Ipswich Town 2 Coventry City 1

December 3, 2023December 4, 2023 / martinpbrooks / 1 Comment

Some Saturdays, when I wake up early in the morning, I am full of enthusiasm and ideas about how to fill the time before I set off for Portman Road. On other Saturdays however, I simply can’t be bothered, I just want to turn off my mind, relax and float down stream. When I go to bed on a Friday night, I rarely know what my state of mind will be when I awake. Today, I am proud to report, is one of the enthusiastic Saturday mornings and I proceed to clean the kitchen shelves, top up the bird feeders in the garden, separate the recycling, put the week’s vegetable peelings on the compost heap and try, but sadly fail to mend a roller blind. It may not sound a lot, but to me it’s like a lifetime’s achievement.

By the time I bid my wife farewell and leave for the railway station I feel flushed with success and optimistic for this afternoon’s match versus Coventry City, a fixture which always conjures distant memories of disappointing low scoring draws and floodlight failure. The train is on time despite the app on my mobile phone telling me it is delayed; it is also quite full, and I end up in one of those annoying seats which only has a half a window to look out of. I spend my time trying to avoid staring at a man on the opposite side of the carriage who sports mutton chop whiskers and a tweed flat cap of a type you might expect to see on the heads of drivers in the London to Brighton veteran and vintage car run. Unhappily, the name Rhodes-Boyson also pops up in my unfortunate mind. More fortunately however, I know that Gary will be getting on at the next station and I text him precise instructions of where to find me on the train (in the middle of the third (middle) carriage).

Once the train has stopped and moved off, it’s a little while before Gary appears, a vision in orange at the far end of the carriage, tottering between the rows of seats towards me. As he sits down, he questions whether I am not actually in the fourth carriage. “Bloody cheek” I tell him and draw his attention to the display directly above us which helpfully says ‘you are here’ in the middle of a diagram of five railway coaches. We don’t let it spoil our friendship of about thirty years however, and we are still talking merrily as the train draws into Ipswich station and we become small particles in the mass of humanity that squeezes over the footbridge, through the ticket barriers and spills out onto the plaza in front of the station. I tell Gary that I think the progress through the station was particularly slow today because everyone is wearing big coats.

We head up Princes Street and Portman Road, pausing only for me to buy a programme (£3.50), and we discuss how the club could offer supporters a deal, much like the East Anglian Daily Times ‘goody- bag’, of a programme and an ice cream for four quid. In due course we arrive at ‘the Arb’ where I buy a pint of Lager 43 for Gary and by way of a change a pint of Nethergate ‘Black Adder’ for myself. As I am about to pay, Mick appears and I buy him a pint of his ‘usual’ Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride. (£12.54 for the three including Camra discount). Gary tells us that Lager 43 is much better than Lager 42, and we retire to the beer garden to sit in the cold and talk of Henry Kissinger, Terry Venables and Shane McGowan, cheap rail travel for the over sixties and bus passes. Before we talk more of counting the carriages on trains and eventually leave, Gary buys another pint of Lager 43 for himself, a pint of Suffolk Pride for me and a Jamieson whisky for Mick.

The beer garden has cleared by the time we depart for Portman Road and we soon join the gathering masses as we cross Civic Drive and make our way across the Portman Road car park before Gary and Mick break away down Sir Alf Ramsey Way towards their seats in the West Stand and I continue towards the Sir Alf Ramsey stand. Turnstile 62 has a slow-moving queue, and I would probably do better to jump ship to turnstile 61, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Happily, my life proves long enough to stand some queuing and I am soon edging past Pat from Clacton and Fiona to my seat. Of course, ever-present Phil who never misses a game is already here, but absent today is his young son Elwood and most surprisingly, Paul, the man from Stowmarket.

The names of the teams are read out by Murphy the stadium announcer, and unusually he does okay today, for a while anyway, until he gets to “Conor Chaplin”, which he announces as if it’s all one word, wrecking all attempts by people trying to be French and bawling out the players’ surnames as they are announced. I might have to write to the club about Murphy, he’s certainly no Stephen Foster. Disappointed, but not surprised I await the start of the match and enjoy some magnificently fulsome “Na-na-nas” as the crowd joins in with “Hey Jude”.

The game begins and Town get first go with the ball. Coventry have their backs to us and wear shirts of black and green halves and black shorts; a kit which harks back to the Coventry City of the 1960’s and 1970’s, although it was in stripes back then. Town of course are in blue and white. It’s a gloriously grey afternoon, which is oddly how I remember the 1970’s, but the strains of the Eton Boating Song emanating from the Coventry supporters in the Cobbold stand give it a somewhat surreal edge. “Wolfy at the back, Ladapo in attack” sing the North Stand uninterested in facts. “Wolfy” appears to have had his hair bleached again, which might explain why he didn’t play on Wednesday. Mist and fog swirls around above the pitch like wraiths, the ghosts of Saturday afternoons long past come to see the best football at Portman Road in almost a generation.

“Football in a library, der-der-der” chant the Coventry-ites jealously and, for the time being, slightly mysteriously. Five minutes pass. The ball is played out of defence, Nathan Broadhead jinks past an opponent and slips a precision pass through for George Hirst to chase, he steps across his pursuer, slowing him down and creating the space and the angle to shoot perfectly beyond the Coventry goalkeeper. Yet again, a goal, a thing of beauty. Town lead one-nil and immediately look to increase their advantage, earning a corner almost directly from the re-start. “Come On You Blues” I chant repetitively, along with ever-present Phil and no one else at all.

“Addy, Addy, Addy-O, ITFC, they’re the team for me” sing the Sir Bobby Robson standers and the volume seems to rise a notch as Town regain possession. Fourteen minutes have gone and Nathan Broadhead materialises in the penalty box, ghosting out of the miss, but as I tense my leg muscles ready to leap from my seat he sends the ball inexplicably wide of the far post. I had the faith, why didn’t he score? May be he’s not the Messiah after all.

