Lee Evans

Ipswich Town 1 Derby County 0

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I have been in the office, where I now work just one day a week, since eight o’clock this morning and it’s now half past four in the afternoon.  I have wasted enough of my day just existing and accumulating the means to continue my shallow, feckless Western lifestyle, now it’s time to live and be shallow and feckless.  I check my mobile telephone. At 16:12 I received a message from Pat from Clacton. Pat tells me she was joking last week when she told me she would not be at the match tonight, but then proceeds to tell me she won’t be at the match tonight.  Pat says she’s still suffering the after-effects of Covid, which apparently includes heavy breathing. As much as watching a football match with a 1968 vintage Jane Birkin appeals to me, it’s probably best for Pat that she stays in Clacton tonight.  The good news however is that Pat won £51.25 playing whist whilst on holiday in Great Yarmouth, but the real point of the message, I think, is to ask me to photograph ever-present Phil who never misses a game when he celebrates Town having scored a goal.  Pat from Clacton always photographs ever-present Phil when he celebrates a Town goal at Portman Road, it’s a ritual like a state funeral or pancakes on Shrove Tuesday.

Tonight, Town are playing Derby County in a third division fixture, something that has never ever happened before in this universe, like Boris Johnson telling the truth.  If casually asked how many times I had seen Derby County play I would have guessed at a mere fifteen or sixteen. In fact, I have discovered that Derby County are one of twenty professional clubs I’ve seen play over thirty times.  Despite two League Championships, Brian Clough and Robert Maxwell, Derby County have seemingly made little impression on me, perhaps because of their anonymous monochrome kit or their uninteresting out of town stadium which has meant I know little of Derby itself. What is Derby famous for? Rolls Royce engines and East Midlands airport?  Still without answers to these questions time passes and a little short of two hours after receiving Pat from Clacton’s text message I walk through the front door of the Arbor House formerly the Arboretum pub; it’s heaving with Friday night revellers. I order a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£4.00) and a Scotch egg (£4.50) and retire to the beer garden to wait for my Scotch egg and the arrival of Mick.  As the evening light recedes into darkness I struggle to read the programme (£3.50) I had bought earlier in the club shop after I left work, but this is partly because the programme is hopelessly dull too, despite its rainbow colours on the front page, which also features an un-flattering cartoon image of George Edmundson in which he looks uncannily like Kryten from the BBC TV comedy series Red Dwarf.

By the time Mick arrives I’ve eaten my Scotch egg and am amusing myself with a private mobile phone-based exhibition of the photos from my holiday in Brittany whilst unavoidably hearing the conversation of the middle-aged couples on the next table which concerns whether they would go to a concert by Ed Sheeran at Portman Road. The consensus seems to be that they would go “just to say they’d seen him”.   It seems to me a bit like flushing a couple of fifty-pound notes down the khasi.  Over by the window to the gents’ toilet two old boys, possibly on their way to, or from, a ‘Tarts and Tramps’ fancy dress party shuffle in, one wears a floppy hat and talks loudly about the range of beers at the Moon and Mushroom pub in Swilland, whilst the other sounds like he’s growling.

When Mick arrives he buys us both pints of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride plus a packet of Fairfield Farms cheese and onion flavour crisps, which pleasingly have only travelled from Wormingford near Colchester, some 33 kilometres away.  Our conversation this evening is punctuated with laughter as we discuss burials and the disposal of people’s ashes and how people seem to have become strangely sentimental lately.  With kick-off not until 8 o’clock this evening, courtesy of Sky TV’s broadcasting schedule, we have more time than usual to laugh about such things and don’t notice everyone else leaving for the match and it’s closer to kick-off than usual when we eventually leave, making a sharp exit through the back gate.

Portman Road and Sir Alf Ramsey Way are less busy than usual when we arrive because most people are already inside the ground.  As I hasten through the turnstiles, I can hear former BBC Radio Suffolk presenter Stephen Foster ‘giving it large’ as he reads out the team line-ups in his archetypal radio DJ manner; he sounds even more Tony Blackburn than usual tonight, no doubt for the benefit of Sky TV. By the time I take my seat next but one to the man from Stowmarket, the teams are on the pitch, and the Town team are forming a collaborative huddle preparing to start the match.  It’s Town who get first go with the ball I think, I’m not really paying attention yet as I get to grips with seeing Ipswich wearing all black and Derby in maroon or burgundy shirts and white shorts.  I imagine Derby think they look exotic like AS Roma or Sparta Prague, but they remind me of Northampton Town.  As for the Ipswich team, they look like Johnny Cash, though I guess that’s preferable to looking like Ed Sheeran.

With the start of the game come the chants from both sets of supporters, Derby transporting us back to the 1970’s by repeating “Derby, Derby, Derby” over and over again to the tune of ‘Amazing Grace’, just like Town fans used to chant “Ipswich, Ipswich, Ipswich” in that run to the FA Cup semi-final in 1975, the year Derby last won what I believe is now called the Premier League.  “Score in a minute, we’re gonna score in a minute” continue the Derbeians less nostalgically but more optimistically.  “Addy, Addy, Addy-O” add the Town fans from what in 1975 was the North Stand, and there are even a few chants of the same from the top of what was the West Stand.  It’s a sign that the stadium must be as good as full to capacity.

