luke woolfenden

Ipswich Town 4 Burton Albion 0

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IpswichTown 4 Forest Green Rovers 0

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I hadn’t realised that Ipswich Town were playing Forest Green Rovers today until perhaps Tuesday evening of this week, when after casually noting Town’s goalless draw with Bristol Rovers, I idly wondered whom the football team I claim to follow were playing this Saturday.  Since then, I have been looking forward to the fixture with an increasing sense of anticipation.  I have often seen people state on social media that they are eager for Ipswich to get out of what they refer to as this ‘damned’ or ‘shitty’ or ’terrible’ league, but personally I rather like the third division and if we weren’t in it we wouldn’t be meeting interesting clubs like Forest Green Rovers.

It’s been a grey morning, with the occasional unfulfilled threat of Spring sunshine. Parking up my planet saving Citroen e-C4, I step out across Gippeswyk Park for Portman Road. The beer garden of the Station Hotel is conspicuously free of Forest Green Rovers supporters, but in Portman Road their team’s white liveried coach is backing up behind the Sir Alf Ramsey stand.  On the bus windscreen, in fancy white lettering it reads ‘KB Coaches’, I wonder what KB stands for and quickly decide that Kate Bush has moved into luxury coach travel in the face of dwindling album sales. I then wonder why Forest Green Rovers don’t travel by train to reduce their carbon footprint. Forty-three years and three weeks ago I recall travelling up by train from Brighton and alighting at Ipswich station along with Alan Mullery and Mark Lawrenson and the rest of the Brighton & Hove Albion first team squad. As we left the platfrom and handed in our tickets I wished them luck in the next day’s game, though I later wished I hadn’t as Gary Stevens equalised for the Seagulls in the final minute of the match. Some things never change, others go backwards.

I buy a programme (£3.50) in the modern cashless manner and spot an FGR fan wearing what I can only describe as a magnificent psychedelic cardigan. If I were some sort of deity responsible for creation, I would make all FGR supporters look a bit like him.  The sniffer dog outside the Cobbold Stand is likely sniffing for dope today, not pyrotechnics.  Arriving at the ‘Arb’ I order a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.51 with 10% Camra discount) and head for the beer garden where to my surprise and pleasure I find my friend Gary sat at a table with a pint of an unidentified lager, although I suspect it’s something created in a vast factory and given an improbably exotic foreign name.  Our conversation begins with death; Gary had returned this morning from Slough where he had attended a funeral, and carries on through the whereabouts of Mick, TV comedy, pensions, the dissolution of the ’Postman Higher Grade’ within Royal Mail, Colchester pubs and how enjoyable it has been watching Ipswich Town this season.  So good is the conversation that Gary kindly buys me another pint of Suffolk Pride and a half of lager for himself.  A bit after twenty-five to three we depart for Portman Road.

Gary and I part in Sir Alf Ramsey Way where he enters a turnstile for the Magnus West Stand whilst I dodge between the supporters’ buses from out of town as I make for the Constantine Road entrance and am pleased to find turnstile number 62 open.  “My favourite turnstile” I tell the lady operator “The year we won the League”, and she says “Yes, we’re going to win today” and I believe her.  In the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand I edge past Pat from Clacton and Fiona to sit next but one to the man from Stowmarket and a couple of rows behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his young son Elwood.  As Stephen Foster reads out the Town team I join in, shouting out their surnames like football crowds in France do.

When the game begins Town, in blue and white get first go with the ball and are aiming it mostly in the direction of Pat, Fiona, me, Phil and Elwood.  FGR are in an unnecessary change kit of pink with black tiger stripes; it is probably one of the most bizarre football kits I have ever seen, but it contrasts nicely with the leaden grey cloud above us and as I will remark to prog rock fan Ray at half-time it makes me think of the 1971 album by Caravan ”In the land of grey and pink”.

Within 40 seconds of the game starting Town almost score as Wes Burns’ run and cross ends with Conor Chaplin’s shot being saved.  Despite the early excitement, the crowd is largely silent  but for a drum in the Sir Bobby Robson stand. Two minutes later and despite the lack of support from the fans, Town lead as Conor Chaplin scores from close range  after a move which cuts through the FGR defence like a hot knife through butter  or any sharp implement through the soft substance of your choice.  Joy abounds for several minutes, but people soon recover.

