luke woolfenden

Ipswich Town 0 Everton 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s a grey, wet, autumn Saturday morning and I’m thinking of the last time I saw Ipswich Town play Everton at Portman Road.  It was almost exactly twenty-three years ago, on 13th October 2001.  In fact, that was the last time anyone saw Ipswich Town play Everton at Portman Road. The result that day was a goalless draw, and I have no recollection of it whatsoever.  The first time I saw Ipswich Town play Everton at Portman Road however is a different matter, because that was the first time I ever went to Portman Road; it was the 6th April 1971 and I sat with my father in the then soon to be demolished ‘chicken run’.  We travelled to the match in the family Ford Cortina. It was an evening kick-off and I remember it being light outside the ground, then dark, and the programme having a photo of Johnny Miller on the front; it cost 5 pence but was effectively free because that was also the price of the Football League Review that was stapled inside.  A vague, coincidental symmetry through time meant the result was another goalless draw as it would be thirty-one years later and, just as they are fifty-three years later, Town were fourth from bottom of the league table.  

Today’s family Ford Cortina is a train as I embrace the concept of ‘modal shift’, and it’s on time.  The rain has stopped, the sky is clearing, and I’m sat in the first of the two carriages with pointy ends which makes it easy for Gary to find me when he boards at the next station stop.  Making life easy is a lot about planning.  Gary is a generous fellow and today he is carrying a polythene bag from the Cadbury’s outlet shop inside which is a book called ‘Tinpot’, which is about supposedly forgotten football tournaments such as the Anglo-Italian Cup, Watney Cup and Texaco Cup, although of course no one in Ipswich or hopefully Norwich has ever forgotten that Mick Mills lifted the Texaco Cup at Carrow Road in 1973.  Gary had bought a copy of the book himself and thought I would like one too, so he bought me one.  Such random acts of generosity and thoughtfulness probably make the world go round, and I urge everyone to make them as often as possible and to send postcards when on holiday.

As the train speeds onwards towards Ipswich we talk of my recent holiday in France and the French football results, and as we descend the hill through Wherstead I think it may not only be my imagination that has the train lurching to one side as everyone finds a window through which to gawp at the polar bears; Gary and I spot two of them, bears that is, not gawpers.

Ipswich station forecourt is busy, as is the garden of the Station Hotel, which crawls with and echoes to the sound of Evertonians.  Gary asks me if I’m going to buy an ice cream, and I tell him I am but unusually we don’t make it to one of the blue booths but instead buy our programmes (£3.50 each) from a young man at a sort of blue painted, mobile, metal desk; I ask for a choc ice and he ignores me, possibly because his mind is totally focused on programmes, possibly because he recognises an idiot when he meets one.  To our collective disappointment, the programme cover today does not feature one of the much trumpeted and popular “Call me Ted” poster-like designs, but instead displays just a boring photograph of a running Ali Al-Hamadi.  The poster design is instead on a tear-out page at the back, negating what we were originally told was the point of the exercise to have these posters as the cover.  I ask myself why it is that even when professional football clubs get something right, they then manage to get it so very wrong?

Gary wants to buy a Town shirt for his nephew and says he will see me in ‘the Arb’ a bit later and so I wish him luck as he heads for the club shop and I stride on up the hill, becoming progressively warmer and sweatier as the sun shines down on what is now an unseasonably warm afternoon.

 At ‘the Arb’ the bar is surprisingly not very busy, so I am soon clutching a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.96 with Camra discount) and seeking out Mick in the beer garden, which is very busy.  Luckily, a table is vacated much the same time as I arrive, allowing us to sit and talk of bowels, cancer screening, colonoscopies and prescription drugs in the afternoon sun.  I also explain why Gary will be joining us later but am surprised when he appears sooner than expected bearing a glass of Lager 43 lager but no Ipswich Town shirt.  It seems the only shirts available are in outlandish sizes and apparently his nephew is neither tiny nor vast. 

We talk, we drink, Mick buys another round and we talk and drink some more.  The Suffolk Pride is extremely good today but resisting the temptation to just stay and drink it all afternoon we leave for Portman Road, although not until all our fellow drinkers have done so first.  Portman Road is busy, thick with queues as if the turnstiles are all clogged up with fans who need outsized shirts. Ironically, it is Gary who hears the public announcement that kick-off is delayed by fifteen minutes and so, having bid Gary and Mick farewell somewhere near Sir Alf’s statue, I amble nonchalantly through the crowds and queues past lumps of molded concrete decorated with empty plastic glasses, paper cups, drinks cans and paper napkins.

 Joining the queue for my favourite turnstile, number 62, I am followed by two blokes who are complaining about the queues; they’re the sort of blokes who describe anything that goes a bit wrong as “a fucking joke”.  I explain that the kick-off has been delayed until a quarter past three and they seem disappointed that they can no longer be outraged at possibly missing kick-off.  Then one of them notices a steward, who is not white, at the front of the queue checking people’s pockets, bags and jackets. “I’m not racist but…” says the previously outraged bloke “but all these stewards, they’re…”   As I eventually pass through the turnstile, I hear the bloke who isn’t racist remonstrating with the steward for touching him.

On the lower tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul) , ever present Phil who never misses a game and his son Elwood are as ever all in place awaiting the delayed plucking of the ball from its Premier League branded plinth as flames climb high into the pale blue afternoon sky and everyone cheers enthusiastically.   Since the Fulham match at the end of August, when I was last here, the stadium announcer seems to have completed a degree course in Stadium Announcing,probably at somewhere like the University of South Florida, and over-dosed on vowel-expanding drugs.  He sounds utterly ridiculous, and I think I hear him at one point refer to “The Everton”, but he does at least synchronise his team announcing with the scoreboard allowing me to shout out the surnames of the Town players as if I am at a game in France.  For this I am very grateful.

Eventually, the now heavily choreographed prelude to kick off arrives. A young man in crumpled trousers and jacket, which don’t match, appears to orchestrate the grand arrival of the teams and I think how I miss ‘Entry of the Gladiators’ and how with its acquired circus connotations it would be so appropriate in the Premier League.  The teams pour onto the pitch from beneath what looks like a stack of speakers at a rock concert or a part of the Nazis’ Atlantic Wall fortifications. When everyone settles down a bit, Town get first go with the ball and mostly aim it in the direction of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand. Town are of course in blue shirts and white shorts whilst Everton sport what at first looks like white shirts and blue shorts, but closer up the shirts look off-white and the shorts a sort of bluey grey.  How very moderne, I think to myself.  Confusingly, the front of the Everton shirt appears to bear the word ‘Stoke’, but given how all things football now mostly relate betting it probably says stake, which coincidentally is what the Premier League needs driving through its heart.

