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.

Ipswich Town 6 Exeter City 0

April 30, 2023May 3, 2023 / martinpbrooks / 2 Comments

I remember going to Exeter as a child in the mid 1960’s. Although it was mid-August it rained and I wore a plastic mac, which was quite the fashion at the time; I held my father’s hand. I returned a little over thirty years later, again in August to see Ipswich Town and Exeter City summon up a two-goal draw in the first round of the League Cup, but this time the sun shone on a warm dog day evening. My father wasn’t with me that night. A week later, Town thrashed ‘the Grecians’ as they are mysteriously known, 5-1 in the second leg back in Ipswich.

Now it’s Spring again, and the sun is shining once more after a cloudy week of going to the dentist, visiting my mother and being amazed at the unknowable brilliance of the current Ipswich Town team, as I watched them thrash Barnsley through the wonder of the interweb. Today, Ipswich Town play Exeter City in the last home game of the season and a win will see the club promoted back to the second division. Under a pale blue sky, I trip lightly across the grass, dandelions, daisies, and occasional dog turd of Gippeswyk Park having parked up my planet-saving Citroen e-C4. In Portman Road I purchase a programme (£3.50) in the modern cashless manner and walk amongst Exeter City supporters dressed as comedy Scots. I quite like the front cover of the programme today, it features Kieran McKenna blowing a kiss, Sam Morsy staring dreamily off into the distance and Conor Chaplin doing an impression of Norman Wisdom. Around the corner in Sir Alf Ramsey Way, a haze of blue smoke sweeps towards Alderman Road rec, and a mighty throng cheers a large grey bus as it crawls past the frontage of the municipal tram depot. It’s the team bus, but it could be anyone inside behind those opaquely glazed windows. Impressed, and yet not, I head for the Arb where the front door is open, inviting me in. There is a queue at the bar, and it takes a while to get served. As I wait Mick appears from ‘out the back’ to tell me he’s just arrived and hasn’t got a drink, but has a table in the garden with Gary, who does have a drink. “Bloody Gary’s alright then” says the bald-headed man stood behind me. Eventually I emerge into the beer garden with two pints of foaming Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£8.00) and I join Mick and Gary for conversations about things so unremarkable I can’t remember them except for mention of a racist souvenir Gary saw at the airport in Mumbai, police corruption, the chairman of the BBC, a TV programme about handmade things in Japan and how good the Suffolk Pride tastes to day.

After Gary kindly buys me a further half of the deliciously fresh Suffolk Pride, a half of lager for himself and a packet of cheese and onion crisps for Mick, we talk some more and then at around twenty-five to three depart for Portman Road, finally going our separate ways somewhere in front of the statue of Alf Ramsey, as I head for the lower tier of his stand and Mick and Gary for the posh seats of the West Stand. As ever, today’s portal to another world is turnstile 62, because of 1962, where the over helpful steward seems to give me a gentle shove through when the light turns green to say my season ticket is valid.

After savouring the still not stale thrill of the blast of hot air over my wet hands from the new hand driers in the gents, I find my seat amongst Pat from Clacton, the man from Stowmarket, ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his young son Elwood. Fiona isn’t here today due to some very badly planned prior engagement, but in her place is a large man with no hair, who Pat introduces to me as Fiona, I don’t catch his real name, but of course that could be his or her real name.

I am here in time today to cheer the teams onto the pitch and see the referee Mr Oldham snatch up the match ball from its plinth as he leads the procession between lines of banner waving children. Stadium announcer Stephen Foster reads out the teams and ever-present Phil and I bawl out the Town players surnames in the style of a French football crowd. Today I can’t help but notice Stephen Foster’s shoes, which I don’t think go with his suit. But what do I know, he is a Radio Caroline DJ, acquaintance of members of Dr Feelgood and can legitimately claim to be much more “rock and roll” than me.

After Exeter City take the knee, the game begins with Town having first go with the ball and aiming at the goal just a bit to one of side of me and Phil and Pat and Elwood and the man from Stowmarket. Town are of course in blue and white, whilst disappointingly Exeter sport a messy looking concoction of black and cerise rather than their excellent signature kit of red and white striped shirts and black shorts. I struggle to understand why a team that wears stripes would not always wear stripes, tsk.

Today, with all available tickets sold, Portman Road is quite noisy, in an everyone chattering loudly at once sort of a way and there are relatively frequent bursts of singing too from the bottom of the Sir Bobby Robson stand. It’s the third minute, a moment’s silence falls and it’s as if there’s a sudden realisation that this cannot be allowed to happen and a chorus of “ We’ve got super Kieran McKenna…” quickly strikes up, followed by a painfully slow rendition of “When the Town going marching in” which I feel compelled to speed up and so I do, trying to add a sort of New Orleans jazz feel to it. “How much have you had to drink?” asks Pat from Clacton. “I’ve only had a pint and a half” I tell her. “Of vodka” adds Fiona.

