Mike Reid

Ipswich Town 1 Fortuna Dusseldorf 2

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It’s late July already, summer has almost arrived, and so has the new football season. In the Eastern Counties Premier League, the likes of Brantham Athletic and Walsham le Willows are starting their league fixtures today, but I have decided to prolong the sense of anticipation for the ‘real’ stuff and am returning early to Portman Road to witness the friendly between the mighty Blues and Fortuna Dusseldorf, or “Our friends from Germany” as they have become known. I am looking forward to an afternoon of Kraftwerk and altbier.

Pre-season friendlies are strange beasts, and I don’t usually bother with them.  Back in the 1970’s   my youthful exuberance meant I was as eager to see a Will-hire Cup match against Cambridge United as I was to see any game, but I’m mostly out of exuberance nowadays and I begrudge paying the money just to watch the team train.  I last saw Town play a pre-season friendly eight years ago when they met Union St Gilloise from Brussels, a club then in the Belgian second division but now regular Pro-League title challengers, although sadly they never quite manage to win it.  The fact that St Gilloise are from Belgium and Fortuna from Germany is significant; I can’t resist seeing teams from abroad, even in friendlies.  Maybe I’m pining wistfully for those happy days before that stupid referendum (emphasis on the ‘dum’) cut Britain adrift, or maybe I’m pining wistfully for those happy days when competitive European games were regular entries on Town’s fixture list, or maybe I’m just hoping to catch the lingering scent of strong beer, trams, fine wine, fast trains, chocolate and haute cuisine clinging to the replica shirts of visiting supporters.

As befits late July, it’s a fine, warm day with fluffy clouds heaped up under azure skies.  My train (return ticket ÂŁ9.60 with senior railcard) is on time, and as I step on board the chill of the air-conditioned carriage comes as a bit of a shock, as does the smell of the toilet. Reassuringly, the eletronic sign above the gangway tells me that this service for Ipswich will call at Ipswich. On the opposite side of the gangway to my seat a man with two young boys has a voice that sounds like a very sleepy version of the now deceased comic and Eastenders actor Mike Reid; “…know what I mean?” he says to the boys after he explains that he doesn’t think any football ticket should cost more than ÂŁ50.00.  I see all four polar bears at Jimmy’s farm as the train eases down the hill into Ipswich.

I am meeting Mick today, but by way of a change our rendezvous is at the Station Hotel, where Mick is already eating the sightly odd combination of a toasted cheese sandwich and chips with his friend Chris, whom he previously met off the train from Felixstowe.  I join them with a pint of something called Platform Number 9 (ÂŁ3.90) and we talk of summer signings, locally listed buildings, prostates, American politics, how some of the cheese in Chris’s toasted sandwich hasn’t melted and how I have had an air source heat pump installed this week and thanks to various pipes and ducts the back of my house now looks like the Pompidou Centre.  Conversation continues with a further pint of Platform Number 9 for me and a Jameson whisky for Mick (ÂŁ7.85 for the two), before Chris suggests we make a move for Portman Road, which is exactly what we do.

In Portman Road there are queues for the Cobbold Stand where our seats are sat waiting for our bottoms, but first I stop to acquire a programme (ÂŁ2.50) from one of the blue booths that look as if they should also sell ice creams.  The front cover of the programme gives Mick and I something to talk about in the snaking queue to the turnstile as we comment on the casual, hands in pockets stance of Ali Al-Hamadi, Conor Chaplin and Harry Clarke, and the somewhat macho “You looking at me?” expressions on their faces.  Mick doesn’t recognise Ali Al-Hamadi or Harry Clarke and I can’t remember Clarke’s name at first either. “That full-back” I tell him, “you know, Colin Harper”.

After venting excess “Platform Number 9” we find our seats and almost immediately the game begins, as if they’d just been waiting for us to arrive. Fortuna get first go with the ball , or it could have been Town, I wasn’t really paying attention.  Fortuna, in all red,  are kicking the ball mostly in the direction of the telephone exchange, Barrack Corner  and what used to be Anglesea Road hospital beyond, where in June of 1976 my father had a hernia operation. A couple of months later he and I would see Town beat Go Ahead Eagles Deventer one-nil in a pre-season friendly.  Barely four minutes pass and Fortuna score, Schmidt. It’s an overly simple goal with a cross that reveals an absence of marking and ends with an unchallenged header.  Oh well, it’s only a friendly.