Everton take an early lead in corner kicks, the Town fans sing “Blooo and White Army” and Pat from Clacton tells me how she’s just got back from her annual week playing whist in Great Yarmouth, and she won a bit shy of thirty-five quid.  Then excitingly, a break down the right from Wes Burns ends with Jack Clarke shooting hopelessly high and wide of the goal.  As the bloke beside me remarks of Clarke’s shot “That was awful”.  But it’s good enough for the northern end of the ground to break into the joyless dirge that is their version of ‘When the saints go marching in’, substituting the word saints for Town of course.  But despite this, Everton are looking the better team and their players seem much quicker in both thought and deed. Aro Muric makes a save from the Everton number nine who has only Muric to beat after a criminally poor pass from Kalvin Phillips, but then Muric boots a back pass from Luke Woolfenden out for a corner, possibly a comment on the back pass.

With just seventeen minutes consigned to the history of goalless football, Everton score as a result of some poor ball control in the penalty area from Wes Burns, which hands the ball to Iliaman Ndiaye, who only has to score, which he does.  Everton are playing as if on Ecstasy, whilst Town are on Temazepam.   Nevertheless, it’s not as if Town haven’t gone 1-0 down before and Omari Hutchinson is soon being hacked down by number five Michael Keane who is booked by referee Michael Oliver, who from the look of his hair I have deduced isn’t related to Neil Oliver and doesn’t visit John Olivers the chain of East Anglian hairdressing salons.

A free-kick and then a corner follow and then Jack Clarke slaloms into the penalty area only to tumble to the ground and Michael Oliver points to the penalty spot.  In leagues not totally beholden to the wonder of the cathode ray tube this would be enough to give Town a free shot on goal, but being the Premier League VAR must decide and it’s time to place your bets on whether Town will get a penalty or not.  My money is on not and I win the unwelcome jackpot as Mr Oliver decides with the help of video assistance that it was actually Jack Clarke who kicked an Everton player rather than the other way round.  How very convenient.  “You can stick your Premier League up you arse” I chant coarsely to the tune of ‘She’ll be coming round the mountain’.  This is what the Premier League does to people.

Town win another corner and the crowd chants “Come on You Blues” at least twice before Everton win two corners of their own, after the second of which Town fail to clear the ball properly and somehow allow the previously convicted Michael Keane to get behind the defence and score from a narrow angle.  “Everton, Everton, Everton” sing the Evertonians, revealing themselves as true heirs to the lyrical imagination and genius of Lennon and McCartney.

The pantomime of VAR has resulted in six minutes of added on time as well as the mental scars of having been given and then having dashed all hope of a swift equaliser. Kalvin Phillips offers more hope with a free-kick after Leif Davis is cynically fouled, but he then dashes that with his shot over the Everton crossbar instead of under it.  Meanwhile, I can’t help thinking that the name Calvin-Lewin on the back of the Everton number nine’s shirt looks like it reads Calvin Klein. I surmise that this is because I have become overly used to seeing the words ‘Calvin Klein’ on the fashionably exposed waist bands of millennials’ underpants.

Half-time is a sort of relief and I talk to Ray who I haven’t seen for six weeks, but then at twenty three minutes past four the football resumes.  “They’re chasing shadows int they” says the bloke behind me and Everton win two corners as the clock tells us that the game is two thirds over.  Conor Chaplin and Harry Clarke replace Wes Burns and Dara O’Shea.  Pat from Clacton wonders whether she should unleash the masturbating monkey good luck charm from her handbag, and I wonder if Kieren McKenna would have an opinion on that.  Perhaps Pat should write to him and ask when he’d like her to ‘bring him on’.

Sammy Szmodics and Jack Taylor replace Kalvin Phillips and Jack Clarke, and today’s attendance is announced as 29,862, with 2,977 being Evertonians. The excitable stadium announcer uses words such as incredible, amazing and fantastic to describe the support and I begin to wonder if he might need a sponsor for his incontinence pants.

With the changes to the team, Town seem to have improved a bit and are dominating the last fifteen minutes as Liam Delap shoots spectacularly past the post, Omari Hutchnson shoots and wins a corner and Cameron Burgess heads over the cross bar.  Then, as Pat from Clacton worries whether the baked potato she is having for he tea is going to be burnt to a cinder by the time she gets in, George Hurst replaces Liam Delap and from a Town corner Conor Chaplin shoots straight at the Everton goalkeeper before Jack Taylor forces a low diving save from him.  Four minutes of added on time fail to influence events although Muric prevents a third Everton goal as Calvin Klein runs through on his own again.

With the final whistle I am one of many quick to head for the exits to catch trains and buses and without really knowing the exact time I am surprised to get to the station two minutes before my train is due to depart.  It’s a small victory on a day of defeat, but heck, there are still another fifteen home games to endure or hope for better.

Ipswich Town  0 Liverpool 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

The start of a new football season feels a bit like flying to Australia; you depart Heathrow in the spring and in the space of less than twenty four hours, you’re in Sydney, Melbourne or Perth and it’s autumn.  Where did the summer go? Did it ever come?

 To add to my feeling of disorientation today, Town are playing Liverpool, who I don’t think I’ve ever heard of.  I am of course familiar with The Beatles, Ken Dodd, Jimmy Tarbuck, Derek Hatton, Cilla Black, Sandra and Beryl the Liver Birds, Roger McGough, Adrian Henri and Brian Patten, the Mersey Sound, The Scaffold, the Pier Head, Paddy’s Wigwam, Hope Street, Lime Street station, Penny Lane, racing from Aintree, the Albert Dock, St George’s Hall, the Queensway tunnel, the Three Graces, Brookside, the ferry ‘cross the Mersey, the ‘Boys from the black stuff’, Littlewoods Pools, Letter to Brezhnev, dodgy blokes in shell suits with ‘taches and perms, the Anglican Cathedral, Alexei Sayle, the Echo and Scouse, but who knew there was a football team too?  If they’ve got one, they certainly haven’t been frequenting the sort of exotic places we’ve been visiting in recent years.

It was only when staring into the distance and idly reminiscing about when Ipswich used to nearly be the champions every year, a long time ago when we was ‘fab’, that I remembered that it was a team called Liverpool that mostly were the champions every year.  Then I remembered Mich D’Avray heading home a cross from Kevin O’Callaghan as Sammy Lee sat on his bum on the wet turf and watched, and eventually, much later, Adam Tanner and Marcus Stewart scoring winning goals at Anfield.  Yes, I remember Liverpool now.

