Nathan Broadhead

Ipswich Town 6 Exeter City 0

/ 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 53rd 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 2 Port Vale 1

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It’s been a day of ‘first world’ problems, mostly car related.  I didn’t get to park my planet saving Citroen e-C4 where I usually do to ensure an easy getaway after tonight’s match, at work somebody was late returning a pool car that I was booked to go out in, and a gate that was supposed to be left unlocked for me wasn’t.  As if that wasn’t enough, where I did park my car was beneath a tree and I was later to find that the windscreen had been royally ‘shat upon’ by a bird, possibly one the size of an Albatross, twice. 

It is with a sense of relief therefore that I leave work at about a quarter to five and in the spirit of enjoying the spice of life, which I have been told is variety, I unusually head for the bar of the Briarbank Brewery, making a short stop along the way at Out of Time Records in nearby Fore Street to check if they have any recordings by Robyn Hitchcock that I don’t already possess, they don’t.  A short while later at the Briarbank I am drinking a slightly cloudy, but nevertheless tasty pint of their own Samuel Harvey VC (£4.20) and tucking into a baked potato with Coronation Chicken and dressed salad (£7.50). Sat on my own, I read tonight’s programme (£3.50), which I bought at the club shop earlier; I find it quite boring and poorly laid out, with some of the stats on page 9 and others on pages 64 and 65, when there shouldn’t even be pages 64 and 65. Also, great bloke that he is, who other than perhaps Mrs McKenna wants a two-page centre spread of Keiran? We all know what he looks like by now, don’t we?  The headline to page 29 however, reads in red capital letters “Notice of Intention to Exhume”.  I didn’t think that with our wealthy new owners we were that desperate for decent players and in fact it turns out we’re not, it’s because thirty-four deceased people have had their ashes sprinkled on the pitch and now the pitch is to be replaced, so they will be off with it.

With time rattling on past six o’clock, I depart from the Briarbank and take a walk across town to The Arb, because pre-match rituals must not be broken. This evening I don’t notice the empty shops, but instead all I see are the many fabulous buildings that line the town’s streets, Ipswich is one helluva of place if you want it to be.  At The Arb, I select a pint of Titanic Plum Porter but don’t catch how much it cost me because I was talking to a bloke stood at the bar who I met when at work.  I head for  the beer garden to once again sit alone because Mick is working this evening. On a table to my right sit four well-spoken young men who are laughing about their future careers before going through a list of all the Premier league teams they think are ’shit’.  To my left, three slightly older but still very young women talk about how good or poor they are at their jobs and what somebody else earns.  On a table across the garden an owlish looking man sips what is probably lager.  He is alone until he is joined by a very well buttoned up man with a beard and flat cap and then another bearded man, who shakes their hands, and then a grey-haired man who only drinks a half, looks like he smiles a lot and could be one of the younger bloke’s dad.  The man in the flat cap calls the owlish man ‘mate’.   

With my glass empty I have nothing better to do than leave for Portman Road. As I leave the bar, I do so in the company of about six other blokes all going to the match, I overtake them outside the museum and walk on at my own pace, joining the gathering crowd in the fading light of a grey evening, all of us drawn towards the towering white floodlights. At the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand I enter through turnstile 62, because that was the year Town were Premier League Champions. I miss the human contact of handing my season ticket to the turnstile operator, but this is the post-modern world.

As ever, Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket and ever-present Phil who never misses a game are all here already, it makes me feel like they’ve been saving my seat for me; of course they haven’t but I reckon they’d beat off anyone who tried to sit there.  “Be loud, be proud” says stadium announcer Stephen Foster, sounding as if he’s the compere at a Gay Pride event, and he tells us that the game is always special under the lights, and it is.  Behind Stephen the pitch is being irrigated by fountains of water that make me think of the FC Versailles, who are currently fifth in the French third division.

Town get first go with the ball and kick towards me, Pat, Fiona, Phil and the man from Stowmarket.  Admirably, Port Vale are sporting their proper kit of white shirts and black shorts, even if the messy design on their shoulders and sleeves makes them look like the kit bag was accidentally backed over by the team bus.  But I can’t not like Port Vale, the only team in the Football League named after the house where the club’s founders had met; fortunately, the bloke who lived at Chez Nous only had a very small living room.