On the pitch, Town haven’t done much so far, I hope it’s not going to be one of those games where we don’t get into a rhythm. “I hope we get an early goal” says the bearded, brown-haired young man sitting between me and the man from Stowmarket. It’s the ninth minute, Sam Morsy passes to Conor Chaplin and from the edge of the penalty area he shoots and finds the corner of the net before the Exeter goalkeeper Gary Woods can blink, and Town lead 1-0. That’s a relief, and Pat takes ever-present Phil’s photo as he holds his arms aloft and roars triumphantly with everyone else.

It’s three minutes since Town scored and Exeter have Town pinned back in our half, they even win a corner. “I want us to be top” says Pat, and echoing that sentiment the Sir Bobby Robson Stand and pockets of people all around the ground sing “We’re gonna win the league, We’re gonna win the league, and they int gonna believe us, and they int gonna believe us..” in what sounds weirdly like a West Midlands accent. “We’re coming for you, We’re coming for you, Norwich City, We’re coming for you” continues the crowd, but in no particular accent this time, and Pat says she hates playing Norwich. I tell Pat I like it when we beat them.

It’s the sixteenth minute and Town break down the left, George Hirst sends the ball on to Massimo Luongo, he is inside the penalty area, he runs, he shoots, he scores. Town lead 2-0 and I had a really good view of the ball leaving Massimo’s foot, by-passing Gary Wood and striking the net. This is good. “How many more goals do we need?” I ask Pat from Clacton. “One more” she says. There’s time for some choruses of “Stand up if you’re going up” and “Ipswich Town, Ipswich Town, the finest football team the world has ever seen” and then Town are breaking down the left again, a low cross is driven towards the goal by Nathan Broadhead and George Hirst scores from close range. Pat can relax and there are still the best part of seventy minutes to play.

Six minutes later Town carve open the Exeter defence again as Wes Burns chases a through ball into the penalty area, racing the Exeter full-back Jake Caprice who has the perfect surname for someone about to give away a penalty. Nathan Broadhead scores the resultant spot-kick sending the ball high into the roof of the net to Gary Wood ‘s right as Gary foolishly dives low to his left. I can barely believe this is happening, it is not the Ipswich way, where is the pain, the doubt, the anxiety? And the moaning, why is nobody moaning? I had mushrooms with my breakfast this morning and am beginning to wonder who Ocado’s supplier is as four minutes further on two Exeter players jump for the ball and it falls to Conor Chaplin who instinctively half volleys it into the corner of the net. Stephen Foster can’t help himself and once again summons the ghost of 1940’s comedian Tommy Handley by announcing “It’s That Man Again”. Town are winning 5-0 after just 32 minutes. I had the impression after 52 years of watching Town, that I’d seen it all, but may be I hadn’t.

When with five minutes left until half-time Luke Woolfenden heads over the cross-bar it seems like it’s the first time a goal attempt from Town hasn’t resulted in a goal; two minutes later Harry Clarke shoots wide of the far post and I’m wondering what’s gone wrong. Three minutes of added on time are added on.

With half-time I go down to the front of the stand to speak with Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison, and here for her traditional one game a season Ray’s wife Roz. We have nothing to say about the football except that it’s brilliant and that Exeter aren’t really bothering to defend their right-hand side. Today is Harrison’s nineteenth birthday and Ipswich Town have achieved nothing in his lifetime until today, it must feel like all his birthdays have come at once.

With the start of the second half at six minutes past four, the man from Stowmarket tells me that he thinks Town need to sharpen up for the second half, it’s the type of joke I imagine is being repeated all around the ground. Two minutes in and it seems the Town’s players didn’t get the joke and a long ball down the right sends Wes Burns into the Exeter penalty area where he lobs the ball over the advancing Gary Woods and into the Exeter goal and Town lead 6-0. Wow.

With the game already convincingly won I half expected the usual mass substitutions to be made at half-time, but there’s no need as Exeter almost score an own goal in the 53^rd minute but concede a corner instead. An hour has nearly drifted into history and the more rowdy Exeter supporters at the back of the Cobbold stand have a mad five minutes as they chant “Six-nil and you still don’t sing” at the over 60s in the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand and the less tuneful “Football in a library, do-do-do” before rounding off with the questioning “ Shall we sing, shall we sing, shall we sing a song for you?”, to which we should all answer in effete voices “Will you do?, Will you do? Will you do requests for us?”, but sadly no one does.