 A young bloke with a beard sits himself down in Pat from Clacton’s seat. I give him a look like Paddington Bear. “Is this seat free” he asks a little nervously. “Well, there’s no one sitting there tonight” I tell him in a voice that’s as close as I can get to sounding like a Suffolk Johnny Cash.  He smiles broadly.  I think I’ve put him at his ease.  On the pitch the play is frenetic, with both teams trying to play neat, passing football but frequently interrupting one another. Sam Morsy is booked after just ten minutes for a foul on the wonderfully named Lewis Dobbin. Ipswich have more success at getting close to their opponents’ goal and win three early corners, George Edmundson heads wide and Tyreece John-Jules clearly dives in the penalty area having won a few free-kicks already elsewhere.  I thought it was an obvious dive; the way he had already established eye-contact with referee as he fell gave it away, a bit like a Labrador staring at you as you eat your dinner.  He should be told to leave any desire to cheat in North London where it belongs, or Kieran McKenna will write to his mum.

“Come on Dorby” comes the chant from the Cobbold Stand and I think I detect a hint of a Midlands accent. Soon the away support are riffing on a familiar theme,  “Football in a library, de-de-dur” is followed by “No noise from the Tractor Boys” and “Shall we sing a song for you” as the youth of Derby vainly goad the pensioners and families in the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand, who stoically wait for Town to take the lead before thinking about whether they might start to clap or break a smile.  But the ground has gone a little quiet, they’re right.

The half is half over and Derby equalise in the competition to see who can have most players booked as  the name of James Chester is recorded in referee Mr Swabey’s notebook.   The game is almost a third over before Derby win their first corner.  “Are you alright mate?” says the bloke behind me to his son, who answers “Yeah”.   My view of the pitch is temporarily blocked as the people in front all stand up to let pass someone, who I guess couldn’t wait thirteen minutes until half-time for a pee.  A chant of “Blue and White Army” builds quickly and then falls away just as soon.  I notice that Derby have no sponsor’s name on their shirts.  “Peter Sykes, please contact the nearest steward” announces the voice of Stephen Foster.  I look but can’t see anyone approaching their nearest steward. It’s not that the game isn’t holding my attention, it is, and it is unpredictable, but the goalkeepers could have made hammocks from their goal nets and it wouldn’t really have mattered.  Perhaps to relieve his own boredom, Derby ‘keeper Joe Wildsmith gestures wildly at the linesman for not flagging Kayden Jackson offside.  The linesman predictably ignores the wild Wildsmith,  but would probably secretly like to give him ‘the finger’.   The half ends with hopes of a goal as Town win a free-kick on the edge of the Derby penalty box.  Children at the front of the stand prepare to video the event with their mobile phones, but their youthful hope and enthusiasm is dashed as Lee Evans shot avoids the defensive wall but not Joe Wildsmith. Three minutes of added on time are announced with a flourish by Stephen Foster but bring forth nothing to justify his optimistic tones.

The half time break sees me join Ray, his grandson Harrison and Harrison’s dad Michael ‘down the front’ where I encourage Harrison to buy ‘Shufflemania’, the new LP by Robyn Hitchcock which is released today.  Ray regales me with a story about his dad who used to drive the Ipswich Town team bus in the 1960’s.  Ray’s dad was known as ‘The Cat’ by the Town players and he maintained that this was because he would play in goal in 6 or 7-a-side warm up games when only twelve or thirteen players would travel as there was only one substitute allowed, and before 1965 no substitutes at all.  Ray was to find out later from a Town player of the period that his dad wasn’t called ‘The Cat’ because of his goal keeping prowess, but because late one night, having returned from a distant away trip , he backed the bus off Constantine Road and over the club cat.

The second half begins with renewed vigour from Ipswich and Derby fans alike who both sing “Ole, Ole, Ole” as if vying with one another in some sort of choral competition.  The encouragement seemingly works and just seven minutes into the half we witness the first shot from open play that is worthy of the name as Marcus Harness conjures up a half-volley that is blocked.   It’s a symptom of Town now dominating possession and looking the team most likely to score.  In the Cobbold Stand the Derby fans sing a song which to my ears sounds as if it’s about a man, possibly called Michael, who found an octopus, but I doubt that’s right. “ We forgot that you were here” respond the Town fans in the old North Stand in a curious role reversal; I conclude that the half-time break can do funny things to people and to prove the point the Derby fans produce a chant which sounds like the theme from the Addams Family, but then it is nearly Hallowe’en.

The second half is a better ‘watch’ for home fans even if it is ‘all up the other end’ from my perspective in the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand. In the sixty-seventh minute it all gets much better still as Kayden Jackson breaks down the right, loses the ball but carries on running as the unsuspecting Derby defender decides on a back pass which is nothing more than a pass to Jackson who shoots on goal.  The ball hits the post but rebounds to Wes Burns who has plenty of time to hit the ball into the net and give Town a lead which they now probably deserve, and they haven’t even made any substitutions yet.  I remember to take ever-present Phil’s photo for Pat from Clacton as Phil and his son Elwood hold their arms aloft whilst grinning joyfully.  “E-i E-i E-i-o, Up the Football league we go” sing the Town fans, and not to be outdone the Derby fans sing the same before deciding that they would be better served by a chorus of the sneering “Sing when you’re winning, you only sing when you’re winning.”

Tonight’s attendance is announced by Stephen Foster as 28,415, with 1,777 of them being the people who have been shouting all evening about Derby and what poor supporters Ipswich fans are. Ipswich continue to be the better team however, and Kayden Jackson shoots the wrong side of the goal post, substitutions are made and with seven minutes left former Town player David McGoldrick tries to make amends for collecting much of his salary from Town whilst not actually playing, by kicking Wes Burns in the penalty area.  After pausing to decide if he should really give Ipswich a penalty, Mr Swabey points to the spot.  It seems he was right to pause for thought because sadly Town will waste the opportunity given to them.  “Jackson’s taking it! ” says the bloke behind me somewhat incredulously and his surprise proves well-founded as Kayden’s kick lacks both the pace and accuracy required unless the goalkeeper dives the wrong way.  Wildsmith dives the right way and the score remains 1-0. 

