of referee Mr Lewis Smith and his bright yellow card after a foul on Eggy.  Mr Lewis is clearly now making his own entertainment and awards a corner to Leicester to punish Town goalkeeper Christian Walton for apparent time-wasting.  Leicester proceed to take more time over the corner kick than Walton took over the goal-kick, which if the laws of the game are to be consistent should I think mean that Town now get awarded a goal-kick for Leicester’s time-wasting.   Eventually, the corner kick is headed over the Town cross bar before a minute becomes as much time as the officials dare to add on.

With the half-time whistle, Gary and I descend into the bowels of the stand, or at least its chest cavity, where we meet Gary’s nephew Dan, who is here with his wife Sarah, but she is still sat in her seat up in the moderately fresh evening air. Down here in the guts of the stand the air smells positively stale and a bit sweaty to be honest, not pleasant at all.

At ten to nine the players return to the pitch to once again attempt to find the secret to entertaining football and possibly a goal. Quickly, Town succeed, but the ‘goal’ is deemed offside, a particularly harsh decision, even if correct; like taking food away from a starving man because the best before date was yesterday.  Meanwhile, the Leicester supporters chant “He’s one of our own, He’s one of our own” about some youth or other in their team and I question if that’s really a good thing, before wondering what it is of their own that he is one of? A juvenile delinquent? Sex offender?  Leicester city councillor? 

The game moves on, plagued for a while by the ball mysteriously being deemed to have gone out of play and by offsides not visible to the naked eye.  The final third of the match looms up out of the night and the Leicester fans offer a cheery, allegro rendition of “When the blues go marching in”, which compares very favourably to the dirge-like version of the same song favoured by the Town supporters.  When the hours mark arrives, Leicester flinch and make the first substitutions, Within two minutes Town take the lead as for the first time Jack Clarke has plenty of space down the left to run into before his accurate low cross is swept masterfully into the corner of the Leicester goal by Eggy, a player whose goalscoring ability is kept largely hidden when he is used as a winger who only passes the ball back and to the side.

From here, the game picks up, as Town win another corner, Cedric Kipre is booked and the crowd in the Sir Alf Ramsey stand get far more enthused about the ejection of a couple of Leicester fans from the Cobbold stand than anything that has happened on the pitch. Quickly however, Leicester win a corner and equalise with a header from Aluko, who no one had bothered to mark.   “Premier League, You’re ‘avin’ a laff” chant the Leicester fans to the tune of Tom Hark in their curious east Midland’s dialect.  They’re not wrong, Mark Ashton and Co  are ‘laffing’ all the way to the bank, for the time being anyway.

As the game enters its final twenty minutes Town take the lead again and in fine style, Nunez instinctively squeezing the ball in off a post from outside the penalty box, and then with Town 2-1 up Wes Burns arrives as substitute for Leicester to much adulation.  Happily, Burns makes no impression on the game at all and as the final ten minutes turn up, we are told that there are 21,559 of us here tonight, Town make more substitutions and weirdly a few people suddenly shout “Blue Army” as if they are afflicted with Tourette’s syndrome.

Two minutes of normal time remain and for the second time this evening Chuba Akpom is through on goal with just the Leicester goalkeeper to beat.  Last time his shot rolled beyond the far post, this time it is saved.  Akpom needs Jack Clarke to teach him how to the curl his shots around the ‘keeper and inside the far post.  Ipswich have another corner for what it’s worth. “Come On Leicester” implore the visiting fans, who presumably wouldn’t mind having to stay late to watch penalty kicks. 

I’m getting ready to get up as the final minute lands from eternity and as if Portman Road has been strangely blessed something rather wonderful happens as from the mundane surroundings of the centre circle Nunez looks up and lobs the ball high into the night air towards Norwich Road.  The ball comes down off the underside of the Leicester City cross bar and into the goal net with Stolarczyk not being able to work out its trajectory before his team are 3-1 down.  It’s a magnificent goal, one of those that might have people questioning one another as to whether they would have been happy to pay a tenner just to see that and then go home. 

Anyone who does arrive very late only in time to see that goal, gets to see six minutes of added on time as well, but despite some end-to-end action there are no more goals and ultimately Ipswich are relatively comfortably through to the third round of the League Cup.  If Mick McCarthy were dead, he’d be turning in his grave. 

Bromley 1 Ipswich Town 1 (Bromley win 5-4 on penalties)

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These are the dog days of summer.  So named, Wikipedia tells us, because it’s the time of year when Sirius the dog star rises in the night sky. These are hot, humid days and the portent of ill-luck to some apparently,  It’s an appropriate time therefore to start the domestic football season, although I count myself lucky enough to have already dabbled in the exotica of the European Conference League back in July when I witnessed Haverfordwest County take on Floriana Malta in cosmopolitan Llanelli.