The hour passes and Exeter number seven, the interestingly monikered Demetri Mitchell is cautioned by the orange shirted Mr Oldham for vainly diving in a pitiful attempt at winning a penalty. A booking isn’t really enough punishment for such an offence and referees should carry a wet fish in a bag that they can slap in diving players’ faces to deliver the level of humiliation that the offence deserves. Demetri’s conduct possibly leads to his imminent substitution as Exeter plot to bring on the players capable of turning around a six-goal deficit. Two minutes later and Town have a corner and Conor Chaplin shoots over the cross bar. “Bloody useless” says Fiona.

It’s soon time for Town’s usual mass substitution, which today, in common with most days in fact, feels like an excuse for standing ovations all round. The attendance is announced by Stephen Foster as 29,334 which, despite there being a whole block of vacant seats next to the Exeter supporters is oddly the largest gate of the season at Portman Road by about 250. Exeter’s away following is recorded as a very creditable 919.

Exeter win a corner. Sam Morsy plays a through ball to no one in particular. “What was that?” asks the boy behind me “It don’t matter, we’re 6-nil up” replies his dad. Pat from Clacton tells me she’s not having a jacket potato for her tea tonight, although she’s still having the usual salad with chicken and prawns. It’s because she’s not sure when she’ll get home, what with the after-match celebrations. I tell her she could do a baked potato in the microwave in about ten minutes, but Pat tells me she doesn’t own a microwave. “We’re old-fashioned” she says. The match dribbles away into nothing but noise and smiles and Christian Walton is substituted with Vaclav Hladky so that they can both get the benefit of some applause from a crowd now totally tripped out on goals and promotion.

The final whistle brings the inevitable pitch invasion despite the presence of police, ‘security’ and polite requests not to run onto the pitch. Pitch invasions have been around a long time, certainly since the days of duffle coats, National Health glasses and Alf Ramsey and there are TV pictures to prove it. Strangely, in our supposedly permissive society the ‘authorities’ seem to be becoming increasingly restrictive. The pitch invasion does however provide the memorable sight of Sam Morsy being shouldered aloft, so it isn’t all bad. The town’s most excitable youths soon return to the Sir Bobby Robson stand, whence most of them came and so I hang around for the lap of honour and the player of the year presentations. Unfortunately, when the players do re-emerge from the dressing room they are accompanied by so many wives, girlfriends, children, family members and others that it is hard to see the players themselves. The rambling, amorphous mass of humanity drifts around the pitch before stopping between the Sir Bobby Robson stand and the half-way line, and there it stays. I sing along to Edward Ebenezer Jeremiah Brown but when the PA starts playing Queen I decide I can’t be bothered to wait any longer to see what will probably underwhelm me and I bid my farewells to my fellow ultras until August.

It has been a most memorable, remarkable afternoon, one that far outstripped my hopes for what it might be and unlike my first encounter with things Exonian it hasn’t rained and no one had to hold my hand.

Ipswich Town 4 Wycombe Wanderers 0

April 8, 2023September 30, 2023 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Four day working weeks are second only in my list of favourite working weeks to any weeks with fewer working days. But four day working weeks are definitely a good thing and so Easter week has therefore been a good week; and now, to add another layer of ‘good’, Town are playing at home to Buckinghamshire’s finest, Wycombe Wanderers, known as The Chairboys because of the town’s indiginous chair-making industry. I have however been dreaming again this week, this time about dating mysterious younger women; women who I do not recognise and who presumably are figments of my sub-conscious. These are pleasant dreams until I remember that I’ve been married for twenty-three years, although weirdly my wife doesn’t seem to mind, in the dreams at least; she probably just rolls her eyes.

I came to town early today to deliver a card congratulating two friends on their forthcoming wedding, which they are flying out to on Tuesday, because they are holding it in Las Vegas. Travelling 6,000 miles to get married is no way to save the planet, but at least I tried to off-set their profligacy by recycling old photographs to make their card. Having parked up my planet saving Citroen e-C4, I walk across Gippeswyk Park beneath blue skies decorated with cotton wool clouds. On Commercial Road a Range Rover speeds across the junction with the Princes Street bus lane and a youth calls out “Blue Army” through the open car window. Shouting youths aside, the streets are unusually quiet for a match day, until I reach Portman Road, where pre-match business is as usual and people hang about stuffing their faces with marshmallow bread and mechanically reclaimed meat products. The Wycombe team bus is parked opposite the Alf Ramsey Stand and on the back of the Cobbold Stand Bobby Robson appears to be squeezing his face through the top light of a window. I buy a programme (£3.50) from one of the blue kiosks; I check that I can pay by card and the young programme seller asks me how many programmes I want. I tell him I’m not exactly sure how much is in my account, so I’ll stick with just the one; fortunately, he laughs.