“Ken Rodwell, contact the nearest steward” announces Stephen Foster perhaps making up a surname laced with double entendre to help reduce the tension of the closing minutes as Derby win a rare corner.  Seven minutes of added on time are announced and at the first stoppage in play four Town players collapse to the ground.  I don’t think they’ve got the hang of this time-wasting thing, they’re surely meant to go down one at a time? 

Time moves on inexorably. “Got to be it” says the bloke behind me after what he thinks seven minutes feels like. “Got to be it” he says again a short while later and then again. “Got to be it, innit” he says before saying “Got to be” at least twice, and then inevitably it is it, the final whistle, and a tidal wave of relief floods from the stands, not because Derby had looked like scoring, but just because no one has any faith that Town can win a match that’s shown live on the telly, well they just did.

Ipswich Town 3 Cambridge United 0

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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.

Shrewsbury Town 0 Ipswich Town 3

/ martinpbrooks / 1 Comment

My first encounter with the ancient town of Shrewsbury was in the August of 1969 when on a family holiday to Aberystwyth.  Shrewsbury was a convenient overnight stopover on our coast-to coast journey and I recall peering through the rain-streaked rear window of the family Ford Cortina as we arrived in the evening rush hour in Shropshire’s county town and sought out the bed and breakfast recommended in the AA guide; I think it was named after a local priory or abbey.  Thirteen years later my father and I returned by coach to see Ipswich dumped out of the FA Cup at Gay Meadow. We did the same again two years later.  My last visit to Shrewsbury was almost 35 years ago to the day, on 22nd August 1987, to witness a goalless draw in the Second Division. Today my return will re-kindle old memories and reveal the delights of the ‘New Meadow’.

I spent last night at a hotel in nearby Telford, where I drank a pint of Camden Pale Ale, a beer that tasted so heavily of citrus my mouth felt all evening as if I’d eaten a whole tub of lemon sorbet.  This morning I take a short walk from my hotel after breakfast and decide that if the residents of Telford were true to the architecture of their town, they would still all have big hair, shoulder pads and the sleeves on their jackets would be rolled up.  I didn’t much like the 1980’s and I am happy to quickly make the short hop to Shrewsbury having first filled up the petrol tank of my trusty Citroen C3 and discovered that fuel is 5p per litre cheaper at Sainsbury’s in Telford than it was on Thursday in Ipswich.  At the Meole Brace Park and Ride site near New Meadow, it costs a fiver to park and then walk to the football ground.  If you pay £2 to ride the bus into Shrewsbury and back however, the parking is free, and you get to ride on a bus, twice.  With an eye for a bargain and a bus trip, I arrive early and catch the bus.

Shrewsbury is a fine town to roam around for a couple of hours, with scores of fab buildings to see, I particularly liked the stained-glass windows of St Mary’s church, the ‘new’ market hall and the ‘cosmic egg’ as well as street names such as Mardol, Dogpole, Grope Lane and Bear Steps.  At the castle I look down upon the site where Gay Meadow used to be.  On Mardol I drink a pint of Castle Eden Golden Harvest Ale (£3.80) in the King’s Head pub, where the bar maid shows me the medieval wall paintings and even takes me out into the street to show me the interpretive signage telling the history of the neighbourhood and how in the sixteenth century it used to be the red-light district.  Oddly she also tells me that her name is Maggie May after the Rod Stewart song and that Maggie May was a prostitute; sadly, I don’t get the opportunity to tell her that Maggie May was in truth just an ’older woman’; although the Maggie Mae that the Beatles sang about on the ‘Let It Be’ album was a prostitute.

My mind swimming with the delights of Shrewsbury Town centre, which as medieval towns go really only tops Ipswich due to more exciting topography, I catch the bus back to Meole Brace from where I will walk to the football ground.  The New Meadow can be seen across fields from the road outside the Park and Ride and again, after a stroll through a retail park, from a nearby railway bridge; it’s not an architectural gem of a football ground but the cantilever steelwork has a certain appeal.  The club shop beckons as I have instructions to purchase a cuddly gnome to add to my wife’s collection of football club soft toys. The shop is much, much, smaller than I had anticipated and with its modest display of replica kits on hangers it has the feel of a walk-in wardrobe. I find the necessary gnome (£9.00) and a match programme (£3.00) and make my purchases.  Placing the chosen gnome in a plastic bag, the woman in the shop explains, as she rolls her eyes, that she won’t put my programme in the bag too because she knows that some people like to keep their programmes flat.

With time still to spare until kick-off I watch Town fans watching the team alight from the team bus, and then eat two Marks & Spencer chicken and ham sandwiches (£3.50) that I bought in the retail park. It starts to rain, and I shelter behind a brick wall. Happily, it was just a shower and after enjoying a poster of a former Shrewsbury player called Ken Mulhearn, whose fantastically coiffured hair looks like he may have modelled 1970’s knitting patterns,  I take a look at the ‘Fanzone’ which, showing how enlightened Shropshire is, is available to both home and away supporters. Music plays, it’s a song by the Smith’s and I think how it is somehow from a different 1980’s to the one in central Telford.  Fans queue for fizzy beer, there is a ‘festival atmosphere’ and in a converted shipping container at one end of the Fanzone an elderly man in replica shirt sits behind a desk, whilst another man in late middle age with a blue and yellow scarf wrapped around his neck announces the result of a prize draw; a woman holding a beer and a man with very poor posture look on; I feel as if I’m at a village fete.

