Merlux

When I win a large amount of money on the Premium Bonds and the biographical film of my life comes to be made, many of the best bits of the soundtrack will be to the music of Robyn Hitchcock who has provided much of the soundtrack to my adult life. When my good friend Mr Goold told me therefore that Robyn would be performing at Norwich Puppet Theatre, a venue a mere 24 kilometres from Mr Goold’s abode, I was obviously quick, well in truth not that quick, to buy a ticket (£18, plus £2.30 to anonymous middle men) and invite myself to sleep on my good friend’s floor for the night. My other good friend Pete decided he would also like to come along on what his consumption of American popular culture and resultant outlook on life told him would be a road trip in the style of Hunter S Thompson.

It’s a dreamy drive through the Norfolk countryside on a September evening in Mr Goold’s golden 2004 Nissan Micra, the sun is setting to our left casting long shadows. Reaching Norwich, having been driven for the first time in my life through Poringland, I am struck by how much like a proper city Norwich is, from its riverside roadways, medieval cathedral and monumental County Council building to its elevated four lane highway; a pity about its football club. Mr Goold’s Nissan Micra comes to rest in Magdalen car park in the shadow of a concrete flyover, our ultimate destination less than 200 metres away. We walk through the fading light to the 15^th/16^th century church of St James the Less, now re-purposed as the Norwich Puppet Theatre. I muse on St James the Less being appropriate given that puppets are like miniature people. At my behest ⁹Pete poses with the cathedral as a backdrop; I photograph him but fail to make the spire give him the appearance of a man wearing a tall, pointed hat; I can’t helping thinking that it’s an opportunity missed. My life is full of regrets.

Inside the theatre we drink at the bar, Mr Goold drinks coffee, Pete drinks Adnams Ghostship, I down Adnam’s Broadside. We check out our fellow audience members; people in late middle age like us, Norwich’s arty set and younger people dragged along by their elders against their will. I make assumptions about people. Eager to get ‘good seats’, when we see the first people departing the room we follow, hoping we’re not just pursuing them into the toilet. The auditorium has been dropped neatly into the nave of the church, and the interweb tells me it has over 150 seats, my eyes tell me these are split either side of a central gangway; it is steep giving a good view of the stage.

At 8 o’clock the support act, Jessica Lee Morgan and Christian Thomas play a set of unfortunately forgettable songs very competently indeed and they seem very nice. Jessica is the daughter of Mary Hopkin and Tony Visconti and she tells us so in case we didn’t know. After the set, as we wait for Robyn Hitchcock to appear I tell Mr Goold that from now on I might be begin telling people that my mother is Daphne Brooks and Reg Brooks was my father. In spite of the snidey implications of the previous sentence the support act are alright.

At nine o’clock Robyn Hitchcock appears, being helped onto the stage and to a seat at a Clavinova digital piano, a product of the Yamaha company. Robyn explains that the previous evening he fell over and whilst not damaged in terms of breakages to bone and sinew, he is clearly in pain and standing up and moving about is a problem for him. In an unfortunate way however, this is a good thing for his paying audience as we receive the rare treat of hearing Robyn playing piano and sounding not unlike the Plastic Ono band. I can’t now wholly remember which four songs are played, but ‘Ted, Woody and Junior’, a song about three men lathering each other with soap is one, and by way of an apparent insight into this song Robyn tells us about his grandma’s Ray-Bans, which were comparable in a competitive way to those owned by Andy Warhol, and how her wearing them at home on the Isle of Wight was concomitant to and therefore related to the meeting of Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan and Brian Jones in New York. Many of Robyn’s songs are about moments in time such as this.

After four songs on the piano, Robyn shuffles out from behind it to a stool, where he is handed his acoustic guitar by Chris Thomas of the support act who has been pressed into the role, hopefully only temporarily, of carer. Again, the audience is in luck as a less than satisfactory pick-up on the guitar causes Robyn to come to the very front of the stage to perform un-plugged and un-miked.