“Come on Ipswich” shouts a shrill child behind us and Mick and I piece together the line-up of the Town team.  The shirts show squad numbers, but the programme doesn’t provide the key to these and the Town players’ names are not on their shirts either. From what’s on the back of their shirts,  all the Fortuna players appear to be called Dusseldorf.  Not being ones to memorise the Town squad numbers, Mick and I are at a loss to identify Town’s number 14, but the bloke sat next to Mick that isn’t me helps us out, revealing that it is Jack Taylor; it threw us seeing him start a match.  We eventually also manage to deduce that the new signings are number 22 Jacob Greaves, number 8 Liam Delap, number 2 Ben Johnson, and the goalkeeper is Arijanet Muric.  After eight minutes Town fashion a first shot on goal, a weak effort by Delap.

Twenty minutes pass and my interest has mostly only been piqued by the building work on the West Stand, where swathes of seats are missing and it’s possible to see the decorative brickwork of the Corporation bus depot through the gap where there will eventually be more hospitality boxes.   I note that our goalkeeper wears pink and that Jacob Greaves wears his hair in a small bun, a bit like former Pompey player Christian Burgess who coincidentally now plays for Union St Gilloise.  I do like a centre-half with longer hair, it suggests to me a welcome  element of flair in a position not usually known for it.

Liam Delap receives a strangely generous smattering of applause when caught offside and after twenty-five minutes Town win a corner, but then Fortuna are awarded a free-kick by referee Mr Smith and the man next to Mick that isn’t me starts waving his left arm about in anguish. “English, and he’s against us!” he shouts weirdly, as if its 1944 not 2024 and the referee is Lord Haw-Haw.  I turn to Mick to tell him how surprised I am at how much some people seem to care so much about a friendly; but soon I’m thinking to myself that I’ve not sat in the Cobbold Stand since the Blue Action group has moved in and at half-way through the half the drums are beginning to get on my nerves.  Perhaps with the players feeling the same as me, the twenty ninth minute is an unexpected drinks-break, and Mick checks his phone to see what the temperature is.  Twenty-five degrees is evidently warm enough to crack open the Lucozade, or whatever isotonic elixir the modern Premier League player and his coach prefer. 

Drinks supped and play resumed, Marcus Harness replaces Wes Burns and I admit to Mick that I hadn’t realised Wes was even playing. Harness’s introduction is an immediate success as his first cross is headed goalwards by Jack Taylor and Town have another corner, which George Edmundson heads at the Fortuna goalkeeper Florian Kastenmeier who interestingly shares his first name with Florian Schneider, one of the two founder members of 1970’s Dusseldorf-based  â€˜Krautrock’  band Kraftwerk.  “Use your height Conor” shouts a man behind us before he laughs at his own ’joke’, hopefully out of embarrassment.  Not totally absorbed by the match, I’ve noticed that a lot of surfaces around the ground are now painted matt black, including all the vomitoriums (vomitoria?)  and I wonder if this is something required by the Premier League along with canapes and a shrubbery for Sky Sports presenters and a toilet reserved for Alan Shearer.

Three minutes of added on time are announced and I realise that from beneath the roof of the Cobbold Stand I cannot see the sky, it’s like looking out through a letterbox.  When half-time arrives, I stay where I am for the duration unable to face the confined spaces beneath the venerable Cobbold Stand, although Mick bravely heads off to the lav.

Predictably, the re-start after half-time brings multiple personnel changes on the field of play and Delap, Edmundson, Greaves and Muric can catch the early bus home as they are replaced by Hirst, Burgess, Woolfenden and Walton.  Fortuna win an early corner after a mistake by Woolfenden, who Mick remarks will need to improve to retain his place this season, and I agree with him.  Then Marcus Harness equalises with a goal not dissimilar to Fortuna’s in that he is left alone on the right-hand side of the penalty area, but it’s a shot, not a header, at the end of a pass from Conor Chaplin.

After a rather dull first half, Town seem for a short while to have re-discovered themselves, and George Hirst breaks forward and plays in Jack Taylor to shoot high towards goal but have his shot saved.  The thrills around the Fortuna goal don’t last however and soon it is the German Bundesliga team that are breaking forward with Ao Tanaka who, running on his toes and with a floppy mop of hair looks a bit like an oriental Trevor Putney.  Tanaka misses, but within minutes Tim Rossmann is left with almost a quarter of the pitch to himself and he runs on to shoot past Walton  with aplomb, and Fortuna lead 2-1.  It’s nearly 3- 1 soon afterwards, again thanks to Tim Rossmann, but this time he misses the goal.