The Football League and FA Cup have already staged a staggered start over the past two weekends, but I eschewed them in favour of applying satin finish emulsion and gloss on the upstairs landing.  Today however, I have knocked off work a little early and now feel myself gently melting into the moquette on the 15:48 to London Liverpool Street as I embark on the epic journey to the deepest suburbs of southeast London, specifically Bromley.  It’s a journey that has been in the planning several weeks since Ipswich Town drew Bromley in the Football League Cup, which I believe is now known by younger people, duped by the concept of ‘energy drinks’, as the Carabao Cup.  Whatever happened to Milk?

 I have had a difficult few weeks since the draw was announced, wondering whether to travel by planet saving electric Citroen e-C4, or to reduce traffic on the roads and catch the train and risk being stranded in the big city if the game went to extra time and penalties.  But having learned that extra-time is now consigned to the dustbin of football history along with Dickensian sideburns, ‘dolly birds’ and the teleprinter I gained the confidence to sign up on the Bromley FC website, along with my friend of forty-seven years Chris (aka ‘Jah’ because of his love of Reggae) and acquire two tickets for the North Terrace (£19 each for over 65’s).

 I meet ‘Jah’ by platform 4 at Victoria Station, which today is doubling as a greenhouse.  By twenty to six we are on the packed train to far away Ramsgate which fortunately stops at South Bromley.  On the train, it seems like we are the only two people talking to one another, which is a good thing because my hearing isn’t what it was.  We quickly get the subject of the ‘Bromley contingent’ out of the way and share memories of having seen Siouxsie and the Banshees respectively in Durham and at the Ipswich Gaumont, but ‘Jah’ gains the greater credibility because he probably saw them in 1978, about the time ‘Hong Kong Garden’ was released, whereas I had waited until at least 1980.

Arriving at South Bromley railway station we emerge onto the broad high street and look up and down expectantly in the manner of Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly on shore leave in New York.  But they had twenty-four hours, we only have two before kick-off at Hayes Lane.  We are drawn towards two policemen stood at the edge of the pavement, presumably on the look-out for “football hooligans”. We ask where to find the best of Bromley and they point us back towards the railway station implying that the best thing is the train out. Eventually, they direct us up the high street to “plenty of pubs and restaurants” and down the road to the “Bricklayers” which is the pub for away supporters.

Bromley is apparently the only town with a Football League team to also have a tory MP and from the comparative absence of empty shops on the High Street it certainly looks like the kind of place that can afford to say “we’re alright, we don’t care about you”.  Eventually arriving at a large Fuller’s pub called The Partridge, formerly a rather grand branch of the National Westminster Bank, we drink pints of Butcombe Rare Breed pale ale and reminisce about girls we once knew, a record player Jah owned when we were students and how his wife played pool with a family of Irish butchers in a Stockport pub.

Time moves on and so must we, to the Bricklayers Arms pub, which is much closer to Bromley’s Hayes Lane ground. Pints of Shepherd & Neame Whitstable Bay and Master Brew accompany packets of plain, and cheese and onion flavour Kent Crisps for about fourteen quid and we search out seats where we can hear each other above the noise of the television, which is belting out Sky Sports pre-match coverage from just down the road, which might explain why it’s so loud. Very soon however kick-off is a mere twenty minutes away and we must up-sticks again, with Jah not even having managed to finish his pint.

We make it through the turnstiles at Hayes Lane just as flames erupt into the evening sky from what look like darkly painted tea chests, and the two teams take to the field. I look in vain for a programme seller, but the game is about to start and so screwing up my disappointment into a knotted ball of resentment I head with Jah towards the partly open North Terrace.  “Don’t worry” says Jah, like a reassuring parent “You’ll probably find one on the floor on our way out at the end of the game.”   We make our way across the front of the stand and up the steps past the inevitable youth with a drum to a secluded spot beneath the shallow roof at the back of the terrace from where only one corner flag is obscured from view by the scaffolding tower atop which sits a Sky Sports television camera.  I convince myself that karma will reward me for sacrificing my full view of the pitch so that unknown couch potato subscribers to satellite television across the world may see all. Jah and I are stood behind a man with impressively well-conditioned, clean, brown, almost shoulder-length hair, which Sky TV viewers will probably not see.

The match begins and Bromley get first go with the ball, booting it towards the southern end of the ground where the Ipswich supporters are assembled to one side of a modern stand which looks like a very large grey shoe box that has had one side cut-off. On the rear wall of the shoe box neat letters spell out ‘The Glyn Beverly Stand’ which only in my mind is an anagram of ‘Clarks Kickers’. In reality, it simply seems that Bromley FC like to name the architecture of their ground after people who only supporters of Bromley FC are ever likely to have heard of. The John Fiorini Stand looks out on the tea chests whilst a little nearer to us just by the turnstiles is the Dave Roberts tea hut.  All along the eastern side of the pitch is a building site, one half of which shows recognisable progress with steel girders and concrete blocks arranged in the form of an embryonic but as yet disappointingly nameless stand.