The first of five songs Robyn plays on his acoustic guitar is ‘I’ve got the hots for you’, a tune dating back to 1980 when Robyn existed in a previous incarnation as member of the Soft Boys, but still wrote excellent songs. ‘Hots’ as I have stupidly decided to call it here for the sake of brevity, although these words of explanation have of course taken longer to type and read than the full title is on the life-enhancing LP ‘Underwater Moonlight’, and is a song of which I have always been especially fond. My fondness for ‘Hots’ is in a good part due its reference near the end of the song to “a piece of Hake”. I have always enjoyed this lyric, ‘Hake’ being such a fine word and few artists ever mention fish in their songs. Tonight this song has extra poignancy as I have recently returned from Brittany where I had a particularly good time watching FC Lorient, a football team who call themselves Les Merlus, and have a mascot called Merlux; Merlu is the French word for Hake and Merlux therefore translates approximately as Hakey. Incidentally, Lorient beat FC Nantes, a team known as the Canaries just like the local team in Norwich. I don’t think Robyn has any knowledge whatsoever of football or its mascots, but it’s as if he knew. It’s a situation not unlike that of Andy Warhol and Robyn’s grandmother.

Also within the acoustic set, Robyn plays a new song entitled ‘I am this thing’, a song which has appeared on-line but is so new it has not been played live before. Robyn tells us that this song has been requested this evening and after the show Mr Goold tells Pete and me how he was particularly taken with the track when hearing it on-line, and it was he who had asked that Robyn play it tonight. Whilst secretly grateful to Mr Goold, we don’t let on too much and I admit to thinking the song sounds a bit like another of Robyn’s songs, although typically I can’t remember which one, but obviously it’s a good one.

After the five acoustic tunes, Robyn hobbles back to be handed his electric guitar on which he plays four more songs including a reverberating version of ‘I often dream of trains’ and the almost-title track from his new album Shufflemania, which is entitled ‘The Shuffleman’. Robyn remarks how his fall has resulted in his becoming the Shuffleman himself, although alternatively, given the venue, his movements could be said to be puppet-like , as if Thunderbirds had had a member of the International Rescue team who just sat about and rescued people by playing groovy music.

The final quarter of the gig sees Robyn joined on stage by Jessica and Chris for another four songs, with Robyn managing to stand up to play his electric guitar. After a beautiful rendition of ‘Queen of Eyes’, which almost brings a tear to my eye as it again takes me back to 1980 and my lost youth, Robyn advises that these songs are the encores, which whilst disappointing is understandable unless Robyn can somehow be magically lifted up from the stage and then set down on it again like some sort of over age Peter Pan. The ‘encore’ also comprises the stonking ‘Brenda’s Iron Sledge’ which includes the lyric “Please don’t call me Reg, It’s not my name”, the galloping ‘Oceanside’ and finally ‘Airscape’, probably a favourite of Robyn himself.

Applause for Robyn and his band is not thunderous, because there aren’t enough of us in the puppet theatre for that, but it is heartfelt and enthusiastic and barely ends before the lights go up confirming that that was indeed the encore. It has been a fabulous evening and possibly a unique one, what with Robyn both playing piano and going doubly unplugged.

As a final act before departing the puppet theatre, which has been an excellent venue, I purchase a copy of a seven-inch single entitled ‘Mr President’, which I like for the picture on the cover of Robyn on the telephone against a back drop of overhead trolleybus or tram wires. Such records and CDs along with his weekly shows on-line will now have to suffice until we can see Robyn play live again, and driving back to Mr Goold’s abode our happy reminiscences of the evening inspire us to resolve to get tickets for Robyn’s seventieth birthday concert at the Alexandra Palace next February.

To Ipswich Town supporters like me, FC Lorient is known as the club from which the Town bought Ulrich Le Pen, a slight winger who was injured just minutes after coming on in a match against Bolton Wanderers and only ever featured in one other first team game, an FA Cup tie which I can’t remember. To the wider world Lorient is France’s second largest fishing port and home of a French submarine dockyard which grew out of the massive reinforced concrete U-Boat docks built by the Nazis during World War Two. Sadly for Lorient, the town was mostly flattened by allied bombs as the Nazis were pushed out of France in 1944 and whilst the re-built town is well laid out with buildings in a quiet, modernist style, it doesn’t have the architectural verve of Le Havre or Amiens, or even, come to that of Plymouth and Bristol.

