An evening match at Portman Road and it’s not worth going home after work, so I stay a little later, but not that late and then take ‘tea’ in St Jude’s Tavern. My walk to St Jude’s takes me past Portman Road where the scene is being set for later in the evening. It’s half past five so darkness already shrouds the streets, but the bright white strip lights inside the Bobby Robson stand already illuminate it, and a silent expectation spills down in to Sir Alf Ramsey Way. Isn’t it daft that the Sir Bobby Robson stand is in Sir Alf Ramsey Way and the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand is at the other end of the ground? In Sir Alf Ramsey Way and Portman Road three burger vans are set-up; like the lights inside the stand they spill out a neon glow and with the absence of diners they possess a harsh, stark sadness, like paintings by Edward Hopper.
A gaggle of stewards head for their evening’s work of standing about in hi-vis jackets and the local newspaper ‘goodie bags’ are being lined-up on the pavement.
I pass by quickly and have soon ordered a chicken a mushroom pie (although the barman said it was steak and kidney) and a pint of Cliff Quay Powder Monkey, a bitter, for a fiver. I sit and read for a short while as I eat and sup my beer before I am joined by a friend who buys me a pint of Cliff Quay Anchor (£3.40) which I prefer to the Powder Monkey. As usual the St Jude’s is being patronised by pre-match drinkers, but not packed out by them, which is good because it’s not a very big pub. My friend and I discuss the scandal that is Universal Credit, the Budget, living in France, my friend’s heart condition, and haircuts; I order another pint of Anchor and my friend, whose name is Mick, as in Mills, Hill, McCarthy and Jagger has a half.
Glasses drained and farewells said I find myself in Portman Road, it’s not very busy, but then the game is on the telly and Ipswich ‘supporters’ are quick to abandon their club when the going gets tough, even though prices are reduced to a very reasonable £15 all over the ground tonight; as a season ticket holder I feel a little cheated by that. Entry into the ground offers nothing of note tonight, but the stand is pitted with empty seats, it seems likely that many deserted the cheap seats tonight due to that special offer. There are plenty of supporters from Sheffield, well over a thousand and despite being from the city of the Arctic Monkeys, Pulp and The Human League they hit on Depeche Mode’s “ I just can’t get enough” as their anthem from the start; frankly I am disappointed.
The match kicks off and the ball is soon in the air and the game isn’t as beautiful as the publicity or Pele say; there’s a lot of pushing and shoving. There’s not too much to excite and therefore the Ipswich fans are quiet, whilst the more effusive people of South Yorkshire continue to show no regional loyalty moving seamlessly from Depeche Mode to Jeff Beck with a rendition of “Hi Ho, Sheffield Wednesday…” although without ever finishing the lyric; they must just like the fact that those four words scan so neatly. With the Ipswich supporters typically silent, it takes just fourteen minutes before the Wednesdayites appropriate a bit of opera to sing “Is this a library”, as all but the very smallest and quietest gatherings of away supporters do at Portman Road, and justifiably so.
Eventually, after twenty minutes or so, Ipswich have a couple of shots which inspire their supporters to launch into a few dull, atonal chants of “Blue Army”. Sheffield Wednesday dominate possession, as most teams do against Ipswich, but in the English second division that counts for nothing as few teams are capable of converting possession into goals. Ipswich are doing okay. Then it’s half time and I wander dispiritedly beneath the stand, worried as ever by the ageing demographic of Ipswich’s supporters. I toy with the idea of sitting somewhere else for the second half, but my enthusiasm has been sucked from me by the stiflingly silent attitude of the home crowd and I return to my own seat amongst the living dead to continue this passionless marriage with the club that once moved me.
The second half begins as the stomping “Singing The Blues” fades from the tannoy and the Sheffield Wednesday fans take up the tune with a gusto unknown in Ipswich, though for their own wicked purposes of encouraging their team. But within three minutes Ipswich score; Joe Garner tapping the ball simply and easily into the net at the far post after a corner is headed across goal. Now that Ipswich are winning, Ipswich supporters in The Bobby Robson Stand can be heard supporting their team and things are looking up; Ipswich are playing pretty well. It’s all a bit a shock therefore when fifteen minutes later Ipswich’s Jordan Spence mindlessly, needlessly and almost invisibly handles the ball to gift Sheffield Wednesday a goal from the penalty spot. Happily Martyn Waghorn restores Ipswich’s lead with a looping header about five minutes later and Ipswich continue to be the more effective team, even if they still don’t possess the ball as often as Sheffield.
The mood is uncharacteristically upbeat although of course you couldn’t say the stadium is reverberating to the sound of passionate support; “The noise, the passion, the sense of belonging” that Bobby Robson said defined a club remain elusive in the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand . Portman Road will never rival St Etienne’s Stade Geoffrey Guichard as “The Cauldron” ; not so much Le chaudron as le cemetiere.
