Leif Davis

IpswichTown 2 Sheffield Wednesday 2

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In my near fifty-two seasons of watching professional football, I’ve seen Sheffield Wednesday play twenty-five times, and today will be the twenty-sixth.  The majority of those games have also involved Ipswich Town, with just two being against Colchester United.  Like those Colchester matches, today’s game, in common with the previous two is a third division fixture.  This is a very boring introduction to this match report, but it’s about history, which for many is possibly the whole point of watching football.  Both Ipswich Town and Sheffield Wednesday have a history of glory which they currently exist in the shadow of.  Ipswich’s glory was over forty years ago, but it’s recent compared to that of Sheffield, which was over forty years before that, with Wednesday last winning the FA Cup in 1935 and the League in 1930, beyond living memory for most mortals.  Today is important therefore.

Looking forward and only in my rear view mirror when necessary I park up my air-quality enhancing Citroen e-C4 and head across Gippeswyk Park for Portman Road and the joys of ‘The Arb’ beyond. The streets are full of policemen in uniforms that look as if they have been designed to be wipe-clean.  A tall, wide-eyed man approaches me and asks what the score will be. “2-0 to Town” I say because I always expect Ipswich to win and he cheers and lurches off up the road.  Two policemen eye him suspiciously as if it might be a crime to be a bit eccentric or off your gourde. In Portman Road, the boringly grey Sheffield Wednesday team bus is backing into its parking space behind the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand. I stop at one of the kiosks which look like they should sell ice cream,  and attempt to buy a programme (£3.50) using my season ticket card.  Predictably this doesn’t work,  but I realise my mistake at the about the same time as the young man in the kiosk and blame it on my bank card and season ticket card both being blue.

At ‘the Arb’ I order a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.41 with the 10% Camra discount) and retire to the beer garden where the covered shelter is occupied by people who seem unable to talk without shouting; it’s as if I’m hearing a conversation between a group of town criers.   I move away into the beer garden fearing permanent damage to my ears.   Mick soon appears, unexpectedly making his entrance through the side gate. He disappears into the building and quickly returns with his own pint of Suffolk Pride and packet of Fairfield’s Farms cheese and onion crisps.  We talk of our distrust and dislike of Ipswich’s Tory MP’s and their attempts at political point scoring off Ipswich’s Labour led council,  of forthcoming fixtures, of Grayson Perry, of transitioning and of sexual politics.   

At about two-thirty the beer garden suddenly falls silent as everybody else departs for the match leaving just Mick and I supping alone. For a moment we don’t know what to say other than to remark on how quiet it is.  We drain our pint glasses and it’s not long before we leave for Portman Road ourselves, feeling like reluctant followers of fashion. We part in Sir Alf Ramsey Way as I head off between the assembled supporters’ buses and coaches towards the Constantine Road entrance and Mick finds a place to park his pushbike. At the portal to the Sir Alf Ramsey stand there are no queues and of turnstiles 59 to 62, only the latter is not open, I choose  turnstile 61 and am entreated to “enjoy the match” by the brown-haired woman who nonchalantly scans my season ticket card.  In the stand, Pat from Clacton, Fiona, ever-present Phil who never misses a game, the man from Stowmarket, and his grandson are all here and the sense of anticipation is palpable. 

As stadium announcer and former BBC Radio Suffolk presenter Stephen Foster reads out the Town team I shout out the surnames in the French style and am pleased that ever-present Phil joins in , although I botch it a bit because the scoreboard isn’t keeping up with Stephen Foster and I find I’m not quite as good at picking the right surnames to match the first names as I ought to be. It’s a lot of fun nevertheless,  but then we pause to show our respects to the many thousands who have died in the recent earthquake across southern Turkey and Syria.  The silence is well observed as it should be; the only sounds being the squawking of seagulls and shushes from the Sheffield fans to those of their number emerging onto the stand ignorant of the gesture being made.

