Ipswich Town 2 Wigan Athletic 2

April 22, 2022May 1, 2022 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Back on Tuesday 8^th March I erroneously believed that the glorious two-goal victory over the Imps of Lincoln City would be the last time this season that I would witness our heroes play a match under the dreamy luminous glow of the Portman Road floodlights. But my capacity for getting things wrong is pretty much limitless, and courtesy of Sky Sports TV moving our Good Friday excursion to Rotherham to Saturday lunchtime, what should have been a relaxed end of season stroll of a game on a sunny Easter Monday afternoon has been transformed into a final, atmospheric night game. Sky TV and its parent company Comcast may have completely ruined professional football in England with their money and meal-time kick-offs, but it is an extremely ill-wind that blows no good at all and I love a mid-week game under floodlights, even if our opponents tonight will only be third division leaders Wigan Athletic and not Real Madrid, Feijenoord or Lokomotiv Leipzig as they once would have been.

For an evening match it’s still very light as I walk down through Gippeswyk Park and along the river behind the Pentahotel, but then it is only half-past six on an April evening in the Northern Hemisphere. The salty, pungent smell of seaweed and mud is carried on the wind and Oyster Catchers whistle like demented referees as they swoop above a group of Canada geese, ornithological reminders of Frank Yallop, Jaime Peters, Craig Forrest and Jason De Vos. I’m heading for what was the Arboretum pub but is now the Arbor House for a pre-match pint. I stop off in Sir Alf Ramsey Way to buy a programme in the modern cashless way. “Is it working?” I ask the cheery young female programme seller. “At the moment” she replies, cheerily. ”We’d better be quick then” I say, tendering my blue plastic card. Disappointingly the sale does not transact. “I think we probably don’t take that card” says the girl letting me down gently. “No, I don’t expect you do” I say, proffering a second blue card, “That was my season ticket”. It’s the sort of faux pas to rival those of my dear mother, who once on a day trip to France asked a waiter if he spoke French.

At the Arboretum, or Arbor House, I purchase a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.90) using my bank card and sit in the garden alone. I take my programme from my jacket pocket expecting to just ‘flick through’ it, but to my surprise I end up actually reading two quite interesting pieces about Sone Aluko’s experiences playing for Nigeria and how Idris El Mizouni copes with being a professional sportsman during Ramadan. After a half an hour of beer and contemplation I head back to Portman Road beneath the setting sun shining through pearlescent clouds. Turnstile 61 is my favoured portal tonight, it was a choice between that and No 59. The pleasant lady turnstile operator smiles me into the ground and I make for the gents where I enjoy a tinny rendition of Edward Ebenezer Jeremiah Brown before I wash my hands. Up in the stand, ever-present Phil who never misses a game is concealed within a blue hoody and Pat from Clacton is talking to the bloke who sits to my left and I think is from Stowmarket; they’re talking about how cold it is this evening and indeed a lazy East wind is blowing across the bottom tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand, causing me to raise my collar and do up the top button of my coat. Fiona arrives, returned from her cruise and other excursions.

With hands shaken and knees taken and applauded the game begins; Town getting first go with the ball and pointing it mostly in the direction of the goal in front of me, Pat, Phil, Fiona and my neighbour who might be from Stowmarket and whose grandson is here with him tonight. “Everywhere we go” sing the Wigan fans up in the Cobbold stand, but I can’t quite catch what it is about everywhere they go that they want to tell us. Everywhere they go is quite nice? Everywhere they go is better than Wigan and not as nice as Ipswich? Everywhere they go they are politely asked to leave? I may never know. As if not to be out done by the visitors, which is unusual, the Sir Bobby Robson stand breaks into the same tune but with different words, the ones that begin “Addy, Addy, Addy-O”. In terms of atmosphere, it’s a good start and it’s not even properly dark yet. My first thoughts on the game itself are that the Wigan players all look extremely big and their all-scarlet kit stands out particularly well even if it does lack style. But the football soon chases away all thoughts of haute couture as Town embark on a first half of fine attacking football, raining in crosses from left and right from Wes Burns and Matt Penney and winning corners courtesy of Janoi Donacien and the clever passing of Conor Chaplin.