It takes nearly twenty minutes for Coventry to win a corner and then shoot over the cross bar. “Carrow Road is falling down” they chant at the far end of the ground and through the fog the tops of St Clare House and the AXA buildings peak over the Cobbold Stand as if taking a look at what’s going on. The Eton boating song is heard again; who knew so many Coventry fans went to public school? Time rolls on. Wes Burns shoots over the Coventry goal, Nathan Broadhead heads over it from a corner. The Eton boating song is aired again and Coventry put the ball in the Town net, but the ‘scorer’ was offside. Half-time creeps nearer, Massimo Luongo is booked for an innocuous looking foul and the fella in front of me informs us that he’ll be suspended for next Saturday’s match, Luongo that is, not the bloke in front of me.

There are four minutes until half time. Town should have scored more goals and I’m beginning to wonder if a one-nil home win could be a reality. Conor Chaplin produces a majestic cross field pass to Leif Davis. Leif Davis does the same, but to Wes Burns. For a bit of variety, Wes Burns doesn’t attempt to go past the full-back and cross the ball, but instead he cuts inside on his right foot and drifts past two surprised Coventry players. Burns is still 20 metres out but there’s a gap, but the ball is to his right, he can only hit this on the outside of his right boot, surely not. Town lead two-nil and it has to be the best Town goal of the season so far, it might be the best this century. Wow. “Burns, Burns will tear you apart again” sing the Sir Bobby Robson stand delving into their parent’s and grandparent’s record collections.

Murphy announces three minutes of added on time and the otherwise joyful mood is brought down by the usual dirge-like rendition of “When the Town going marching in”, the miserable, plodding tempo of which suggests that when the Town do go marching in we’re all gonna jump off the Orwell bridge.

Half-time is a glorious release from the misery of the Sir Bobby Robson stand song book and it’s time to siphon off some excess Suffolk Pride and have a chat with Ray and his grandson Harrison about nothing in particular, except of course that goal.

With the start of the second half I eat a Nature Valley cereal bar and Pat from Clacton takes a selfie with Fiona, I think to show how wrapped up against the cold they are today, and indeed they do look as if they will be going back to their igloos after the match. On the pitch, Coventry’s Sheath shoots over and then Vaclav Hladky has to perform a decent save, which prompts more boating for the Eton old boys up in Cobbold stand. Jimmy Hill has a lot to answer for, although he’s probably not responsible for what follows next which is the singing over and over again of the 1961 song, Twist and Shout, although this does at least explain why, when the Beatles covered it on their “Please, Please Me” album, they kept it down to a listenable two minutes and thirty-three seconds, clearly understanding the maxim ‘leave them wanting more’, not less.

Coventry are having the better of the second half in terms of possession and they have succeeded in preventing Ipswich from looking like scoring whenever they go forward. A Coventry corner is headed wide and with the game two-thirds over the first Town substitutions are made. “Na-Na-Na-Sky Blues” sing our guests before justifiably pointing out “ Two-nil and you still don’t sing”. Coventry gain another corner and the atmosphere can best be described as tense amongst the preternaturally pessimistic Town fans. It’s hard to sing when you feel sick. Pat from Clacton is so worried she’s thinking about releasing her Cambodian masturbating monkey charm. I tell her it’s a bit too cold for anyone to have their trousers down today, and together Fiona and I question whether he’s a brass monkey.

Murphy announces this afternoon’s attendance as 29,378 with 1,970 being from Coventry. He thanks us for our support but happily doesn’t describe it as ‘amazing’ or ‘incredible’, so he is improving, if only very slowly. Coventry win yet another corner and then, more worryingly, a penalty as Harry Clarke’s foot accidentally makes contact with the shin of Tatsuhiro Sakamoto who inevitably then makes contact with the pitch as if hit by a tram. “Miss it, miss it, miss it, miss it, miss it “I chant to myself and the mantra works as Godden smacks the ball against the cross bar. The penalty miss seems to shut the Coventry fans up and Massimo Luongo has a shot saved as the fates smile on Ipswich again giving Kieran Mckenna the confidence to make two more substitutions. “Blue and White Army” chant the Sir Bobby Robson stand sensing the need for a moment’s support.

The final ten minutes of normal time find Pat from Clacton looking forward to her baked potato when she gets home as well as some sticky chicken drumsticks; Marks & Spencer were out of the usual ones. Coventry have another corner and their number twenty-two Joel Latibeaudiare shoots hopelessly over the cross bar. Five minutes of added on time are to be played and our thoughts are turning to the next match at Portman Road, which is the Norwich game. Pat from Clacton hates the Norwich match. “You get that lot up in the Cobbold singing their stupid On the Ball City song” she says, and she’s right, it’s not a pleasant experience, unless Town win of course, but the match has to be endured before that. The fifth additional minute becomes the sixth and the ball is crossed into the Town penalty box where Brandon Williams looks to be shoved by the hefty Ellis Sims causing the ball to bounce off Williams’s torso and inside the far post to gift Coventry a goal that they seemed incapable of scoring by the usual, conventional means. The goal however, is the last but one ‘kick’ of the match, as time is called as soon as the game kicks off again.

Town have largely had to defend their lead in the second half, but they did it quite comfortably and overall the game was just the latest in the steady procession of Town victories since the start of last season. But the special ingredient today was ‘that goal’. No one here today will surely ever forget that, and I can only guess that when Wes Burns woke up this morning he was definitely feeling enthusiastic for the day ahead, just like me.