Within 25 seconds Freddie Ladapo is flicking a header beyond the far post and I feel confident that another multi-goal extravaganza awaits.  Up in the Cobbold stand however, the Port Vale fans are in good voice even if it’s hard to make out exactly what they are singing.  As he takes a goal kick the Port Vale goalkeeper slips on the heavily watered turf and the home crowd cheers like we’ve scored a goal. Town are mostly in the Port Vale half, but these Valiants are packed densely in front of them, impervious to the through balls that did for those other Valiants who proved less so on Saturday.  Once again, the Port Vale goalkeeper slips over to the home crowds’ cheers, and I think how he must regret his decision to wear roller skates instead of football boots, tonight of all nights.

Just six minutes have gone and Town win a corner. “Come On You Blues” chants Phil and I do too, repeatedly, but our encouragement isn’t enough.  “I’ve got my big coat on tonight” says Pat, not feeling the deepening cold, but obviously aware of it.  We’d already scored by this time on Saturday I foolishly can’t help thinking. “We’ve got super Kieran Mckenna, he knows exactly what we need…” sing the Sir Bobby Robson stand lower tier, but some of them don’t quite manage the tricky scanning of the first line, they need to rehearse more.  It’s the twelfth minute and Town are dominating but not penetrating the Port Vale force field. The Sir Bobby Robson stand resort to Mary’s Boy Child in the hope that Christmas will come early and Port Vale will gift wrap a goal, it doesn’t and they don’t.  The Vale fans sing “Oh when the Whites going marching in…” and give an object lesson in how to deliver this song, starting slowly but then speeding up to add impetus and even staying with it to repeat it all over again. I attribute it to their diet of oatcakes.  Then their team have a breakaway and a shot on goal which inspires chants of “Vale, Vale, Vale”, pronounced “Vay-al, Vay-al, Vay-al”. It’s a stirring sound of which I am quite envious.

Almost a third of the first half has left us and Nathan Broadbent dribbles towards the Vale goal only to win another corner.  Phil and I chant loudly again but our support flounders on solid defending,  only to be heard again as a Broadhead cross wins a further corner, which is again cleared by some big bloke in a white shirt with grubby looking shoulders.   With Town’s early onslaught subsiding a bit, the home crowd are becoming quiet and thoughtful when they ought to be loud and lairy.  On the touchline, Kieran Mckenna has sensibly opted for his brown anorak-cum-puffa jacket tonight, he’s obviously on the same wavelength as Pat from Clacton, or they saw the same weather forecast.  Another Port Vale throw-in and referee Mr Lewis remonstrates with a Port Vale player telling him to get a wriggle on.  Conor Chaplin lashes a shot into the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand, but the crowd is quiet with the exception of the Blue Action group up the corner. When Port Vale win a corner there are just fifteen minutes left until half-time and we are treated to more lovely peels of “Vale, Vale, Vale”.

With a Nathan Broadhead shot and yet another corner the home’s crowd’s ardour revives and chants of “Blue and White Army” and accompanying rhythmic clapping roll from stand to stand.  “The crowd are nervous” Pat tells us. “Well, you are” replies Fiona.  Just to lighten the mood and try to curry favour with the home crowd so we don’t call him a bastard,  referee Mr Lewis books the Port Vale goalkeeper Aidan Stone for dithering too much over a goal kick.  A minimum of two more minutes will be played  Stephen Foster tells us, and I tell Fiona it’s a shame it looks like all the goals are going to be ‘up the other end‘ tonight.  She says she doesn’t mind as long as they’re only Town goals.  Then Port Vale’s oddly named Malvind Benning takes what can only have been a speculative shot and scores. Town trail 1-0 and it’s half time. Bugger.  

 Putting a brave face on matters I go down to the front of the stand to talk to Ray and his grandson Harrison.  We bemoan Town’s failure to shoot from distance, but don’t have any other complaints.  We talk of our friend Val’s wedding in Las Vegas and discuss where we’ve been in the United States. Ray has been a few places, but excluding airports and the shore of a lake somewhere in the wilds of Montana I’ve only been to New York, but I ‘do’ the accent to prove it.