Only an announcement asking the owner of a black Ranger Rover in the Sir Alf Ramsey car park to move it breaks my concentration and I realise I never knew Sir Alf had a car park named in his honour. The incident reminds me of when my own car achieved similar fame at Barnet, with the registration being read out over the public address system. My car was also black, but it was a Ford Fiesta, and I didn’t have to move it, just turn the lights off. When I got back to my car after the game the battery was flat, but some friendly Barnet fans gave me a push start. Wigan have a few moments of possession, but it ends with Town breaking swiftly with Wes Burns, who lays the ball off to the oddly named Macauley Bonne who feeds it to the overlapping Matt Penney who shoots hopelessly high and wide of the goal from 20 metres out.

This is a good game with Conor Chaplin threading more inviting passes into the box and Bersant Celina shooting into the arms of the Wigan goalkeeper and Old Testament prophet Amos. As Amos then spills the ball from a Sam Morsy shot , a man a couple of rows behind me laughs like Goofy, the anthropomorphic Walt Disney dog. A cross curves in a graceful arc from the boot of Bersant Celina but eludes the head of the oddly named Macauley Bonne and another chorus of “Addy, Addy Addy-O” emanates from the North Stand before echoing from pockets around the ground where people seem to know the rest of the words too. Up in the Cobbold Stand the Wigan fans sing of balm cakes, coal and canals, possibly. A man next to the man who laughs like Goofy, laughs like a chimpanzee.

Above the North Stand roof and floodlights a smear of cloud adopts a pinkish tinge as the sun sinks down over Sproughton and a lone seagull glides above the pitch on its way back to the coast for the night. Twenty-five minutes have passed and Wigan’s Kelland Watts, whose name sounds a bit like the formal version of former Coronation Street character ‘Curly’ Watts, gets to be the first player shown the yellow card of referee Mr Will Finnie, after he fouls Conor Chaplin. Matt Penney and Bersant Celina rain in more crosses, which Wigan’s tough centre-back Jack Whatmough (pronounced Whatmuff I hope) sends out for another Town corner. “Are you working from home still?” asks Pat from Clacton of Fiona; she is. Town are all over Wigan like a rash but just can’t score. My neighbour from Stowmarket and I turn to one other and share how we just know that Wigan are going to go up the other end and score.

With half-time approaching Sam Morsy is shown Mr Finnie’s yellow card as a bloke called Bennett wriggles on the turf and rubs his face. No free-kick is given to Wigan and indeed Town have a corner, during the taking of which Mr Finnie watches intently as the miraculously recovered Bennett proceeds to give Sam Morsy a huge bear hug to prevent him from making a run towards the ball or anywhere else. Incredibly Mr Finnie evidently doesn’t consider that being hugged by an opposition player as the ball is crossed into the box is any sort of a foul, perhaps he simply thought Bennett hadn’t seen Morsy for a long time and was understandably overcome with emotion. From the corner, Wigan break away and Luke Woolfenden is booked for bringing down Stephen Humphrys. The free-kick leads to Wigan winning their first corner of the match; it’s the forty-fifth minute and Wigan score as Will Keane runs free and glances a header inside the far post. We knew it would happen.

Four minutes of added on time give the Wiganers in the Cobbold Stand the opportunity to sing “We’re gonna win the league, We’re gonna the league, And they int gonna believe uz , And they int gonna believe uz” to the tune of “For he’s a jolly good fellow”, but curiously they develop a Midlands accent as they do so.

Half-time begins with me booing the referee for his incompetence and then Ray stops for a chat on his way to using the facilities beneath the stand. The football resumes at seven minutes to nine with the replacement of Matt Penney with Dominic Thompson and Pat from Clacton remarks on how Thompson receives a lot of unfair abuse from some Town supporters on social media; but we all agree that he’s alright and we like him. I would even go so far as to say that with his beard that sometimes looks like massive sideburns and his hair that looks like tied-back dreads (it might actually be tied-back dreads), he is easily the coolest player Town have ever had.