I leave Portman Road and walk on towards The Arb. By the underground spiral car park a man sits down on a bench to read the Daily Mirror and in the surface car park above another man swigs beer from a bottle, it reminds me of how in Montpellier fans have pre-match, ‘bring your own’ booze -ups in the park and ride car park next to the tram terminus. At The Arb there is no queue at the bar and I therefore waste no more of my life before ordering a pint of my ‘usual’, Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.60 with Camra 10% discount). I retire to the beer garden, which is busy with happy drinkers and diners enjoying the sun, I ask a couple of blokes if they mind if I ‘perch’ at the end of their table, they don’t. I read my programme and they talk to each other about holidays. One of them is thinking of going to Mexico, the other says that “Linda’s going to have the cat when we’re in Crete”.

It’s not two o’clock yet, but the would-be holidaymakers soon drain their glasses and leave for Portman Road, one of them says they can stop at the Arcade Tavern on the way if it’s too far. Mick won’t be joining me today because he’s on his way back from Antwerp; (he had wanted to go somewhere to celebrate his 70^th birthday to which he didn’t have to fly) but very soon I am not completely surprised when Gary sits down opposite me. We talk of mutual acquaintances, of quizzes Gary has recently participated in, of football in the Scilly Isles and how Gary saw Colchester United play Wycombe Wanderers in the FA Cup when Wycombe were still non-league; I tell him Wycombe’s old ground was called Loakes Park. Gary buys me another pint of Suffolk Pride, which is very kind of him. At about twenty-five to three we head for Portman Road, I think we’re the last to leave the pub.

Our conversation continues as we accumulate fellow fans all around us, all walking to the match. If everyone was singing in rounds it would be like that bit in West Side Story as the Sharks and the Jets gather for the rumble beneath the freeway flyover. Gary and I part at the corner of Portman Road and Sir Alf Ramsey Way and as a parting shot I remember to tell him how there’s been a new ice cream van stopping in my street this week; slightly weirdly however it is painted grey and black, and also carries the words “All events catered for” above the drivers cab, and I speculate whether it gets booked for wakes after summer funerals.

Leaving Gary to find the Magnus West Stand, I head down Portman Road to the new turnstiles at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand, which are in use for the first time today; except that I walk past the entrance to those turnstiles and carry on walking out into Princes Street, and then onto Chancery Road and into Russell Road, and opposite the Ipswich Borough Council offices is where I find the end of the queue. “Flippin’ ‘eck” I think to myself, in the style of the class-mates of Tucker in Grange Hill. This is all rather annoying and once again proves change to be a bad thing. The queue moves quickly however, although it doesn’t stop one shambling, scruffy looking man from loudly moaning about the situation as he waves his season ticket about and tells everyone “Forty years I’ve supported this club”. I happen to know that the man’s name is Dave. I wonder if he’s worried he might have to spend the next forty years queuing.

I’m soon walking past the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand again and am pleased to see that there are still turnstiles numbered 61 and 62, and whilst I am inevitably drawn towards these, I am instead ushered towards an open gate and a man with a bar code reader. I feel like I’ve made the kind of entrance into the stadium that Watch with Mother’s Mr Benn would have made. After re-cycling some of my two pints of Suffolk Pride, I take my seat between Fiona and the man from Stowmarket who is probably really from Stowupland; ever present Phil who never misses a game, his young son Elwood and Pat from Clacton are all here too. With so many people still outside I am surprised there are so many people in the ground. I’ve missed kick-off and the first three minutes of the match. It might be the first time I’ve missed the kick-off since Town played away to Northampton in the League Cup on a very wet night in October 1987, but it might not be because I think I also missed the kick-off at Nottingham Forest as recently as November 2002.

I quickly work out that Town are kicking towards the Sir Bobby Robson Stand and Wycombe Wanderers are wearing red shirts, shorts and socks with white trim and that as away kits go it’s one of the more boring ones, as if they put all their thought into their groovy two-tone blue home kit and had no imagination left. “Alright?” says the bloke behind me to what I think is his son. “Yeeeah!” is the expected, but weirdly elongated answer from the sprog. I’m soon amused by the Wycombe number seven who is left lying in the middle of the pitch as Town attack; the ball is passed and passed again, and again and again. Play only stops when Town are awarded a free-kick, when the prostrate player then miraculously gets up and manfully carries on. The game isn’t very exciting, and I wonder whether it was more fun in the queue and how long it is now. Town aren’t playing badly though, it’s just taking time to find the key to unlocking the Wycombe Wanderers defence. But there’s a palpable sense of people willing the team to win and it manifests itself as a huge collective sigh of disappointment when what looks like it might be a crucial pass from Harry Clarke is intercepted by an opponent.