With the German lead restored, the game reverts to how it was in the first half and the Fortuna goalkeeper Kastenmeier has the time to stand and watch a seagull soar and swoop above the pitch and I wonder if he doesn’t get to see many seagulls at the Merkur-Spiel Arena in Dusseldorf.  Dusseldorf is some way in land, but it is on the Rhine which I imagine seagulls follow up-stream.  Annoyingly, I don’t remember if there were seagulls or not when I saw Town play at the Paul Janes Stadion in Dusseldorf back in pre-season,2015.  Whatever the ornithological ins and outs of the Rhineland, nine years on and Fortuna are the better team today. On the touchline, Kieran McKenna retreats to the dugout to peer thoughtfully at a his lap top and rest his head on his chin in contemplation.

More substitutions ensue, but I‘ve lost interest to a large degree and the adverts announcing “University of Suffolk – apply now through clearing” and the sight of  OGC Nice club crest  catch my eye almost as much as the balding pate of Fortuna’s number 27, the obviously bleached blond hair of their number 18 and the enormity of their number 43  who,  for a short while until Mr Smith tells him his fortune seems to ‘want a piece’ of Sam Morsy.

“Mwa mwa mwa mwa mwa, Sam Morsy mwa mwa mwa” says the stadium announcer incomprehensibly as the match draws to a close, and we guess Sam Morsy is man of the match, for what it’s worth.   Mick and I share our mild disappointment at having forked out ÂŁ35.00 between us to watch two teams train, and then our equally mild confusion that there is to be a penalty shoot-out despite the game not having ended in a draw.  With Fortuna having lost the play-off match for promotion to Bundesliga 1 on penalties at the end of last season, it almost seems like mental cruelty to remind them of the experience so soon afterwards.  On the other hand, there is every chance it will be more exciting than this afternoon’s match was, or at least it would be if anyone cared.

Both teams miss their first penalty and score their next four, and the next one , (or is it two?) after that. When Luke Woolfenden steps up to take the next penalty, I tell Mick that he will miss.  Whilst Woolfy’s shot is on target it is nevertheless saved quite comfortably and if these are “sudden-death” penalties Fortuna have won for the second time this afternoon.  But then Christian Walton gets to take a penalty, which he scores, and I have no idea what is going on, although looking at my watch I realise I’m going to miss my train, and I do. 

Unbowed, or just stupid and somewhat mystified, as we head away from Portman Road Mick and I agree to speak soon to arrange buying tickets for the final friendly of pre-season versus OGC Nice (Olympic Gymnaste Club de Nice) of French Ligue 1.   A pre-season friendly against  French opposition ? We wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Ipswich Town 0 Watford 0

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As the football season begins to draw to its close, I sometimes start to look ahead and see what few fixtures are left, conscious that all of this will soon be over and when it returns summer will be almost gone too.  Since last weekend I have therefore occasionally thought of Watford,

As far as I can remember, I have only ever known three Watford FC supporters.  The first one I knew for just a fortnight back in 1982, when I worked for the Department of Health and Social Security  and was sent on a course to distant Stockton-On -Tees.  He was what might commonly be called a bit of a ‘Jack the lad’ and he had driven up north in a small saloon car with go faster stripes and a tinted windscreen, which might even have had his name printed on a sun strip across the top.  He was the sort of bloke who wore white socks and loafers and had a small moustache.  I worked with and occasionally played five a-side football with the other two, both of whom I would describe as suburban; they both had neat hair and doubtless still have.  That’s how I think of Watford, suburban.

I first saw Ipswich play Watford in a League Cup quarter final tie in January of 1982. It was the first time the two clubs had met since Boxing Day 1956, and a factor in this is that it had taken Watford from 1920 until 1969 to even get into the Second Division.  The Observer’s book of Association Football describes how in 1969 Watford were promoted as Champions and simultaneously earned a reputation as a Cup team, by drawing at Old Trafford and then the following season beating Bolton, Stoke and Liverpool. “But…” says the pocket-sized book “…second division life was hard”, which I think is a veiled reference to two seasons in the bottom five followed by relegation in 1972.   But that was over fifty years ago and a club that once fielded players called Roy Sinclair, Ray Lugg and  Barry Endean is now home to Edo Kayembe, Mileta Rjovic and and Vakoun Bayo.