Today however FC Lorient host their Breton neighbours from 170 kilometres away (1hour and 51 minutes up the E60 according to Google maps) FC Nantes, but my wife Paulene and I have travelled a mere 40 kilometres from the campsite where we are staying in Carnac. Car parking in Lorient on a Sunday is a curious affair as most of the town centre car parks are closed as is much of the town centre itself, including the tourist information office. There is plenty of street parking however with the usual restrictions being suspended. The Stade du Moustoir, home of FC Lorient is in an eminently sensible town centre location much like Ipswich’s Portman Road, and it is somewhat remarkably within 50 metres of the Hotel de Ville (town hall) and just a short walk from the main shopping streets, railway and bus stations. The purpose in closing the car parks would seem to be to make people travel responsibly by bus, train, bike or on foot, although some parking can be pre-booked by those signing up to a car sharing scheme.

Paulene and I have arrived in Lorient in plenty of time to nab a handy street parking place. Our short walk to the Stade de Moustoir affords a sneak preview of the stadium with the already illuminated floodlights being visible between the gaps between the buildings in nearby streets. Near the railway station a bar has been requisitioned by visiting Nantes fans; a group of police stand a discreet distance away but there is no hint of any bad behaviour and we see many Nantes and Lorient fans walking to the stadium together. Reaching the stadium early, we are in time to see the home team alight from their team bus wearing their horizontally striped, Breton-style jumpers or training tops. A crowd are waiting to see the players arrive and a ‘welcome arch’ has been erected as the gateway from the bus into the stadium. The frontage of the Stade de Moustoir is clad with vertical strips of timber and looks every bit like a modern office or block of flats. Whilst outside the ground, I get my first glimpse of the unusual club mascot, Merlux le Merlu (pretty much ‘Hakey the Hake’ in English) as he welcomes the players off the bus.

With the team in the stadium, the turnstiles open and Paulene and I enter also, but are surprised to be lectured by an officious man who tells us that we cannot take a bottle of water into the stadium, although he can exercise discretion with regard to Paulene’s bag. Paulene had had an asthma attack as we approached the stadium and the very kind security man on the door at the club shop had arranged to get me a bottle of water for her. I had returned to the club shop to source vital souvenirs of our visit but found that some of the items I might buy such as a mug or cuddly hake would, like the bottle of water, not be permitted in the ground. Had I seen the e-mail the club sent me this morning I would have known that the LFP (French football league) had banned the carrying of virtually anything into football grounds this season, presumably in response to Marseille’s Dimitri Payet (known by me as the Very Hungry Caterpillar due to his ‘haircut’) getting hit on the head by a plastic bottle at Lyon last season as he went to take a corner.

Having located our seats (20 euros each) in the Tribune Credit Mutuelle de Bretagne, a quite small single tier stand with a fabulous shuttered concrete roof and light steel and glass doors redolent of a 1950’s school hall, I set off to explore and perhaps look for beer. I am quickly amazed and overjoyed to find that I can walk right the way round this stadium through the concourses of each stand. Behind the goal, the stand has access to the club shop which is now shut to the outside world. The concourses are regularly punctuated with a variety of food and drink outlets and the club markets these as Les Corners du Moustoir. Having passed by the Tavarn Lancelot, I stop at the Tavarn Morgana for an organic beer called Lancelot IPA (4 euros 50), brewed by the Breton Lancelot brewery. I mainly choose this beer so that I can pronounce Lancelot with a French accent (Lon-slow), something that has never failed to amuse me ever since seeing director Robert Bresson’s film Lancelot du Lac on BBC2’s Film International one Saturday night back in the 1970’s. Having consumed my beer, I return to my seat clutching two free eight-page match programmes and a Breton flag; there were piles of them on the floor beneath the programmes with a sign urging me and everyone else to take one.