The final twenty minutes see substitutions borne of desperation from Sheffield and fear of losing from Ipswich. Sheffield resort to an enormous bearded Kosovan, Atdhe Nuhui, who is 1.96m tall. Ipswich resort to trying to keep the ball in the far corner of the pitch rather than continuing to play proper football, which could bring a third goal. In the final seconds of the match Ipswich lose the ball, Wednesday break away, cross the ball and the giant Kosovan heads the ball into the top corner of the goal. The game finishes and the Ipswich ‘supporters’ break their Trappist vows to boo, forgetting most of the previous ninety four minutes and preferring to concentrate on the final disappointing seconds. It does feel like defeat but heck most of the people here are old enough to have seen this all before; I am.
Outside, Ipswich is beautiful in a grey, wet and shiny sort of a way. I head down Princes Street then down and up Portman Road to St Matthews Street and St Jude’ s Tavern. In Portman Road the turnstiles are already open, stewards fiddle with their metal detectors and the sniffer dog and his handler peer up the street. I think about buying a match programme as I approach the kiosk and read ‘Here to help’ on the back of the seller’s jacket. I am tempted to test the boast by asking if the programme is worth the £3 I would be expected to pay for it.
I have another and then, to avoid feeling like a complete skinflint I pay full price (£3.40) for a pint of Bearstown Polar Eclipse, a dark beer which is exceedingly good. At the table next to me in the pub are a group of five Preston North End fans; I tell them I have heard good things of their bus station and they smile, sort of. It transpires that none of them now lives in Preston. One of them tells me they are literally ‘exiles’; I don’t ask. I chat off and on with them and one confides that Ipswich are still the best team he has ever seen play against Preston; in an FA Cup third round match in 1979 which Town won 3-0. It is one of those “aw shucks” moments to hear my team complimented so. Another one of the group tells me how amazed they are that St Jude’s is so close Portman Road, is such a good pub and yet isn’t rammed to the gills. I confide that Ipswich fans don’t seem to ‘get’ real ale and it reminds me of how in Hunter Davies’ book ‘The Glory Game’ a Spurs skinhead says how Ipswich is his favourite place to visit, “More cunt” he says “They ain’t got no supporters. All the geezers up there don’t know what it’s for. We always stay the night there and chase their birds’. That was in 1972; that skinhead later became Defence Minister, allegedly……
the poor state of the street name plate, which looks like someone has got at it with an angle grinder. Slightly upset that anyone could do this to something that signifies an Ipswich icon, I nevertheless continue on my way. The weather has cleared up and
fought in the two greatest conflicts ever, the two World Wars, a minute’s silence only took place at 11 am on the 11th of November and on Remembrance Sunday; nowadays it’s best to tread softly at this time of year when entering a football stadium in case you inadvertently interrupt one. There are eight paratroopers in the centre circle and a lone bugler who plays the last post. The bugler is miked up and relayed through the PA system, but unfortunately because the PA system is so loud there is feedback or reverb and a simultaneous ‘farted’ rendition of the last post is heard through the loudspeakers. According to Wikipaedia, Le Pétomane, Joseph Pujol the French ‘flatulist’ retired from the stage because he was so horrified by the inhumanity of the First World War.
tunic pockets for their match tickets, looking a bit confused as to where they are supposed to sit. The game begins. It’s awful. Perhaps one of the worst forty five minutes of ‘football’ I have ever seen. Nothing of any genuine sporting interest happens. Preston players fall over a lot, but the Ipswich trainer is also called on to attend to the fallen and all that really happens is that added-on time is racked up. Even Crazee the Ipswich Town mascot looks to have given up all hope today as he
hangs his head despairingly, standing at the top of the stairs. Mick MCarthy adopts various poses, showing himself off to good effect in his nylon tracksuit. I spend a little time looking at the Preston supporters to see if I can spot the blokes I was in the pub with; in a following of about 430 it’s not that difficult and I pick them out all sat in a row. I wonder what they are making of the game.
My attention is then caught by the Preston number four Ben Pearson because his hair is longer than that of the other players; watching it flow and flop and bounce as he runs about is more entertaining than the game and I am reminded of Adrian Rabiot of Paris St Germain, as I often am by my wife who is besotted with him. But Pearson is no Rabiot and he needs more work on his hair.
Ipswich haven’t scored four or five goals today, but to be fair to the team they have achieved a very respectable victory by playing just half a game. With the final whistle I applaud the team and then file away with everyone else into Saturday evening. At the southern end of Portman Road the street nameplate which sits at first floor level on the Archant building looks pristine in contrast to that at the northern end.
It takes me a few seconds to twig that this is an attempt at a pun based on the song title “Twist and Shout”. Within seconds I come up with my own vastly superior choice of pun title: “Tristan’s Handy”, which actually means something, clearly relates to the player’s name and raises the tone by referencing a work of Irish literature, with which Mick McCarthy as former manager of the Eire national team will surely be familiar (that’s Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne…just in case).
who have the appearance of a Last of the Summer Wine tribute act. Inside the ground the public address system is playing Bon Jovi, I head for the toilet to drain my bladder, but there is no escape from the dreadful, anthemic, 1980’s hair-rock, which is possibly being fed in through the cistern. Now in my seat I feel doubly relieved as the strains of Bon Jovi recede, the teams enter the field to a particularly bloated rendition of ‘My Way’ (Bobby Robson’s favourite song apparently) and it’s time for the game to begin; it is two minutes past three, we’re late.