Ipswich Town 3 Swansea City 2

November 12, 2023October 13, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ipswich Town 4 Preston North End 2

October 8, 2023October 8, 2023 / martinpbrooks / 5 Comments

I first saw Preston North End, or “P’nee” as my wife Paulene likes to call them, back in April 1986, shortly before a part of my world fell down and Ipswich Town were relegated from what is now the Premier League for the first time since before I started school, but a while after the Lady Chatterly ban and the Beatles first LP. The Preston North End I saw back then were rivals of Colchester United, but not equals, the U’s thrashed them by four goals to nil. Since then, I have seen nineteen matches featuring the once but no longer invincible Preston North End, first ever Premier League champions in 1888 and double winners to boot, but of those nineteen games they’ve only won two. As an Ipswich Town fan, it is with an optimistic frame of mind therefore, that having bade farewell to Paulene and kissed her goodbye, I step out of my front door and head for my local railway station and the afternoon of delights that await me in that not far off Ipswich. It is warm, but I carry a light coat because when I sat in the shade in my garden this morning drinking a coffee I thought I detected a cool breeze.

The railway station is busy with would be travellers, the majority wearing Ipswich Town branded shirts, although three young women drenched in perfume and stood at the foot of the bridge are surely displaying far too much cleavage and sparkly bare flesh to be going to the match. The train arrives on time, and I find a pair of seats next to a window on the sunny side of the carriage. The carriage is a noisy place full of chatter and people watching videos on mobile phones. At the first stop the three young women alight and a man boards, he sports a tattoo of a diamond on his neck, he has the demeanour of someone who is probably a ‘diamond geezer’. He nods furtively at a pair of vacant seats and says to a friend that they could sit there, but he’s got to go to the loo first; they both walk on and never return. The display above the gangway tells me that the carriage doesn’t contain a toilet, but I can still smell one.

Arriving in Ipswich, I quickly cross the tracks and leave the railway station, pausing only to find my e-ticket on my mobile phone, which I flash at the ticket collector. I head on to Portman Road. This morning, I found some coins in my bedside table and had thought to use them to buy a programme, but as I queue at one of the blue programme booths from which I think the club should also serve ice creams, I learn that even these no longer take cash. I could pay by card, but that hadn’t been my plan, so I don’t bother and walk on. Fate, however, is a curious thing and on the corner of Portman Road and Sir Alf Ramsey an Ipswich Borough councillor and former fanzine editor is selling copies of what is billed as the last edition of the Turnstile Blue fanzine. “For old times sake” I say as I hand over one of my pound coins to him before continuing on to ‘The Arb’, where the doors are wide open and naturally, I walk in.

Having purchased a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.60 with 10% Camra discount), I make for the beer garden and share a table with a young man and a woman having first asked if it is okay to do so, it is. At the next table a man talks a lot and wears an Ipswich Town polo shirt featuring the Powergen logo, a reminder perhaps of the many Town fans now returning to Portman Road after twenty odd years of absence. Today, I am drinking alone because having contacted Mick he called me back to say that he was meeting a friend from London whom he hadn’t seen in a while. I understand, and pass my time reading Turnstile Blue, Ipswich’s most earnest fanzine, which today contains a particularly amusing piece about vloggers and an excellent article about Scott Duncan, the last manager Ipswich Town ‘poached’ from Manchester United before Kieran McKenna. Sadly, as the last issue it is perhaps one of the best. The Suffolk Pride is particularly good today and I am soon forced to buy another, and I ask the young man and woman at my table to keep an eye on my coat, fanzine and glasses whilst I’m at the bar. Upon my return, with a fresh pint in my hand, I am happy to see my possessions where I left them. “I see my stuff’s still here, thanks” I say to the man and woman. “Yeah, a couple of people tried to get it, but I kept them off” says the man, pleasingly getting the joke.

At about twenty to three I depart for Portman Road moments after the last of my fellow drinkingTown fans, who I then overtake outside the museum. There are queues in Portman Road and behind the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand with less than ten minutes to go until kick-off, an indication that the electronic entry system is still much slower than the old human being based one. I join the comparatively short queue for turnstile 62 behind former BBC Radio Suffolk presenter and usurped stadium announcer Stephen Foster. Inside the stand, after a quick stop to drain off superfluous Suffolk Pride, I make it to my seat as the teams appear in the corner of the pitch. Ever-present Phil who never misses a game, his young son Elwood, Pat from Clacton, Fiona and the man from Stowmarket who is probably actually from Stowupland, are all here already as I would expect. Pat from Clacton kindly tells me that they’ve missed me whilst I’ve been away in France. I join ever-present Phil in shouting out the Town players’ surnames as the stadium announcer reads them out. Phil will reveal to me at half time that he had had a word with today’s announcer, who is standing in for the usual Murphy who is indisposed, to tell him not to run the players first names into their surnames; I think he has taken heed.

It is Ipswich who get first go with the ball which they mostly send in the direction of the goal in front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand; they wear the traditional blue and white. Preston sport a kit which some might describe as an insipid all pale yellow, with a navy blue oblong below their navels, but I prefer to think of it as being primrose in colour. The game begins at pace with lots of industrious running about from both teams and slick passing of the ball. Town’s Brandon Williams is soon clattered by a Preston player and then before the referee gets a chance to blow his whistle he is clattered again; Williams is simply moving too quickly for anyone to keep up with him. “You dirty northern bastards” sing the Sir Bobby Robson stand and I join in, thinking how much I dislike short vowels, soot, mushy peas and talk of ginnels and Northern powerhouses.

Pat tells me she’s going to miss the next two games. I quickly ask if that’s because she’ll be on her annual whist playing holiday in Great Yarmouth. But no, she tells me, she’s going to Mauritius. “To play whist?” I ask, but no she’s going to her niece’s wedding. Along with Fiona we agree it’s a long way to go to get married, or to play whist. I tell them I just had a day off work when I got married. Eleven minutes have gone and Wes Burns has a shot blocked almost as soon as it leaves his boot. “Yellows, Yellows” chant the P’nee fans, unable to admit they’re actually playing in primrose, which considering their club’s nickname is “The Lilywhites” is a little surprising.