At seven minutes past nine the football returns, and I’m almost thrilled to hear the words “I’m Edward Ebenezer, Jeremiah Brown…” emanating from the Sir Bobby Robson stand, but it doesn’t last, sadly.  Nevertheless, Town are back on the attack again and win three more corners in the first seven minutes. Sixty seconds further on and Wes Burns delivers a low cross and Nathan Broadhead sweeps it majestically inside the far post beyond a stretching, diving Aiden Stone  and Town have equalised.  The relief of the crowd is immense, now all we want is another goal, or two, or three.

George Hirst replaces Freddie Ladapo and heads past a post with his first touch, before the teams trade corners and Conor Chaplin shoots over the cross bar for a second time. Mr Lewis seeks more Brownie points by flourishing his yellow card in the direction of Vale’s William Forrester with less tan twenty minutes to go.  But Town still aren’t winning and I’m reminded of an evening almost exactly thirty-one years ago when Town needed to beat Grimsby Town to clinch promotion but could only manage a goalless draw.  Stephen Foster announces tonight’s attendance as being 27,696 with 296 supporting Port Vale.   It’s remarkable to think there are more people here for this match than saw the Portman Road leg of the UEFA Cup final in 1981.  On the Clacton supporters bus the winner of the guess the crowd competition is the chairman, Chris with 27,960, although Stewart is nearly awarded the prize because 27,426 looks closer, but actually isn’t.  Pat is disappointed that the guesses attributed to the blue tit and the squirrel in someone’s garden were sadly too high. I tell Fiona that’s the trouble with squirrels and blue tits, they over estimate things; it’s why none of the them work for the office of national statistics.

A seventy-fourth minute corner goes to waste and Pat threatens to get her figure of the masturbating monkey out of her hand-bag; it’s a lucky charm that she bought in Cambodia and apparently Town would always score when she got him out.  She says she won’t show him around though, because he’s rude.  We can’t tell if the monkey has anything to do with it, but Luke Woolfenden  steps forward and shoots narrowly wide of the top right hand corner of the goal. Fifteen minutes remain.

Eleven minutes remain and Kyle Edwards replaces Leif Davis, and  not to be outdone Port vale make a change too. Then Town are awarded a penalty. Twice in a few seconds the shout goes up from the stands for a handball and on the second shout Mr Lewis spots the chance to atone for previous sins against Ipswich Town and awards it.  “Two penalties!” says the bloke behind me “and he nearly didn’t give either of them” and he ‘s right, there is an uncomfortable delay before Mr Lewis weirdly stoops and point to the penalty spot.  Almost inevitably, the Port Vale players argue as staunchly as they have defended but even more weirdly Conor Chaplin is the player to get booked as we stand and wait patiently for the Port Vale players to just shut up and for Nathan Broadhead to apply the coup de grace, rifling the ball behind the left-hand post and bulging the side netting. It has to be one of the most significant penalties for Town at Portman Road in thirty years, possibly more, and the roar from the crowd says it is.

With five minutes left of normal time Janoi Doncaien replaces Nathan Broadhead to restore the defence to attack balance and the crowd sings “E-i, E-i, E-i-o, Up the Football league we go”.  The sound is a roar, if only a brief one,  but it is magnificent for a moment or two, as life often is.  Full-time turns up and with it six minutes of added on time, and with Plymouth Argyle apparently drawing in Shropshire Ipswich are top of the league; and so the lower tier of the Sir Bobby Robson put the fact to music with the help of the best known work in the oeuvre of the Gap Band,  the lyrically mysterious “Oops outside your head”, although if comparing the hits of 1979 it was certainly preferable to Lena Martell’s “One day at a time”.  “We don’t know if we are (top of the league) yet” says the bloke behind me wisely, preferring to wait until the final whistles have blown everywhere to indulge in such boastfulness.  Fiona says something about the time that was passing too quickly now passing too slowly, but oddly I don’t find it so tonight and almost before I know it Mr Lewis has blown his whistle for the last time this evening and another essential three points have been won.