When I talk of Watford to my wife Paulene she recalls what, judging by the pained expression on her face, was one of the worst nights of her life, when in about 1977 she was taken to a nightclub called Bailey’s.   It was full of Stag and Hen parties she recalls, and the headline act for the night was ‘comedian’ and children’s TV presenter (Runaround) Mike Reid, who picked on her because she wasn’t laughing.  She’s not been laughing ever since, except when I fell in the garden pond a few summers ago.

It’s now a cool, drafty, grey evening. After fulfilling my filial duty and visiting my surviving aged parent, I am now as ever in ‘the Arb’, stood amongst a knot of people at the bar , some of whom seem to be trying to form a queue.  When did people start queueing at bars in pubs?   As I say to the bloke next to me “It’s a free for all”, policed only by the bartender’s uncanny and yet unerring ability to know who’s next.  Eventually,  with a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (ÂŁ3.78 with Camra discount) in hand, I repair to the beer garden and wait for a bowl of “Very French, French Fries” for which, now looking back, I think was ludicrously overcharged,   because I paid about ÂŁ13.00 for the chips and the beer.  Perhaps it’s Karma for jumping the imaginary queue.

I sit and flick through the match programme (ÂŁ3.50) that I bought earlier.  I only paid ÂŁ3.10 for the programme today because I had an impressive 40 pence worth of loyalty points amassed from previous purchases from the club shop, which I am now beginning to think of as being a bit like the Co-op.  After drinking my pint and eating my chips I buy a second pint and listen to the conversation on the next table, where three old blokes denigrate the oeuvre of Taylor Swift, questioning whether her work will in fifty years’ time compare to that of The Eagles, Paul Simon and Elton John, all of whom are heard travelling through time via the speakers above our heads. 

By and by I am the only person left in the garden who is going to the match, and so in order not to miss kick off I leave too.  Portman Road and the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand are busy with queues for the turnstiles and by the time I reach my seat the teams are already on the pitch and Murphy the stadium announcer is beginning to announce the teams as I say good evening to Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), and check on the presence of ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood.  Murphy completes his hat-trick by synchronising for the third match in succession his reading out of the Town team with their names appearing on the scoreboard, allowing at least Phil and myself to behave like Frenchmen and bawl out their surnames as he announces them.

Predictably, kick-off soon follows a stirring rendition of Hey Jude and Town, in traditional blue and white, get first go with the ball, sending it hopefully towards the goal just in front of me and my fellow ultras. Watford meanwhile are in yellow shirts and black shorts, although their shirts appear to have been daubed with black paint across the front or dragged across a tray of soot. It’s one of those kits that exposes the folly of having a new kit every season because after not very long the good people of Puma, Hummel, Juma and Kelme clearly ran out of ideas and possibly motivation;  and who wouldn’t, a polyester shirt is after all just a polyester shirt.

“Blue Army, Blue Army” chant the militaristic Sir Bobby Robson standers and I am struck by how few Watford supporters are here given that it’s only 150 kilometres away.  “Wo-oh…” sing the Watfordians that are here, followed by something unintelligible  before chanting what sounds like  â€œOh when the horns go marching in” . Above us the sky turns bluey grey as darkness descends.  In front of us I notice the Watford goalkeeper has the name Bachmann across his shoulders and I wonder if in fifty-years’ time the live performances of Taylor Swift will be remembered like those of Bachman Turner Overdrive.

Ten minutes pass and Keiffer Moore heads a Kayden Jackson cross disappointingly high and wide.  AT the far end of the ground “Ole, Ole, Ole” is the refrain after the bit that goes “We support the Ipswich, and that’s the way we like it…”. I don’t know the tune but don’t think it’s by Taylor Swift. Another five minutes pass and after the evening’s first particularly good outbreak of passing Town sadly earn no more than a throw in. From the top tier of the  Cobbold Stand it sounds like the Watford fans are singing “Alternate Steve, Alternate Steve”  which makes very little sense but sounds like a plausible nickname for that Watford fan I met in Stockton On Tees in 1982.   My reverie is broken by a Nathan Broadhead shot which Bachmann must dive on to deny us the pleasure of a goal.

Nearly twenty minutes pass and Watford win the game’s first corner, but thereafter it is Town who  begin to dominate. Omari Hutchinson makes a fabulous jinking run in to the penalty area before squaring the ball to a Watford defender and Kayden Jackson darts down the wing, crosses the ball and Keiffer Moore imperiously side foots it into an empty space on the un-netted side of Bachmann’s left goal post. “We forgot that you were ear” sing the Watford fans puzzlingly, but  to the tune of Cwm Rhondda, which is nice if you’re Welsh.  Watford’s number four Wesley Hoedt then kicks his own goalkeeper and referee Mr Barrot (like Carrot or Parrot but with a ‘B’) gives them a free-kick.  I count eleven seagulls stood on the girder above the Sir Bobby Robson stand.