Town pick up where they left off about fifteen minutes ago and dominate possession whilst also sending in more crosses that are cleared. “Ole, Ole, Ole” or “Allez, Allez, Allez” sing the Sir Bobby Robson stand lower tier, along with other words that I have even more difficulty deciphering and therefore don’t bother trying to; I just enjoy the noise. The fifty third minute and Sam Morsy shoots over the cross bar. The attendance is announced in a very jolly manner over the PA system by Stephen Foster, former Radio Suffolk presenter and school chum of my friends Ian and Pete, as 21,329 with the number of Wigan supporters in that total being 402, or as Stephen in full DJ mode pronounces it “foouur, huuuundred and twooo.” “You’re support is fucking shit” chant the Wiganers to the ever adaptable Welsh hymn tune of Cwm Rhondda, which in turn provokes more chimpanzee style laughter from the bloke a couple of rows behind me.

Back on the pitch and with an hour gone Wigan’s Callum Lang scythes down Conor Chaplin and is justly booked by the otherwise inept Mr Finnie. Lang’s protestations of innocence are as credible as those of Boris Johnson; it was a blatant foul, but probably less cynical than our Prime Minister’s lies. From the free-kick the ball pings about a bit in the penalty area before it falls to Conor Chaplin who makes a small clearing and pops the ball into the back of the net to equalise. “Top of the league, your ‘avin’ a laugh” taunt the Sir Bobby Robson standers to the tune of Tom Hark, originally recorded by Elias and his Zig Zag Jive Flutes in 1958, which seems a bit harsh given that Wigan are both genuinely top of the league and, for all Town’s possession and good play, are not actually losing. But the goal has enthused the home crowd and a pledge of “Ipswich ‘til I die” is heard before James Norwood replaces the oddly named Macauley Bonne and then Wigan almost reclaim the lead, as Dominic Thompson inexplicably heads across his own penalty area forcing Christian Walton into two point-blank saves from the lurking Bennett.

Within four minutes Wigan are punished for missing the gift we had tried to give them as Wes Burns’ cross is headed back across the face of the correct goal by Dominic Thompson, atoning for his earlier error and an incoming Sam Morsy does a passable impression of John Wark by lashing the ball into the roof of the net. It’s a proper goal, but foolishly and conceitedly the home crowd find it necessary once again to chant “Top of the league, you’re ‘avin’ a laugh” and go on to compound their error with more than one chorus of “Keano, Keano, What’s the score?”. It’s almost as if the crowd have forgotten that Will Keane no longer plays for us and they actually still want him to score. What other explanation for such flagrant tempting of fate can there be?

Will Keane has already scored once and eludes the defence again to shoot at Christian Walton before the inevitable happens and with four minutes of normal time remaining he again slips all trace of marking to flick a low cross past Walton from close range. Keane has looked mean and lean all game and much sharper than he ever did playing for Town, and when he has needed to he has made easy work of Town’s zonal ‘marking’ system. Up in the Cobbold stand the scenes are more reminiscent of Wigan Casino than Wigan Athletic as the foouur, huuuundred and twooo dance and celebrate being top of the league (still) and Will Keane scoring both of his team’s goals.

The game is more even now, not only in terms of goals scored. The final whistle sees Wigan having the last laugh at being top of the league; we might have mostly outplayed them but they didn’t lose and it seems unlikely they won’t be going up as Champions, whilst Town will be hoping Bolton and Portsmouth let us finish higher than eleventh. Some people find solace by saying that age is just a number, well perhaps so is your team’s league position, unless of course it’s bottom like Norwich’s.