Town are dominating possession, but Preston are keeping us at bay. “Set up defensively well” says the bloke behind me sounding oddly serious considering the order in which he has placed the words in his sentence. The seventeenth minute, Town have a corner, Leif Davis takes it. He strikes the ball low. “What?” I’m about to say, thinking that’s not a very good corner, when Conor Chaplin half volleys the ball just inside the post from about 12metres out, and Town lead 1-0, it’s a cracking goal. “We’ve got super Kieran McKenna, he knows exactly what we need” chants pretty much everyone, in my imagination anyway. The Preston fans sing something too, and are in good voice, but I can’t understand their accents. The woman sat between me and the man from Stowmarket wears a Town shirt but is very quiet, and didn’t leap up excitedly when we scored.

Nearly half of the half has disappeared forever, except on recorded highlights. Nathan Broadhead narrowly misses the goal with an audacious lob from long distance and Brandon Williams surges off down the touchline only to be clattered again spectacularly, and the perpetrator is booked by referee Mr David Webb. A drinks break and an early substitution for P’nee follow and then an up and under drops nastily outside the Town penalty area, the ball studiously avoids Ipswich feet but presents itself to Mads Frojaer-Jensen who un-sportingly boots it into the Ipswich goal and Preston have as many goals as the Town do.

It proves to be a set-back for Town, but that’s all. Two minutes later we think we have scored but we haven’t and shortly after that Mr Webb books a third Preston player, but Nathan Broadhead sends the resultant free-kick shamefully high and wide. Town are sure to score sooner or later and with ten minutes until half-time Brandon Williams wins the ball off a Preston player, stands up straight and just runs from within the Town half at the Preston goal; he’s a marvellous sight as he charges away with his socks not reaching half way up his calves and his arms punching the air; he reaches the edge of the Preston penalty area and sends the ball towards the far post where it bounces off and into the goal and Town’s lead is restored. It’s a fabulous goal.

Preston seek parity again and Osmajic shoots wide following a confusingly unorthodox free-kick routine, and Mr Webb inspires the home crowd to chant “You don’t know what you’re doing” as Conor Chaplin is penalised for falling backwards. Five minutes of added on time follow and Town win a corner which is cleared only for the ball to be crossed back to the far post, headed across the goal and then headed back again by a selfless George Hirst for Nathan Broadhead to knock over the goal line from minimal range. It’s another fine goal, and following the still recent disappointment of the Preston goal, it brings a certain sense of relief that Town are now two goals ahead. The Sir Bobby Robson stand sing a Depeche Mode song from forty-two years ago and that tuneless chant about being on our way to the Premier League and not knowing how we’re going to get there; the woman next to me remains seated and just claps one hand against a knee, hers, not mine. I turn to her and trying to convey incredulous curiosity say “You’re very calm”; she just smiles demurely. Perhaps she doesn’t speak English or can’t understand my accent.

With the half-time whistle I decant more Suffolk Pride, speak with a steward with whom I used to work called Dave, and then visit Harrison down at the front of the stand, although his grandfather Ray is sat elsewhere today. Harrison asks how was the Robyn Hitchcock concert at St Stephen’s Church three weeks ago, and I tell him it was brilliant, because it was. I return to my seat in time to see the names of people on the scoreboard who are attending their first game at Portman Road today; one of whom is called Huckleberry, and I think of the blue cartoon dog from the early 1960’s who Wikipedia tells us was the first TV animation to win an Emmy.

The match resumes at eight minutes past four and the blokes behind me are late returning from the bar. Preston are sharper this half, and are keeping the ball most of the time, it’s as if the Town players had mistakenly thought having a nap at half time would be a good idea and they haven’t properly woken up. Preston win a free-kick, the ball is only half cleared and Benjamin Whiteman strikes the ball in off the far post for a second Preston goal, and all while I’d been hoping for a fourth Town goal. “Making it a bit more exciting though, innit” says the bloke behind me before carrying on to say “Them scoring might not be a bad thing… well it is… but it ain’t”. Fiona and I exchange glances and smirk. “Yeah but, no but” I think to myself.

Preston continue to have the better of the half but whilst neat and methodical lack the vision, flair and inspiration of Ipswich, so they don’t score again. Nevertheless, Kieran McKenna presumably thinks change is required and the attacking trio of Chaplin, Burns and Broadhead take a rest in favour of Harness, Jackson and Hutchinson, but not necessarily in that order. The crowd is quieter than it has been all game and it feels like may be we’ll just have to see this one out. Today’s attendance is announced as being 29,018 with 826 of that number being sat up the corner in the Cobbold stand supporting the away team, which is a respectable number because it’s a mighty long way down a dusty trail from Preston. People applaud themselves for their existence here this afternoon.

The game continues without reaching the heights of the first half and with fiteen minutes of normal time remaining, final substitutions are made by Kieran McKenna, with George Hirst and Massimo Luongo retiring in favour of Freddie Ladapo and Jack Taylor. Three minutes later the game is won as Jack Taylor breaks forward on the left, feeds the ball to Omari Hutchinson and he squares it to a lonely Kayden Jackson who quickly gains over 28,000 friends as he strokes the ball into the Preston goal beyond the despairing, purple clad Freddie Woodman. Everyone is up on their feet with the exception of the woman sat next to me who slaps her knee gently as if tapping along to a popular song by the likes of Petula Clark or Ed Sheeran. “I-pswich Town, I-pswich Town FC, They’re by far the greatest team the world has ever seen” sing lots of other people.