“Warm isn’t it?” says Pat from Clacton explaining that she’s not wearing an excessive number of layers of clothing. I agree and Pat raises the possibility that I might be going through ‘the change’.   “Addy, addy, addy-O” sing the Sir Bobby Robson stand lower tier briefly and the bloke behind me says “There’s a team that always finishes strong at the end of the season and we need to be that team”.  Three seagulls are sitting on the girder from which the roof of the Sir Bobby Robson stand is suspended, they appear to be watching the match.  FGR win a corner. “Rovers! Rovers!” chant their supporters up in the Cobbold Stand,  but without results. “Ipswich Town v Accrington Stanley,  Buy Tickets” announce the digital advert displays around the edge of the pitch boldly in glowing blue and white, lending the fixture an allure I normally only associate with cheap global brands like Coca-cola and McDonald’s .

Town win a corner and Pat, Fiona and I talk about veganism as ever-present Phil chants “Meat pie, Sausage roll, Come on Ipswich score a goal!” .  Fearful of offending any vegans I provide an alternative lyric of  “Thomas Wolsey, Peggy Cole, Come on Ipswich score a goal”, the impact of which is lost a little I feel because I have to explain to Pat from Clacton who Thomas Wolsey and Peggy Cole were.  The crowd is still quiet despite ever-present Phil’s best efforts and I introduce a few quiet “Come on You Blues” which are meant rise to a crescendo but the impact is almost instant and another decent passing move ends with George Hirst striking a shot against the angle of goal post and cross-bar.  “Burns is always off the pace” says the bloke behind me as a pass runs ahead of Burns and into touch.

The first half is half over and Nathan Broadhead produces a superb turn followed by a shot which isn’t as good and is directed straight into  the arms of FGR goalkeeper Ross Doohan. “Come On Rovers!” chant the FGR fans probably sensing that their team isn’t doing much that is likely to change the current scoreline in their favour.  The lovely smell of damp turf caresses my senses – but mostly my sense of smell.  It’s nearly half past three and it’s time for a break as an FGR player goes down and every one else congregates by the dugouts for drinks and a chat. With the game underway again it’s Wes Burns’ turn to shoot at the FGR goalkeeper. A slightly half-arsed chant of “Ole, Ole, Ole” rolls down the pitch from the Sir Bobby Robson stand, but is beaten back by nothing in particular and Town win another corner and then another and I smell damp turf again .  Corners gone, Harry Clarke and Luke Woolfenden pass the ball between them six times just outside the Town penalty area. It’s just gone twenty to four and Town win another corner and after a low cross to the near post Nathan Broadhead emerges from the mass of other players into space where he receives the ball and passes it beyond Doohan to put Town 2-0 up. It looks so simple you wonder why we hadn’t done it several times before.

For the few minutes until half-time it seems like the crowd might be enthused as they suddenly and unexpectedly roar on Sam Morsy as he dawdles on the ball.  Stephen Foster tells us there will be four more minutes of play at least,  which is enough time for another corner, but then it’s time for applause and a rest.  It’s been a decent half, but FGR aren’t putting up much resistance.

I speak to Ray and his grandson Harrison, and hand Ray a piece of paper; we joke in the voice of Neville Chamberlain about peace in our time, but in fact the paper has printed on it the details of the solar panels on my house and how much electricity they have produced in the past year. How appropriate that Town should be playing FGR, the EFL’s greenest team today, even if they have chosen to play in pink. I tell Ray about how I thought of “In the land of grey and pink”, and he tells me that Caravan are still touring, although perhaps only one of the original members is still alive; Ray’s favourite track on the album is the 7 minute 46 second long “Winter Wine”.

At six minutes past four the football resumes and within two minutes Town have a shot cleared off the goal line.  I look up at the stands and think of the quiet surrounding streets of the town and how great it is being here with 20,000-odd others on a winter Saturday afternoon. I am shaken from my reverie by Conor Chaplin jinking and making a marvellous pass to Wes Burns, whose cross is blocked to give Town yet another corner.  There are more seagulls watching the game from on top of that girder and the cloud that hangs over the pitch is still fashionably grey; if only the render, horizontal boarding and grey window frames that people like to stick on their houses looked half as interesting.  Pat from Clacton shows Fiona and me the entries in today’s guess the crowd competition on the Clacton supporters’ bus.  There are guesses from both the squirrel and the blue tit who frequent Pat’s back garden, although the squirrel’s guess is over 27,000 so he seems unlikely to win. I tell Fiona and Pat that I hadn’t realised squirrels were so optimistic.  Fiona says any squirrels  in her garden have to contend with two dogs, so I guess they’d need to be optimistic if they were going to hang around for long, or very quick, which of course squirrels generally are.