Back on the pitch, Bromley are in an all-white kit with black trim, whilst Ipswich sport a cheap looking all red number, which closer examination reveals has blue scribble on the sleeves.  Bromley have very hastily won a couple of corners, and whilst the home crowd off to our right are noisy and excitable, the football shows room for improvement.  Ipswich are keen on the flanks but lack accuracy with crosses and presence in midfield.   Town’s Jack Clarks moves nicely but mostly runs diagonally like a stray dog.  Bromley are organised and alert and that’s about it.  Just as my thoughts are that it would have been nicer to have stayed in the pub, Jah distracts me by asking how I would define the beard on the face of the steward stood at the front of the stand.  The same steward also inspected the contents of Jah’s bag before we came through the turnstiles, when Jah had asked him if he was South African. It turns out he is French, but this doesn’t influence me in my decision that his beard resembles that of Ming the Merciless, who with the fall of his empire is now reduced to stewarding midweek matches for lower league clubs.

Half-time approaches with the memory of Ali Al-Hamadi having failed to make more of being put through on goal with just the ‘keeper to beat, Conor Chaplin whipping a shot narrowly over the cross bar and Jack Clarke having a not particularly hard shot stopped with a diving save.  For those around me one of the highlights of the half seems to have been receiving texts from friends and loved ones at home watching Sky Sports TV telling them that Ed Sheeran is in the crowd.  The chants of “Ed Sheeran, your music is shit” to the tune of Sloop John B would be understandable anywhere but are particularly so from inhabitants of a town where someone used to be next door neighbour to David Bowie.

The half ends with a corner to Bromley from which their second tallest outfield player, Deji Elerewe, scores with a header from improbably close range.  What had been a neutral half of inaccurate football, abusive chants and a shoe box has taken on a new level of disappointment for me, which I can only hope to assuage by obtaining a programme.  Jah fancies eating a pie, which doesn’t surprise me given the size of his stomach, but he foolishly says he’ll wait until I get back.  I return to a point close to the scene of my entry into the ‘stadium’ but can see no hint of a programme seller, only a couple of queues of thirsty, or hungry Bromley fans snaking away from the Dave Roberts tea hut.  I ask a young steward who is guarding the John Fiorini stand where I might find a programme and am surprised when he directs me to the tea hut. Excitedly I join the shorter of the two queues but there I stand for at least five minutes without progressing any closer to the hatch where I had expected to see a busy exchange of teas, programmes, cash and card payments.  Looking back towards the pitch to check that the second half hasn’t started yet I see Jah has now joined the other queue and having not seen anyone depart the tea hut hatches with a programme I decide they must be sold out and I abandon the queue to stand with Jah.  Eventually, Jah reaches the hatch only to discover that the pies (and indeed the programmes) have all sold out; unsure of what foodstuff can adequately compensate for the lack of meat, gravy and pastry in his diet this evening, Jah buys a Twix.

The players are by now back on the pitch and play has re-started as we head back to enjoy our slightly obscured view of the second half.  Jah eats his Twix, only to find that the chocolate coating has mostly melted, which is why Twixes will never replace pies.  The football is much the same as the first, but my spirits are raised after about ten minutes when substitute Ben Johnson scores for Town, although I do also start to worry that a draw and resultant penalty shoot-out will risk my missing my train out of here.  In truth, it is probably fourth division Bromley who have the better chances to score in the remainder of the game, despite Ipswich eventually introducing the players more likely to be considered ‘first choice’.   

There is something inevitable about the game descending into a penalty shoot-out, but that’s probably just because neither side looks capable of scoring another goal.  Our over-65 tickets now prove particularly good value as the penalty shoot-out takes place in the goal right in front of us, rather than at the far end where our obviously failing eyesight would render events somewhat mysterious. Hopes for catching the first available train home quickly receive a filip  as Town’s top striker George Hirst strikes the first penalty poorly and it is saved, although in my heart of hearts I’d rather it hadn’t been.  But a penalty or two later Bromley’s Ashley Charles, who to my out of date mind has the name of an actor rather than a footballer has his penalty saved too and I’m once again checking the time of the next train.  The first ten penalties pass into history with both teams scoring four and then the  hopeful release of  “sudden death” or “Mort Subit” as the French and Belgians call it arrives.  Death is indeed mercifully sudden as Bromley score their next penalty, but Ali Al-Hamadi doesn’t and for the umpteenth time this century Ipswich are knocked out of the League Cup by lower league opposition.  I can’t decide if Ipswich are consistently careless, uninterested, over-confident or just useless, but whatever it is, Town’s record in the League Cup has now become so atrocious that it is no longer embarrassing, it’s just what happens and there is no point bemoaning it. We can but look forward to next season’s defeat to Colchester, Swindon, Cheltenham, Newport, Wimbledon, Crawley, Newport, Bristol Rovers, Reading, MK Dons, Stevenage, Northampton Cambridge, Exeter, Leyton Orient, Barnet, Gillingham, Peterborough, or Bromley again.

Disconsolate but accepting of our fate I leave Hayes Lane with Jah and together we head back to South Bromley South railway station past the backs of people lauding their team at the front of the stand.  The one plus is that as I leave, as Jah predicted, I find lying on the concrete of the North Terrace a discarded or dropped programme which, after enquiring if it is the property of the people standing nearest, I claim as my own.  Life is never all bad I conclude.