Thankfully perhaps, for the time being , when all the final whistles are blown, Ipswich are not top of the league; that can keep for the first weekend in May, when it really matters.  For now, there is a wave around the stadium of the sort of relief and release that Pat from Clacton’s monkey could probably tell us about if he spoke and she hadn’t already made her way out to the Clacton supporters’ bus.  Despite being elated  I don’t linger either,  hoping in vain that I will make a smart exit in my planet saving, bird-shit splattered Citroen.

Ipswich Town 2 Shrewsbury Town 0

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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.

Ipswich Town 4 Burton Albion 0

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Another Saturday, another football match at the end of another week, another few hours from which to extract fleeting pleasure, one hopes.  That is the nature of life, it’s what makes it bearable unless of course you are lucky enough to be constantly in awe and wonder of everything around you and struggle not to stand with mouth agape at the multitude of different arrangements of atoms and molecules before us and of which we are of course just a tiny part.  All this, and football too.

The vanquishing of Burton Albion is the source of today’s hopeful pleasure for many; it’s a fixture that reminds us of life’s elixir, beer.  Historically, Burton-On-Trent was Britain’s beer brewing capital and it would be nice to think that in the same way that Grimsby Town once made gifts of boxes of fish to their opponents, so Burton Albion donate crates of beer to the needy wherever they go.  Perhaps in the past, when Burton was the epicentre of responsible drinking they did, it would perhaps help to explain the demise of Burton Albion’s predecessors Burton Swifts and Burton United.  Burton Swifts were members of the inaugural Football League Division Two back in 1892 when Ipswich Town were still mucking about playing nothing but friendlies when not getting knocked out of the Suffolk Senior Cup and the FA Cup respectively by the public schoolboys of Framlingham College and Old Westminsters.  The beautifully named Swifts lasted until 1901, when due to failing finances they merged with Burton Wanderers to become the boringly but accurately named Burton United. The new club lasted in the Football League until 1907 when they finished bottom of the table and were voted out. It would take well over a century for Burton Albion to get the town back into the Football League, although they didn’t start trying until 1950.

My mind teeming with thoughts of football history, the nature of existence and beer, I park up my planet saving Citroen e-C4 and step out across Gippeswyk Park towards Portman Road football ground.  The streets around the ground are quieter than they have been before recent games, but there are still people sitting out in the cold enjoying grilled meat products and leaning on Sir Alf Ramsey’s plinth to eat chips. I stop at one of the blue booths where I dream of one day of buying an ice cream as well as a programme.  Today, I must make do with just the programme (£3.50), which I pay for in the modern cashless way.  I carry on to ‘the Arb’ past the spiral car park, which I would like to see become one of Ipswich’s many listed buildings.  On the steps nearby I overtake a man and a woman who possess two of the largest heads of hair I ever seen in Ipswich; the style is hippie rather than beehive, although either makes a good match with the 1960’s car park. 

At ‘the Arb’ I invest in a pint of Lacon’s Encore (£3.59 with 10% Camra discount), but only because the Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride has reached the end of the barrel.  I retire to the beer garden and sit in the shelter between a man reading a book whilst eating from a piece of slate, and a family of three.  I sip my beer and read the programme, intrigued that Lincoln City have only lost seven games  but are fourteenth in the table. I begin to read a five page interview with Harry Clarke, but to my shame lose interest at the end of page three; in my defence however, I have read “Remembrance of Things Past” by Marcel Proust.  Mick rescues me from the pages of the programme and after collecting a pint from a new barrel of Suffolk Pride, he joins me.  Barely has our conversation got on to the usual subject of death before Gary unexpectedly arrives carrying a pint of lager.  We continue to talk of death, sciatica, terminal illness, TV programmes we always watch (I always record Sgorio on S4C), and a friend of Mick’s who has a lifelong collection of football and speedway programmes, which he keeps in a shed.  When his friend dies, says Mick, he expects his wife will just throw them all away.  None of us consider that his wife might die first.  Filled with bonhomie by the joy of pre-match conversation, I return to the bar to buy a half of Lager 43 for Gary, a single blended whisky for Mick and a pint of Suffolk Pride for myself; I casually pay for the drinks having no idea of the cost. 