Watching your team play well is always a pleasure whatever league they’re in and tonight’s has been a marvellous match, a fitting finale to this season’s floodlit fixtures, which is just as well because courtesy of Sky TV the last game of the season is at bloody lunchtime, so we can all fast like it’s Ramadan. Bon appetit.

Ipswich Town 0 Hull City 2

April 1, 2019April 1, 2019 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

As I prepare to leave my house and head for Portman Road my wife Paulene is watching Aussie Rules footie on her lap-top, Geelong Cats are playing The Demons and whilst we don’t know it yet, the Cats will win by a massive eighty point margin. “Oh, are you going already” she says and I kiss her goodbye. Spring is here. It is the last weekend in March and as walk to the railway station the sky is a clear blue, it is sunny and verging on warm. A black cat looks down at me from a tree; I guess that it has climbed up there to avoid running across my path and bringing me good luck. Spicy smells waft from the local Indian restaurant; a man on the station platform is wearing sunglasses and shorts, which seems optimistic or foolish, perhaps both. The train is on time and busy with passengers, heads bowed in the thrall of their mobile phones. At Colchester a man in a Chelsea beanie hat picks his nose enthusiastically, gouging away at his left nostril with his index finger. A young woman opposite me wears leopard print sneakers. “Hold on Scarlett” says a big-chested woman to her young daughter as they pick their way between the seats and the train pulls away; she staggers a little and almost topples over “Whoops”. Sheep graze on the meadows near Manningtree and a haze hangs over the river, blotting out all sight of Felixstowe.

I’m first off the train at Ipswich and away over the bridge and up Princes Street. I look over the bridge parapet and in the beer garden of the Station Hotel a group of Hull City supporters all clad in black look like Goths, I photograph them and they wave; I wave back. In Portman Road I waste three pounds on a match day programme because somehow it wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t. I later regret my decision but am no doubt destined to repeat the mistake. There is a sense of sluggish anticipation outside the stadium as people wait for the turnstiles to open; some queue to collect tickets, others stand and munch on fatty fast food lunches. At St Jude’s Tavern the usual blokes in their sixties and seventies are drinking the usual beer. The Match Day Special is once again St Jude’s Goblin’s Piss (£2.50). I provoke a certain amount of jealousy because my pint has a head on it whilst everyone else’s looks flat. In truth the beer is cloudy and yellow and I now realise how it got its name. What it has to do with Goblins I don’t know, but I guess they couldn’t just call it Piss, although oddly I did once hear the lead singer of Brighton’s finest late 1970’s pub band The Piranhas (Boring Bob Grover) ask for a ‘pint of piss’ at a Student’s Union bar. The conversation is of French cricket teams, what a strange and wonderful country Belgium is, Belgian beer and football. I have a second pint of the Match Day Special and at about twenty to three depart for Portman Road.

The sun is still shining and walking down the hill towards the ground the huge, beaming face of Bobby Robson above the club shop seems to be peaking around the corner, as if he’s trying not to be seen. I pick my way through the crowds past queues into the increasingly shabby looking Cobbold Stand with its peeling blue paint.

I enter the ground through turnstile number seven where there is no queue, smiling broadly as I cheerily thank its moustachioed operator. After a visit to the gents I take up my usual place near Pat from Clacton, ever-present Phil who never misses a game and his young son Elwood. Pat tells me about how she spent the week before last at the Burlington Palm Hotel in Great Yarmouth, playing whist in the afternoons and evenings but seeing the sites, including Burgh Castle and the seals of Horsey Beach in the mornings; she tells me she enjoyed it a lot more than coming here.

The game begins with Town aiming for but not hitting the goal just to the right of me, Pat, Phil and Elwood. Town get first go with the ball. Today’s opponents Hull City, known as the Tigers wear their traditional kit of amber and black striped shirts with black shorts and amber and black socks. In the opening minutes Town look keen and push forward; “Paul Lambert is a Blue, He hates Norwich” sing the North Stand touchingly raiding their collective childhood memory of nursery rhyme tunes and re-purposing “London Bridge is falling down.” It’s ‘early doors’(!) but Ipswich are on top and the North Stand are getting carried away with it all, goading the 485 visiting Hullensians with a chorus of “You’re support is fucking shit” which seems a bit rich. It disappoints me; good humour and humility are called for when supporting a team as bad as Ipswich Town is currently.