Eventually, I make my way to turnstile 18 and after seeing ever-present Phil who never misses a game, in the toilet,  and bumping into a man named John and another called Ray, neither of whom I have seen for at least three years, I take my place in row M seat 18.  “Shrewsbury‘s a shit hole I want to go home” chant some Ipswich fans across the aisle from me to the tune of the Beach Boys’ ‘Sloop John B’.  I can only assume they have recently discovered irony, because I have found Shrewsbury to be a smashing little place.  In the corner between the main stand and the away end I see house martins swooping and diving, I love our summer visitors but sadly have seen very few this year at home.  In due course, the game begins, with Town having first go with the ball and for the first time wearing this season’s red and black striped away shirt. Shrewsbury Town meanwhile sport yellow and blue striped shirts with blue shorts, as does their lion mascot who unimaginatively is called Lenny.  Ipswich are playing towards something called the Salop Leisure Stand, whilst Shrewsbury are aiming towards the DMOS People North Stand, where I and my fellow Ipswich fans are spending the afternoon.

Town quickly win a corner and it is the Tractor Boys who are making all the noise with someone banging a drum and a child behind me shouting in an ear-hurting high pitch, as children do. Kane Vincent-Young takes the ball around the goalkeeper and looks set to score but is apparently tackled fairly, although those around me believe otherwise and bay for a penalty. “You’re Welsh and you know you are” chant Town fans to the Shrewsbury fans presumably implying that there is something wrong with being Welsh rather than just providing an insight into the number of people in the local telephone directory with surnames such as Davis and Pugh.  It is racism, but the English, Welsh and Scots have a reciprocal agreement on abuse enshrined in the Act of Union of 1707.  Marcus Harness has a low shot saved at the near post by Shrewsbury ‘keeper Marko Marosi.

On the touchline Kieron McKenna is wearing what from a distance looks like a white cardigan, it’s not to my taste but it shouldn’t affect the result, I hope, although Town are living dangerously at times at the back by insisting on drawing Shrewsbury on to them with daring passes between defenders in our own penalty area.  “Your ground’s too big for you” chant my accomplices in the DMOS People North Stand having quickly totted up that there are a good 2,319 empty seats in the 9,875 capacity stadium.

I look at my watch, it’s only a quarter past three, it feels like it’s later.  Perhaps to help the passage of time the town fans air a new song to the tune of The Dave Clark Five’s 1964 hit ‘Glad All Over’, which celebrates the fact that. “we’ve got; Marcus Harness”.  Sam Morsy gets booked for an unnecessary and at worst petulant kick or trip on Tom Bayliss.  Like many third division teams, Shrewsbury’s approach is physical and bullying, but Ipswich are possibly the bigger bullies so far today. But all of sudden, like the sun streaming through the clouds that play across the Shropshire countryside, some superior skill shines through as Tyreece John-Jules slaloms past a defender and scores in to the bottom right hand corner of the Shrewsbury goal; Ipswich Town lead 1-0 and it’s a bit beyond twenty past three.  Town are the better team but are now proving it and continue to do so by preventing Shrewsbury from getting anywhere close to the Ipswich goal.

Tyreece John-Jules looks like he is through again on goal but is called offside and the home fans are so quiet the Ipswich supporters dare to chant “Na-na-na, football in a library”, which is something that I would frown upon.  As the first half draws to a close Cameron Burgess gives Shrewsbury the gift of a corner kick with an inelegant  sky-high clearance, but despite bouts of all in wrestling between opposing players Ipswich manage to clear the ball up field.  Two minutes of added on time ensue, which the PA announcer tells us are sponsored by Reece Media, “designed to deliver”.  I wonder to myself if the sponsors pay more depending on the amount of time that is to be added on; a first-half with lots of stoppages could potentially end up with spectators thinking of Reece Media for minutes on end.  The closing act of the half is Ipswich winning a corner, but as so often happens, nothing comes of it .

I pass half-time eating most of a Nature Valley Oats and Honey Crunchy bar but then I spot a man called Richard who is eating a hot dog at the front of the stand. Richard and I have previously journeyed together to such exciting locations as Coventry, Sunderland, Blackpool and Nottingham and he even wrote this blog once when I was in a coma.  We catch up on the intervening years and whilst we do so a large, probably overweight, young man walks by on chubby legs and vomits, and as he does so he mystifyingly appears to try and catch the vomit as it is propelled from his mouth.  “Why would you try and catch it?” asks Richard rhetorically. 

I threaten to contact Richard about possible future away trips and as drops of rain begin to fall we part, eager to forget what we have just witnessed.  At five past four the football resumes and Shrewsbury quickly win a free-kick which leads to an unsightly melee in the Ipswich penalty area, but we are strong today and successfully out muscle the home team.  Above the Salop Leisure Stand a small murmuration of starlings swoops and pulses like a weird flying muscle and Tom Bayliss levels up the score for yellow cards after he fouls Lee Evans.  In the next sixty seconds a fine move down the left to Leif Davis allows him to send a square ball to Conor Chaplin who shoots from at least 20 metres out with his left foot into the bottom righ hand corner of Marosi’s goal.   Ipswich lead 2-0 and it’s another fine goal which Shrewsbury came nowhere near preventing. There could never be another Eric Gates,  but if in the inevitable dystopian future our Tory overlords decree for reasons of insane political dogma that there has to be one, I’d like it to be Conor Chaplin.  Eric’s goals of course went more top corner than bottom corner.

Town go close to scoring again. Leif Davis is getting loads of space on the left. Kane Vincent-Young gets to one of Leif’s crosses but that’s all, and the ball orbits up and over the away supporters. “ Two-nil to the Tractor Boys” we sing and the noise carries on but without too much very interesting happening on the pitch.  Then it changes, and Town dominate, and Sam Morsy shoots over the cross bar from 25 metres. Cameron Burgess receives a head injury and dons a dark bandage, he’s big enough to be our third division Terry Butcher.