At two minutes past three o’clock the games begins with Town getting first go with the ball and hoping to stick it in the net closest to me, Pat, Fiona and Phil.  Town are in resplendent in royal blue shirts and white shorts whilst Wednesday are anaemic in pale yellow shirts with pale blue sleeves and pale blue short; it’s a kit that looks like it’s been washed too many times or has faded in strong sunlight whilst on the washing line.  “Hark now here the Wednesday sing, United ran away” chant the northerners in the Cobbold Stand showing an unexpected appreciation of Harry Belafonte and Boney M, which is matched by the Town fans in the Sir Bobby Robson stand who proceed to sing the same song but about Town and Norwich.  Other parts of the ground remain silent as if still remembering the earthquake victims. 

Almost a quarter of an hour passes before any football breaks out and supporters are reduced to jeering and cheering throws and mis-placed passes. A tall man sat next to me tenses and jerks forward every time it looks like the ball will come near the goal. Conor Chaplin bounces a shot into the ground which is easily collected by the Wednesday goalkeeper Cameron Dawson, who is a vision in cerise. A Wednesday shot travels spectacularly high over the Town cross bar. “Tell you what, they’re big at the back int they” says the bloke behind me of the three Sheffield defenders Akin Famewo, Dominic Iorfa and Aden ‘Larry’ Flint.   Iorfa previously played for Town,  but looks to have been on a course of steroids since then.

The afternoon is dull and still, the flags on the Cobbold stand hang lifelessly beneath heavy grey cloud, it’s like a summer’s day, just a bit colder.  The fifteenth minute brings a corner to Town and then another. With the second corner kick Wes Burns falls to the ground inside the penalty area. I see him fall but don’t spot the perpetrator who must have had a getaway car waiting, and it seems like that is everyone’s experience including the referee’s assistant who gingerly and briefly signals for a penalty kick. The referee, Mr Geoff Eltringham walks over to speak to his assistant before a posse of Wednesday players run over to argue the toss like professional footballers always do.  “Get over it” I shout, uncharacteristically. “Haven’t you ever conceded a penalty before?” I’m not sure what’s the matter with me.

Eventually, about four minutes later, the penalty is taken and Conor Chaplin’s kick fails to find any of the important corners inaccessible to goalkeepers and instead it strikes the diving figure of Dawson. What disappointment.  But life and the game carries on.  “He’s a unit, we’re not gonna beat him in the air” says the bloke behind me of ‘Larry’ Flint, still obsessing about the size of the Wednesday defenders as a Wes Burns cross is repelled.  It takes twenty-five minutes, but finally the Wednesday supporters find  their Welsh hymn books and sing “Your support , your support , your support is fucking shit”.  Two minutes later their piety and use of rude words is rewarded as Town ignore the fart-joke aficionados’ favourite player Josh Windass, allowing him as much time and space as he wants to cross the ball for the more prosaically named Michael Smith to twist a spectacularly decent header from near post to far post and into the Town net, and Sheffield lead.

Depression is setting in at Portman Road and only mild relief comes from Geoff the ref showing Wednesday’s Will Vaulks his yellow card for aimlessly wandering off with the ball in an attempt to waste time.   The pleasure this brings is soon lost however as a minute later Wednesday score a second goal when the ball is crossed and then drops to the ground conveniently for George Byers to smite into the goal.  Another goal almost follows as Town get in a muddle and Vaulks has a shot saved by Christian Walton.  A few rows behind me it’s all too much for one bloke who erupts into a tirade of expletives and sounds like he might burst into tears at any moment. A woman with him seems to plead for a more rational approach but this only seems to fuel his ire provoking a full scale ‘domestic’ which ends with what sounds like him telling her “Leave me alone”.   All this and a football match to watch too!

The quiet, even silent brooding of the home crowd ,with the obvious exception of the two having the domestic, is worrying me and as Town win a free-kick for a foul on Nathan Broadhead near the penalty area I begin to sing “Come On You Blues” and “Allez les bleus” in the hope that others will join in to build a crescendo of noise which will carry the team to victory. Ever-present Phil joins in and I think Fiona and Pat do too; I keep it going for long enough for several people to look round fearfully to see who the weirdo is.  Then Nathan Broadhead takes the free-kick and hits the top right-hand corner of the goal net with the ball, it’s a fantastic goal. “Your singing, it worked” says a young girl in front of me smiling broadly amongst the cheers and the joy. Well, why wouldn’t it?