Inevitably Hull’s revenge is swift and three minutes later the Ipswich Town defence clear off to that place that they go at least once every match, where no one can see them, but they leave the ball with Hull City who score; a nicely placed shot by Kamil Grosicki formerly of Rennes, who like a true artist makes full use of the space offered by an open goal. “How shit must you be, we’re winning away” is the questioning and not unreasonable retort from the Humberside 485, although in fact they have already won as many as four away games this season. But the answer to their question has to be “very”.

Four minutes later and Jon Nolan who is the subject of the “One to One” feature in the programme and has his name on the cover, retires hurt. Nolan is replaced by ‘the boy’ Dozzell. With Hull leading, Ipswich fade a little; they still have lots of the ball but don’t do much with it that might result in a goal. “It’s all nice knocking it about, but….” shouts an exasperated voice from the stand not needing to finish his sentence to convey what he means. The Ipswich defence evaporates again and Hull nearly score a second goal and at half-past three Myles Kenlock has a shot which sweeps above the cross-bar and the brief spurt of excitement inspires an unexpected burst of support “Come On Ipswich! Come On Ipswich! Come On Ipswich!” sing what seems like several people all at once.

A large, bright, luminous presence appears to my right hand side; it is a hi-vis coat and inside is a steward who after listening to his ear piece proceeds to ask me if I am in possession of a camera. Thinking naively that he just wants to talk about photography, I rather proudly tell him I am; well, it’s quite a good one and wasn’t that cheap. He asks me not to take any more pictures. I think it’s rather unfair to single me out when virtually everyone in the crowd is carrying a mobile phone and many of them are being used to take pictures and videos. I tell the steward so and he says “Yes, it is a bit of a grey area”. Football Association Ground regulations state that photos or videos captured on mobile phones must not be published or shown on social media sites. Yeah, right. It reminds me a little of the first and second rules of Fight Club.

1 Notwithstanding possession of any ticket the Club, any police officer or authorised steward may refuse entry to (or eject from) the Ground any person:

1.1 that fails (or in the Club’s reasonable opinion is likely to fail) to comply with these Ground Regulations or any reasonable instruction issued by a police officer or authorised steward; and/or

1.2 whose presence within the Ground is, or could (in the Club’s reasonable opinion), constitute a source of danger, nuisance or annoyance to any other person

16 Mobile telephones and other mobile devices are permitted within the Ground PROVIDED THAT (i) they are used for personal and private use only (which, for the avoidance of doubt and by way of example only, shall not include the capturing, logging, recording, transmitting, playing, issuing, showing, or any other communicationof any Material for any commercial purposes); and (ii) no Material that is captured, logged, recorded, transmitted, played, issued, shown or otherwise communicatedby a mobile telephone or other mobiledevice may be published or otherwise made available to any third parties including, without limitation, via social networking sites.

19 Save as set out in paragraph 16 above, no person (other than a person who holds an appropriate licence) may capture, log, record, transmit, play, issue, show or otherwise communicate(by digital or other means) any Material in relation to the Match, any players or other persons present in the Ground and/or the Ground, nor may they bring into the Ground or use within the Ground (or provide to, facilitate or otherwise assist another person to use within the Ground) any equipment or technology which is capable of capturing, logging, recording, transmitting, playing, issuing, showing or otherwise communicating (by digital or other means) any such Material. Copyright, database rights and any other intellectual property rights in any unauthorised recording or transmission is assigned (by way of present assignment of future rights) to the Club and the EFL. You further agree (if and whenever required to do so by the Club and/or the EFL) to promptly execute all instruments and do all things necessary to vest the right, title and interest in such rights to the Club and the EFL absolutely and with full title guarantee.