Time closes in on the final whistle and Town’s victory seems assured. “You’ve seen the Ipswich, now fuck off home” chant the Sir Bobby Robson stand unpleasantly and uncharitably in an outbreak of nastiness reminiscent of Suella Braverman. But still Town come close to a fifth goal as a Jack Taylor shot is parried away by Woodman who also saves a Freddie Ladapo attempt. Preston have a shot too; “Fucking donkey” says the bloke behind me as Preston’s Ben Woodburn shoots impressively wide. It’s time to celebrate another win “Brandon Williams, he’s a Blue, He hates Norwich” sing the Sir Bobby Robson stand exultantly. Four minutes of added on time are added on, and the game ends. Ipswich win again.

If I kept a diary I would record another Saturday afternoon well spent, drinking good beer and watching excellent football beneath warm October skies in which the sun now sits so low that I need autumn sunglasses, my only grouse perhaps would be that I didn’t need that light coat after all.

Ipswich Town 3 Cardiff City 2

September 3, 2023September 29, 2023 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Recently, I have come to rather like Cardiff or Caerdydd as it’s known in Welsh; the place more than the football team admittedly, but a liking for one does almost inevitably lead to a softening of views regarding the other. I spent three nights, and then a fortnight later, two nights in the Welsh capital as I made a double pilgrimage to see the team from the town of my birth, Haverfordwest County, play in the first two qualifying rounds of the European Conference League. I have as a result developed a taste for Welsh cakes and Brains, the local beer that is, not the bodily organ; I’m not a zombie.

Back in 1962, Cardiff City were relegated from what is now the Premier League as Ipswich were winning it. They didn’t return to the top division for over fifty years and despite themspending most of the interim in Division Two, for some reason I always think of them in the fourth division during the 1980’s at Layer Road, Colchester. I try and ignore the Premier League and it seems odd to me therefore that of the two clubs it is Cardiff who have most recently been in the top division. It’s funny what age does to you.

It’s been a grey morning of heavy cloud and humidity, but as I set off for the match the sun is breaking through as if some deity has turned the celestial floodlights on. I’m struck by how few Town fans there are at the railway station today compared with last week for the Leeds game. It’s a somewhat boring journey, with no overheard conversations to intrigue or amuse. Arriving at Ipswich, I have to pause and search for my rail ticket on my phone rather than just pull a piece of card from my wallet, but I master the technology on this occasion and head off up Princes Street for ‘the Arb’. By way of a change, I don’t turn left into Portman Road today, but continue across Civic Drive and up into Museum Street and High Street. I pause only to view the Cobbold Stand across the wasteland and surface car parks where once stood The Sporting Farmer pub, Mann Egerton’s garage and the livestock market. Banners on the lampposts advertising the Cardinal Wolsey exhibition at The Hold remind me of Ipswich’s rich history and heritage. Ipswich is fab, don’t let anyone tell you different.

Arriving at ‘the Arb’ I buy a pint of Nethergate Honey Gold Festivale (£3.60 with 10% Camra discount), because I like bees and the work they do. I retire to the beer garden to wait for Mick who has texted me to say he is “slightly on the drag”. I reply to say I shall amuse myself by listening to other people’s conversations. After about ten minutes Mick eventually appears and avails himself of a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride and we talk of why he was delayed (he left his phone somewhere and had to go back to get it), what he was doing this morning ( he had to check the temperatures at some morgues) and his trip to Scotland to see his sister, when he also saw Glasgow Rangers play PSV Eindhoven. Mick has even brought me back a Glasgow Rangers fridge magnet. What a great bloke. Apart from mention of the morgues, our conversation is unusually free of death and disease, although we do manage to strike a pessimistic note with talk of humankind’s obsession with economic growth rather than prioritising the preservation of the planet; something which will inevitably end badly. But most people don’t seem to care, as long as they can have a cosy coal fire or free parking for their car at the shops.

After another pint of Nethergate Honey Gold Festivale for me and a single Jameson whisky for Mick (£8.25 for the two), we depart for Portman Road where Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket , ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his young son Elwood are ready and waiting for kick-off. I have arrived in time however, to try and shout out, in the manner of a French football crowd, the surnames of the Town players as stadium announcer Mark Murphy reads them out. I succeed to a degree, but new man Murphy isn’t a patch on his predecessor Stephen Foster and reads the names too quickly, running first names into second names and not leaving the necessary gaps between. Bring back Stephen Foster, I say.

When the game begins it’s Cardiff City who get first go with the ball and they attempt to aim it mostly in the direction of the Sir Bobby Robson stand, Cardiff are dressed today in a slightly washed-out-looking all burgundy or claret kit. I wonder at the meaning of this, because all kits are imbued with meaning nowadays, but can only come up with it being the colour of the congealed blood of injured miners and dockworkers, or the fine wines consumed by the wealthy pit and port owners. The first Cardiff player I notice is centre-back McGuinness and I think of the IRA. “We’ve got super Keiran McKenna, he knows exactly what we need….” chant the vocal occupants of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand. The Cardiff fans are singing too, but I can’t work out what, and that’s not because they’re singing in Welsh, nobody speaks Welsh much in Cardiff I was told by a Cardiff City supporting woman when I was there back in July. She knew enough to get by, she said, but that actually meant she didn’t need to know any.

Early action sees Nathan Broadhead head the ball firmly into the arms of Cardiff ‘keeper Runar Runarsson, who not at all surprisingly is Icelandic and whose goalkeeper’s kit would be ideal for wearing to a funeral. Wes Burns is penalised ridiculously as he chases down the ball and the player in front of him stops dead and then bounces off him. It’s an incident that draws my attention to the referee Mr Gavin Ward, who is blond and a bit weedy looking. “Blue and White Army, Blue and White Army” chant the home crowd and the bloke behind me, making my right ear hurt slightly.

The football hasn’t reached any great heights yet with the highlight so far being Kieran Mckenna’s almost petrol blue jumper, which is an improvement on his usual dull greys and blacks, but still not exactly colourful. It’s ten past three and the Cardiffians sing “Is this a library?”. Somebody must confirm that it is indeed a library, because moments later they are chanting “Der-der-der, Football in a library”. Having apparently hit a reach seam of taunts, the Cardiff mob then proceed to ask, “Shall we sing, shall we sing, shall we sing a song for you?” just like they might if they were at an Eisteddfod. They’re regular Harry Secombes and Aled Joneses the lot of them.