Four minutes of added on time are the prequel to half-time and I go down the front to see Ray and his grandson Harrison. The consensus is that Wednesday are big and physical and do a lot of pushing for which the Geoff the ref has not given us the appropriate number of free-kicks.  Also, until we let Wednesday score we were doing alright; after that it wasn’t so good.  Ray asks about my solar panels because his wife has asked him to ask me about them.  Regrettably I have not come to football armed with the facts and figures, so I tell him I will have to gather the data and let him know, although the main point is that money aside, whilst the solar panels are making electricity no one is having to burn fossil fuels to power my house or car, hence life on Earth will be saved and future generations will be able to enjoy football like we do.

Returning to my seat, the bloke behind me apologises for his language, I shrug my shoulders and purse my lips as if I were French.  I hadn’t really noticed to be honest, and he should probably apologise to Pat rather than to me.  The game resumes. Within five minutes the scorer of Wednesday’s second goal, Byers, is booked for a foul on Conor Chaplin and from the free-kick  Leif Davis launches the ball into the top corner of the goal.  That’ll teach Byers.  It’s a fabulous comeback by Town and without doing much more than taking a couple of free-kicks after getting hacked down by the dirty Wednesday players.  I am at once both ecstatic that we are no longer losing but disappointed that we haven’t yet scored a proper goal by carving open the opposition defence with cunning passes and superior wit. Pat from Clacton reveals that in the ‘draw the correct score’ competition on the Clacton supporters’ bus she has drawn 3-2 to Town.

The second half largely belongs to Ipswich. Corners are won and the ball is passed and seldom comes near Christian Walton’s goal.  Town have shots on goal, but most are blocked and when Conor Chaplin fashions a seemingly spectacular effort, turning and striking the ball athletically in a single movement it seems impossible that it ends up going straight to the goalkeeper for an easy catch.  The usual clutches of substitutions are made, and for once they don’t make much difference. For a short while Wednesday get back into the game as they hurl in some long throws and win a couple of  corners that threaten, and ‘Larry’ Flint finds space to head across goal and then blast the ball over the cross bar.  Today’s ‘sold out’ attendance is announced by Stephen Foster as  29,072 with 2,148 fans from Sheffield although he doesn’t mention that where I am sat there are at least six empty seats within a couple of metres of me.  For a sell-out crowd the level of vocal support for the Town has been very disappointing however, just as it was against Plymouth, with an aire of tortured anxiety pervading the stands.

The game rolls on towards its not fully satisfactory conclusion. Desperation arrives as Pat from Clacton releases the figure of the masturbating monkey from her bag and rubs his head for luck.  Sadly, the powers of this Cambodian or Vietnamese lucky charm seem to have drooped or left him altogether. Sheffield Wednesday substitute their small Scottish captain Barry Bannan for Dennis Adeniran and I remark to Fiona that there have never been many players called Barry, past or present.  We try to think of some, but all I can come up with are Barry Sheen and Barry White, neither of whom were footballers.  At primary school a teacher sat me next to a boy called Barry, hoping I would be a good influence on him, but sadly it was bad Barry who had more influence on me.  A late flurry sees Freddie Ladapo have a shot which looks like it is goalward bound, but it flies past the side of the goal post that doesn’t have a net to stop it and that’s that, the game is drawn.

It’s both a point gained and two points lost for Town today, so it’s best not to dwell on it, we can leave that for the future when it  won’t feel like it matters so much and it’s just history .

Post Script: I remember Barry Butlin playing for Luton Town.