There are only ten minutes until half-time now and Nathan Broadhead turns neatly, glides towards goal and shoots,  at Bachmann, but the way he moved across the turf was a beautiful sight. A minute later Broadhead shoots again. This time, his shot goes beyond a diving Bachmann and I begin to rise from my seat to celebrate the inevitable goal, but for a moment the laws of physics are seemingly suspended and the angle of incidence no longer equals the angle of reflection as the shot hits the inside of the goal post,  but then curls out across the face of the goal instead of deflecting into the net as  science and natural justice insists it should have.

The last five minutes of the half witness Sam Morsy shooting at Bachman and then a Harry Clarke cross is headed powerfully down into the net by Keiffer Moore but Bachmann’s reactions go into overdrive and he pushes the ball away hurriedly for a corner before ball and net can be united.  Two minutes of added on time follow repeated chants of “Come On You Blues “ from me and ever-present Phil before the corner as like the chorus in a Greek play Pat from Clacton repeats her mantra of “two of us singing, there’s only two of use singing”.  Drums beat in the far end of the Cobbold Stand and I’m struck by how smart Mr Barrot and his assistants look in their orange shirts with black shorts; if I were a Watford player I think I might see if he’d be willing to swap at the end of the game.

With the half-time break I chat to the man from Stowmarket before speaking briefly with Dave the steward, Ray, and his grandson Harrison. At nine minutes to nine the game resumes with prophetic chants of “Come on Watford, Come on Watford, Come on Watford” , and they do as they begin to dominate possession and run around like someone’s cracked open the anti-depressants and they’ve all been slipped a few ‘bennies’ with the half-time tea.  On the hour almost, and Vaclav Hladky makes his first save of the night as a fierce snap shot hits him in the chest and goes off for a corner, and then they get another.

It feels like we’ve just been waiting for a respectable amount of time to elapse before making substitutions and so it proves as in the sixty-third minute Luongo, Chaplin and Sarmiento  move in at the expense of Taylor, Jackson and Broadhead. “Jeremy Sarmiento, he’s magic you know” sing the Sir Bobby standers to a tune I don’t know, but which could be by Taylor Swift.

Twenty minutes remain of normal time remain. “Over and in” says Pat from Clacton quietly coaching the team before rooting through her purse for a lucky charm that will work some magic. She picks out Ganesh with his elephant head and four arms, who could be useful at corners, although he’d probably like to see a few Hindus in the team before he promises too much.  There are currently no seagulls on the roof of the Sir Bobby Robson stand.  Pat’s prospects of winning the ‘predict the score’ draw on the Clacton supporters bus seems slim, she’s drawn two-all. But as Fiona says, with Ipswich this season you never know.  Murphy announces the attendance as  being 28,589, but mysteriously doesn’t tell us how many are from Watford as if perhaps we wouldn’t believe him.  He nevertheless thanks us for our ”continued support”, although I’m getting bored with him saying that every single week and think he should just tell us how really lovely it is to see us all again.

The final twenty minutes don’t see Town really come close to scoring, despite Ganesh, and Watford win a couple of corners as I wonder about Mr Q, which is the sponsor’s name on the front of the Watford shirts. I think of Mr Plow (Plough in English), in series four of The Simpsons  and Mr Potato Head in Toy Story,  but hope Mr Q is a second hand car dealer or industrial cleaner somewhere on a Watford industrial estate; he sounds like one.  Then George Edmundson is kicked on the ankle and has to be replaced by Luke Woolfenden and our chances of bringing on a late attacking substitute who would be bound to score are dashed.  Despite two corners, chants of “Blue and White Army, Blue and White Army” , and four minutes of added time Town fail to score at home for just the second time this season and for the first time in 2024.  But just to remind us how lucky we really are a freakish punt at goal from the half way line has to be batted away by a desperately back-peddling Vaclav Hladky in the dying seconds. There were days when that would have gone in.

Just like when we played  Grimsby on an April night in 1992  on the way to winning the Second Division Championship, the game has finished goalless.   It’s not what we wanted,  but at least it’ll stop me thinking about Watford.Â