At some time around twenty to three we depart for the ground, going our separate ways in what used to be Portman Walk.  The portentous turnstile 62 sees me safely into the ground and once in the stand I edge past Pat from Clacton and Fiona to my seat next but one to the man from Stowmarket and a couple of rows behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game, although his young son Elwood isn’t here today.   As former BBC Radio Suffolk presenter Stephen Foster reads out the Town team, Phil and I shout out their surnames like a French football crowd would and hope everyone else will join in, but they don’t.  Phil remains optimistic that everyone will have ‘got with the programme’ by the time of the play-off final at Wembley.

After some boisterous “Na-na-nas” and re-wording of The Beatles ‘Hey Jude,’ the game begins, and Town get first go with the ball , heading for the goal at the far end of the ground from me and my band of crazy Ultras.  Town are as ever wearing blue shirts and white shorts, but sadly Burton have decided to forego their proper kit of yellow and black and have instead opted to appear disguised as every other dull, anonymous team that ever played an away match,  and they wear all-black; it feels like they’re not really interested in being Burton Albion, they might as well give us the points now.  In their yellow shirts and black shorts the referee and his assistants look more like Burton Albion than Burton Albion do.

It takes a while for any football to break out and it’s the team in black who win the first corner of the game, neither with nor against the run of play, but following a poor kick by Christian Walton. “Blue Army, Blue Army” shout the home crowd after the corner leads to Town breaking away with Conor Chaplin whose deep cross is easily claimed by the goalkeeper. “Pushing high, in’t they” says the bloke behind me of the away team, and he’s right, they are putting Town players under pressure as they attempt to pass the ball about at the back; this should be creating gaps in the middle of the pitch for Town to exploit, but mysteriously the gaps are  not appearing.  Ten minutes have disappeared into the past and whoever this away team are, they win another corner.

The twelfth minute, and Freddie Ladapo impersonates Pele. The ball is played high towards him, he’s going to jump for it, but then doesn’t and instead turns and chases it as it sails over his marker’s head. It’s a piece of inventiveness that’s worth a goal, but the referee, Mr Boyeson, has no soul and soon awards a spurious free-kick to the opposition.  To celebrate the first sixth of the game passing Harry Clarke gets booked. “If you can’t get the ball get the player, it’s what they’re taught” says the bloke behind me and Harry Clarke holds up his hands as if to say “It’s a fair cop guv’nor” .  It’s a booking that underlines the fact that the away team, whoever they might be in their mysterious all-black kit, has so far had the best of the game, although they have not once come close to even threatening to score a goal.

If Clarke’s booking was a meaningless 1-0 to the opposition, then Town quickly equalise, as two minutes later Nathan Broadhead is scythed down by Jasper Moon, who sounds as if he has escaped from a novel.  “ He can’t get it out quick enough” says the bloke behind me excitedly as Mr Boyeson reaches for his yellow card and indeed the referee would appear to enjoy this part of his Saturday job. A minute later Mr Boyeson is at it again and it’s as much as he can do not to smile widely as Freddie Ladapo is tripped by John Brayford whose swept back receding hair has me asking myself whether he looks most like Ray Reardon or Jack Nicholson.

The match is almost imperceptibly swinging Town’s way and Freddie Ladapo produces Town’s first shot on goal sending the ball beyond the far post.  “ Ole, Ole, Ole” chant what used to be the North Stand and spits of swirling drizzle are being blown into the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand. Town win their first corner which is sent straight into touch as if we didn’t really want it. Twenty-seven minutes are up and Wes Burns shoots over the cross bar.  Four minutes later and Conor Chaplin turns, shoots and scores as he so often does, despite Town apparently not having a 20-goal-a-season striker, and Town lead 1-0.  That’s a relief.