It’s gone half past four and Shrewsbury make substitutions because they have to do something; Caton and Bowman for Udoh and Pyke, and Bloxham for Da Costa.  Ipswich quickly follow suit. Jackson and Ladapo for Vincent-Young and John-Jules, but not because we have to, just because we can. Kayden  Jackson soon wins a corner and  Lee Evans heads wide.   Harness and Chaplin who have been magnificent are replaced by Edwards and Aluko.  Shrewsbury win a rare corner but it’s just a platform for Ipswich to break away up field and win another corner of our own.  Above the Salop Leisure Stand the mini murmuration of starlings reappears and settles on the two floodlights that project from the roof of the stand and look down on the pitch.  In the same way that twitchers gather to see rare birds, it seems that shropshire starlings gather to watch decent football.   A lone house martin swoops and dives above the pitch, picking off the insects Sam Morsy hasn’t already crushed.

The attendance is announced as being 6,556.  “Here for the Ipswich, you’re only here for the Ipswich” chant the now gloating Ipswich fans whilst also being simultaneously and illogically scornful of the ‘small’ crowd.   Full-time approaches and after another slick passing move Freddie Ladapo side foots weakly into Morosi’s grateful arms.  Six minutes of added on time are announced and after just two, more approach play down the flanks finds Morsy in the middle. Morsy shoots; his shot appears to be going in but is blocked on the goal line,  but the ball rebounds to Kayden Jackson whose leg is in the perfect position by accident or design to place the ball perfectly between Shrewsbury defenders and into the net. Three-nil to Ipswich and there’s barely time for Shrewsbury to have their consolation ‘only shot of the game’ which Matthew Pennington helpfully boots directly at Christian Walton.  “Head for the corner” shouts an excited and deranged looking young man dancing on the steps in front of me, who clearly has a view on the way to ‘see the game out’.  He needn’t have worried. It’s Ipswich who finish the game with another corner kick just to sum up their domination of this fixture.

Euphoria reigns in the DMOS People North Stand as elsewhere the stands empty in silence.  It’s a love-in at our end of the ground. Importantly, I get to see that Kieran McKenna isn’t wearing a white cardigan, although I’m not sure what it is, a sweatshirt perhaps?  Brimming with the happiness only a 3-0 away win can induce, I head back to the Meole Brace Park & Ride unaware that I wont get out of the car park until 6 o’clock.

Ipswich Town 0 Colchester United 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It took me several days to get around to buying a ticket for this season’s annual August Tuesday evening embarrassment, otherwise known as the League Cup first round, but when I finished work on Monday afternoon I logged onto the ITFC website and characteristically, due to the difficulties I have with technology, printed myself off four tickets, fortunately all for the same seat. Fifteen quid is a lot to watch Col U, especially when twelve months ago it only cost a tenner to see the 1981 European Cup Winners Cup quarter-finalists Newport County, but sixty quid would have been beyond the pale, whatever that means.

I recall being quite excited at the prospect of Newport last year, but despite it being a much more local derby than our recognised derby versus Norfolk’s finest, this game tonight is not doing a lot for me.  My enthusiasm had been further sapped during the afternoon by being serenaded as I sat in my office by the raucous and vacuous chants of Colchester United supporters.   If my productivity took a tumble this afternoon, I’m not surprised.  “How do you think, we’ll do tonight” says the bloke in the club shop as I buy my programme (£2.00).  “I have no idea” I tell him honestly, “We don’t seem to do very well in the cups”.  Well call me Nostradamus; or on a Friday night Cassandra.

Regardless of my lack of enthusiasm and optimism I am compelled to follow the usual pre-match ritual at what was once known as the Arboretum. Parking up my trusty Citroen C3 just around the corner, because it’s gone 6pm, I step in off the dusty street to order a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.90). Tonight, with time to kill and the need for sustenance I also have a Scotch Egg (£4.50) and a portion of hand-cut chips (£4.00), and after a respectable interval, a pint of the appropriately named Lacon’s Encore (£3.80). An hour later, stuffed and bloated I head for Portman Road.

It’s a beautiful warm evening and my senses are treated amongst other delights to dappled sunlight dancing through the trees in Great Gipping Street, screeching seagulls, the smell of frying onions and the warm glow of the brickwork at the back of the Magnus Group stand.  I’m almost glad I made the effort to get a ticket after all. My seat tonight is up high in the shady interior of block N but on arrival I find somebody already sat there, I have to explain to him that his seat is actually in Block Y, a few seats away to our left; with his three chums he shifts along. I tell them I’ve done them a good deed because Block Y are the better seats.  I hope in vain that the seats next to me will now remain empty, but it’s not long before another three blokes, all nursing meat pies and plastic cutlery arrive.  “Excuse me” says the youngest brushing past.  I should have blocked his way and asked for the password – “Please”.

In the blink of an eye, or perhaps a little longer, the teams are on the pitch, knees are taken and applauded and Col. U, in rather boring red shirts and black shorts have kicked off defending the goal in front of what was Churchman’s cigarette factory the last time Col U won at Portman Road, which was on 13th October 1951; although in truth they have rarely had the opportunity since then. The noise inside the stadium is possibly the most I think I have ever heard made by 11,654 people at Portman Road. The Col U fans are giving it their all and the Town fans in the Sir Bobby Robson stand (lower tier) are answering back.  For now at least, I am at last glad I printed that ticket, albeit four times.