Despite thoughts of squirrels and blue tits, time hasn’t stopped draining away, unsurprisingly, and with nearly an hour played FGR win a rare corner and then another and I think of the hope kindled amongst their supporters by these brief interludes. Soon after, the substitutions begin as Massimo Luongo replaces Cameron Humphreys.  Weirdly, Harry Clarke takes a pace or two towards the touchline as the fourth offical raises the substitute board, as if he half expects he might be substituted.  Then Town score for a third time, Conor Chaplin shooting crisply and accurately as ever, after a low cross from Leif Davis; it’s no more than Town deserve and FGR are definitively beaten.  The goal inspires a burst of high-pitched noise from the family enclosure up in the West Stand. Pre-pubescent voices en masse somehow always sound so well spoken, it’s like they all still watch Valerie Singleton era Blue Peter .

The main batch of mass substitutions takes place for Town to much applause and then Stephen Foster announces  that there are 24,804 of us are here today with 225 of that number supporting FGR. Many in the crowd seemingly  applaud themselves whilst others raise their clapping hands towards the visitors from rural Gloucestershire who deserve something for following the team that is bottom of the third division to the far side of the country, although I happen to know at least two of them actually live in Ipswich.  “I’m Rovers til’ I die” they sing. What happens then I wonder?

The game is won and it’s just a matter of whether Town will score more goals or will they give away a consolation to FGR?  As it happens Town score a fourth, Freddie Ladapo heading in a headed pass from Cameron Burgess after Kyle Edwards is fouled whilst the crowd applaud the seventy-ninth  minute to commemorate Bobby Robson leading Town to FA Cup glory in 1978.  It’s a fittingly inaccurate celebration to mark the birthday of a man who would have been 90 years old yesterday if he hadn’t gone and died in 2009.  A fifth goal would be nice and it almost happens as a Leif Davis shot hits a post in the eighty-second minute as the crowd now applauds Town’s UEFA Cup win under Sir Bob back in 1981. In France, supporters of Montpellier HSC applaud the 73rd minute of every match to mark the age at which their forner chairman Louis Nicollin died. In future it might be more meaningful if Town fans did the same in the 76th minute of every match, although we should also do the same for Sir Alf Ramsey who is always ignored, probably because he committed the terrible sin of trying to ‘talk posh’.

The FGR consolation goal never looks likely but in the 87th minute Cameron Burgess stretches for, but can’t quite reach a through ball from Charlie McCann; Tyrese Omotye chases the pass, he’s one on one against Christian Walton, he shoots, he misses and is offside in any case.  The attacking prowess of FGR summed up in one incident too late in the game to have had any impact on the result even if he had scored.

With the final whistle the crowd is appreciative; recent failures to win seemingly instilling gratitude in the home fans for a victory that has been everything it needed to be.  Town are back on the road to salvation and an exit from the third division, at least until the next time they don’t win.

Ipswich Town 0 Burnley 0

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

You have to go back thirteen years to 2010, when Britain had a Labour government and ‘Hot Tub Time Machine’ was on at the cinema to find an FA Cup run for Ipswich Town that wasn’t more than just an initial tie and defeat in a replay.  Admittedly, first round ties were won last year and two years before that, but the fourth round is unchartered territory for many a millennial.  Back when I was a lad, when things were still fab, groovy and magic, in the time before the world seemed to go completely and utterly insane, three consecutive FA Cup victories for Town would have seen us into the quarter finals.  But fate has been a cruel mistress to Ipswich since then and now our FA Cup begins in November and any story of success is by its very nature an epic tale.

Today’s FA Cup opponents are Burnley, the club against whom Ipswich Town recorded their first ever victory in what is now laughably known as the Premier League.  That victory, on a Tuesday night in August 1961, was just sixteen months after Burnley had become  League Champions, but Town won 6-2 and the less than snappy sports headline in the Ipswich Evening Star read “Six goal Ipswich rock mighty Burnley in great game”.  Ipswich and Burnley are the smallest two Towns in England to have ever been home to the football League Champions and when Town were Champions in 1962 Burnley were runners-up, so if you’re feeling sentimental think of us as sort of footballing twins separated at birth; luckily for Town we’re the one that didn’t get taken to live ‘up North’.

With thoughts of football history and past glories illuminating the manuscript of my mind, I park up my smoothly silent Citroen e-C4 and step out across Gippeswyk Park towards Portman Road and the Arb beyond.  It’s a cold, dull day like all the others lately,  but the exercise of the walk warms me up. In Sir Alf Ramsey Way I pause to buy a programme (£2) in the modern cashless manner and from inside his moulded booth the programme seller tells me to enjoy the match. I thank him and realise that there’s something about the little programme sellers’ booths that makes me think they should also sell ice creams.