I meet Gary on the train to Ipswich, and he tells me that only one of the current ninety-two football league teams is in a parliamentary constituency that has a Tory member of parliament; he asks me which one I think it is.  I think for a moment and say “Cheltenham”.  But I’m wrong, it’s Bromley. So much for Siouxsie Sioux and the ‘Bromley contingent’, although I guess that’s what they were escaping from, even if some of them did like to wear swastikas. We carry on talking as if life is a pub quiz and Gary seems impressed that I know that when George Best played for Dunstable Town, Barry Fry was the Dunstable manager.  Suddenly, following a tangible moment of recollection that is visible on Gary’s face, he pays me for his ticket to see Stewart Lee at the Chelmsford Civic Theatre next February (£31 including booking fee) and we complain to each other about the scandal of booking fees.  I never paid a booking fee to see Rick Wakeman at the Ipswich Gaumont in 1975, or for my FA Cup final ticket in 1978, or to see Buzzcocks at the Brighton Top Rank Club in 1979, when I recall being handed tickets by a person from behind a glass screen and not having to print anything myself using printer ink, paper and electricity paid for by me.  If they’re going to riot, this is what people should be rioting about, not a few unfortunates being made to waste away their days in a Best Western.

Disappointingly, we do not see the polar bears of Wherstead today as the train descends into Ipswich, but at least the bloke mowing the grass in their enclosure lives to mow another day, and arriving in Ipswich we head for the Arboretum, travelling via the ice cream kiosks that sell match programmes. We buy a programme each (£3.50) and are both impressed by the design of the front cover, which has taken a step away from the usual boring fare, although it’s a shame about the same old drivel inside, and the price.  Portman Road is busy; very busy considering that there are another two hours to pass into forgettable history before the game begins.   Middle- aged blokes with estuarine accents hawk blue and red scarves that are half Ipswich and half Liverpool, no one seems to be buying.   At the Arb’ there is no queue at the bar, and I quickly order a pint of Lager 43 for Gary and one of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me (£8.35 including Camra discount). In the beer garden all the tables are occupied, so we sit on a park bench and have barely discussed anything before Mick arrives, before leaving again to acquire his own pint of some beer or other, probably Suffolk Pride, before returning to discuss ‘half and half’ scarves, which Mick says are like being bi-sexual. It’s much worse than that I tell him, and we all laugh, much more than we probably should, and for a variety of unspoken reasons. 

Mick asks what time we should leave for Portman Road, anticipating that the turnstiles will be busy.  I tell him that its likely all our fellow drinkers will leave here long before we do because they will be wanting to experience the Premier League circus, and we should be able to rock up just before kick-off and walk straight in as if we were playing Preston North End.  My prophecy will come to pass, but we nevertheless agree to depart shortly after midday, and after Mick buys a round of three more pints, which he sensibly carries from the bar on a tin tray, that is what we do, although not before discussing why Mick may not go to Nice next weekend after all, today’s team selection, how to spell Szmodics and how I don’t feel as excited as everyone else seems to be; it’s just another new football season, another game.

Portman Road is still busy, mostly with queues for ice creams that turn out to be programmes. At turnstile 62 at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand, there are no queues, but a man who looks older than me seems to be struggling to get his season ticket to work, so rather than create a queue with just me in it I use turnstile 61 and am soon hugging Pat from Clacton who then photographs me in an embrace with ever-present Phil who never misses a game.  Ever-present Phil’s son Elwood, Fiona and the man from Stowmarket are all here too of course and soon the teams are on the pitch and flames are leaping into the air which are much bigger than any flames that we’ve ever seen before at Portman Road, because these are Premier League flames.

The teams are announced by an enthusiastic bloke in a grey suit who looks about half the age of Murphy, the now pensioned-off, one season wonder of an announcer who took nearly all of last season to learn how to read out the names of the team.  Unfortunately, Portman Road is so noisy today and the PA system so unintelligible that I can’t hear a word this fresh young fellow says and am reduced to having to try and lip read as he tells us the Town line-up, but I think I do a reasonable job of bellowing like a French football supporter the surnames of the players as he says them.  Except for the obvious and necessary concrete bits, the stands are mostly a sea of blue shirts.

‘The Knee’ is taken, which we haven’t seen for a while, and the game begins with Liverpool having first go with the ball and wearing all red, pretty much like they did back in 1974 when I first saw them at Portman Road and Bill Shankly spoke to me, telling me in his gravelly Ayrshire accent “Aye, you’ve a good team”.  As ever, Town are in blue and white and when they get the ball, they send it in my direction and that of ever-present Phil, Elwood, Fiona, Pat and the man from Stowmarket. My early impressions are that there are new illuminated advertisements between the tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand, one of which advertises Universal Customs Clearance, whatever that is. I like to think it is something to do smuggling because this fits in with my pre-conceptions about the dodgy owners and sponsors of Premier League clubs. I also notice that the Liverpool number four has the name Virgil on his shirt and so I think of both the Aeneid and Thunderbirds.  Sadly for Town, from his stature, Virgil looks more likely to be a classical hero rather than a jiggly puppet that appears like all Thunderbirds puppets to be suffering from Parkinson’s Disease.   Omari Hutchinson has an early shot on goal for Town but Liverpool are awarded the game’s first free-kick. After six minutes Luke Woolfenden greedily claims the first booking of the Premier League season for some shirt grabbing and torso grasping of Jota who had run around Woolfenden as if he was a large bollard with a blond wig.

The game is even, with Liverpool having more possession but Ipswich looking no less likely to score, albeit on the break.  Thirteen noisy minutes have disappeared for ever, only to be repeated on satellite tv and Match of the Day, and Omari Hutchinson is booked for a supposed foul, for which any decent player would be embarrassed to be awarded a free-kick.  We need to keep an eye on the referee Mr Tim Robinson, he may prove to be a bit of a berk.  The game continues in much the same manner to a back-drop of general noise, but no discernible organised chanting, as if the Premier League just makes everyone talk very loudly, which I think in some ways it probably does. Town win a free kick and Jacob Greaves heads the ball straight at the Liverpool goalkeeper; would Terry Butcher or Kevin Beattie have scored?  We’ll never know, so it doesn’t really matter.

The first half is half over and referee Tim Robinson, whose name is a little too much like ‘Tommy Robinson’ for comfort, confirms that he is a complete berk as he books another Town player, this time Wes Burns, for a supposed foul that most under-fourteen players would not have noticed.  Much booing ensues and I join in, swept up in the maelstrom of silliness that is the Premier League, and we haven’t even had the VAR out yet.