After fifteen minutes Cardiff have a corner and ‘score,’ but it is offside. At the front of the stand a cameraman is blocking the view of a spectator in the third or fourth row and is asked to adjust his position, which he does but with a grim face and a complete absence of grace as he throws his bag to the ground and generally stomps about like a petulant two-year-old. At half-time when I speak to Ray, he will refer to him as Bill Oddie, but I think his curly hair has more than a hint of the Max Boyce about it.

Twenty minutes are up, and Conor Chaplin has a sharp shot on the turn which elicits a corner, and then Massimo Luongo wins another. Five minutes later Cardiff win one too. “Oh please don’t take, my Cardiff away” plead the Cardiffians to the tune of ‘You are my sunshine’. I don’t know what we’d do with it if we did, although the Senedd building or Millenium Centre might look good down West End Road. From the row in front of me, a lad with the name Adam printed on the back of his shirt turns round to tell Pat that Norwich are losing. Within a few moments sadly, Ipswich are too as a sweeping move through the wide open plain in front of the Magnus West Stand ends with a precise low cross and a neatly clipped pass into the Town net by former OGC Nice player Aaron Ramsey. “Aaron Ramsey Baby, Aaron Ramsey, Oh-oh-oh” sing the elated Welshmen, to the tune of the Christmas number one from 1981, the Human League’s ‘Don’t you want me’. Apparently, before signing for Cardiff, Ramsey was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar.

Five minutes later and Town’s George Hirst pulls up lame and is replaced by Freddie Ladapo. People applaud Hirst off, but I don’t because I’m bitter that he didn’t score a short while before when through on goal. “In your Swansea slums” sing the Cardiff fans, either confused about where they are and who they’re playing, or how good the hearing of the population of Swansea is. The first half has not been overly enjoyable if you’re not from South Wales, and even Cardiff’s first booking, for Ollie Tanner, brings little satisfaction as it’s just for a high boot rather than a heinous foul or something amusing like dissent.

As time descends towards half-time, the home crowd chant “Blue and White Army” again, in an act of defiance and once again the bloke behind me joins in, and it almost works as Freddie Ladapo turns and shoots narrowly past the far post and Conor Chaplin has a shot blocked on the goal line by Runarsson. Four minutes of added on time give hope for parity by half-time, but Cardiff selfishly keep hold of the ball and even win a corner for themselves to leave me feeling disappointed as the whistle is blown and I sprint away to syphon off the remnants of the Nethergate Honey Gold Festivale. I return to talk to Ray and his grandson Harrison and to a steward called Dave. Ray’s assessment is that Cardiff sit behind the ball and deny Town any space and then break way very quickly; we need to get in behind them. Ray has no doubt Kieran McKenna knows what to do.

The game begins again at seven minutes past four and the home crowd remain chipper, singing “Ole, Ole, Ole” for reasons unknown. But life is strange, and depression soon descends as in the fifty second minute Massimo Luongo falls backwards, haphazardly making space for Joe Ralls to shoot just inside far post and give Cardiff a two-nil lead. “No urgency is there?” complains the bloke behind me to his neighbour. “Two-nil to the sheep-shaggers” sing the Welshmen, which is disarmingly honest of them if true. “The way I see it, this is what our season’s gonna be” continues the bloke behind me obliquely. “Oh Ingerland, is full of shit” chant the self-confessed zoophiles; sheep shit presumably, from sheep seeking sanctuary over the border.

Town win a free-kick close to the Cardiff penalty area but the ball is despatched hopelessly wide of the goal by Nathan Broadhead. Pat from Clacton rolls her eyes “Thank you” she says “But that’s not quite what we’re looking for at the moment”. But only moments later Sam Morsy plays the ball forward to Broadhead, who jinks left and right and then smites the ball into the goal from the edge of the penalty area in the style of Eric Gates, and Town are only trailing two-one. Pat’s sarcasm clearly worked.

Cardiff substitute some players I’ve never heard of for some more players I’ve never heard of. Someone fouls Nathan Broadhead and is booked. Town win a corner when a Conor Chaplin shot is blocked. Corner kicks where the ball is launched into the penalty area from above are not much use against teams like Cardiff City whose players could all take up basketball if the football doesn’t work out. A low cross to the near post however presents the unexpected delight of a deft finish from Freddie Ladapo and Town are suddenly no longer losing. “Shall I get Monkey out for the winning goal?” asks Pat from Clacton threatening to release the magical powers of the masturbating monkey charm she acquired on holiday in Cambodia. “Two-nil and you fucked it up” chant the home crowd, as ever revelling more in Schadenfreude than the joy of their own team’s success. Murphy announces the crowd as being 28,011 with 951 from the valleys and banks of the River Taff. “Thank you for your amazing support” he says, showing himself to be a man more easily amazed than I am. Bare torsos, drums, flares, flags and a pitch-length tifo in the Magnus West stand would be amazing support in my view. “Oh when the Town, Go marching in” sings the crowd in a fractionally more up-beat manner than usual, but even that’s hardly amazing.

Less than twenty minutes of normal time remain, and Vaclav Hladky saves the day with two marvellous saves, one just moments after the other. Fifteen minutes remain and Town make mass substitutions with Burns, Clark and Luongo waving goodbye and Jack Taylor, Omari Hutchinson and Bradley Williams joining the fray. Four minutes later and Hutchinson gets to the by-line and crosses the ball low to the near post. Runarsson dives to divert the ball away from the goalmouth, but diverts it up onto the head of the incoming Freddie Ladapo from where it rebounds into the net. Town lead three-two, and Pat is set to win the final-score draw on the Clacton supporters’ coach.