On the pitch, the Town are soon on the attack and the blokes beside me, who are possibly from the ‘professional classes’ are concentrating deeply.  Behind me a couple of young women seem less enraptured and are having a bit of a ‘catch-up’, although of course women are known for their ability to multi-task.  Seven minutes pass and Col U’s  magnificently monikered number 17, Ossama Ashley dives spectacularly to head a cross away for Town’s first corner. A minute later and Town’s Greg Leigh runs on to a fine Luke Woolfenden pass and shoots across goal, but his shot is saved.  Up in the Cobbold stand the Col U fans are reduced to cheering when they get a goal-kick or throw, before coming over all sullen and spiteful by chanting “Your support is fucking shit” in the time-honoured manner of visiting away fans.  Ten minutes have passed.  Fifteen minutes have now passed and the Col U fans are still singing the same Welsh hymn, pronouncing “fuckin’” with a passion and feeling that only an Essex accent can produce.

Eighteen minutes have passed, Town are dominating but getting nowhere much and I’m ashamed to say I am getting a little bored. I notice the bright new concrete between the Cobbold and Sir Alf Ramsey stands beneath the new scoreboard;  I notice Kieron McKenna’s bright white jacket, which looks like it might be made of Nylon; I notice the fat bloke in front of me whose shoulders are moulding themselves around my knees and I notice a faint fusty smell and can’t decide if it’s the middle-aged woman sat next to me or the fat bloke.

The twentieth minute shakes me from my reverie as a fine move down the right tees up Cameron Humphreys with time and space for a shot on goal from 12 metres or so; he must score. Humphreys blazes the ball so high and wide of the goal I find it hard not to jeer along with the Col U fans. “Bloody Hell” I say to myself as those around me groan despairingly. Five minutes later and Humphreys does the same thing again.  Soon Col U’s Frank Nouble (pronounced Noublay as in Michael Buble) conveniently stays down after a challenge so everyone can have a drinks break. 

In a rare foray into the Town half by Col U, Town fans mystifyingly chant “Who are ya?” at some Col U player or other;  I can’t work out why they would be interested unless he has never previously played for Ipswich.  The ball stays down the Ipswich end for a short while and it looks just a matter of time before  Ipswich are on the attack again. But Rakeem Harper decides to pass the ball onto the penalty area to Col U’s Luke Hannant who is simply unable to miss the enormous target he has been given, and Col U lead 1-0.   There have been some terrible goals given away by Town players in recent seasons and this is up there with the very worst.  I don’t want to cry, so I laugh a stifled, sad laugh, a sort of “Ha!”

In the last third of the half Col U win a corner and then Town do. The bloke beside me says in exasperated tones “We could, should be three-nil up by now”. Kane Vincent-Young heads over the Col U cross-bar and Humphreys completes his hat-trick. “His confidence is just going to go” says the bloke beside me worriedly.  On the opposite side of the ground the Col U fans have at last got round to asking “ Is this a library?” I can only think they had been wracking their brains trying to remember the tune, most of them presumably not being ‘into’ Italian opera.

Half-time brings the reward of a somewhat soft Nature Valley peanut and chocolate protein bar and little else; even Norwich are winning at half-time.  The one enjoyable thing is the glowing reflection of the setting sun on the strip glazing of St Clare House and the AXA building; twentieth century office buildings rule.

At nine minutes to nine play resumes and having remembered La donna e mobile the Col U fans just can’t get it out of their heads.   The match resumes the pattern of the first half, although Town never again produce the sort of chances that Cameron Humphreys so capably fluffed in the first half.  Tyreece John-Jules launches a shot into a low orbit and falls over quite a bit.  Around me, increasingly frustrated Town supporters try to encourage their team with some clapping that gently peters out, but they can never quite summon the courage to shout and holler, chant or sing.

Fifty-six minutes have gone never to return and Col U replace the player with the most controversial first name, Ossama Ashley, with the player who has what I adjudge to be tonight’s best surname, Ryan Clampin.   In a magnificent display of time wasting Ossama is booked as he dawdles from the pitch pausing first to turn and applaud the away supporters,  and then to remove his shin-pads.  If some of the people around me in the stand had guns and stealth helicopters, Ossama would have suffered the same alleged fate as his near namesake.  One of the blokes behind me is so apoplectic with rage he can no longer form sentences that do not have the word ‘fucking’ in them.

The excitement subsides as Town revert to their relentless, patient, unrewarding pressure.  Former Town hero Cole Skuse is substituted by Col U to general applause from Town fans, although he looks a little confused by it, which perhaps as a member of one of Town’s most derided teams is understandable. With twenty minutes left, Town substitute a third of the team with Harness, Chaplin, Burns and Evans replacing Vincent-Young, Jackson, Aluko and Harper.  The game does not change, Town are no more incisive,  although Conor Chaplin does produce a spectacular overhead kick which goes wide of the goal.  Idris El-Mizouni usurps Cameron Humphreys with five minutes to go until the calling of five minutes of time added on.  In that time added on Lee Evans unleashes a powerful drive, but straight at the Col U goalkeeper and Luke Woolfenden is booked for fractiousness.

When full-time is called, the inevitable boos resound through the stand but if people aren’t used to Town being beaten by lower league opposition in cup competitions by now they never will be.  I now believe it is simply our fate to provide early season joy for the ‘little teams’, in the same way that people donate tins of beans for the needy at harvest festival; and then in November or December we hand out early Christmas presents.  No doubt somewhere it is being said, given our 78% possession and our tally of shots on goal that ‘on another day we would have won’.  Sadly, at the moment it feels like that day will either be a cold day in hell or 30th February.  Good luck in the next round Col U.