Peeved and wanting to begin a revolution I stand up, face the crowd behind me and try and encourage everyone to get out their mobile phones and take pictures, predictably I fail, but it strikes me as funny how cow-eyed and mindless everyone looks.

Town have a couple of shots cleared off the line in the closing minutes of the half but so what. Half-time arrives and I vent some more Goblin’s Piss, look at the half-time scores and have a chat with Ray who today is here with his wife Ros as well as grandson Harrison. This is Ros’s third game this season; she doesn’t seem to be enjoying it that much, nor am I anymore.

The second half is much like the first but probably less exciting. Hull score almost immediately as Jarrod Bowen makes a speedy, jinking run from the middle of the Hull half, all the way down Town’s left flank and then passes to Kamil Grosnicki who hits a precise shot off the far post and into the net. It’s a good goal but most teams would have got close enough to Bowen to knock him over before he got to the penalty area.

After that the Tigers seem largely happy to let Ipswich rain in a series of inaccurate crosses and mis-place their passes whilst they wait to run away down the wings again when they get the chance. Referee Mr John Brooks shares his name with my grandfather, but disgraces it with a series of unwelcome decisions. Had the late John Henry Brooks been in charge I am sure Ipswich would have won, not because he was an Ipswich supporter, he grew up in rural Oxfordshire, but because he would have had a bet on the game beforehand and would have backed the team with the longest odds.

Pat shows me some of the pictures she took of the seals on Horsey Beach; it’s a second half highlight. With an hour played the large and angular German, Collin Quaner replaces nippy Kayden Jackson, who has played quite well considering the standard of the overall team performance. Paul Lambert urges his team on, prowling the ‘technical area’ in his Marks and Spencer v-neck jumper whilst Hull’s manager is less animated and wears a jacket and tie and looks a trifle staid. On seventy four minutes eighteen year old French-Tunisian Idris El Mizouni from Meudon just outside Paris makes his first appearance at Portman Road. As I tell Pat, I met Idris’s dad in Meudon last September when I saw Meudon play St Ouen in an early round of the French Cup. I very much hope Idris does well, we need more foreign players, they’re better than the British ones, they tend to be able to control the ball and pass to their own team mates.

There are moments where Town ‘come close’ but never close enough. The old boy behind me isn’t happy “ We pay good money to see this” he says . It’s Hull that come closest to another goal in time added on as a Marc Pugh shot curls against a post. With the game in its final minutes the crowd show a bit of life with some rhythmic clapping and a few supportive chants from the North Stand, which is unusual after a not very-good performance. Nevertheless, such support is a good thing even if the team could perhaps have done with it earlier in the game, rather than as a show of sympathy at the end. The final whistle is greeted with a bit of a love-in at the North Stand end of the ground despite abject defeat and the fact that Paul Lambert’s record as manager is now worse than Paul Hurst’s. Relegation is as good as certain but a lot of supporters remain simply satisfied that Mick McCarthy is no longer manager, or that’s what they’re saying.

On the train home I speak with three Hull supporters who are saddened that Ipswich should be going down and surprised that we have never played in the national third tier. They add that they know from experience that third division football is bloody awful, we should do well.

Colchester United 0 Forest Green Rovers 3

March 14, 2019March 14, 2019 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s been a foul March day; blustery, wet and cold; at times the word very has been in front of those adjectives. Now it is gone seven o’clock, the sun has gone down and it’s mainly miserable and dark, particularly at the Colchester Park & Ride car park, an exposed expanse of dimly lit tarmac next to the A12, adjacent to a petrol station and a McDonald’s. Colchester is Britain’s oldest recorded town.