The bloke behind me says something about the game changing now Town have scored, and clearly he is on as good a form as the team today as once again he’s proved right.  An injury to Wes Burns allows time for both teams to gather by the dug outs for a remedial coaching class and drinks party, and it’s Town that benefit most. When play resumes Harry Clarke heads off down the right flank, passes to Wes Burns who crosses low for Nathan Broadhead to put Town two-nil up. Even from the far end of the pitch it’s a thing of grace and beauty.

Another visiting player is booked for fouling Conor Chaplin and then in an act of clear revenge Conor slips the ball to Freddie Ladapo to score Town’s third goal. Unlikely events notwithstanding, Town have won the match in the space of ten minutes and despite not having the mythical forty-goal a season striker, and they are still the division’s top scorers.  Fear amongst Town supporters remains however and as the final minutes of the half and four minutes of added on time are played out there are desperate shout of “Get rid of it” whenever Christian Walton has the ball at his feet.

With the half time whistle I watch Mr Boyeson leave the pitch zealously holding the match ball, before venting some pre-match beer and chatting with Ray and his grandson Harrison who wants to hear all about the Robyn Hitchcock concert I went to in London last Saturday at the Alexandra palace theatre. I tell him it was fab because it was.  Ray lets me know that he and his wife Ros have decided to help save the planet too and get solar panels fitted, and we laugh about the Tory government and how Rishi Sunak tells us with an almost straight face that Northern Ireland will benefit from something wonderful and new due to unique access to EU markets.

The football resumes at six minutes past four and, as with the Morecambe match a few weeks ago, the fear is that we’ve had our fun for the afternoon, and although logic predicts a 6-0 win, in all likelihood there won’t be any more goals because half-time cups of tea are laced with beta blockers and regret.  This proves to be only partly correct however, as within a minute Massimo Luongo launches a curving shot wide of the post after Wes Burns runs down the wing and lays it back to him, then the all-purpose visiting team even dare to shoot past the post too;  our post, not theirs.

The fun continues as Wes Burns again makes hay on the right pulling back the ball again , this time for Conor Chaplin to not score the fourth goal. “Blue and White Army” shouts the bloke behind me unable to contain himself, but then Cameron Burgess makes a superb ‘last-ditch’ tackle after Luke Woolfenden is all too easily turned by someone in black shirt and shorts.  Town concede another corner and then a number of throw ins which the opposition cunningly employ as attacking moves in the absence of proper passing football.

An hour has passed and Ray Reardon is substituted, Christian Walton makes a low diving save and the team in black win three successive corners.   Three Canada Geese fly over in tight formation and from another long throw the ball pings about the Town box like we’re suddenly watching Bagatelle or the Pinball Wizard.  Mr Boyeson indulges himself with a final yellow card for the afternoon as Nathan Broadhead is fouled by Conor Shaughnessy and a pigeon lands on the cross bar of the goal at the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand end of the ground.  The pigeon remains unmoved as Nathan Broadhead sends a curling shot narrowly passed the angle of the post and cross bar with a bit more than twenty minutes still to play.  Two minutes later, and Town lead 4-0 as Leif Davis sets up Conor Chaplin and his shot catches a slight deflection to take it past the goalkeeper.

The game is now as good as over and the mass substitutions can begin, not to affect the result, but just so fewer people feel left out.  First to go are Broadhead, Chaplin and Ladapo who have all been excellent.  The clock ticks down further towards going home time and today’s attendance is announced as 25,003, with 147 of that number turning up from Burton-On-Trent to watch a team who based on their boring away kit might have been from anywhere.  The crowd applauds itself and the travellers from Burton, who I like to think blush a little in the face of this show of affection.  On the Clacton supporters’ bus the winner of the ‘guess the crowd’ competition is just forty-five out with an estimate of 24,958.  Ten minutes of normal time remain and Leif Davis requires treatment leading to another opportunity for remedial coaching on the touchline, but it’s too late for that and Burton are left to just guzzle their isotonic drinks and regret their choice of kit. Davis is replaced by Janoi Donacien and the Sir Bobby Robson Stand sing what sounds like “Bluey, Bluey, you’re a cunt” at the cuddly and permanently startled looking Town mascot, striking the only unseemly note of an otherwise pleasant afternoon’s football.  Bluey reacts playfully as if the crowd are merely chanting something like “Bluey, Bluey, you’re a one”.  Perhaps they are and it’s me who is coarse and reliant on sexual swearwords to amuse myself.