In the fifteenth minute Town score, there is a mighty roar from the Sir Bobby Robson stand, but elsewhere we all saw the linesman raise his flag and we have retained our insouciance, although I am tempted to chant “You thought you had scored, you were wrong” because it doesn’t seem like the Wycombe supporters are going to bother, and they don’t. Five minutes later and a Wycombe player goes down as if hurt. As a track-suited angel provides succour it gives the opportunity for remedial touchline coaching for everyone else. All is quiet but for the beat of the drum in the Sir Bobby Stand, which is annoying Pat from Clacton; she doesn’t like loud noises.

The half is already half over as Wycombe have a shot from outside the penalty area which flies over the Town cross bar, it came as a result of a set piece free-kick and that is Wycombe’s chief weapon, unlike the Spanish Inquisition who as men now in their sixties and seventies know, had numerous weapons in their armoury, none of which were set piece free-kicks. A sense of restlessness is beginning to gurgle through the Town support. “Come On Town” calls the bloke behind me and a chant of “Come on Ipswich “ is repeated with varying degrees of enthusiasm around the ground at least three times, possibly four. Harry Clarke has a shot, but it’s a relatively easy save for the Wycombe goalkeeper Max Stryjek. “Ooh, that bloody drum” says Pat from Clacton. There are a little over ten minutes until half time and Town win a corner as a Conor Chaplin shot is saved. The corner is hit low and is cleared, but three minutes later Town win another. “Come On You Blues” chant sections of the crowd, at least three times, and I blow the strange red and white reverberating plastic thing I found in the club shop of Racing Club de Lens in 2017. George Hirst heads the ball imperiously into the Wycombe net. Town lead 1-0. Relief and joy slosh about together in a heady cocktail.

Five minutes until half-time and Nathan Broadhead wins yet another corner. From the Sir Bobby Robson the strains of Joy Division’s ‘Love will tear us apart’ can be heard, although all I can make out of the lyrics is that something is “falling apart again”, I just hope it’s nothing structural. From Joy Division the choir soon flits to “When the Town go marching in” sung to an even more slow, turgid pace than usual as if the world was in slow motion, which is almost the title of a single by New Order. The ball is in the Wycombe penalty area, it’s at the feet of Conor Chaplin, time stands still, no one moves, Conor Chaplin kicks the ball into the goal past a static Stryjek and Town lead 2-0. Joy abounds once more. After three minutes of added on time I join Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison down at the front for some conversation about haircuts, queuing, the often-dubious use of the words ‘ethical’ and ‘affordable’ and the scandal of how the food stall beneath the stand had sold out of sausage rolls even before kick-off. Ray kindly ‘pours out’ four mini-Easter eggs for me from a polythene bag, I eat two having carefully and studiously peeled off the delicate foil wrapping, because it feels horrible against the fillings in your teeth.

The football resumes at seven minutes past four with Wycombe Wanderers getting first go with the ball, although they soon lose it, and Town quickly have another corner. I give the two remaining Easter eggs that Ray gave me to Fiona and Pat from Clacton; Fiona’s egg is in a blue wrapper, Pat’s is in a green one, but she takes it anyway and pops it in her handbag for later. Seven minutes into the new half and referee Mr David Rock gets to air his yellow card for the first time as Wycombe’s Chris Forino needlessly hurtles into Wes Burns and sends him flying. “The Town are going up, the Town are going up” sing the lower tier of the Sir Bobby Robson stand with feeling as Wes Burns darts down the wing to put in a low cross, which is diverted into the side netting by a Wycombe boot.

It’s the fifty-seventh minute and the ball is controlled by George Hirst in the middle and played out to the right, Harry Clarke and Wes Burns are both through on goal, but Wes is travelling faster and facing head on to the goal, Harry defers to Wes who strikes the ball; one split second the ball leaves Wes’s boot, later that same split second it nestles in the back of the Wycombe goal net. “Pick the bones out of that” is the expression that springs to mind and Town lead 3-0. What had started as a difficult looking fixture against a team eager to get into the play-off places now looks like an end of season romp against mid-table duffers keen to get away on holiday.

“I’m looking forward to my baked potato, salad and prawns now” says Pat, confident the afternoon is going to end well and explaining that although today is a Friday, it’s like a Saturday. Pat’s enthusiasm must be infectious and for a moment it seems like the whole crowd start to sing “We’ve got super Keiran McKenna, He knows exactly what we need, Woolfy at the back, Ladapo in attack, And now we’re gonna win the fuckin’ league.” But I must be hallucinating, may be it was the Easter eggs. “Hark now hear the Ipswich sing…” chant the Sir Bobby Robson stand to the tune of ‘Mary’s boy child’, clearly totally confused as to which Christian festival is which.