Ipswich Town 0 Watford 0

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As the football season begins to draw to its close, I sometimes start to look ahead and see what few fixtures are left, conscious that all of this will soon be over and when it returns summer will be almost gone too.  Since last weekend I have therefore occasionally thought of Watford,

As far as I can remember, I have only ever known three Watford FC supporters.  The first one I knew for just a fortnight back in 1982, when I worked for the Department of Health and Social Security  and was sent on a course to distant Stockton-On -Tees.  He was what might commonly be called a bit of a ‘Jack the lad’ and he had driven up north in a small saloon car with go faster stripes and a tinted windscreen, which might even have had his name printed on a sun strip across the top.  He was the sort of bloke who wore white socks and loafers and had a small moustache.  I worked with and occasionally played five a-side football with the other two, both of whom I would describe as suburban; they both had neat hair and doubtless still have.  That’s how I think of Watford, suburban.

I first saw Ipswich play Watford in a League Cup quarter final tie in January of 1982. It was the first time the two clubs had met since Boxing Day 1956, and a factor in this is that it had taken Watford from 1920 until 1969 to even get into the Second Division.  The Observer’s book of Association Football describes how in 1969 Watford were promoted as Champions and simultaneously earned a reputation as a Cup team, by drawing at Old Trafford and then the following season beating Bolton, Stoke and Liverpool. “But…” says the pocket-sized book “…second division life was hard”, which I think is a veiled reference to two seasons in the bottom five followed by relegation in 1972.   But that was over fifty years ago and a club that once fielded players called Roy Sinclair, Ray Lugg and  Barry Endean is now home to Edo Kayembe, Mileta Rjovic and and Vakoun Bayo.

When I talk of Watford to my wife Paulene she recalls what, judging by the pained expression on her face, was one of the worst nights of her life, when in about 1977 she was taken to a nightclub called Bailey’s.   It was full of Stag and Hen parties she recalls, and the headline act for the night was ‘comedian’ and children’s TV presenter (Runaround) Mike Reid, who picked on her because she wasn’t laughing.  She’s not been laughing ever since, except when I fell in the garden pond a few summers ago.

It’s now a cool, drafty, grey evening. After fulfilling my filial duty and visiting my surviving aged parent, I am now as ever in ‘the Arb’, stood amongst a knot of people at the bar , some of whom seem to be trying to form a queue.  When did people start queueing at bars in pubs?   As I say to the bloke next to me “It’s a free for all”, policed only by the bartender’s uncanny and yet unerring ability to know who’s next.  Eventually,  with a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.78 with Camra discount) in hand, I repair to the beer garden and wait for a bowl of “Very French, French Fries” for which, now looking back, I think was ludicrously overcharged,   because I paid about £13.00 for the chips and the beer.  Perhaps it’s Karma for jumping the imaginary queue.

I sit and flick through the match programme (£3.50) that I bought earlier.  I only paid £3.10 for the programme today because I had an impressive 40 pence worth of loyalty points amassed from previous purchases from the club shop, which I am now beginning to think of as being a bit like the Co-op.  After drinking my pint and eating my chips I buy a second pint and listen to the conversation on the next table, where three old blokes denigrate the oeuvre of Taylor Swift, questioning whether her work will in fifty years’ time compare to that of The Eagles, Paul Simon and Elton John, all of whom are heard travelling through time via the speakers above our heads. 

By and by I am the only person left in the garden who is going to the match, and so in order not to miss kick off I leave too.  Portman Road and the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand are busy with queues for the turnstiles and by the time I reach my seat the teams are already on the pitch and Murphy the stadium announcer is beginning to announce the teams as I say good evening to Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), and check on the presence of ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood.  Murphy completes his hat-trick by synchronising for the third match in succession his reading out of the Town team with their names appearing on the scoreboard, allowing at least Phil and myself to behave like Frenchmen and bawl out their surnames as he announces them.

Predictably, kick-off soon follows a stirring rendition of Hey Jude and Town, in traditional blue and white, get first go with the ball, sending it hopefully towards the goal just in front of me and my fellow ultras. Watford meanwhile are in yellow shirts and black shorts, although their shirts appear to have been daubed with black paint across the front or dragged across a tray of soot. It’s one of those kits that exposes the folly of having a new kit every season because after not very long the good people of Puma, Hummel, Juma and Kelme clearly ran out of ideas and possibly motivation;  and who wouldn’t, a polyester shirt is after all just a polyester shirt.

“Blue Army, Blue Army” chant the militaristic Sir Bobby Robson standers and I am struck by how few Watford supporters are here given that it’s only 150 kilometres away.  “Wo-oh…” sing the Watfordians that are here, followed by something unintelligible  before chanting what sounds like  “Oh when the horns go marching in” . Above us the sky turns bluey grey as darkness descends.  In front of us I notice the Watford goalkeeper has the name Bachmann across his shoulders and I wonder if in fifty-years’ time the live performances of Taylor Swift will be remembered like those of Bachman Turner Overdrive.