Happily, Town look more likely to score a fourth than concede a third, although Fiona admits to now feeling nervous because we have something to lose. Jack Taylor launches a precise cross field pass. “He’s a fucking good player” says the bloke behind me to his neighbour, but I think he’s talking about Omari Hutchinson because he then says something about him taking players on “…like Wes Burns used to”. Town win a couple of corners and Pat confirms that she’s having chicken drumsticks for tea again, because the ones she had last Saturday were lovely.

Normal time fades away and Sam Morsy leaves the pitch having received a knock, but unusually not a booking. Perhaps Mr Ward the referee wasn’t so bad after all. Six minutes of additional time take us almost to five o’clock, but Cardiff give us no cause for real nail biting and I’m feeling quite relaxed when the whistle sounds and Town pull off the fabulous trick of coming back from the grave of being two-nil down to win. “Two nil and you fucked it up” chant the Town fans, mindlessly enjoying other people’s misery more than their own team’s success. It’s a win to savour and one worth the pain of conceding those initial two goals. If we can’t win six-nil most weeks like we did last season, then coming back to win from two-nil down is the next best thing, and it does mean I can continue to like Cardiff a little bit more than I did before. Break open the Welsh cakes!

Ipswich Town 2 Bristol Rovers 0

August 11, 2023August 13, 2023 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

When the draw for what used to be called the League Cup was made, I was quite pleased to find that Ipswich had drawn Bristol Rovers; this was because Bristol Rovers were the only one of Town’s third division opponents I didn’t see last season. I’m not sure why that mattered, it’s not as if I keep notes on each team, although in an odd way, through this blog, I suppose I do. Oh dear.

Despite my earlier happiness at the draw, it has taken me until the night before the game to get round to buying a ticket because despite the grotty weather, in my head it’s still summer, and summer is for dreaming and for World Cups, oh, and occasionally for European Conference League qualifying games. Football is mostly something for autumn, winter and spring. As usual for League Cup matches, because all the seats cost a tenner I choose not to sit in my season ticket seat, but to explore one of the twenty-nine and half thousand odd other viewpoints. Usually, I head for the best view and the padded seats of Block Y, and there are still single seats available, but craving company I texted my friend Gary to see if he is going; he is, and gives me his seat number which he tells me is close to where he usually sits in what used to be called the West Stand. I buy the seat next to Gary which turns out to be uncomfortably close to the corner of the ground; but it’s okay as I had warned Gary that I would blame him if the seat wasn’t very good, and now I can. To think, I could have been in Block Y. I also texted my friend Mick to see if he is going to the game, but he tells me that he has “no interest in the League (Carabao) Cup”, which I thought was a bit haughty of him.

Having parked up my planet-saving Citroen e-C4 in a street between Norwich Road and Anglesea Road, it’s a short walk to the Arb on High Street where I obtain a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.60 with Camra 10% discount). The bar is not very busy, and I tell the barman that I had expected it to be busier, but he tells me most people are in the beer garden. He’s correct, most people are, but there are still free tables and I can only see one bloke in an Ipswich Town shirt. I settle down to drink my unexpectedly cloudy pint, and read Issue 26 of the Turnstile Blue fanzine, a small pile of which were in the corridor between the bar and the gents. I read an article which, in the context of the ‘fuss’ surrounding the death of the old queen, attempts to debunk the apparently mythical status afforded to former Town chairmen John and Patrick Cobbold. The basis of the argument seems to be that they were incredibly wealthy and posh, and ‘Mr John’ drank and swore a lot. I don’t read much more because the penetrating voice of a man possibly in his late twenties, who is with the bloke in an Ipswich shirt, and the mild but loud Ipswich accent of a woman probably in her forties are preventing me from concentrating. After half an hour of slow supping and covering my ears, I leave for Portman Road.

Arriving in Sir Alf Ramsey Way shortly after seven-thirty, I buy a programme (£2.00) in the modern cashless manner and am then surprised to see long queues at the turnstiles. Tonight, in the spirit of saving the planet by not using unnecessary pieces of paper, my ticket is on my mobile phone and my inner Luddite wonders if technology is the reason for the slow progress into the stadium. Moments before reaching the turnstile, my finger slips on my phone screen and I accidentally delete the e-mail that includes my ticket, but fortunately I know I can still find it if I look through all my e-mails and that’s what I do. Happily, the QR code on my e-mail also works and I pass through the turnstile just in time to drain off some Suffolk Pride and make it to my seat before the names of the Ipswich team have all been announced. I try to call out the surnames of Town players in the manner of a French football crowd, but the ‘new’ stadium announcer Mark Murphy says Dom Ball instead of Dominic Ball and ruins things completely.

The match kicks off at fourteen minutes to eight according to the digital clock on the scoreboard. Town get first go with ball, kicking it mostly towards Sir Alf Ramsey’s stand, and are wearing the traditional blue and white kit, which this season has broad white stripes down the sleeves that from some angles make the whole sleeve look white. Kits have to be imbued with meaning nowadays and we are told that the design is inspired by the kit worn by the promotion winning team of 2000. When the sleeves look all white, I am reminded of our Premier League winning side of 1962. Bristol Rovers for their part wear black shorts and white socks to cover their loins, buttocks and calves and grey shirts over their torsos. I do not know if the Rovers shirts are imbued with meaning or not, but I like to think they are inspired by a foggy day in the Bristol Channel or specks of ghostly coal dust blown across from the South Wales pits or Cardiff docks. Gary and I speculate as to whether we have already seen this season’s dullest kit worn by an away team at Portman Road and recall how Manchester United once wore a grey and black kit at Southampton and changed at half-time when already three or four goals down, supposedly because the players couldn’t see each other against the background of the crowd. It seems probable from the half-time score that they couldn’t see the Southampton players either.