I count seven seagulls on the cross-girder of the Sir Bobby Robson stand and Wycombe replace the prosaically named Nick Freeman with the more exotic sounding Tjay de Barr. News that neither Plymouth Argyle nor Sheffield Wednesday are winning prompts chants of “We are top of the league, we are top of the league” because we are, thanks to goal difference. A quarter of the match remains and it’s time for Town make a mass substitution, replacing over a third of the team in one fell swoop. As the changes are announced, the players draw the sort of personally directed applause they don’t get when they just leave the pitch with everyone else at the end of the match. Wes Burns, George Hirst, Nathan Broadhead and Conor Chaplin are the recipients of the ovations and the crowd sings “Ei, E-i, E-i-o, Up the Football league we go”. Stadium announcer Stephen Foster tells us that there are 28,511 souls in the stadium today with 643 of that number vainly supporting Wycombe when they could have been at home making chairs. Many of the crowd warmly applaud themselves for turning up.

Town win a corner courtesy of the clumsy looking Ryan Tafazolli, and Cameron Burgess heads over the cross-bar. Four minutes later and substitute Kyle Edwards gets the ball inside the Wycombe penalty box, but before he has the chance to control the ball he is barged over by Wycombe’s Scowen whose surname sounds as rough and unrefined as his challenge is. Appropriately, given that the referee is Mr Rock, it is a stone wall penalty. Freddie Ladapo steps up to score, shooting to the left as Stryjek stupidly but conveniently dives in the opposite direction. Town lead 4-0, it’s a rout, a sound thrashing, a gubbing and a stuffing.

The afternoon’s work is done; another substitution is made as the excellent Massimo Luongo is replaced by Dominic Ball, another corner is won, Wycombe make more substitutions of their own and Tafazoli receives the booking his savage play so richly deserves after he attempts to beat off Kayden Jackson with a thrusting forearm to the throat. At least five minutes of additional time is played out in which Wycombe succeed in extending Town’s run to nine consecutive clean sheets before the result is finally confirmed a bit before five o’clock.

To my right Fiona and Pat from Clacton quickly disappear back to their other lives and soon afterwards to my left the man sat there heads back to Stowmarket, or possibly Stowupland. Many linger to hail their conquering heroes. In all truth it’s not been the very best of games, but then again it has, and the excellent result has left me with the warm glow of satisfaction. Town have outplayed and outclassed a well organised team. I feel like celebrating , I wonder if the ice cream van will be round tomorrow.

Ipswich Town 2 Shrewsbury Town 0

March 19, 2023February 9, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s been a beautiful wet morning of silvery grey light beneath a shroud of pale cloud. I woke early, before six, when the sky was blue and red as the sun came up, but that was too early, so I went back to bed, then overslept.

Earlier this week I woke up with my mind disturbed by vivid dreams of a time over forty years ago when I was a university student coming to terms with base desires to form shallow relationships with members of the opposite sex. Worryingly, in these dreams I fancied girls who at the time I didn’t think I did. Why my subconscious mind should want to re-appraise events of forty years ago I cannot fathom. The week has improved since then, and psychologically re-balanced I’ve now parked up my planet saving Citroen e-C4 and have stepped out across a slippery, soggy Gippeswyk Park, beneath Ancaster Road railway bridge and over the river to the old tram depot and Sir Alf Ramsey Way, where I cashlessly buy a programme for today’s match having waited my turn behind a man who called the programme seller ‘mate’ at least four times and possibly as many as six during the course of his brief transaction. I was tempted to address the programme seller as ‘programme seller’ but of course I didn’t. One day.

At ‘the Arb’, I am a little bemused that there is no Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride today, but on the barman’s recommendation I order a pint of Mauldon’s Silver Adder (£4.00) and retire to the beer garden, which is already occupied by several drinkers of late middle age. I drink alone today because my friend Mick might be required away at any moment to collect a ‘stiff’; my words, not his and is taking the calls. Despite Mick’s absence, death still stalks me as at a nearby table I overhear a man talking of a funeral he had recently been to at the Seven Hills Crematorium. “They just talked a bit about his life, played some music, and that was it” he says. Later, he will tell his fellow drinkers about watching football on tv in Arabic by means of his Firestick, and how Richard Keys and Andy Gray are still working for beinsports in Qatar, where their grubby attitude towards women is clearly tolerated. I would like to hear Andy Gray speaking Arabic.

I read my programme, gleaning from it the fact that Sam Morsy has been booked twelve times this season, which is four more times than any other Town player and twice as many times as the third most booked player, Wes Burns. Finishing the Silver Adder, I return to the bar for a pint of Lacon’s Encore (£3.51 with Camra discount), by way of an encore. At about twenty to three I depart for Portman Road. In Crown Street a young man steps out of a barber’s shop and sprays what I assume to be deodorant under his armpits from beneath his T-shirt. An ambulance speeds by with its siren blaring; “Go, go save that person” shouts a lairy youth, no doubt trying to impress his friends with his off-the-wall ‘humour’.