Ten minutes pass and Keiffer Moore heads a Kayden Jackson cross disappointingly high and wide.  AT the far end of the ground “Ole, Ole, Ole” is the refrain after the bit that goes “We support the Ipswich, and that’s the way we like it…”. I don’t know the tune but don’t think it’s by Taylor Swift. Another five minutes pass and after the evening’s first particularly good outbreak of passing Town sadly earn no more than a throw in. From the top tier of the  Cobbold Stand it sounds like the Watford fans are singing “Alternate Steve, Alternate Steve”  which makes very little sense but sounds like a plausible nickname for that Watford fan I met in Stockton On Tees in 1982.   My reverie is broken by a Nathan Broadhead shot which Bachmann must dive on to deny us the pleasure of a goal.

Nearly twenty minutes pass and Watford win the game’s first corner, but thereafter it is Town who  begin to dominate. Omari Hutchinson makes a fabulous jinking run in to the penalty area before squaring the ball to a Watford defender and Kayden Jackson darts down the wing, crosses the ball and Keiffer Moore imperiously side foots it into an empty space on the un-netted side of Bachmann’s left goal post. “We forgot that you were ear” sing the Watford fans puzzlingly, but  to the tune of Cwm Rhondda, which is nice if you’re Welsh.  Watford’s number four Wesley Hoedt then kicks his own goalkeeper and referee Mr Barrot (like Carrot or Parrot but with a ‘B’) gives them a free-kick.  I count eleven seagulls stood on the girder above the Sir Bobby Robson stand.

There are only ten minutes until half-time now and Nathan Broadhead turns neatly, glides towards goal and shoots,  at Bachmann, but the way he moved across the turf was a beautiful sight. A minute later Broadhead shoots again. This time, his shot goes beyond a diving Bachmann and I begin to rise from my seat to celebrate the inevitable goal, but for a moment the laws of physics are seemingly suspended and the angle of incidence no longer equals the angle of reflection as the shot hits the inside of the goal post,  but then curls out across the face of the goal instead of deflecting into the net as  science and natural justice insists it should have.

The last five minutes of the half witness Sam Morsy shooting at Bachman and then a Harry Clarke cross is headed powerfully down into the net by Keiffer Moore but Bachmann’s reactions go into overdrive and he pushes the ball away hurriedly for a corner before ball and net can be united.  Two minutes of added on time follow repeated chants of “Come On You Blues “ from me and ever-present Phil before the corner as like the chorus in a Greek play Pat from Clacton repeats her mantra of “two of us singing, there’s only two of use singing”.  Drums beat in the far end of the Cobbold Stand and I’m struck by how smart Mr Barrot and his assistants look in their orange shirts with black shorts; if I were a Watford player I think I might see if he’d be willing to swap at the end of the game.

With the half-time break I chat to the man from Stowmarket before speaking briefly with Dave the steward, Ray, and his grandson Harrison. At nine minutes to nine the game resumes with prophetic chants of “Come on Watford, Come on Watford, Come on Watford” , and they do as they begin to dominate possession and run around like someone’s cracked open the anti-depressants and they’ve all been slipped a few ‘bennies’ with the half-time tea.  On the hour almost, and Vaclav Hladky makes his first save of the night as a fierce snap shot hits him in the chest and goes off for a corner, and then they get another.

It feels like we’ve just been waiting for a respectable amount of time to elapse before making substitutions and so it proves as in the sixty-third minute Luongo, Chaplin and Sarmiento  move in at the expense of Taylor, Jackson and Broadhead. “Jeremy Sarmiento, he’s magic you know” sing the Sir Bobby standers to a tune I don’t know, but which could be by Taylor Swift.

Twenty minutes remain of normal time remain. “Over and in” says Pat from Clacton quietly coaching the team before rooting through her purse for a lucky charm that will work some magic. She picks out Ganesh with his elephant head and four arms, who could be useful at corners, although he’d probably like to see a few Hindus in the team before he promises too much.  There are currently no seagulls on the roof of the Sir Bobby Robson stand.  Pat’s prospects of winning the ‘predict the score’ draw on the Clacton supporters bus seems slim, she’s drawn two-all. But as Fiona says, with Ipswich this season you never know.  Murphy announces the attendance as  being 28,589, but mysteriously doesn’t tell us how many are from Watford as if perhaps we wouldn’t believe him.  He nevertheless thanks us for our ”continued support”, although I’m getting bored with him saying that every single week and think he should just tell us how really lovely it is to see us all again.

The final twenty minutes don’t see Town really come close to scoring, despite Ganesh, and Watford win a couple of corners as I wonder about Mr Q, which is the sponsor’s name on the front of the Watford shirts. I think of Mr Plow (Plough in English), in series four of The Simpsons  and Mr Potato Head in Toy Story,  but hope Mr Q is a second hand car dealer or industrial cleaner somewhere on a Watford industrial estate; he sounds like one.  Then George Edmundson is kicked on the ankle and has to be replaced by Luke Woolfenden and our chances of bringing on a late attacking substitute who would be bound to score are dashed.  Despite two corners, chants of “Blue and White Army, Blue and White Army” , and four minutes of added time Town fail to score at home for just the second time this season and for the first time in 2024.  But just to remind us how lucky we really are a freakish punt at goal from the half way line has to be batted away by a desperately back-peddling Vaclav Hladky in the dying seconds. There were days when that would have gone in.