Less than a third of the half is left and after a Liverpool corner Omari Hutchinson breaks away, beats two Liverpool players and then shoots, but not well enough to avoid the goalkeeper’s elongated but comfortable looking dive.   “Your support, your support, your support is fucking shit” chant the Town fans at a Liverpool player whose truss has come apart, or may be at the Liverpool fans who are quietish and so far don’t compare for enthusiasm to those of clubs in the second division that are only ‘fashionable’ in their home towns.

Eight minutes until half-time and Christian Walton makes a fine diving save from a Luke Woolfenden diversion, but by way of balance Axel Tuanzebe heads the ball onto the roof of the Liverpool net before Town win a corner, and in the last action of the half the Liverpool have their first recognisable shot on goal, courtesy of the lengthily named Trent Alexander Arnold, whose  names seem to have either been arranged back to front or mostly taken from a map of Nottingham.  After a minute of added on time spent finding the ball after TAA’s shot, Robinson blows his whistle and we all get the opportunity to boo him again as he and his minders wander off for a cup of tea and to do whatever referees and their assistant’s do at half-time.

The consensus amongst those around me is that it was a satisfactory half in which Town did pretty well and arguably had the better chances to score, although it could be a worry therefore that they didn’t.   For half time entertainment Ray’s son Michael and a much larger man wearing possibly an XXXL Town shirt take part in a little quiz, the first few questions of which are stupidly easy and appear on the large screen between the Cobbold Stand and the Sir Alf stand. Later questions unfortunately, do not have multiple choice answers and are therefore read out over the incomprehensible PA system, so we have no idea what is going on.

At twenty-seven minutes to two the second half begins, and Liverpool have substituted their number 78 for a more sensible number 5, who is Ibrahima Konate and also plays for France, so is therefore likely to be pretty good.  But, eight minutes into the half and it is Town who are appealing for a penalty as Leif Davis is barged over. There is a  brief VAR check, during which I find myself praying to someone or something, perhaps divine providence, but conveniently for Liverpool and the status quo, the linesman has his flag raised for offside.  The bloke behind me jokes that with all the recent works to the stadium the electrics for the VAR haven’t been finished yet,  so the protocol is just to wait for five minutes and then say “No”.

As if being denied penalties isn’t bad enough, Wes Burns seems to be hurt and has to be substituted for Ben Johnson.  Three minutes later Christian Walton has to make a fine save and then gets lucky as the ball is crossed back in and an unmarked Jota heads wide of an open goal from close range.  Just a minute further on however, Jota scores as the ball is pulled back from the by-line and the Town defence is ripped apart.   The Liverpool fans in the Cobbold stand can suddenly be heard, and above the general hubbub comes a jubilant roar.  “Someone’s just found a quid I reckon” says the bloke behind me.

Town substitutions follow in the 64th minute with Conor Chaplin and Massimo Luongo being replaced by Marcus Harness and Jack Taylor.  Just a minute later Liverpool lead 2-0 as Salah tucks the ball neatly over Christian Walton from an angle.  Liverpool seem to have simply changed up a gear and Town have been overrun.  Omari Hutchinson manages a volley from quite close in that might have headed goalwards, but doesn’t, and the bloke beside me says “A goal would be nice, wouldn’t it?” The bloke behind me says “Yes”.   Marcus Harness has a shot, but it goes high over the bar.

More substitutions follow, Ali Al-Hamadi and Sammy Szmodics replacing Liam Delap and Axel Tuanzebe but Liverpool are still the better team.  I ask Pat from Clacton what she’s having for her tea tonight. A baked potato with barbecued chicken slices is the answer.  Fiona and I are both having left over curry from Thursday night, both our curries were home-made, not takeaways.  The attendance is announced as 30,014. It’s the first time there have been over 30,000 people at Portman Road since 20th April 1981 when we played Arsenal; we lost that afternoon 2-0 too, and I remember standing with my father in the North Stand, it was the only place where we could get in.  It was a result that severely and unexpectedly dented our hopes of winning the league and I can still recall vividly how royally peed off I was, I think I still am.

It is now clear that Town are going to lose today, and Liverpool come close to scoring several more times as Christian Walton plays an absolute blinder in the Town goal, a state of affairs confirmed by the Sir Bobby Robson stand’s embittered chanting of “Two-nil and you still don’t sing” followed by a reprise of “Your support, Your support, Your support is fucking shit”.  A monstrous eight minutes of added on time is announced to give us hope of a miracle, and last season Town would probably have won, but today it’s Liverpool who nearly score again, twice, with Christian Walton making a brilliant ‘double save’ although ‘man of the match’ is awarded to Jacob Greaves.   Scant consolation for the result arrives in the form of a late booking for Liverpool’s number 18 Cody Gakpo, which is greeted with ironic cheers and sarcastic ripples of applause from the home crowd.  The bloke behind me wonders if Mr Robinson had lost his yellow card somewhere and only just found it.

The final whistle draws appreciative applause from all around the ground and it has been a decent couple of hours of football, although after Liverpool scored Town were no longer in it to win it, only to keep the score down, which they did.  “You’re gonna get relegated aren’t ya? ” Says a Scouser to me as I walk back to the station.  “Not today” I tell him. “We’ll be alright”.  The football season has started so it may be approaching autumn, but it’s not winter yet, and I’m still hoping for an Indian summer.

Ipswich Town 0 Watford 0

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ipswich Town 4 Rotherham United 3

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

In the interests of helping to save the planet by reducing the number of journeys I make, all be they mostly by electric train or electric car, I have once again synchronised my one day a week in the office with a mid-week football fixture at Portman Road, this time against bottom of the league Rotherham United.  Eight hours of toil and sweat and sometimes blood and tears is more than enough for anyone I reckon, and so at about ten past four I down tools, pack up my bag and head off into town to enjoy dusk and the gradual, gentle illumination of Ipswich’s ancient streets.  It feels almost like it did back when I was still at school, and I’d have a free lesson at the end of the day so I’d nip off and with time to kill before catching the bus home I’d may be trawl the likes of Parrot Records, or Discus on St Helen’s Street or the Record Shop opposite the Old Cattle Market bus station.  By way of a hollow tribute to my past I visit the HMV store and see if they have anything by Greek prog rockers Aphrodite’s Child, they haven’t.  But as Laurence told us in Abigail’s Party, “We don’t want to listen to that fat Greek caterwauling all night.”