At the ‘The Arb’, I buy a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.90) and the landlord explains that he is doing his best to keep the price down below £4.00, which is good of him.  I retire to the beer garden where an electrician is fitting new heaters to the shelter.  I sit at a table beneath an umbrella, I am alone, but not for long as Mick soon appears apologising for being late before disappearing again only to reappear with his own pint of Suffolk Pride.  We talk of my electric car and trip to Oxford last Saturday, of newspapers and the France 24 news channel and app, doctor’s surgeries and how I find the appearance of a man in a cowboy hat who has come outside  for a smoke a little weird; i expect he’s smoking Marlboros.

Time passes and before long we have to leave for Portman Road, or otherwise we’d miss the kick-off.  In Sir Alf Ramsey Way we enter by the turnstiles where there is no queue.  A steward with a loud hailer announces the existence of these magical turnstiles and encourages their use, but to little avail. As usual for cup ties, our seats are the ‘posh’ padded ones in Block Y, seemingly designed for people short in leg and tender in buttock.  The teams are already on the pitch as we edge our way to our seats past a homely looking, grey-haired woman and her slightly chubby, bearded male accomplice, perhaps a husband or paramour. We catch the tail end of the “Na-na-nas” from the Beatles “Hey Jude” and the game begins. Town have first go with the ball and kick from left to right towards the stand of Sir Alf Ramsey, architect of that 6-2 win in the late summer of 1961, when supporters still travelled to the match by trolleybus.

Within a minute or so Kayden Jackson is sprinting away down the  right, ball at his feet, he crosses the ball low and hard and George Hirst hits it past the near post from somewhere near the middle of the penalty area, just like he did at Oxford last week.  It’s a very exciting start to the game and helps to temper my disappointment that Burnley are not wearing their traditional claret shirts, but are instead decked out in what has become the ubiquitous and profoundly boring all-black away kit, which every club seems to have.  Burnley’s kit features red trim, as if that could make any difference whatsoever.

Burnley’s Scott Twine stoops to tie a boot lace.  “Come on referee!”  bawls a whiny man behind me. “Why are we stopped to let him tie his laces” he continues, “ I’ve never seen a game stopped for a player to tie his laces, I’ve never seen it before”. The whiney man is absolutely apoplectic and wants everyone to know he’s never seen such a thing before. I can honestly say I’ve never heard anyone so angry, so early in a game about a player tying his boot lace, but I decide not to shout it out.  I did see the game delayed whilst Sam Morsy put on a pair of new boots last week at Oxford, I don’t shout that out either.

“I didn’t get a programme” says the chubby bearded man beside me to the homely, grey-haired woman, “Because of the high demand”.  Something in his voice tells me he was too mean.  Marcus Harness hits the cross bar with a right-footed shot from the centre of the penalty box.  With the ball returned to goalkeeper Vaclav Hladky, Town pass the ball out from the back and Burnley players are quick to close down the Town defenders, causing a ripple of unease amongst some supporters. “Playing from the back, it’s what modern teams do” calls out the whiny bloke again to ensure we all know that he understands ‘modern football’.  I can’t help but chuckle.

Eleven minute have gone and Burnley win the first corner. “Come on Burnli, Come On Burnli” chant the Lancastrians in their deep accent full of short vowels, rolled ‘r’s and lolling ‘l’s.   Jordan Beyer tugs at Sone Aluko’s shirt as Sone tries to break forward, and is booked by referee Tom Nield. “Dirty northern bastard” I say to Mick, because it amuses me to do so.  The noise inside the ground is stirring as both home and away fans get into the spirit of what the FA Cup used to be all about. It feels like 1974.  As Burnley’s Scott Twine writhes on the ground and then gets up and plays on when he doesn’t get a free-kick, the chubby man next to me mansplains to the homely woman that he wasn’t really hurt.  It’s twenty past three and Burnley’s Jay Rodriguez shoots high over the Town cross bar, spurning Burnley’s first chance of a goal.

Town win their first corner. “Come On You Blues” chant several people, even in the west stand.   The booking count is levelled up when inexplicably Marcus Harness fails to stop when running and collides with Ameen Al-Dakhil’s ankles. Town win another corner as something of a hit and hope cross from Kayden Jackson looks like it might dip under the Burnley cross-bar, forcing their extensively named goalkeeper Bailey Peacock-Farrell to tip the ball over.  Another corner follows  and the chubby man next to me tells the homely looking woman that it’s a very exciting game; it’s nice of him because she might not have realised if she was busy knitting or making a shopping list perhaps.  