Ipswich Town 4 Morecambe 0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ipswich Town 3 Oxford United 0

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‘Boxing Day’, the first track on the second side of Elvis Costello’s 1984 album “Goodbye Cruel World”, albeit in brackets and with the letters TKO in front of it, but also the day after Christmas Day when it seems as if nearly everyone goes to football.  As I’ve got older, I’ve enjoyed Boxing Day football less and less.  There was a time when it would have been the opportunity to give a first airing to a new ITFC branded woolly hat or pair of gloves received as a gift the day before, but those days are gone and now I’d often rather sit at home and carry on revelling in my own Christmas crapulence.  It feels too much like hard work to brave an outside world devoid of public transport but clogged with Sunday drivers out visiting aunties and uncles or indulging in mass consumerism at the Boxing Day sales.

This year however, I don’t feel quite so miserable and lazy or drunk, perhaps because the football at Portman Road is likely to be more joyful, perhaps because today the sky is clear and blue.  It is with a spring in my step therefore that I leave my house, fire up the trusty Citroen C3 and head blithely into the two, or three-mile long tail-back on the A12.  Happily, the traffic does move, but only very slowly and not quickly enough for me to get to The Arbor House (aka The Arb’) to meet Mick at a quarter to two. “Such is life” I think to myself, which is pretty much what Mick says in reply to my text to give the bad news that I won’t make it for our Boxing Day pre-match pint, although his actual words are “…it goes like that sometimes”.  Mick is nothing if not philosophical, which I suspect is why we get on.  Having parked up the trusty Citroen, it’s a pleasant walk through Gippeswyk Park, beneath Ancaster Road bridge, along Ranelagh Road and over the Sir Bobby Robson bridge to the ground.  Although I don’t have time to get to the Arb, enjoy a leisurely drink with Mick, and walk back to Portman Road, I have nevertheless arrived long enough before kick-off to have time to kill, so I mooch about a bit taking in the big-match atmosphere of the Boxing Day game, watching people wearing novelty Christmas hats queue for burgers and then eat them perched on car park railings.  I buy a programme (£3.50) using coins of the realm.

Exhausted by my social anthropological research I head back into Constantine Road and turnstile 60, the portal to a world of football-based fun.  I thank the grimly smiling turnstile operator and head for the toilet, I might not have had that pre-match pint, but it’s a cold day.  Relieved, and with clean but still slightly wet hands because life is too short to wait for hand dryers to work fully, I hang about in the concourse beneath the stand.  Ever-present Phil who never misses a game finds me leant against a concrete stanchion, he says hello and asks if the pub wasn’t open.  I repeat some of the story in the above paragraphs, leaving out the bit about Elvis Costello.  Eventually, pining for sunlight I take the steps up onto the lower tier of the stand where to my displeasure I find I have arrived before Pat from Clacton, Fiona and the man from Stowmarket.  This arriving in the ground more than ten minutes before kick-off is very disconcerting and ever-present Phil detects as much in my uneasy demeanour. 

The good thing about time however, is that it moves on and it’s not long before the familiar faces are here and stadium announcer Stephen Foster is reading out the names of the two teams. I shout out the Town players’ surnames in the style of a French football crowd as Stephen announces them, and I hope my odd behaviour catches on; it makes a couple of people smile, possibly with embarrassment.   The ‘improved’ PA system then goes into overdrive with some very loud ‘music’ which I imagine is intended to whisk the crowd up into some sort of anticipatory frenzy but Pat and I just grimace and cover our ears, I think we’re too old for frenzy. “Why can’t we have some nice football music?” shouts Pat when the noise abates a little.  When Stephen Foster returns he tells us that we have again packed out Portman Road and, sounding a bit like Alan Partridge, that Boxing Day “… is always a special day in the football calendar”.

It’s been a long, beer-free wait, but finally the teams appear, and Town kick off in their correct kit of blue shirts and white shorts towards the Sir Bobby Robson Stand, whilst visiting Oxford United wear all white, perhaps in the hope that we’ll think they are Real Madrid rather than Newmarket Town who they might look like if they had worn their ‘proper’ kit of yellow shirts and blue shorts.  The pitch is completely in shadow now, but pale winter sunlight shines as if through a letterbox onto parts of the Cobbold Stand and casts a pinkie-whiteness on the girder over the roof of the Sir Bobby Robson stand.