Often recently, when I have walked through Ipswich of an evening it has felt a little down at heel, but not this evening, perhaps the soft lights and the shadows are hiding things, but there are people about, teenagers queue outside the Corn Exchange for an evening of Drum & Bass and the soul of the town is shining through with the streetlights and glowing shop signs.  The recently restored pargetting of Sparrowe’s (aka The Ancient House) looks magnificent as does Cornhill, but I live in hope of one day meeting someone else who appreciates the 1950’s splendour of the old Co-op lighting department, the colourful, blocky repetition of the frontage of what once was Woolworth’s, and the little glimpse of 1960’s Brutalism left behind by the Carr Street precinct; when I was eight or nine these buildings were new and exciting, and I think they still are.

Time moves on and as six o’clock draws near I head for ‘the Arb’.  An empty tin can rattles down Black Horse Lane, blown by the breeze.  A woman and I catch each other’s eye and smile as crossing the road in opposite directions we both look the same way at the same time to check we’re not about to be run over.  In the Arb I have to wait for my pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.60 with Camra discount) as the barrel has to be changed, and I use the time selecting from the menu a tea time bowl of ‘Very French’ chunky chips (£8), which come with bacon, brie and onion marmalade.  Eventually, pint in hand, I repair to the beer garden to wait for my chips and delve into the match day programme (£3.50) which I purchased earlier in the club shop, before strolling around town.  Keiffer Moore adorns the front cover, caught in a pose with a ball on his head, which resembles the AFC Bournemouth club badge.  Inside, there is an interview with Keiffer, which at five pages in length and with small print seems like a start has been made on his biography.

My ‘Very French’ chunky chips arrive soon and are very tasty indeed, even if I am struck by the thought that if Mick or my wife were here with me, I would feel guilty at how much fat I am consuming, and if I wasn’t feeling guilty my wife would surely do her best to ensure I did.  I pass my time between eating and taking sips of beer by involuntarily hearing the conversation of the three retired men sat two tables away. The conversation, if it isn’t just a monologue, is dominated by one man who talks about a gay friend whom he describes more than once as a ‘Champagne Socialist’, it’s a silly, annoying phrase with its odd implication that if you’re a Socialist you are not allowed to enjoy Champagne. Typically, people who use the phrase fail to understand that the whole point of Socialism is Champagne for all. When I finish my pint of Suffolk Pride I resist the temptation to share a bottle of Champagne with the blokes on the next table and raise a toast to Socialism, and instead buy another pint of beer, like the prole that I am. With no Mick or Gary to engage in conversation this evening, I leave unusually early for Portman Road.

 After negotiating a delightfully queue-less turnstile 62, I find myself amongst Fiona, Pat from Clacton, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood before the teams are even walking onto the pitch behind the diminutive referee, Mr Keith Stroud, who I am shocked to see hold the match ball up to the sky before kissing it.  Stroud has apparently refereed “Premier League” (First Division) games and I can only think that he learned or dreamt up such poncey, pseudo-religious behaviour there.  If that’s what the First Division is like nowadays, I think I’d rather stay in the second.  To add to the confusion, the man from Stowmarket isn’t wearing his woolly hat tonight, I tell him I think the World must have started spinning in the other direction.  Very soon, Murphy the stadium announcer is reading out the team names seemingly oblivious of them appearing on the scoreboard.  I’ve had it with Murphy, and tonight I ignore him completely and bellow the player’s surnames only as they appear on the screen.  “That will teach the ugly little twerp” I think to myself in a voice like that of Harold Steptoe, although a French accent would have been more appropriate.  “You’re on form tonight” says Fiona, apparently impressed by my bellowing.

The game begins, Town getting first go with the ball and generally sending it in the direction of the goal in front of me and the other aging Ultras.  Town, as ever, are in blue and white whilst Rotherham United, from a town in what was once known as the People’s Republic of South Yorkshire, are sartorially doing a passable impression of Arsenal or Stade de Reims, the club from the city which is considered the gateway to the historic Champagne region of France. Socialism and Champagne together at last.

When asked at work today what I thought the score would be tonight, I predicted three or four -nil to Town, perhaps more. After 83 seconds Town are losing as an awkward looking number 9 called Tom Eaves easily bustles Luke Woolfenden aside and taps the ball past Vaclav Hladky.  Fiona and I look at one another as if to say “what happened there?” and agree that we weren’t really ready .  But we don’t worry too much about it and soon Keiffer Moore is heading high over the Rotherham cross-bar and then just a bit past a post. “We often don’t seem to start well” says Fiona.  “But we are the best in the division for gaining points from losing positions” I tell her, sounding like a boring pundit or football obsessive, “We have to be”.

It only takes a little more than seven minutes for Mr Stroud to show us, or more precisely Rotherham’s Hakeem Odoffin, his yellow card, but it’s Odoffin’s own fault for fouling Jeremy Sarmiento. Two minutes later and Town equalise as Sam Morsy runs into a bit of space, turns and crosses the ball back in front of the goal so that an unmarked Wes Burns can stoop to conquer and head the ball into the net.  People thank the deity of their choice, I choose Wes Burns. Moments later Wes is at it again, but shoots past the far post, although undeterred the Sir Bobby Robson standers are celebrating Christmas all over again with a rendition of “Hark now hear the Ipswich Sing, the Norwich ran away”, and then they sing it again.  A minute later, Keiffer Moore is unwrapping his present from Wes Burns in the form of a side-footed shot from a low cross after Wes has scampered down the wing to chase a Harry Clarke through ball.  It’s a beautiful goal and I can feel myself smiling uncontrollably; this is what I had expected this evening and it’s nice for those expectations to be fulfilled.

It can only be a matter of time, and not much of it before we score again and then again.  But after seven minutes we’re still waiting and Keiffer Moore is rubbing his knee and receiving treatment and it feels like we’ve lost our way a little.  To compound matters Rotherham won’t stop winning corners, although they don’t do much with them, but I’m not getting to bawl ”Come On You Blues” at all.   “We don’t need corners” says Fiona, perhaps trying to reassure me. 

Town flounder for another nine minutes and then all of a sudden click into gear again as Wes Burns bears down on goal and has his shot saved, Leif Davis has his follow-up shot saved and then Mr Burns gets to the ball ahead of two Rotherham defenders and the goalkeeper to roll it into the goal and put Town 3-1 up.  “Excellent” I say in the style of Wes’s evil cartoon namesake.  This is more like what I had predicted, and surely Town will now  go on to win handsomely.