Across the A12 the lights of the Colchester Community Stadium, currently known as the Jobserve Community Stadium and formerly the Weston Homes Community Stadium, which I like to call ‘Layer Road’, shine, but not enough to satisfactorily illuminate the ticket machine at the edge of the car park. The machine asks for at least three digits from my car number plate, then changes its mind and asks for all of them and then tells me to pay with coins; I don’t have any. I trudge the 70 odd metres to the typically streamlined Park & Ride waiting room building and change a fiver into coins with the help of another machine. I ignore the queue of other people buying tickets at the machines there and trudge back to the dimly lit machine. A kind man illuminates it with his mobile phone and after the machine first claims ignorance of my car registration it eventually allows me to purchase a ticket (£3).

I walk to the football ground between bright lights planted into the ground that don’t actually illuminate the path only give me a clue where it might be. I turn left onto Boxted Road and traverse the bridge over the A12 with its high metal sides presumably there to prevent suicidal football supporters from jumping down onto the highway; I turn left into United Way and arrive at another open expanse of tarmac upon which here and there are painted the words BUS STOP. A white Mercedes Benz is parked partly across the word STOP. I shed a tear for the shuttle buses which no longer ply their way to the stadium and were the only thing that made this god forsaken location for a football ground even faintly viable. I have probably watched Colchester United play well over 300 times in the last 35 to 40 years but have not been to ‘Layer Road’ since the shuttle bus service stopped running, until tonight. Tonight I have come to see Forest Green Rovers play Colchester United because I want to see Forest Green Rovers, the Football League’s only vegan football club, the only Football League club owned by a former ‘New Age’ traveller. The irony that I have had to drive to watch this club famed for its ‘green’ credentials is not lost on me.

The Community Stadium is as bleak and lonely as it ever was, surrounded by a car park and nothing much else. The Forest Green Rovers team bus sits up a corner by the main stand, disappointingly it looks like a regular team bus, not powered by methane or biofuel or anything other than dirty old diesel. I take a look in the well-stocked club shop, where trade is slow; toy bears stare out into the car park but no one is buying.

I queue at the turnstile for what feels like seconds wishing I had a bag for the steward to look into to make this experience more interesting. Inside the ground however things look up, the programmes are free! This is like being in a civilised country like France where free football programmes are de rigeur and fleetingly I am transported to the imaginary Rue de Layer where Unifie de Colcestre are about to take on Nomades de Foret Vert in the Ligue National. The sight of Pukka pies not baguettes and Carling instead of espresso coffee returns me from my reverie. I spot a former work colleague called Mark, which is nice, and we shake one another warmly by the hand; he introduces me to his friend Darren who like me is really an Ipswich Town supporter. Mark tells me this should be a good game, although Colchester United tend to either ‘do alright’ or lose 3-0. Up in the South stand I take my seat, I am sat behind a man and woman who I recognise from the Barside at Layer Road from over thirty years ago, they look much the same, just slightly shrivelled with age.

The U’s soon kick off towards me in their customary blue and white stripes, although from behind their shirts are all blue with white sleeves as if they couldn’t really decide if they want to be in stripes or not. Their white socks have just two blue hoops as if they couldn’t decide if they should be hooped or not either. There are no such uncertainties with Forest Green Rovers’ kit of overly dark bottle green with lurid day-glo green trim.

Colchester dominate the start of the game taking on the role of 6^th placed promotion hopefuls eager to cement their place in the play-off positions, as someone on Sky Sports TV might say. Ninth placed Forest Green defend capably. “It’s a long way on a Tuesday, innit?” says the bloke behind me and is not fully understood by his companion. He explains that it’s a long way for Forest Green supporters to travel from wherever it is that Forest Green is, “Somewhere down Portsmouth way, I think”. Forest Green Rovers actually play in Nailsworth in Gloucestershire, so they’re more Laurie Lee than Lord Nelson, but I don’t turn round and tell him that.

The Forest Green number 23 Joseph Mills is the first player to make an impression; he is wearing his hair in a bun. “You’ll never make it Ward” says a voice at the back of the stand, seemingly attempting to goad the Forest Green goalkeeper Lewis Ward who is dressed all in pink. From the middle of the stand directly behind the goal a chorus of “Ole, Ole, Ole” rises or perhaps it’s “Allez, Allez, Allez”; it’s hard to tell, it could be both. After twelve minutes Colchester win the game’s first corner.