Only ten minutes until half-time now, and in an outbreak of astounding cheek or wilful absence of self-awareness, Town fans chant “Your support is fucking shit” presumably to the Burnley fans, although singing it to one another would be understandable in the context of many previous matches.  Shocked, I inexplicably imagine that Vaclav Hladky reminds me a bit of Laurie Sivell, probably because he looks quite a bit shorter than all his defenders.  A beautifully flowing Town moves produces another corner to Town and the whiny bloke behind me gets all self-righteous again loudly expounding “We don’t play that way anymore, lumping it forward” as if no one else can possibly have noticed.

It’s been a fine half of football despite the whiny man and by way of celebration the Sir Bobby Robson stand are singing “ Oh when the Town go marching in” at the proper speed, although possibly without quite the  joy of genuine evangelists.  Finally, the fact that no more than a minute of added-on time is to be played seems to confirm that for forty-five minutes at least all has been right with the world – except that we haven’t scored.

With half-time Mick and I use the facilities to disperse excess Suffolk Pride, but the queues for the toilets are so long it’s impossible to find where they end in the cramped confines of the upper stair cases and bars of the west stand. We return to ground level where there is more space and more square footage of urinal. Returning to our seats in time for the re-start, we ease past the homely looking woman and the chubby man and I pause to take a look at who might be the whiny man behind me, I think he is wearing tinted glasses and has a very pink face beneath a hat.

The game resumes at six minutes past four and  Burnley up their game a bit, being a tiny but significant bit quicker and pressing more than in the first half. As a result Vaclav Hladky has to make two excellent saves, but make them he does, and with aplomb, reminding us of why we have a goalkeeper.  But it’s not all Burnley and Town soon win a corner.  “ There are people say we can’t defend…” expounds the whiny bloke, but I’m fed up with him and tune out before he concludes his latest treatise. In the Cobbold Stand the Lancashire hordes start to sing “The Irish Rover”, which seems a little odd, although there were a lot of Irish immigrants to Lancashire in the nineteenth century, but they’d be getting on a bit now. More odd is that the chubby bloke beside me joins in.

Mick asks me what substitutions I think Kieran Mc Kenna will make and I tell him that George Hirst  and Marcus Harness and possibly Sone Aluko are most likely to go off first , and so it proves,  as with an hour gone Freddie Ladapo,  Nathan Broadhead and Conor Chaplin replace them.  Burnley make three substitutions too, although I’m disappointed that neither of their other two players with double-barrelled surnames are in today’s squad. Who’d have thought Burnley would have so many players with double-barrelled surnames?

Ten minutes later and Sam Morsy is shown his usual yellow card for a pretty unexceptional foul, “He collects them doesn’t he?” says Mick. I can’t disagree.  Stadium announcer Stephen Foster announces that today’s attendance is 25,420 of which 1,581 are from Burnley;  he thanks everyone for their ‘tremendous’ support. “You’re not sitting where I am Stephen” I think to myself.  Six minutes after his booking Sam Morsy is replaced by new signing Massimo Luongo, who like Morsy joined Town from Middlesbrough.  With his beard, dark hair and large frame, Luongo even looks a bit like Morsy from up here, and I ponder for a moment on the possible advantages and desirability of bringing on substitutes who look like the player they replace.

“Come On Ipswich, Come On Ipswich” chant the crowd in all parts of the ground as full-time begins to draw ever closer. Kyle Edwards replaces Kayden Jackson who trots off the pitch to a loud ovation; he has been truly excellent today.  “ I know why you play” calls the whiny bloke loudly as if no one else does and everyone sat around him is one of the people who criticises Jackson on social media.  Time is running out,  Town win a corner  but Luke Woolfenden can only head the ball wide. Massimo Luongo is even playing like Sam Morsy, but hasn’t been booked, and indeed he gets fouled by the economically-named Jack Cork, provoking frantic flagging from the linesman and a final yellow card of the afternoon from Mr Nield.  Four minutes of added on time are announced, five are played and the game ends.

It’s been yet another excellent afternoon of football at Portman Road, even though not winning can rarely be anything but a little disappointing.  Best of all however, this felt like a proper FA Cup tie, played in front of a big crowd who have turned up with hope and may be expectation and possibly because it’s the FA Cup.  It’s been a very long time since that happened, not thirteen years, more like thirty.

Ipswich Town 3 Oxford United 0

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

‘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 1 Fleetwood Town 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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