Town sadly never get the chance to gain momentum from the goal as moments after the game re-starts Rotherham’s Femi Seriki dives headlong into the advert hoardings and after a long delay has to be driven away on the back of the club golf buggy/ambulance, which we have now had the pleasure of seeing two matches running. Seriki is replaced by Ollie Rathbone and I start to think of Sherlock Holmes.  The remaining minutes of normal time in the first half have just two highlights, one is Wes Burns narrowly avoiding a hat-tick by heading just as narrowly past a post, and the second is the Rotherham goalkeeper sending a poorly directed clearance even more narrowly above Conor Chaplin’s head; a taller player would probably need to leave the field on the club golf buggy.   Rotherham then win yet another corner before Murphy excitedly announces that there will be a minimum of ten minutes of added on time, which allows Rotherham to win more corners, but not much more.

With the half time whistle the man from Stowmarket stands up and admits to wishing he had padded trousers as he’s finding his plastic seat a little unforgiving.  We discuss cushions and speculate that a patent on padded trousers could be the passport to wealth and a life of leisure.  I then migrate to the front of the stand for my half-time chat with Ray and his grandson Harrison which covers Aphrodite’s Child and what an odd first half it has been.

When the football resumes I’m still expecting more Ipswich goals, but it’s Rotherham who are harrying and pressing Town into making mistakes.  “Blue and White Army” chant the Sir Bobby Robson Stand and ‘Blue Action’ repetitively and then “Addy, Addy, Addy-O, ITFCeeee, We’re the Blue Armeee” and after fifty-seven minutes Town win their first corner of the game.  “Are you happy now?” asks Fiona, and in a way I am, but I don’t chant “Come On You Blues” because , as I explain to Fiona, I don’t suppose the players will hear me up at the far end of the ground.  I don’t think it’s my fault when the corner kick sails far beyond the goal and harmlessly away.  Despite this failure, Boney M’s Christmas number one from 1978 gets a reprise in the Sir Bobby Robson stand.

Town are not playing well and Rotherham are not looking capable of scoring, but then they do. Vaclav Hladky boldly leaves his goal line for a cross which he doesn’t manage to catch and in the ensuing mess the only player to have so far been booked rolls the ball into the unguarded goal; and they say crime doesn’t pay.  This wasn’t what anyone expected and suddenly we’ve been transported from a dull game in which we felt comfortably ahead to one in which we seem to be hanging on for a point.   This is a poor game, it’s almost reminiscent of how we played in the dark days at the end of Mick McCarthy’s reign of terror, but we have been spoilt for two years.

For a moment or two Town are stung into action as they win a corner and Wes Burns is fouled by the French sounding Peltier, who is booked by Mr Stroud after loud baying from the home crowd.  From the corner the Rotherham goalkeeper falls to the ground clutching the ball and some people think it’s crossed the line, there is a roar which isn’t so much half-stifled as three-quarters stifled as Stroud waves play on.

Another ten minutes pass with little to excite, before both teams vainly reach for inspiration in the form of matching double substitutions. For Town Omari Hutchison and Massimo Luongo usurp Conor Chaplin and Lewis Travis.  As if that isn’t exciting enough, Murphy announces the attendance as 28,026 with 145 of those from the former People’s Republic. Applause follows, much of it directed at the 145 intrepid northerners.  Another two minutes pass and another interruption sees Harry Clarke replaced by Axel Tuanzebe due to injury.  Nothing improves and after a run down the Town left and a low cross,  Peter Kioso strikes a Town goal post with a shot and the crowd groans with disapproval.  Ali Al-Hamadi replaces Keiffer Moore before Rotherham make another double substitution and finally Kayden Jackson is the new Wes Burns.  There will be a minimum of eight minutes of time added on says Murphy importantly and Town are hanging on.  Pat from Clacton is glad she hasn’t got a baked potato waiting for her when she gets home, she’ll have a pre bedtime snack of Marks & Spencer Cheesey Combos instead.  Back on the pitch it’s as if Keiran McKenna has said he wants Town to give the ball away every time they win it so we can practice defending a narrow lead. 

Fortunately of course, Rotherham aren’t much good, they’re bottom of the league after all, and they’ve only scored twenty-six goals before tonight.  But they have got Keith Stroud, a man who kisses footballs and raises his eyes to the heavens as he does so, and four minutes into time, added on, and enjoying life without Big Brother VAR watching him, he grants them  a penalty . Cafu scores with a ‘Panenka’ (incidentally the name of a bar in Sheffield), which is why goalkeepers should never try and guess which way a penalty kick will be struck.

A draw snatched from the jaws of victory seems a certainty, except that this is Ipswich where it’s no longer over until it’s over and so it shouldn’t be a surprise when in a final flourish Omari Hutchinson reclaims the win just a minute later with a fierce shot between the goalkeeper and his near post.  Portman Road explodes.   With everything put back together again Mr Stroud keeps on playing for another couple of minutes over the original eight, which is enough time to book Axel Tuanzebe, but Rotherham are finally beaten.

I had thought I had seen it all in fifty plus years of coming to Portman Road, but then I already thought I’d seen it all in 1979.   Tonight’s game was rubbish after what we’ve seen this season, but Town have scored four goals, all pretty good ones, and what a finale; so why does it also even feel a bit like we’ve lost?  Did someone slip something in my ‘Very French’ chunky chips or in my Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride?    I can only try not to get here so early in future.

Ipswich Town 3 Swansea City 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

This morning at about half past one I suddenly awoke from what had been a deep sleep, and as I tried to return to my dreams my mind began to race and I was thinking of the first time I saw Ipswich Town play Swansea City, almost exactly forty-two years ago, on 7th November 1981.  Swansea, enjoying a very good start to their first ever season in what some people now call the Premier League, went on to win by three goals to two.  I was only twenty-one years old, and recall being royally pissed off at what I think was the Town’s first home defeat of the season.  The following March, I drove down to the Vetch Field, Swansea with my friend Tim in his 1968 Morris Minor 1000, and despite the best efforts of referee Clive Thomas, who awarded the home team a highly dubious penalty, we witnessed Town exact revenge as we won by two goals to one.  We stayed the night in Swansea, and spent an evening crawling the city’s pubs. Sadly, all I really recall, apart from correctly pronouncing Cymru Cenedlaethol on the side of a bus,  is playing pool in a pub and leaning down to look along my cue and seeing beyond it and the cue ball and the cushion and up the dress of a young woman sat on the other side of the bar, opposite the pool table. I was a shy, single, young man so I probably blushed, but shamefully I cannot deny that the sight of this young woman’s red pants has stayed with me ever since.  In their early twenties my grandfathers and my father had all been tasked with killing Germans, but I just had to cope with the freedom they helped win.