Ipswich Town 1 Bolton Wanderers 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Here we go again, and it’s still July.  I will admit to not looking forward to the start of the football season because as a person who seeks fulfilment in being idle I enjoy summer Saturdays with nothing much to do, and summer is still in its prime, it won’t begin to flop into autumn for another three weeks at least, that’s when the football season should begin again. But hey, how else are we going to fit in 46 league games, at least three games trying to win a pizza pan and probably no more than two or three games trying to win two cups that are inevitably destined to end up on the sideboard of one or two of the same four clubs from London and the north-west?

 Today, it is ordained that we shall play Bolton Wanderers, last season’s nemesis who along with Rotherham United were the only team to beat us both home and away, which in the week of the last episode of Neighbours I will admit, whilst in confessorial mood, was my Australian ‘soap’ of choice.   The last time Town played Bolton Wanderers on the first day of the season was in 1961, albeit at Burnden Park, and Town of course went on to win the Premier League that season, although it wasn’t called that then.  By way of yet another private confession, last night I dreamt about today’s game and how Town drew two-all after twice going ahead with the opposition equalising twice from spectacular long range shots into the top right hand corner of our goal.  I say opposition because oddly Town were playing West Ham United in my dream although they also seemed to be called Bolton Wanderers.  Even odder is that I then dreamt that I woke up and realised I had been dreaming because all I could remember of the game were the two Bolton/West Ham goals and an empty ground.  Then I really did wake up and felt a bit disorientated.

Having happily reined in my subconscious mind I have negotiated the crawling traffic of the A12 and walked across Gippeswyk Park.  At the junction of Ancaster Road and Ranelagh Road I must decide whether to turn left towards the Bobby Robson Bridge or right towards the station hotel where I will not doubt be serenaded by boozing Lancastrians in the pub garden singing the praises of barm cakes, back to back housing and cotton mills.  Seeking the quiet life as ever, I opt for the former. In Alf Ramsey Way I purchase a match day programme in the modern cashless manner which seems to take several minutes, before heading off over Civic Drive, past the enchanted Spiral car park which used to just be known as ‘the underground car park’ and up St George’s Street to the Arbour House (formerly The Arboretum) to meet Mick and discuss life over a pint of  a beer (£3.90) from the Burnt Mill brewery which the pump clip said was Japanese, I ask the  barman where it was from, “Stowmarket” he replies.  Mick’s and my conversation rambles between spotty liver disease, the quality of television pictures, Ipswich Town’s latest signings and funerals before I buy a pint of Lacon’s Encore and a packet of Fairfield’s cheese and onion crisps (£1.00) and we discuss VHS videos of Ipswich Town’s greatest moments in history and retirement.

We leave earlier than usual for Portman Road because I have a bag of six Ipswich Town VHS videos to give to a bloke called Ash from Swaffham; I have arranged to meet Ash at twenty to three by the Sir Alf Ramsey statue, but he doesn’t turn up. I ask several people stood about if they are called Ash, but none are and two people think I have asked them if they’ve got any hash.  Disappointed but not surprised, because the world is an increasingly unreliable place, I head for turnstile number 60 to begin yet another season full of hope and likely disappointment; but you never know (that’s the hope again).

Out in the Sir Alf Ramsey stand Pat from Clacton, Fiona, ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood are already here looking fresh and revived in their summer clothes, it reminds me of what the first day back at school used to feel like.  On the pitch, be-suited stadium announcer and former BBC Radio Suffolk presenter Stephen Foster reads out the teams looking as if he is the best man at a wedding.  Banners festoon the front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand telling us “The future is bright, the future is blue and white”; it rhymes, it must be true.  To our right is the new scoreboard, beaming messages to us like something out of Orwell’s 1984. The stadium is alive with the sound of nigh on 27,000 people and as the game begins those in the lower tier of the Sir Bobby Robson stand break inexplicably into a chorus of Mary’s Boy Child, with lyrics altered to tell of eternal fighting and Norwich running away, because it’s Boxing Day.  Off to my right in the Cobbold Stand, in an equally surreal vein, it sounds as if the Bolton supporters are singing “Oh wanky wanky, Wanky wanky wanky wanky Northerners.”  But my hearing isn’t what it was and Boltonians do have thick accents.

The opening minutes of the match are messy with lots of physical effort, but little discernible entertainment.  All the Bolton team appear to be about 2metres tall and there’s not a Frank Worthington amongst them. “Shall we sing, shall we sing, shall we sing a song for you?” chant the Bolton fans.  As nice as that might be, no one takes them up on their kind offer and in a fit of pique they impolitely tell the Ipswich fans “Your support is fucking shit”, before peevishly announcing like thwarted adolescents that the large crowd is because “You’ve only come to see The Wanderers”.   Only six minutes have passed and it’s like last season never ended; clearly supporters have wasted the whole close-season and not come up with a single original new chant between the lot of them.

A frisson of excitement shoots through the home support as a punt forward forces the Bolton ‘keeper James Trafford to play sweeper for a moment. Up in the Cobbold Stand the brief roar of excitement from the home support is an excuse to unleash what passes for wit with a chant to say they had forgotten we were here. How droll.  It’s the eleventh minute and Town win a corner as a Bolton defender heads the ball out of his goalkeeper’s hands.  Lee Evans’ exotic curling corner-kick curls too much and goes disappointingly straight into touch like a metaphor for last season. It is a quarter past three and Bolton win a corner leading to Wes Burns breaking away down the right  and putting in a low cross which is blocked. Burns is looking neater and slimmer than last season suggesting to me that his call-up to the Welsh squad and access to the bright lights of Cardiff might have turned his head.