At a quarter to three a ship’s siren sounds three times and the scoreboard tells us there are fifteen minutes to go until Coup d’envoi (kick-off); the build up to the match begins. As an opening act in the pre-match ritual an enthusiastic woman strides about the pitch in front of the main stand and sings the Breton anthem, whilst the whole crowd wave their Breton flags and club banners in a show of regional, celtic pride. On the fabulously named Tribune B&B Hotels (B&B Hotels Stand), where the central section of the lower tier is occupied by the loudest Lorient ultras, an orange and black tifo folds down from the top tier to cover the whole stand. As the teams process onto the pitch to stand before the Ligue 1 banner and club crests, fireworks are set off on the pitch, more banners are waved and the Nantes fans, who fill the away enclosure in the corner between the Tribune Mutuelle de Bretagne and the Tribune Lorient Agglomeration wave a few flares about, making me wonder if they managed to smuggle in any bottles of water too; it’s all rather thrilling.

With the pyrotechnics and flags cleared away the game begins with Nantes getting first go with the ball and kicking towards the Tribune B&B hotels. Nantes are in their signature kit of all yellow, whilst Lorient sport their traditional orange shirts, black shorts and white socks. The atmosphere inside the stadium is wonderful, it has all the excitement of a ‘local’ derby game, but as well as the Nantes fans in the away enclosure there are plenty of them sitting with the Lorient supporters in all four stands and there are dads with sons, and dads with daughters, and mums and dads with whole families and every family combination, and then there are the ultras standing on their seats and singing and mostly stripped to the waist showing off their rippling beer bellies. Brittany has its own cola called Breizh Cola, and my favourite name of one of the ultras groups is Breizh Tango.

Nantes start the match better than Lorient who look a little wobbly like a new-born foal or perhaps a young hake. It’s still a bit of a shock however when in the 13^th minute a Quentin Merlin corner for Nantes is headed into the Lorient net from close range at the near post by Ignatius Ganago. I have come to this match today to support Lorient and am wearing my orange Ipswich Town shirt in solidarity, they are supposed to win, but they are losing 0-1.

Lorient are fortunately stung into action by the goal as if Nantes had been a jellyfish and just six minutes later Stephane Diarra embarks on a dribble down the right and is literally ‘hacked down’ close to the edge of the Nantes penalty area by Andrei Girotto. It takes a little while for the free-kick to be organised, but its worth waiting for as Dango Ouattara steps up to curl the ball beautifully over the defensive wall and into the top left hand corner of a stationery Alban Lafont’s goal. It’s a goal that will be a joy forever and the score is one all.

The football flows back and forth and Lorient have grown into the game with their pacey wide and forward players constantly threatening, but Nantes are strong and well organised. In defence for Nantes, the huge Nicolas Pallois strides about with his shorts hitched up showing off his massive thighs, which greatly impresses Paulene. A 33^rd minute corner goes to Lorient as a Stephane Diarra shot is deflected, but a minute later Ignatius Ganago runs onto an Evann Guessand through ball; he looks way offside, but he rounds the Lorient ‘keeper Yvon Mvogo and it is not until the ball is rolling over the goal line that the linesman puts his flag up. It’s a ludicrous piece of assistant refereeing, although we then have to wait whilst the VAR people confirm that Ganago was offside – of course he was!

As Lorient begin to look more dangerous in attack, Enzo le Fee, who after the Arthurian theme with the bar and the beer makes me think of Morgan le Fey, and the incongruously named Bonke Innocent both have shots blocked for the home team. Dango Outtara, a 20-year-old from Burkina Faso is also making some fantastic speedy runs for them too, inspiring repeated chants of “Allez Lorient, Allez Lorient” from the home crowd. Five minutes of normal time remain in the first half and Nantes’ Moses Simon is the first player to be booked by referee Johan Hamel as he reduces Enzo Le Fee to a quivering heap on the turf with what appeared to be a well-aimed slap in the face. The final minute of the half sees Nantes’ Ludovic Blas cut in from the right and have a decent shot tipped over the cross bar by Mvogo and then, as Lorient break way from the ensuing corner Pedro Chrivella scythes down Diarra to become the second Nantes player to have his name recorded by Monsieur Hamel. A minute of time added-on is played and it is mi-temps (half-time).