Since that guilty, intoxicated evening in South Wales, I have seen Swansea City a further fourteen times, but only half of those matches have been against Ipswich Town. The other seven matches were at Manchester City (one), Portsmouth (one) and Colchester (five), and Swansea didn’t win any of them.  In all the intervening years I have never seen another Welsh woman’s pants and even though Ipswich are once again playing Swansea City, I do not expect to do so today as I step from my front door beneath a clear blue sky and head for the railway station.  I have been looking forward to today’s game after no home match for three weeks, and in an early morning trip to the shops even bought two packets of Welsh cakes by way of celebration; I ate a couple for breakfast. I was born in Wales see, albeit in Haverfordwest.

The train is on time and not particularly busy.  At the first stop I am joined by Gary who is wearing a bright orange jacket over his Ipswich Town home shirt. We talk of whether we are sat in a carriage or a car, when Gary is likely to retire, the sort of people who ‘go postal’, and on which train journeys to watch football matches it might be possible to see a Polar Bear from the train window; surprisingly Swansea to Ipswich is one of them.  It seems unlikely there are trains to Svalbard, but hopefully there is football even if only with seal skins for goalposts.  Arriving in Ipswich, my exit from the station is annoyingly delayed by being unable to display my e-ticket on my phone, I eventually manage to create a glimpse of it for a split second and fortunately the ticket collector seems happy with that.  I will later learn of an “update”.

Gary and I stroll up Princes Street and Portman Road towards ‘the Arb’, pausing only so that I may buy a programme (£3.50) from one of the blue booths, the appearance of which tempts me to ask for a choc ice as well, but luckily I resist. At ‘the Arb’, Mick is already stood at the bar about to order a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride.  Now aware of our arrival, Mick generously buys two pints of Suffolk Pride, and a pint of Lager 43 for Gary, who to my knowledge never has drunk proper beer.  We repair to the beer garden to talk of the horrible Suella Braverman, the ‘A Load of Cobbolds’ fanzine, the Covid enquiry and the lies of Boris Johnson, and last night’s Ligue 1 encounter between Montpellier Herault SC and OGC Nice, which despite being an open, attacking match, ended goalless. I return to the bar to buy myself a further pint of Suffolk Pride, a Jameson whisky for Mick and a half of Lager 43 for Gary (£10.40 including Camra discount). We continue our conversation, which unusually does not involve reference to death or illness today, although we do talk of remembrance poppies and Mick recalls how his father was responsible for distributing them in the Orford area and how in the days when the ‘stems’ were made of wire the poppies first had to be assembled.  At about twenty-five to three we depart for Portman Road.

The queues at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand are shorter today and seem to be being managed by stewards.  I go to queue at the illustrious turnstile 62 but am ushered towards a side gate where my season ticket is scanned by a woman using a hand-held device which looks like one of those things you use to find hidden electrical wiring in walls. I arrive at my seat moments before the two teams parade onto the pitch. Naturally, the man from Stowmarket, Fiona, Pat from Clacton, ever-present Phil who never misses a game and his young son Elwood are all already here, although it’s Pat’s first game in a while as she’s been in Mauritius to attend a wedding.  Ever-present Phil and I attempt to bawl out our players’ surnames in the French style as stadium announcer Murphy reads out the line-up, but as ever Murphy is in far too much of a hurry and has finished before the players’ faces have stopped appearing on the large screen; he really is useless, bring back Steven ‘Foz’ Foster I say.

After a minute’s silence and the last post and occupation of the centre circle by various personnel from the armed forces, things never seen or heard at football matches until comparatively recently, the game begins, with Ipswich in traditional blue shirts and white shorts getting first go with the ball,  and sending it mostly in my general direction.  Swansea City are today wearing an un-necessary away kit of reddish shirts, shorts and socks.  Unfortunately, the reddish colour of their kit reminds me of the young Welsh woman’s pants from 1981, so I try to imagine them all with just one leg each and no heads, to make them look like a team of Lyons Maid Raspberry Mivvis.

“I do, but I don’t” says the bloke behind me about I’ve no idea what, and after three minutes Town win the game’s first corner. A couple of rows in front of me a young man is topless and the waist band of his Calvin Klein pants is visible to all.  Suddenly I can smell meat and gravy and assume that someone nearby has bought a pie; it’s either that or the Army personnel in the centre circle were from the catering corp.  “Blue and White Army” chant the section of the crowd up in the corner of the Cobbold Stand before a wider congregation strikes up with a chorus of “We’ve got super Kieran Mckenna, He knows exactly what we need…”.   The Swansea goalkeeper, whose name, Carl Rushworth, would be ideal in a match with ‘rush goalies’ is all in orange, so looks like a Wall’s Solero Exotic.  “Ipswich Town, Ipswich Town FC, By far the greatest team the world has ever seen” chant some of the crowd and there’s every chance I sang the very same at the Vetch Field back in 1981.

Seven minutes are almost up and rather disappointingly Swansea City score, a dinked cross from inside the penalty area being nodded into the corner of the goal by their number four, a bloke called Jay Fulton. “Who are ya?” chant the Swansea fans having presumably forgotten where they are and being too idle to look at their match programmes or tickets.  “One-nil to the sheep shaggers” they continue, in more revelatory mood, and suddenly I don’t feel quite so bad about having once accidentally glimpsed a young Welsh woman’s pants in a public bar.

Town win another corner. “Come On You Blues” I shout and from a low cross, a shot goes curling over the cross bar. “Der, der, der, Football in a library” chant the Swansea fans imaginatively, getting in as much gloating as possible whilst they still can.   Omari Hutchinson shoots straight at Rushworth and for the third time in the last few minutes a Town player is flagged offside, raising doubts about the parentage of the linesman with the chequered flag.

Town are giving Swansea a hard time, but all of a sudden the world is restored to its axis in truly spectacular fashion as Jack Taylor strikes a magnificent 20-odd metre shot against the inside of Rushworth’s left-hand post and the ball hurtles and spins into the back of the net.  Quel but! (What a goal!) as they didn’t get to shout in Montpellier last night.  From my position in the cheap seats, I have a thrilling head-on view of the ball as it speeds towards the goal.  All the best goals strike the wood work as they go in; that final split-second diversion adding a thump of confirmation to the event, like having your passport stamped or hearing the pop of a Champagne cork.  As Fiona observes, today’s goal is the polar opposite of Taylor’s goal at Rotherham earlier in the week, which spun in off his leg from close range, almost without his knowing it.