Twenty minutes have passed, Colchester are doing okay just not scoring. Forest Green cross the ball from the left to Lloyd James, he quickly shoots and scores from a good 18 metres or so from goal. No one was expecting that, it’s probably the first shot on target. “Come on Col U” chant the understandably disappointed but not unduly upset occupants of the South Stand. But things change, the crowd becomes more vociferous, less happy, more angry. Colchester win another corner to no avail and Forest Green players spend time sat on the turf looking pained. “Get on with it, you bloody…” shouts an angry man so irate that he can’t think of a word to finish his sentence. It’s nearly twenty past eight and Forest Green break away down the right, one pass, another pass and number ten Reece Brown side foots the ball past Colchester’s slightly exotically named goalkeeper Rene Gilmartin. Forest Green lead 2-0. Colchester’s number forty-five Frank Nouble kicks Lewis Ward out of spite and becomes the first player to be booked by the slightly portly referee Mr Alan Young. Colchester rather pointlessly win a third corner and Lewis Ward is booked for mucking about.

After three minutes of added on time comes the half-time whistle and I head downstairs for a pounds worth of PG Tips in a plastic cup and to check the half-time scores, but mysteriously all the TV sets are on their sides; perhaps the Sky subscription is cheaper like that; it would be okay if you could lie down on a sofa to watch it. Ipswich are losing.

The second half is much like the first, just a bit colder. The breeze is getting stronger and there are a few spots of rain in the air. In the West Stand a man in a blue and white wig and bath robe reclines against his seat looking bored. Perhaps like Bobby Ewing he will later step out of the shower and find it was all a bad dream. Colchester press forward but Forest Green defend well, blocking every shot, thwarting every move, frustrating the spectators. The crowd begin to blame Mr Young for a lack of free-kicks to Colchester or too many free-kicks to Forest Green. “You are kidding” shouts an exasperated man at Mr Young and drawing out every word. “What is wrong with you referee?” asks someone else. “Show some flair referee” says another rather more obscurely “Show some bollocks” replies yet another, a little crudely. I for one want Mr Young to keep his shorts very definitely on. A few rows in front of me a young woman, or very high pitched man shouts viciously, rendering herself or himself incoherent with vented spleen. The atmosphere is unpleasant and it’s no wonder Boudicca sacked the place back in AD60 if the inhabitants were as narky as this.

Despite Colchester’s dominance of possession and shots it takes until gone ten past nine for Lewis Ward to make a decent save as he dives away to his right like a flying raspberry blancmange to give Colchester another pointless corner kick. The final ten minutes begin and Forest Green show that they can keep and pass the ball very neatly, so much so that they end up passing to an unmarked Christian Doige who despite a suspicion of offside amongst the home supporters scores a third goal. The names Shephard, Brown, Doige appear as verse on the scoreboard.

With the game lost its time for two youths to run onto the pitch, probably as their tribute to recent televised pitch incursions at Arsenal and Birmingham. They only look about fourteen. One of them makes a break for it trapping himself at the back of the East Stand having athletically vaulted over several rows of seats. “Wanker, Wanker, Wanker” shout the South Stand. “Wanker!” shouts an angry man behind me a little belatedly, and sounding a bit stupid as a result. He should have saved his shout for the equally silly Frank Nouble who rounds off an entertaining evening by committing a needless foul, getting booked for a second time and consequently sent off.

The crowd of 2871 are already heading off into the dingy car parks and wasteland outside before five minutes of added on time are announced. A wildly bearded man in patched double denim rails at the team as others shuffle past. “Worst game of the season” a man says to me unintentionally referencing Comic Book Guy in The Simpsons as he raises his eyebrows and edges past me. I wait until the very end to get my money’s worth (£18.50) before also heading off into the damp and dark to walk to my car and travel home alone fondly remembering the days when we left the ground together sharing our misery in a crowded shuttle bus.