As the match begins, the crowd is in good voice, so much so that at first I can’t hear if the away fans are singing too. The opening exchanges are indeed exchanges as possession swaps about.  “All the way, all the way” advises a voice from behind as Freddie Ladapo chases a through ball.  “Yellows, Yellows” chant the Newmarket Town supporters up in the Cobbold stand as the Oxford players demonstrate that for the time being at least they are the sharper team, and they even have a shot that misses the goal by not very much.  “All the way, All the way, Well done” I hear again from behind, where it seems that some bloke who can’t help but vocalise his internal dialogue is sitting.   

It’s the ninth minute and after the good start from the Town supporters the Oxford fans at last have the opportunity to sing “No noise from the Tractor Boys”.  Five minutes later and they are in their element singing “Football in a library, dur-dur-dur” which is precisely what you would expect from a team from the world’s foremost university city.  Ipswich win a corner as Oxford’s number five mis-directs a header intended for his goalkeeper and then proceeds to swing his arm and possibly klick his finger and thumb in the manner of a man saying “darn it”.  In the outfall from the corner kick an Oxford player stays down on the ground and the North Stand chant “Boring, Boring, Oxford” having clearly not forgotten the goalless draw that Oxford successfully played for at Portman Road last season.

Twenty minutes go by and then Oxford have the audacity to almost score again as a shot rattles the net from the outside, but making the Oxford supporters think their team has scored.  The usual jeering ensues prompting the Oxford fans to chant “We forgot that you were here”, although the evidence suggests they should be chanting “We forgot what a goal looks like”.  Either way, in the spirit of Christmas TV and Wallace and Gromit, which is appropriate for Boxing Day, it was a close shave.   The warning shot inspires a chant of “Blue and White Army” from the North Stand, but more annoyingly the bloke behind me with the vocalised internal dialogue starts giving tactical advice; “Switch it” he calls loud enough for only me to hear and not the players, and then “Get it down the channels”. He is getting on my nerves and I wonder if he’s trying to convince everyone around him that he is an out of work football coach, or is he just out to impress his son? I hope for the kid’s sake he is adopted and so hasn’t inherited the ‘berk’ gene.

A third of the game is nearly gone and Town have picked up and are dominating possession and winning corners.  “Come On You Blues” I chant and ever-present Phil joins in, so does the bloke in front who I think is called Kevin, and so does the out of work football coach who’s just trying to impress his son.  The stirring effect of our massed choir doesn’t work instantly, but Town soon win another corner and Freddie Ladapo and Leif Davis have headers saved, and Luke Woolfenden has a shot blocked. Town have momentum now and Conor Chaplin has a shot which the very solid and agricultural looking Oxford goalkeeper Ed McGinty cannot hold on to , the ball runs away from him and Freddie Ladapo boots it into the goal from close range. Town lead.

Hopefully, it will be one of those goals scored just before half time that sports commentators tell us are so important.  Perhaps feeling vindicated by the goal the bloke behind me gives up on tactical advice and switches to matey encouragement, “Come on chaps” he says and “On yer bike, On yer bike , Orrrrr”.  It works, successive corners follow and from the third, Wes Burns appears magically at the corner of the six-yard box and lashes the ball into the Oxford goal from an oblique angle. Town lead 2-0 and after five minutes of added on time that’s the half-time score.  The players leave the field to applause and referee Mr Finnie strides off, flanked by his assistants with the ball tucked neatly under his arm and looking a little bit camp.

I speak with Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison.  Somewhat mysteriously Ray tells me he once went out with a girl who was probably in the same class at school as my sister, this would have been in in the early 1970’s and I can only think that Ray is planning a 50th anniversary celebration. At eight minutes past four the game resumes.