Just like when we played  Grimsby on an April night in 1992  on the way to winning the Second Division Championship, the game has finished goalless.   It’s not what we wanted,  but at least it’ll stop me thinking about Watford. 

Ipswich Town 1 Fulham 3

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

I have been at work all day today, since before eight o’clock; not working at home as I usually am, but in ‘the office’, experiencing first-hand the sounds and smells of my fellow human beings and colleagues.  It’s been a long day, but now at nearly five o’clock I can release myself from the yoke of gainful employment and look forward to knocking off early tomorrow afternoon because I have clocked up an unseemly amount of flexi-time.  But I strive to live more in the moment, and before tomorrow afternoon’s idleness comes the hopeful pleasure of League Cup football at Portman Road, as second division Ipswich Town confront first division Fulham.

 It was almost exactly fifty years ago to the day that I first saw Ipswich Town play Fulham, and uncannily, or more probably just by mere coincidence, it was also in a League Cup tie, albeit a replay.  Like today, Ipswich were riding the crest of a wave, enjoying a season in which we would go onto beat Southampton 7-0 and win both legs of the Texaco Cup final against Norwich City, and in which we had already despatched Real Madrid and Lazio from the UEFA Cup and the then mighty Leeds United from the League Cup. Town were the only domestic club to beat Leeds United in the 1973-74 season before late February when Stoke City inflicted upon them their first League defeat of the season, and how everyone cheered, because everyone hated Leeds United back then; even Leeds United hated Leeds United back then.  Fulham would be the first second division team I ever saw. Town won 2-1 that night, but as I recall, and as the scoreline hints, it wasn’t an easy win.  My father was in the Royal Navy back then and was able to get his hands on the complimentary tickets to the director’s box that the club provided for the captain of HMS Ganges at Shotley.   We had those seats in the directors’ box for that match and as Town struggled to get the better of Fulham, I remember drawing disapproving glances from people who must have been Fulham officials as I shouted out “Come on Town, you can beat this lot, they’re only second division”. Tonight, fifty years on, the tables are turned.

It’s not much past six o’clock when I enter ‘the Arb’ and order a pint of Wolf Brewery Howler (£3.70 with Camra discount).  After a delay to look at a menu, I also order chips with chicken and chilli (£8) before retiring to the beer garden in which there only four other people, two young blokes, and a large woman who swigs beer from a bottle; she is with a smaller man who has a glass of fruit juice; they are  a drinks-based version of Jack Spratt and his wife.  Later, the man and woman will leave to be replaced by two couples and another man on his own.  Not unexpectedly for the first night of November, it’s not warm, and it’s breezy too.  I drink my beer and eat my food and try to read the programme (£3) that I had bought earlier in the club shop. But the light is dim, and I find it hard to read the small typeface.  I cannot find any mention of the match of fifty years ago in the programme, only the less specific reminiscences of  Simon Milton, who before becoming famed in the writings of Dave Allard of the Ipswich Evening Star as “the former paintsprayer and van driver from Thetford”, lived with his parents in Fulham.  I buy another beer, this time a pint of Nethergate Compete Howler (£3.87 with the Camra discount).  The two blokes beside me talk about television programmes they have seen.  One of them has seen a programme about prison inmates and says “One of them was a serial kidnapper and torturer, so he kidnapped people and tortured them.”  They ramble on to discuss cold hands and wearing hats and thermals, and a television character who had a “New York twinge” to his accent.

With no Mick with me tonight, because he has to attend his daughter-in-law’s birthday celebration, I sup up my beer and leave for Portman Road a bit earlier than usual.  Portman Road is busy and my path along it is regularly blocked at ninety degrees by queues for the Cobbold Stand. The mass of people at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stands is so dense that I don’t even attempt to negotiate it and instead walk around the old Churchman’s building and approach from Russell Road, which is much easier, although I still have to queue for a few minutes to get to my beloved turnstile 62.  I feel a sense of achievement as I successfully pass through the turnstile using the QR code on the e-mail on my mobile phone, and to think, I failed my Physics ‘O’ level. Tonight, by way of a change, but mainly because the flat rate ticket price of £20 is an opportunity to sit somewhere ‘better’ than the cheap seats where I usually sit, I have purchased a seat in the upper tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand.  Thinking of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand as Sir Alf’s face, if my usual seat is somewhere on his chin or at the corner of his mouth, tonight I am up on his left cheek, at the corner of his eye, where in the days before Kieran McKenna the seats were probably always damp with Sir Alf’s tears.