The Fulham goalkeeper wanders about to keep awake and in the manner of a grizzly bear, rubs his back on the pole that secures the goal net; he is wearing a vivid all red kit the colour of a nationalised, 1970’s Eastern Counties bus.
is a bit confusing as it sounds as if there are two teams, ordinary common or garden Fulham FC and then another team called Super Fulham FC. Unimpressed by such boastfulnesss, Ipswich manage their first shot on target. Then, for a second time in the space of a few minutes the Fulham physio is called on to attend to their evidently rather needy number 10 after he blocks a shot Ipswich’s from Martyn Wagstaff (Waggy).
when Amiens played Gazelec Ajaccio in French Ligue 2. Happily Aboubakar doesn’t score today and in fact he doesn’t look very good.
advertising The 
but with a beady eye on the burger van adjacent to him and any discarded junk food; it’s a good place for a scavenger to hang out. On the Cobbold Stand the club crest and the union flag fly together in the strong breeze and in the street below a
Brentford fan is either playing aeroplanes or is being frisked as he queues to enter the ground. Inside the ground the lack of custom at the “matchday essentials” kiosk suggests it’s not really selling essentials at all.
we do not see it re-illuminated all afternoon. The Brentford fans chant “Come on Brentford, Come on Brentford” which seems a bit superfluous because their team are doing fine, they just haven’t scored, and it seems that that sentence fragment is missing the word ‘yet’ on the end.
Do many football supporters often require the services of a jack-up barge specialist? Is this a good place to advertise? What is a jack-up barge? I conclude that there are many things in this world of which I have no understanding. God bless Google and their tax dodging ways, they will explain.
that are capable of changing colour and a little like the Allianz Arena in Munich it resembles an enormous rubber dinghy, or may be a slug. The walk from the Metro station is through a university research park; the final approach is impressive across a broad pedestrian bridge over the ring road and into a huge open area around the stadium where fans meet, mingle and munch on chips and baguettes from the food stands; there is beer too.
which is absolutely free and tells you all you need to know about tonight’s teams and happily stops short of telling us anyone’s favourite holiday destination, whether they prefer tea or coffee or would read Camus rather than Stendahl or de Maupassant. Once again French football shows its superiority to English, reasonably priced seats (20 euros tonight) and free match programmes, which gives you more money to spend in the club shop. The programme has the title “reservoir dogues”; partly because LOSC Lille are known as the les dogues, a type of enormous dog, and partly it would seem because LOSC Lille can’t resist a not very good pun.
and a good number of the 28,390 crowd sing heartily to the tune of Amazing Grace whilst waving their flags and giant hands; it’s almost moving. Nantes is in the far west of France some 600km away by road, so not many Nantoises have made the trip and the few that have are high up in the corner of the stadium; they mostly don’t bother to take their seats but stand at the top of the stairs, as if preparing for a quick getaway at the end of the match. From where I am sat their contribution to the match atmosphere is nil. The teams come on to the pitch behind large banners displaying the two club crests, as happens for all Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 matches. Lille wear their red shirts and navy blue shorts, whilst FC Nantes are in their traditional kit of all yellow with green trim, for which they are known as the Canaries (les canaris) and for this reason I can’t help disliking them slightly, even though to my knowledge they have nothing else at all in common with Norwich City. Whatever, I am supporting Lille tonight and have the fridge magnet to prove it.
playing for Reims last season and picked him out as ‘one to watch’. So I’m pretty pleased with myself. Lille continue to be the better team and retain their 1-0 lead as Monsieur Desiage the referee (arbitre) blows for half-time.
of a male in a baggy shirt and shorts with knees bent and fist clenched, which is probably meant to convey that he is celebrating a goal, but he looks like he may be just farting loudly, it is a toilet door after all.
and celebrate as my protégé Nicolas de Preville scores a second goal, a simple tap-in, for les dogues. Les canaris are looking suitably sick as parrots. Seven minutes later and de Preville claims his hat-trick after Lima holds back a Lille player in the penalty box and a penalty is awarded. Lima is sent off. FC Nantes have developed into a full-blown surrogate Norwich City for me with les canaris 3-0 down and with a player sent-off, it’s the sort of thing I dream of seeing.
and the bloke who stands on the step ladder
in front of the Ultras to orchestrate their chants makes a short speech to the players. Applause follows, so he evidently hasn’t told them what a useless bunch of overpaid gets they are, or maybe he has. No one seems to take offence however, and as the celebrations die down we sit and wait. Suddenly the stadium lights go out; then begins the loud beat of Euro-disco, the flash of lasers and then the explosion of fireworks. Quite a spectacular display follows and goes on for the next twelve minutes or so. If this is how they celebrate the end of the season when they finish top of the bottom half of the table, what do they do when they actually achieve something? But it’s great; this is what football clubs should be doing, thanking their supporters at the end of the season. I had only seen Lille once before this year, but they seem to care that everyone here has bothered to come to the last match of the season.
trippingovertheball 