I reach Portman Road and behind what was the North Stand a bearded man I know called Kevin sidles up to me and says hello. Kevin’s pre-match ritual is to have a pint at St Jude’s Tavern; he would join me at the Arb but can’t not stick to his ritual in case it causes a calamitous result. We walk to turnstile 61 together; Kevin uses turnstile 61 because 1961 was the year he was born. On what used to be the Churchman’s terrace I edge past Fiona to my seat next but one to the man from Stowmarket, although Fiona says he’s actually from Stowupland. Two rows in front of us are ever-present Phil who never misses a game and his young son Elwood. Pat from Clacton arrives a little after I do; she’s going to Great Yarmouth tomorrow on a ‘whist holiday’.

The teams process onto the pitch and Stephen Foster, the former BBC Radio Suffolk presenter and class-mate of my friends Pete and Ian, reads out the teams. Along with ever-present Phil, I bawl out the Town players’ surnames, pretending to be French. If I was French, I’d already be retired now, and depending on where I lived I might support Racing Club de Lens, Lorient, Clermont Foot or Montpellier. It’s something I think about a lot in my many idle moments. After a minute’s applause for former Town director John Kerr who died this week, Shrewsbury Town take the knee and applaud whilst Town players form a huddle, and then the match begins. Shrewsbury get first go with the ball attempting to send it mostly in the direction of the goal just in front of me, Pat, Fiona, Phil and Elwood. Shrewsbury are sporting a change kit today because their usual, distinctive blue and yellow striped shirts would clash with Town’s all blue shirts. Disappointingly, Shrewsbury have opted for all-black, the magnolia of modern-day football kits, for people who choose club kits but who also lack imagination. The addition of red smudges over the shoulders does nothing to alleviate the depressing absence of colour. The referees however are doing their best for us and are wearing orange shirts.

An intimidating, brooding wall of silence encloses the ground providing the soundtrack to the games’ opening moves, but a bit of noise eventually emanates from the Blue Action section in the lower tier of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand, followed by the curious chants of “Addy, Addy, Addy-O”. It’s damp, and a faint mist seems to hang over the pitch. Town have the ball mostly, but all of a sudden Christian Walton is leaping acrobatically to tip a header from Luke Leahy (I like to think Leahy is pronounced leaky) over the cross bar to give Shrewsbury the game’s first corner. Quickly it has been established that Shrewsbury are going to be one of those teams who are all free-kicks, set pieces and shoving people over. It’s a style of ‘football’ that is effective for a bit, but people soon get tired of it and that includes the players, just ask Mick McCarthy.

Town soon re-establish their superiority, which manifests itself in three corners in five minutes as crosses and shots are blocked. A dozen minutes have gone forever and half the pitch is now bathed in mottled sunlight and the other half wallows in the shadows of the stands. I am struck by how spindly the legs of Shrewsbury’s number 33, Tom Flanagan, are and just to prove the point he slips over like new born Bambi. The fifteenth minute arrives and Wes Burns scampers off down the wing, crosses the ball and George Hirst rises high, twists his neck, and heads the ball gloriously into the goal beyond goalkeeper Marko Marosi. It’s the sort of goal centre forwards used to score all the time, and at half-time Ray will tell me how it reminded him very much of Trevor Whymark’s best work, and he’s right. Town lead 1-0.

The sun is shining, the Town (Ipswich not Shrewsbury ) are winning and all is right with the world as I sit back and wait for Town’s next goal. Before that however, comes the first booking as Wes Burns is tripped by Jordan Shipley, who forty years ago might have been called Gordon Shipley. All twenty outfield players are within forty yards of the Shrewsbury goal as the resulting free-kick is taken, but the ball goes straight into the arms of Marosi.

With the game entering its second quarter, it feels like Town ease off a little as what had been a busy period of crosses and constantly probing possession comes to an end. But the rest, is just a rest and soon Town are winning more corners. “Come On You Blues” I bawl. “ They can’t hear you” says Pat from Clacton. “I don’t think anyone can” I tell her, disappointed that all across the bottom tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand people haven’t joined in with me. “I can hear you” says Fiona, sounding like she wishes she couldn’t.