I am in good time to see the teams parade onto the pitch tonight and hear stadium announcer Murphy attempt to enthuse the crowd with mention more than once of “being under the floodlights tonight”. Murphy proceeds to make a complete hash of reading out the teams, hurrying through the names like they’re a shopping list, failing to synchronise with the big screen as the faces of the players appear on it and failing to pause at all between first and second names so that the crowd can bawl out the surnames as if we were French. I do the best that I can to shout out those surnames, to the amusement of the two young men next to me, but Dom Ball is a step too far and in the mouth of Murphy sounds like Doughball.   Murphy then reads out Elkan Baggott’s name and number twice; if he read a bit more slowly, perhaps he wouldn’t make so many mistakes.  “Murphy, you’re bloody useless” I call out and the blokes beside me laugh again.

The game begins and Fulham get first go with the ball, kicking it to their best of their ability in the direction of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand, Handford Road and Akenham and Barham far beyond.  Ipswich are wearing their traditional blue shirts and socks and white shorts and it’s pleasing to see that Fulham are also wearing their signature kit of white shirts and black shorts, just like they did back in 1973, although this year they have black sleeves also.  “Super Fulham, Super Fulham FC” sing the visiting supporters up in the Cobbold stand.  The opening action on the pitch is muddled and uncertain. It’s as if the teams know not everyone has taken their seats yet, so they’re waiting a bit until we’re all in before beginning in earnest. The seats behind me and in front of me are empty.  In the dullness of the early minutes, I notice how the bottom tier of the Cobbold Stand is painted matt black, like the interior of a 1980’s theme pub.  The Ipswich supporters in the other end of the Cobbold Stand and the Sir Bobby Robson stand are singing, but sound like they’re in the next room.  “Go on!” says the bloke next to me suddenly as a Town player gets the ball, and several in the crowd clap in time to the Sir Bobby Robson stand supporters singing “Addy, addy, addy-O”.  The row in front of me is being  filled with small children and their parents along with three teenage girls with very long straight hair, lots of make-up and hands grasping polystyrene containers full of chips.

Nine minutes have gone and as Fulham push forward Ipswich suddenly seem to have no left-back. Fulham exploit the oversight and the fulsomely named Bobby Decordova-Reid provides the wide pass that allows Harold Wilson time to take off his Gannex raincoat and light his pipe before taking the ball around Christian Walton and rolling it into an unguarded goal net. Fulham lead one-nil, which wasn’t expected. “Que sera sera, Whatever will be will be, We’re going to Wemb-er-ley” sing the Fulham fans joyously, and the two blokes next to me laugh.

“Here for the Fulham, You’re only here for the Fulham” sing the Fulham fans partly gloating and partly realising that they can’t see many empty seats, but more probably ironically acknowledging that no one other than a Fulham supporter would normally go anywhere to see Fulham.  Twelve minutes have gone forever, and referee Mr Lewis Smith awards the first free-kick of the game, to Fulham.  I notice that the name on the shirt of the Fulham number three is Bassey, and I wonder if he’s known as Shirley.  Ipswich now lose their right-back somewhere and in the aftermath Janoi Donacien deflects a Fulham shot onto the Town cross-bar.

Ipswich haven’t done much so far by way of creating goals of their own, but Kayden Jackson has a shot deflected past the post for a corner after Fulham generously give the ball away. “Come On You Blues” I chant four times making the blokes beside me laugh, but no one else up here makes a sound.  Janoi Donacien heads over the crossbar.  “We’re on our way” sing the Sir Bobby Robson Stand alluding to hoped-for promotion, which seems an odd thing to sing at a League Cup tie. These millennials eh?   From where I am sitting, I can see the top of the roof of the West Stand and forty years of accumulated lichens and grime; the stand looks quite old-fashioned and industrial from here, I rather like it.    

Back on the pitch, and Town’s passing isn’t always reaching its intended recipients, there is a degree to which these players don’t look as though they have played very much together before tonight.  “What’s going on here boys?” calls a bloke behind me, whilst another just says “Fucking shit”.  The Fulham fans meanwhile enjoy themselves with a snippet of opera to which they sing the words “Is this a library?”  and indeed, the Ipswich crowd is doing what it does best, keeping quiet in adversity.  Sone Aluko  draws some appreciation however, with a fine cross-field pass to Kayden Jackson and Mr Lewis then gives a  free-kick to Fulham, the bloke behind me exclaims “ That’s bloody bollocks that is”.  

  As the game enters its middle third, Mr Lewis suddenly remembers his yellow cards and books Marcus Harness, Fulham’s Sasa Lukic and Town’s Jack Taylor, although none of them had done anything particularly heinous.  If it was an attempt by Mr Lewis to get the crowd to sing about him it worked, and he is treated to numerous renditions of “Who’s the wanker in the black?”   which many a Welsh chapel or colliery choir would surely be proud of.   The young blokes beside me laugh, twice.

Half-time draws ever closer and both sets of fans have gone quiet, it’s that kind of a game.  Four minutes until half-time and the Fulham fans blink first and blurt out a song of encouragement, albeit just “Come on Fulham, Come of Fulham” which sounds more forlorn and desperate than it does inspiring, as if the words “Oh for God’s sake” have somehow been edited out. Just a minute before the first half is due to expire, and following a corner, Christian Walton has to make a save from a shot by Shirley Bassey.  Three minutes of added on time are announced by Murphy, although I doubt he’s got it right, and Town have the ball for a brief period. “Now we go, now we break” says a bloke behind me, but he’s wrong, and we don’t.  Half-time comes as a relief when it arrives and so I go downstairs to drain off some surplus ‘Howler’ and ‘Complete Howler’.