The berk behind me is back to coaching, “Channels, channels” he calls and Town win a couple of quick corners.  Oxford’s James Henry fouls Leif Davis and is booked by Mr Finnie who admirably stands still and beckons Henry towards him from perhaps ten metres away before brandishing his yellow card. Town are on top again and looking to add to their 2-0 lead, and the upbeat ambiance leads the berk behind me to add attempted humour to his arsenal. “Would you like ice cream with that scoop?” calls the berk as McGinty lifts a clearance up and into the stand. I roll my eyes and slap my forehead and hope that this is just this blokes one match of the season; his ticket a present perhaps from a long-suffering partner who is now luxuriating in his being out of the house for a couple of hours.

An hour has passed and Oxford indulge in a double substitution which includes replacement of the prosaically named Matt Taylor with the more exotically monikered Gatlin O’Donkur, if indeed that is his real name.  The crowd has become very quiet, all I can hear are conversations about people’s jobs, their families and what they did on Christmas day.  A song emerges from the silence at the North Stand end of the ground but then trails away as if the lyrics are half-forgotten.  “Second ball!” shouts the berk behind me.  Town are looking comfortable and clearly don’t need our support today, just a bit of coaching, so we just sit and watch and quietly appreciate.  The crowd is announced as 28,072 with 550 being Oxford supporters, but there is no ‘guess the crowd’ competition on the Clacton supporters bus today, because no bus ran and Pat came by car.

Time passes quickly.  Marcus Harness is replaced to much applause by the tricky Sone Aluko who will go on to perform a number of delightful tricks and flicks and turns perfectly gauged for a Boxing Day audience which craves TV Christmas Special-style entertainment.  Fittingly, with about ten minutes of normal time remaining Aluko supplies the pass for a third goal, the one that transforms the result from a win into a modest thrashing. The goal is a typical Conor Chaplin piece, one touch and then fired into the net. Today’s scoreline is now the same as that at my first ever Boxing Day fixture in 1972 when Town modestly thrashed Chelsea courtesy of Kevin Beattie and Trevor Whymark in the first half and a last minute John Hollins own goal.  “I don’t think we can lose now” says an ever-nervous Pat from Clacton, and I agree, although we both remember losing at Oxford  in 1986 when 3-0 up and Fiona chips in with our coming back from 3-0 down at Barnsley in 1996 with just five minutes to go.  Seems Christmas is a time for reminiscing. But today Town are just too good for Oxford.

With five minutes of time added on played, when the final whistle goes it is almost five o’clock. I would stay to applaud the players from the field, but the PA system suddenly fills the cold evening air with the sound of Status Quo “Rocking All Over the World”.  I might be wrong, but I imagine Stephen Foster is to blame.   A man has got to draw the line somewhere and as far as Status Quo are concerned I drew it around Boxing Day 1972,  a short while after the release of their album Piledriver, I therefore hurry back to my trusty Citroen leaving my team to enjoy the applause of others.

Despite its problems,  brought on by traffic delays and a lack of time spent in the pub, today has worked out just fine in the end and I am sure that come May we shall be saying the very same thing with regard to Town’s season. Up The Town!

Ipswich Town 4 Buxton 0

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Once upon a time, five o’clock on a Sunday afternoon in November in suburban England would have been the time to be thinking about sitting down to eat toasted teacakes or buttered crumpets with a pot of tea and perhaps a slice of Battenburg or Dundee cake.  In our modern times of course, anything goes, and we are free from the strictures of Sunday tea and can now watch football whenever we want, or whenever someone in China, Canada, Bolivia, Cuba, Cyprus, Guadeloupe, Israel, Latvia, Nicaragua, St Kitts and Nevis, Switzerland, Thailand, US Virgin Islands, Uruguay or Vietnam, to name just a few, wants to show it on the telly in their far-off Ipswich Town supporting country.  Today therefore, for the benefit of viewers of TV channels such as Star+, ESPN Play Caribbean, Nova Sport 1, Bilibili and Astro SuperSport, I am pleased to attend my first ever 5 o’clock kick-off football match and  forego my usual relaxing Sunday evening at home in which I try and savour the final few hours of the weekend before the drudgery of another working week. 