Ipswich Town are now almost unstoppable. Conor Chaplin shoots over the bar and Omari Hutchinson has a shot saved despite having seemingly dribbled around Rushworth.  “Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, the Norwich ran away” sing the Sir Bobby Robson stand getting all festive and nostalgic at the same time, and just five minutes after Taylor’s goal, George Hirst heads the ball down and Conor Chaplin spins on his right foot and hooks the ball inside the near post with his left from a few metres out. The Town lead two-one.  Presumably, the Swansea fans up in the Cobbold stand now answer their earlier question “Oh, it’s you lot” .

Town now just need some more goals to confirm their superiority, but instead there is a bit of a melee with players either squaring up to, pushing away or pulling apart their team-mates and opponents, perhaps depending on how zen they are feeling today.  Conor Chaplin and Swansea’s Liam Cullen are booked by referee Mr Sunny Singh Gill, presumably as the instigators.  In the stands there is almost the burst of a song, but then it all goes quiet, with even the away fans feeling too crushed by the turn around in scoreline to sing “Two-one, and you still don’t sing”.   If there was a corner of the ground occupied by fans of a musical and literary bent, now would be the time for them to sing “ We all agree,  Britten is better than Thomas”.

With ten minutes of the first half left Omari Hutchinson breaks down the right, but his low cross is just an overly long stud’s length away from being diverted into the goal by Nathan Broadhead.  A couple of minutes later the blokes behind me clear off to the bar, whilst Mr Singh seems to take far too long to allow Conor Chaplin back onto the field after receiving treatment, perhaps he has been influenced by Suella Braverman and sees receiving treatment as a ‘lifestyle choice’.

In the final ‘normal’ minute of the half Sam Morsy gives George Hirst the chance to score, but Hirst’s shot is saved and as we progress into four minutes of additional time Jack Taylor surges into the box and might or might not be tripped and Portman Road reverberates to the sound of the question “Who’s the wanker in the black?  Encouragingly, I don’t hear any references to Gunga Din, Gandhi or corner shops, although Mr Singh is roundly booed as he leaves the pitch.

The half-time break brings a chat with the man from Stowmarket who Pat from Clacton later discovers is called Paul.  I syphon off some spent Suffolk Pride and enjoy the almost theatrical display by the pitch sprinklers before the football resumes at ten past four and Town set about getting the goals that they should have and almost did, but ultimately didn’t score in the first half. Immediately things are different as the seat next to me, which was empty in the first half, is occupied by a woman with obviously dyed hair, who might be the mother of one or more of the blokes sat behind me.  Ipswich quickly win a corner after some argument, and predictably once the kick is taken a free-kick is then awarded to Swansea.

Mr Singh further endears himself to the crowd as Leif Davis is cynically shoved into the advert hoardings as he tries to run past a Swansea defender, but no yellow card is shown.  Seven minutes into the half however all is forgiven, for a while any way, as Mr Singh awards Town a penalty.  No one sat near me has any idea why,  but we’re not too bothered, particularly when George Hirst steps up to score and Town lead three-one.  There is a feeling of contentment around me and it seems like we will be happy if the score stays like this, although further Town goals will not be turned away.

The action on field follows the pattern of a team closing the game down and Swansea enjoy more possession but to little effect. There are however occasional moments of anxiety. Swansea break forward, but Leif Davis calmly first looks for the offside flag, and then realising it isn’t coming makes a perfectly timed sliding tackle inside the penalty area. Five minutes on and the first substitutions are made for Town as Marcus Harness and Wes Burns replace Omari Hutchinson and Nathan Broadhead.  Pat from Clacton shares with us how much she loves Marcus Harness’s ‘lovely blue eyes’ and can’t hold back from telling her that even I had noticed those too.  Harness immediately intercepts a Swansea pass and draws appreciative applause.

There are twenty-five minutes of normal time remaining as Town win a corner and the sky darkens behind the floodlights as one of the first early winter evenings descends and I can feel the chill of the air as I breathe in. “Carrow Road is falling down” chant Town fans in the furthest top corner of the Cobbold stand, but where I’m sat no one can understand what else they’re singing or whether it’s witty, abusive or stupid.  Four minutes later and Mr Singh stops his charm offensive as he sends off Swansea’s Liam Cullen, we think following a second yellow card after a foul on Leif Davis. “Cheerio, Cheerio, Cheerio” sing the Town fans sympathetically.

Surely the three points are now safe with only ten men to play against, and the optimism in the stands   is expressed in chants of “Ole Ole Ole” from those Town fans who just won’t let the memories of holidays on the Costas fade away.  Would that Keiran McKenna, as wonderful as he is, was as colourful, as he stands in the technical area in his dull grey trousers and black car coat.  If promotion to the First Division is achieved, I’m hopeful that the budget will then stretch to a stylist for Kieran.  Town win another corner and the attendance is announced by Murphy as 28,929 with 634 from Swansea, although to be fair to the Welsh it is a very long way from Ipswich; four-hundred and forty-three kilometres in fact.  “Thank you once more for your incredible support” says Murphy, stretching the definition of incredible.

The final ten minutes of normal time see Marcus Harness booked by Mr Singh; the bloke behind me asks “ Is he dead?” of the player Harness fouled. Town win a corner and Mr Singh walks patiently over to the dug outs to raise his yellow card towards someone on the Swansea bench.  Freddie Ladapo replaces George Hirst. Swansea win a rare corner and we are told that there will be a minimum of nine minutes of additional time, which in percentage terms when added to the four in the first half is greater than the Camra discount on beer at ’the Arb’. 

I am thinking that added on time is just something to be endured, until the right-hand side of the Town defence gets a puncture and Jamahl Lowe rather embarrassingly skips past Luke Woolfenden and around the excellent Vaclav Hladky to make the score three-two from very close range.  Pat from Clacton is suddenly nervous, and Hladky makes a late challenge for the title of Man of the Match, even though it has already been awarded to Jack Taylor.  But Town survive and victory is ours yet again, and it’s been yet another rollicking match; Kieran Mckenna and his team continuing to make up for  fifteen years of mediocrity and worse, in fifteen months.

It’s gone five o’clock as Pat from Clacton and Fiona hurry away to buses and trains, but I stay for a short while to applaud, although the game has finished so late that I can’t linger long either, as my train leaves at nineteen minutes past.  When I eventually head into the cold, damp evening I wonder if this afternoon’s match will live in my memory like my trip to Swansea of forty years ago, I hope so.