Having returned to my seat, there’s not much to enjoy about half-time. Murphy interviews some local boxer and makes an arse of himself by speaking like a boxing bout compere, but when that’s over I enjoy the fountain-like pitch sprinklers and the odd names of what I assume are children attending their first matches tonight; I hope Jonah doesn’t live up to his name and wonder about the origins of Beau and Guinea.  If I have a dull moment before the Swansea City game I think I might write to the club claiming I shall be attending my first match and that my name is Kermit or Beaker. I always liked the Muppets.

At nine minutes to nine, according to my mobile phone, the football resumes. Five minutes in and Fulham lead two-nil as a well angled cross from the Fulham right is tucked into the Ipswich goal from about seven metres out by a Brazilian called Rodrigo Muniz. If there is anything wrong with the Ipswich Town squad at the moment it is that we don’t have enough foreign players. As World Cups repeatedly show, teams of players who aren’t from Britain are invariably better than ones who are from Britain.  Impressively the Fulham starting eleven fields just a Welshman and a Scot as the only representatives of the British Isles.  “Who are ya, Who are ya?” chant the Fulham fans inquisitively, as if to say “you can’t be anyone special because you’re losing to us”, which is a fair point.

Whilst Town came back from two-nil down to beat First Division Wolverhampton Wanderers in the previous round of the League Cup, what has happened so far tonight does not suggest such a comeback will happen again this evening and indeed Fulham continue to pass the ball amongst themselves most of the time and Ipswich don’t.  Much of the remainder of the game belongs to the Fulham supporters whose chanting is as close to witty as football chants ever get.  “We love you Fulham” whilst not witty sounds heartfelt, but the singing of the Internationale with words altered to speak of shoving “your blue flag up your arse” is amusing both because it is directed at Britain’s greatest poseur football club Chelsea, and because it resurrects memories of Fulham’s most famous fictional fan, Citizen ‘Wolfie’ Smith.

“One of ya!” bawls a bloke behind me as Kayden Jackson and Sone Aluko both go for the ball at once and both miss it, and then the increasingly creative Fulham fans begin to sing about their former, but now deceased owner Mohamed Al-Fayed, although I guess they could be singing about his son Dodi.  I have no idea what they’re singing, but I imagine it’s fun. With time running down, Town bring on Elkan Baggott, a young man who apparently has nearly as many Instagram followers as the club itself.  With their team comfortably two goals up the Fulham supporters surpass themselves with the surreal chant of “Shit Leyton Orient, you’re just a shit Leyton Orient” to the Latin strains of Guatanamera. The young blokes beside me laugh, and so do I at what I think might be the first genuinely funny football chant I have ever heard.

There are twenty-one minutes of normal time remaining as George Hirst and Omari Hutchinson step forward onto the pitch charged with the task of pulling back two goals, and Freddie Ladapo and Janoi Donacien sink back into what look like knock-off sports car seats where the dugouts used to be.  “Blue and White Army” chant the home crowd, digging deep for some optimism and Murphy announces tonight’s attendance “here at Portman Road”, just in case we wondered where we were, as 28,221 including 1,685 Fulham followers. 

“We can still do this” people are surely thinking to themselves drawing on the spirit of Escape to Victory, but then Fulham break down the right and Tom Cairney scores from about 12 metres out shooting at and through Christian Walton.  A legion of faithless, soulless, part-time Town supporters get up and leave, the clatter of their tipping up seats sounding like sarcastic applause to the imaginative ear.   The game is lost it seems, but hope springs eternal, and consolation and a large two-fingers to the receding backs of all those who have just left the stadium comes just two minutes later as Town win a free-kick and Elkan Baggott stoops to head the ball into the Fulham goal and Town once again trail by only two goals, not three.  The last ten minutes of the match runs down with barely renewed hope, but the home chants suggest we don’t care anyway because “E-i, E-i, E-i-o, Up the Football League We Go”, and apparently that’s more important than getting to the next round of the sort of trophy Norwich City were once capable of winning.  We only came out tonight for a laugh, or the blokes next to me did, and they leave early too.

The last minutes of the game are some of Town’s best, but Fulham don’t look likely to give up the ghost just yet and Hallowe’en was last night anyway.  A stonking eight minutes of time added on give us incurable romantics another dollop of hope, but whilst Omari Hutchinson, Dominic Ball and Kayden Jackson all manage shots on goal, none of them realises the prize and Town’s League Cup run is over yet again.

Ultimately, it has been a disappointing evening.  It’s not been a great match; it was okay, but Fulham were too good for Town’s second- best team, who never really did much, but we knew it had to end at some time or other.  At least we can’t lose at home to Birmingham City in the next round like we did in 1973.