The TV viewers of Brunei and Ecuador etcetera are as discerning as you or I and naturally would not watch any old rubbish, which is why today’s match is special; today Ipswich Town play Buxton in the second round of the FA Cup.  Buxton F.C. are in the National League North, the sixth tier of the league pyramid, although oddly the game is not being shown in Egypt.   Sixth ‘tierness’ is a status Buxton share with the likes of Banbury United, Blyth Spartans, Bradford Park Avenue and other clubs many of which don’t begin with the letter ‘B’, like Spennymoor Town.  I recall visiting Buxton on a family holiday to the Peak District in 1976, and then again in 1986 when I was best man at a friend’s wedding there; I spent the night in a caravan that looked like it had travelled forward in time from the 1950’s; of course it had done, but just a day at a time. 

Today might be a special match day in some ways, what with the impending thrill of knock-out cup football and the kick-off time being moved for the benefit of unknown Venezuelan and Costa Rican couch potatoes, but mostly it’s not, and after parking up my trusty Citroen C3, I am soon crossing the threshold of the Arbor House (formerly The Arboretum) like I do before every match. Today, I purchase a pint of Woodforde’s Norfolk Nog (£4.10) which makes me feel slightly traitorous, but I soon recover before joining Mick in the pub garden.  Being a damp, dreary day there is just one other drinker in the garden and he soon departs leaving us to talk about our beers, (Mick is drinking Mauldon’s Moletrap) buying an electric car, the world from a Marxist perspective, this year’s local government pay deal and the reality of cities like Cambridge, Oxford and Brighton away from the colleges and the candy floss. After a further single malt whisky for Mick and a half of Woodforde’s Hiberno (£6.80) for me, which leads to a discussion about whether Hibernia was the Roman name for Scotland or Ireland (it was Ireland), we head off into the quiet of a Sunday evening in Ipswich.  I remark how it’s so quiet that it doesn’t feel like we’re going to a football match;  more like we’re going to evensong, which leads Mick to confess to having been an altar boy at Orford church in the far off days before he hit the hippie trail to Morocco. It’s not until we get to Civic Drive that we see anyone else who is obviously heading for the match. If LS Lowry had been from Ipswich and gone out with his easel on a night like this he’d have had to have painted something else.  But behind the Sir Bobby Robson stand, a long queue snakes along the back of the stand towards the turnstiles beyond.  Mick and I are wise however to the propensity some people have for joining the first queue they see,  and we walk on further towards the corporation bus depot.  At the last turnstile (No58), we attach ourselves to a queue of about five other people and are soon stepping out across the artificial grass towards the entrance to the palatial Block Y of the Magnus west stand.

We take our seats just as the teams are walking onto the pitch past Crazee the mascot and a mysterious reindeer; we stand to applaud and stay on our feet as there is a minute’s applause for the recently deceased David Johnson, arguably Town’s third best-ever centre-forward after Paul Mariner and Ray Crawford.   We will later learn that there are fewer than 10,000 of us in Portman Road this evening, but there is nevertheless a frisson of excitement around the ground as a fine drizzle starts to fall and the game begins with Town kicking off towards what was Churchman’s when David Johnson last played here. Buxton are wearing a kit of white shirts and dark blue shorts giving them the air of a poor man’s Tottenham Hotspur, and oddly they have no players of colour.

The opening minutes are dull as Town accelerate slowly through several gears like a very large articulated lorry before finding their desired passing rhythm.  The fragile enthusiasm of the home crowd quickly dissipates and it’s open season for the Buxton fans to begin singing “We’ve got more fans than you” before gaining in confidence with a chorus of “Your support is fucking shit” and then asking the ultimate, damning question “Is this a library?”.   Naively perhaps, I didn’t expect the followers of non-league Buxton to sing the same tired, unimaginative old songs as followers of Football League teams and it sets me to wondering if the folk that occupy the end of the upper tier of the Cobbold Stand aren’t actually just the same people every fortnight but wearing different colour replica shirts.  Thoughts like this can make you question the very nature of reality.