Disappointingly mi-temp fails to offer up the spectacle of supporters attempting to toss a hake into a yoghurt pot or any similar test of skill inspired by local sponsors, but happily I am on the end of the row and close enough to the stairs to make it quickly to the toilet before pretty much anyone else, and that’s good enough for me. Paulene takes a chance on the queues for the ‘ladies’ having subsided with a couple of minutes to go until the game begins again. She returns late for the re-start and asks if she has missed anything, but I can’t in all honesty say she has.

The match resumes and the first action of note sees Lorient’s current top scorer Terem Moffi delight the crowd with an excellent dribble into the penalty area. Even more impressively, he wears the number thirteen shirt. Denis Appiah becomes the third Nantes player to be booked after fouling Moffi and then just twelve minutes into the second half Lorient boldly make two substitutions with Julian Ponceau replacing Bonke Innocent and Stephane Diarra making way for Yohan Cathine. Three minutes later and the scoreboard announces that it is the 56^th minute. “Faites un Bruit” it then says (make a noise) and at least some of the crowd do so, although to be fair it’s been pretty noisy all along. As an Ipswich supporter this apparently random entreaty to the fans across the whole ground seems like a good idea. In this case it seems to work too, because there is some response and four minutes later a superb passing move down the Lorient left climaxes with Yoann Cathline sweeping the ball majestically into the top right-hand corner of the goal net from about 20 metres out, and Lorient lead 2-1.

Stade du Moustoir is now a cauldron of noise as Lorient fans celebrate, and like the best supporters should, Nantes fans get behind their team too, when they need it most. “Allez, Allez; Allez, Allez” echoes around from tribune to tribune and it’s hard to tell if it’s the Lorient or Nantes fans singing it, but it’s probably both. It is certain however who is singing “Lorientaises, Lorientaises”. With the home crowd exultant, it feels like good timing when the scoreboard announces today’s attendance with the words “Vous etes 15,081” (literally “you are 15,081”). It’s a figure close to the capacity of this ground which somehow feels and looks bigger than it is, whilst at the same time feeling compact and intimate; the orange colour scheme and all orange banks of seats doubtless help to create this effect. “Lorient, Lorient” shout the crowd, punctuating the words with three successive claps.

Less than twenty minutes of normal time remain, and Lorient make a double substitution, replacing Moffi with Ibrahime Kone and Laurent Abergel with Adil Aouchiche, a recent signing from St Etienne. The impact is immediate as Kone and Outtara exchange a couple of passes, the last one of which puts Ikone through on goal with just Alban Lafont to beat, which he does, side footing the ball left-footed into the far corner of the goal. I can’t help it, but I leap up in the air along with everyone else wearing orange. Lorient lead 3-1. Surely Les Merlus can’t lose now, although an iffy pass almost gives Nantes a run on goal, resulting in Julian Laporte being booked for his efforts to recover the situation, and then Kone also lunges in and is booked too. The crowd chant “Lorientaises, Lorientaises” to celebrate their lead and to give the team an extra bit of support; and they need it as Ludovic Blas produces an excellent dribble to the edge of the box before sending a shot against the foot of the goalpost, which rebounds out and is cleared. The Lorient supporters remain joyful and confident however, even complacent, and a Mexican Wave begins, but fortunately not many join in and it quickly peters out.

Five minutes of normal time remain and Nantes are pushing forward all the time, but without success; they don’t really seem to have the guile to get through the Lorient defence. If Nantes are going to score they will need some luck and that is what happens as Moses Simon seemingly mis-hits a shot which trickles towards the goal, appears to hit a post, roll along the goal line and somehow goes in. The goal is barely deserved, and Nantes only come anywhere near scoring again once more as Ignatius Ganago’s header is saved by Mvogo. Unusually for the losing team, it is Nantes who make the late substitutions, and if it is an attempt to give the team and supporters a late fillip by increasing the amount of time added on it doesn’t work as time additionelle of just two minutes is announced.

The two minutes pass without further incident and the final whistle confirms Lorient’s win. Paulene and I both agree that this has been a very good match and we have been impressed and a little surprised by Lorient’s slick forward play in particular. But the whole afternoon has been wonderful, not just the football. From the Arthurian themed, locally brewed organic beer to the mingling of home and away fans in such a fine, small but spacious stadium under warm blue skies it has been a joy to be here. Full of happy thoughts we head for the club shop to buy that cuddly hake.