Town dominate possession and after just twelve minutes take the lead. A passing move down the right ends with Jack Taylor passing a ball from Kayden Jackson into the Bristol goal net. That was easy. I haven’t really tuned myself into the game yet however, and rather than leaping up and punching the air in a display of forgotten youthful exuberance like I would normally, I just slowly raise my bottom off my seat and applaud politely in a semi-stooped position. Gary’s reaction is similarly sluggish. For these supporters it still feels like pre-season, the overture, or to employ a war-themed comparison popular with football pundits, like 1939, the phoney war. Elsewhere in the stadium people are more attuned to the programme as they beat drums and chant “Blue and White Army.”

Town continue to dominate possession and occasionally come close to scoring a goal, but not close enough. I haven’t seen Gary since July 1^st, so we talk as much as we concentrate on the game. Gary asks me what is the worst football ground I’ve ever been to. I tell him I think it was Oxford United’s Manor Ground. He asks what the best ground was. I tell him possibly The Velodrome in Marseille, although the Allianz Riviera in Nice is pretty good when full. Having been unexpectedly put on the spot I forget to mention the Stade Felix Boleart in Lens and the Stade Geoffrey Guichard in St Etienne.

Bristol Rovers only occasionally approach the Town goal and their first shot just creeps and bobs and bounces its way across the turf into the arms of the Town goalkeeper, the interestingly monikered Cieran Slicker. It takes a good twenty minutes or more for Rovers to have another shot and this time Grant Ward’s much more powerful shot is parried away by Slicker for what amounts to a pretty good save. It’s a moment which results in my hearing the faint call of “Come On Rovers” carried over the pitch on the warm evening air from the one hundred and twenty-three Bristolians in the far corner of the stadium. Otherwise, the first half of the game leaves no lasting impression on me and after a minute of time added on it’s time for Gary to nip to use the facilities whilst I stand up and try to manipulate my neck, which has grown achy and stiff from having my head turned towards the Sir Alf Ramsey stand for most of the previous forty-six minutes.

Once Gary has returned, the ‘new’ stadium announcer Mark Murphy appears on the pitch wearing what looks like the same suit that replaced announcer Stephen Foster used to wear. Murphy tells us he is going to talk to a Town legend and with the artificially excited intonation and words-all-rolled-into-one pronunciation of a former local radio DJ, he announces “Johnny Warks here” and Gary and I look at each other wondering who the hell Johnny Warksear is. Johnny Wark appears on the big screen and all that’s missing are the subtitles when he speaks.

The game resumes at ten minutes to nine and my hopes of spending the second half just looking straight ahead take a dive as Bristol start quite well. “Wo-o-o-oh, That’s the way we like it” or something like that sing the Sir Bobby Robson Stand to the tune of what seems to be an original composition or a song I don’t know. Rovers are gifted a corner as Lee Evans passes the ball back to a place where Cieran Slicker isn’t standing. But then Ipswich win a couple of corners of their own to redress the balance, before on-loan Omari Hutchinson is the first player to be booked after not so much a bad tackle as an inept one. “Ole, Ole, Ole” sing the Sir Bobby Robson stand and the drums up in the corner of the stand by the club shop beat; inside the shop stuff must be bouncing off the shelves. In the seat in front of me a bloke with not much hair has a pair of sunglasses perched on top of his head. There’s a holiday feel to the crowd tonight with adults and children wearing T-shirts and shorts, looking as if they’ve been at the beach all day. I half expect to see someome eating candy floss or wearing a ‘kiss me quick’ hat. On the pitch, the second half is reflecting the cheery mood with carefree attacking football and as result Cieran Slicker makes a spectacular save with his feet.

Substitutions arrive on sixty-six minutes with Cameron Humphryes and Sone Aluko taking a bow. Shots rain in on the Bristol goal and a corner is won. “Oooh Sone Aluko” sing the Sir Bobby Robson Stand to the tune of the White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army. Marcus Harness half-volleys the ball from close range, but too weakly to bother the Rovers’ goalkeeper. As more substitutes warm up on the touchline in front of us I say the name of George Hirst to Gary. “I know what you’re going to say” says Gary “He has a haircut that looks like his mum cut it using a pudding bowl”. Gary knows me too well and is almost exactly right, but I’d say she used a side plate or small frying pan giving his hair the appearance of a little hat or beret. I struggle so much to accept George’s haircut that if it had been up to me I wouldn’t have signed him, so it’s probably as well that it wasn’t.

In the seventy-third minute George and Conor Chaplin and Harry Clarke get to make the transition from bench to pitch, but the only immediate result is that Javani Brown shoots wide of the Town goal for Bristol. Within a minute of that however, a sweet passing move down the left sees the ball relayed across the penalty area for Sone Aluko, who seems to be existing in his own isolated moment of time and space, which allows him to then pass the ball into the far corner of the Bristol goal, and Town lead 2-0. Gary tells me how his mother recently received a new copy of the local telephone directory and that there were three people in it with his surname; they were Gary, his mother and his uncle who died several years ago, but it wouldn’t surprise me if BT was a hotbed of spiritualists.

All that remains is for Murphy to announce the crowd as being 15,047 with 123 of that number being from Bristol, and for people to applaud themselves, each other, and more acceptably the travelling Bristolians. Bristol is a long way from Ipswich on a Wednesday night, although logically no further than at any other time of day or week. Five minutes of time are added on to ensure we get our money’s worth and when that expires we rise as one to applaud and then seep out into the night. It’s been a decent little game, a bit low key like a pre-season match, but it’s good to see a match where none of the players appear to think winning matters more than life itself. Bristol Rovers played their part and should have scored at least once, but on the plus side they will now have time on their hands in the middle of the week to think about what their away kit should look like next season. As for Ipswich, we are on our way to Wembley, my stepson and his family live in the RG24 postcode area so if I get the urge I might march on to Basingstoke, or Reading.