Although Buxton might be dominating the singing with their off the shelf wit, on the pitch their team are barely getting sight of the ball, let alone a touch.  Such is Town’s superiority in keeping the ball that the Buxton fans are reduced to cheering enthusiastically when they win a throw-in.  When Buxton do win the ball Ipswich invariably win it straight back.  But nevertheless, the first fifteen minutes or so are a bit dull.  Mick yawns.  The bloke behind me starts to pray audibly that something will happen. “Here we go” he says optimistically whenever a Town player takes the ball forward more than a couple of paces.   Patient passing football to draw the opposition onto you and create spaces to move into is all very well, but this is the FA Cup for which the watch words are surely “Up and at ’em”.

“Shall we sing, shall we sing , shall we sing a song for you?” ask the Buxtonians through the medium of Cwm Rhondda, which seems appropriate if this is evensong. Sufficiently goaded by the Buxtonians up in the Cobbold stand, a few of the occupants of the Sir Bobby Robson stand summon a limp rendition of “Come On You Blues” before a more lively burst of rhythmic clapping  emerges and even a few extroverts around me in the Magnus west stand  join in .  The first half is half over, but Town are now into their passing stride and are putting in crosses and looking likely to score.  “Addy, Addy, Addy-O” chants what used to be the North Stand.  “Come on ref” moans the woolly-hatted geriatric next to me for some reason I haven’t spotted. Beyond the dark sloping roof of the Magnus Stand the fine steady drizzle looks like steam.  The first Buxton player is booked and then referee Mr Ross Joyce gets into his stride too and records the name of Town’s first Welsh Scandinavian Geordie, Leif Davis in his little notebook too.   It looks like a second Buxton player has got away with a foul on Kyle Edwards but it’s as if Mr Joyce is thinking to himself, “No, I think I will book him after all” and shows a slightly belated yellow card.

The last third of the half begins and the game has blossomed into something quite enjoyable as Town dominate and create chances but still haven’t scored. But then Wes Burns speeds off down the right , crosses the ball low to Conor Chaplin who skips to one side and sends a darting angled shot into the bottom right hand corner of the Buxton goal from about 12 metres out; it’s a trademark Conor Chaplin goal. Four minutes later Kyle Edwards races into the penalty area, ball at his feet and Buxton players flailing around him before releasing a low cross, which Gassan Ahadme turns into a goal from very close range.

This is how things should be and I can only wonder why 9,000 voices aren’t singing “Wemb-er-ley, Wemb-er-ley, we’re the famous Ipswich town and we’re going to Wemb-er-ley”, but they’re not. With the half-time whistle I descend into the bowels of the stand to drain off some Woodforde’s beer whist Mick queues for a vegan pie which he is impressed to find comes with a wooden spork.

The second half is a breeze. Sam Morsy earns his customary booking to help keep the third division title race alive for Plymouth and Sheffield Wednesday and a pair of young players get their opportunity to play as Leif Davis and Cameron Humphreys are substituted for Tawanda Chirewa and Albie Armin. The drizzle persists.  Buxton bring on a substitute with the memorable name of Harry Bunn and Town add two more goals, another typical, but more spectacular strike from Conor Chaplin and a less characteristic one-on-one shot into the corner from Kayden Jackson, but a fine goal nonetheless.  Four-nil is the perfect score for this match, reflecting Town’s complete domination and superiority but not causing unwarranted and undeserved humiliation for Buxton.

With the final whistle Mick and I stay briefly to applaud before making the long way down to the ground and out into the damp, drizzly night.  “Well worth a fiver wasn’t it”, I tell Mick who agrees, but feels guilty that his seat was half the price of mine.  I tell him it’s not his fault I’m so young and he asks me when I will get my pension. “Four more years” I tell him, stupidly channelling Richard Nixon. But at least Town are into the third round of the Cup and TV viewers all over the planet know it. “Wemb-er-ley! Wemb-er-ley!” they must be singing.

Ipswich Town 3 Cambridge United 0

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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