We descend towards half-time and from another Wes Burns cross it looks as though the until now excellent Massimo Luongo has an open goal, but somehow he contrives to head the ball where we and presumably he didn’t want it to go, not into the goal. In the interests of variety, Shrewsbury are awarded a corner as Cameron Burgess clears the ball behind from a rare, but awkward foray forward by the visting team, and Christian Walton saves a shot from that Gordon Shipley, before Conor Chaplin restores order but shoots wide of the Shrewsbury goal. The half closes with an homage to BBC tv sitcom Dad’s Army as Shrewsbury number 15, Rekeil Pyke fouls Luke Woolfenden, and hopefully referee Ollie Yates adopts a German accent to say “ Your name will also go into the book, what is it?” From the touchline I think I hear Shrewsbury manager Steve Cotterill shout “Don’t tell him Pyke!” and both benches and Mr Yates fall about laughing.

With half-time, I hasten away beneath the stand to make use of the facilities and enjoy the luxury of the new hand dryers which since the last home game have replaced the old asthmatic ones. I return to talk with Ray and his grandson Harrison at the front of the stand. Ray seems disappointed with the first half because Shrewsbury have had a couple of reasonable chances and Town have only scored once, but he liked the goal and talks of Trevor Whymark and Alan Lee.

The football resumes at seven minutes past four and I eat a Nature Valley honey and nut cereal bar, which I finish before Town seemingly score again as Conor Chaplin taps the ball in at the far post after a deep cross, but apparently he is offside; he doesn’t argue so he probably was, or he is the first player to work out that referees do not change their decisions. The disappointment is only temporary however, but what isn’t? Two minutes later there’s a cross, a Conor Chaplin shot is blocked and Massimo Luongo places a precise hooked shot inside the far post to put Town 2-0 up.

It feels to me like we’ve won already and it’s just a matter of how many goals Town can get. Shrewsbury are putting up decent resistance but we’re too good for them and almost proving the point George Hi⁸rst thumps a shot against a goal post, although he must ask himself why he missed the 7.32m wide gap to its left. A minute later Shrewsbury’s Matthew Pennington is booked for reacting childishly to a perceived dive by Nathan Broadhead and then an unseemly melee ensues with all the usual posturing and macho behaviour that you would expect from the drivers of enormous black SUVs. When the free-kick is eventually taken, Leif Davis uncharacteristically launches it wastefully over the cross bar.

Ipswich’s early dominance of the second half nevertheless inspires some noise from the home crowd and the Sir Bobby Robson stand treat everyone else to the usual truncated rendering of Harry Belafonte’s, or may be Boney M’s, Mary Boy Child with specially adapted lyrics that tell of what now seem like mythical fights with Norwich on Boxing Day. Shrewsbury are first to blink with regard to substitutions and two are made together, one of them being the aforementioned Pyke.

Time rattles on by twenty minutes and Shrewsbury win a corner and Nathan Broadhead is booked for being fouled in the Shrewsbury penalty area despite Shrewsbury players concernedly helping him to his feet rather than pointing accusing fingers. Todays’ attendance is announced by Stephen Foster as 26, 432 with 343 from Shropshire, and weirdly but as per usual, people applaud themselves or each other, or may be they’re applauding Stephen Foster. On the Clacton supporters coach the guess the crowd competition is won by Pat from Clacton’s great nephew Liam, who is just visiting for the weekend and is a West Ham United supporter. Understandably, Pat seems disappointed that this ‘part-time supporter’ has won the prize and suggests various other guesses on her list to Fiona and me that might be closer, but none of them are.

Fifteen minutes remain and it’s time for Town to begin their usual catalogue of substitutions and Freddie Ladapo and Marcus Harness replace George Hirst and Nathan Broadhead. Another Shrewsbury corner sees Chey Dunkley strike the Town cross-bar with a header, but typically for a team reliant on ‘big blokes’ there has been a foul, and Town are awarded a free-kick and Christian Walton receives lengthy treatment whilst everyone else enjoys a break by the touchline. “Get Up!” shouts a frustrated pre-pubescent voice behind me. His dad explains that you don’t shout “Get Up” at your own players, but the child simply replies ”But it’s taking forever”. When he’s older he’ll realise that some of life’s best moments are when nothing is happening.

The last ten minutes of normal time have found their way here and it still time for two more Shrewsbury players to be shown Ollie’s yellow card for fouling Conor Chaplin, and Kayden Jackson, who has replaced Wes Burns, although they probably would have fouled him too given the chance. The eternal treatment to Christian Walton results in only seven minutes of added on time and whilst I hope for a third Town goal which would mark out the result as a modest thrashing rather than just a satisfactory win, it doesn’t happen, despite two more Town substitutions and an outbreak of rhythmic clapping.

Finally, at a minute before five o’clock the game ends and my little band of ultras and I bid our adieus until Good Friday. It’s been a fine performance from Ipswich and ultimately a comfortable, if hard fought victory. I will travel home this evening content, and safe in the knowledge that in forty years’ time it is unlikely my subconscious mind will unexpectedly want to re-appraise todays events, because I expect I will be dead.