“They love a ball up the middle don’t they?” says the bloke behind me to the bloke beside him as Bolton launch an attack like a Russian missile strike.  Fortunately for Town, Bolton’s attacks are producing few goal-attempts, but they are dominating play and look generally quicker and stronger than Town for whom debutants Marcus Harness and Leif Davis are doing little other than entertain me with the thoughts that Marcus Harness sort of rhymes and that Leif is a great first name.

The first half is more than half over and all of a sudden Bolton have a penalty from which Aaron Morley scores.  Leif Davis is adjudged to have tripped some Bolton play or other who predictably makes full use of the opportunity to fall headlong to the turf whilst simultaneously looking up pleadingly at referee Mr Samuel Barrett, who is not to be confused with Samuel Beckett.  Disappointment reigns. But unusually the goal against proves a turning point in Town’s favour and for the rest of the match Ipswich are the better team.  Corners are traded as the half hour approaches and in the Town penalty area some male posturing ensues.  “Who the fuckin’ ‘ell are you?” chant the inhabitants of the lower tier of the Sir Bobby Robson stand and the Bolton supporters sing the same thing.  Nobody seems to know who anybody is.  It could be the result of dementia but it’s probably because third division footballers are generally not household names, with the exception of course of Town’s number 17, Ed Sheeran.   Bolton’s number three Declan John becomes the first player to be booked in a possibly not unrelated incident.

The 37th minute has arrived and another of the day’s debutants, Freddie Ladapo, has a shot deflected away for a corner which Conor Chaplin passes into the penalty area for Lee Evans to side foot into the goal net in a moment of combined thought and invention that was two steps ahead of the entire Bolton team and probably a good 27,000 other people too.  The sadness and shame of having gone behind in the first game of the season is instantly forgotten.  “ You’re not singing any more” chant the home fans to the Boltonians delving delightedly into bottomless wells of Schadenfreude.   More is to come almost, as a beautiful interchange of passes down the right between Janoi Doncaien,  Conor Chaplin, Wes Burns and Sam Morsy ends with Freddie Ladapo having a shot blocked almost as soon as it leaves his boot.

Two minutes of the half remain and having already given away a penalty on his debut, Leif Davis then makes a bid for immortality as he also becomes the first Town player of the 2022-23 season to be booked; it’s a good effort from him but no one will ever rival the appalling Town debut of Mark Fish, who funnily enough also played for Bolton Wanderers.   Three minutes of time added on are played and then it’s half-time.  I consume a Panda brand liquorice stick and talk to Ray, who tells me that his son Michael and his grandson Harrison are missing today’s game because they are respectively in Greece and Scotland.  We share our doubts over the validity of the penalty and the efficacy so far  of the left land side of the Town team. 

The game resumes at eight minutes past four with the mystifying partial rendition by the Bolton fans of Manfred Mann’s 1964 Number One hit record ‘Do-wah-diddy diddy’ (although it was originally recorded the year before by American band The Exciters).  On the field of play, things are more mundane with the usual procession of corners and stuff that you get in football matches.  It’s a little bit after a quarter past four and Trafford spectacularly tips a Lee Evans header over the cross bar; five minutes later and the first of a host of substitutions materialise with the luckless Lief and ineffective Harness being replaced by Greg Leigh (not to be confused by Prog-Rockers with Greg Lake) and Tyreece John-Jules (impossible to confuse with anyone).   An hour has gone Freddie Ladapo shoots tamely at Trafford before Leigh gets back to acrobatically head away a Bolton cross.

As the final third of the game progresses the sky begins to cloud over a little, there are flying ants taking to the air and landing on the shirt of the bloke in front of me;  seagulls circle over the Portman Road car park; it’s stiflingly warm.  It’s a dog day afternoon; I think of Al Pacino.

Ending a sequence of three ever worsening fouls, Bolton’s Conor Bradley chops down Tyreece John-Jules particularly dirtily and is booked. “You dirty Northern bastard” chant the Sir Bobby Robson standers reciting possibly football’s greatest chant. “Small Town in Norwich, You’re just a small Town in Norwich” is the Boltonian’s weak response, which does little to dispel the rumours that Bradley hasn’t washed, is Northern and was conceived outside wedlock.

Both teams continue to make substitutions like they’re going out of fashion, making four each with Sone Aluko and Kayden Jackson replacing  Conor Chaplin and Freddie Ladapo for Town.  Ipswich dominate, pinning back Bolton and making them play sardines in their own penalty area.  It’s a niggly game as both teams display their frustration at being unable to beat the other.  The crowd is announced as 26,688, and it seems wakes week has come early with 1,392 pale and pasty-faced folk from the mills and the mines making up the numbers in the Cobbold Stand.  Pat from Clacton wins the guess the crowd competition on the Clacton supporters’ bus with a prediction of 26,679; she seems a little shocked but I can tell she’s excited by her win, it’s been a long time coming.

Back on the pitch Luke Woolfenden is the second Town player to be booked.  A Wes Burns header brings another corner, Sone Aluko shoots past the post and so does Tyreece John-Jules, who also has a shot saved and then in the best opportunity of the whole game Wes Burns runs deep into the penalty area before placing one of those crosses usually labelled ‘inviting’ in front of Sam Morsy.  Morsy sends Trafford the wrong way with his shot but the ball strikes the fortunate keeper’s legs and is cleared.

After six minutes of time added on the game ends.  It’s a shame not to start the season with a win, yet again, but it was a tough match against a strong team and Town did recover from going a goal behind, and on balance these are all good things.  One swallow does not make a summer seems an appropriate homily for the occasion, because every occasion needs a homily; although in this case it’s not so much a lovely, swooping, screaming swallow as a scrounging, step-sibling murdering cuckoo.