Despite the stoppage for the injury to Leif Davis, and both teams making the utmost of available substitutes, the fourth official sensibly calculates that only three minutes of additional time should be played, what’s the point of playing more? It’s been a lot of fun, but no one wants to stay here past five o’clock and the final whistle brings the final joyful release of the afternoon before we all head off into the deepening gloom of a damp, grey Ipswich evening.

IpswichTown 2 Sheffield Wednesday 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

In my near fifty-two seasons of watching professional football, I’ve seen Sheffield Wednesday play twenty-five times, and today will be the twenty-sixth.  The majority of those games have also involved Ipswich Town, with just two being against Colchester United.  Like those Colchester matches, today’s game, in common with the previous two is a third division fixture.  This is a very boring introduction to this match report, but it’s about history, which for many is possibly the whole point of watching football.  Both Ipswich Town and Sheffield Wednesday have a history of glory which they currently exist in the shadow of.  Ipswich’s glory was over forty years ago, but it’s recent compared to that of Sheffield, which was over forty years before that, with Wednesday last winning the FA Cup in 1935 and the League in 1930, beyond living memory for most mortals.  Today is important therefore.

Looking forward and only in my rear view mirror when necessary I park up my air-quality enhancing Citroen e-C4 and head across Gippeswyk Park for Portman Road and the joys of ‘The Arb’ beyond. The streets are full of policemen in uniforms that look as if they have been designed to be wipe-clean.  A tall, wide-eyed man approaches me and asks what the score will be. “2-0 to Town” I say because I always expect Ipswich to win and he cheers and lurches off up the road.  Two policemen eye him suspiciously as if it might be a crime to be a bit eccentric or off your gourde. In Portman Road, the boringly grey Sheffield Wednesday team bus is backing into its parking space behind the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand. I stop at one of the kiosks which look like they should sell ice cream,  and attempt to buy a programme (£3.50) using my season ticket card.  Predictably this doesn’t work,  but I realise my mistake at the about the same time as the young man in the kiosk and blame it on my bank card and season ticket card both being blue.

At ‘the Arb’ I order a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.41 with the 10% Camra discount) and retire to the beer garden where the covered shelter is occupied by people who seem unable to talk without shouting; it’s as if I’m hearing a conversation between a group of town criers.   I move away into the beer garden fearing permanent damage to my ears.   Mick soon appears, unexpectedly making his entrance through the side gate. He disappears into the building and quickly returns with his own pint of Suffolk Pride and packet of Fairfield’s Farms cheese and onion crisps.  We talk of our distrust and dislike of Ipswich’s Tory MP’s and their attempts at political point scoring off Ipswich’s Labour led council,  of forthcoming fixtures, of Grayson Perry, of transitioning and of sexual politics.   

At about two-thirty the beer garden suddenly falls silent as everybody else departs for the match leaving just Mick and I supping alone. For a moment we don’t know what to say other than to remark on how quiet it is.  We drain our pint glasses and it’s not long before we leave for Portman Road ourselves, feeling like reluctant followers of fashion. We part in Sir Alf Ramsey Way as I head off between the assembled supporters’ buses and coaches towards the Constantine Road entrance and Mick finds a place to park his pushbike. At the portal to the Sir Alf Ramsey stand there are no queues and of turnstiles 59 to 62, only the latter is not open, I choose  turnstile 61 and am entreated to “enjoy the match” by the brown-haired woman who nonchalantly scans my season ticket card.  In the stand, Pat from Clacton, Fiona, ever-present Phil who never misses a game, the man from Stowmarket, and his grandson are all here and the sense of anticipation is palpable. 

As stadium announcer and former BBC Radio Suffolk presenter Stephen Foster reads out the Town team I shout out the surnames in the French style and am pleased that ever-present Phil joins in , although I botch it a bit because the scoreboard isn’t keeping up with Stephen Foster and I find I’m not quite as good at picking the right surnames to match the first names as I ought to be. It’s a lot of fun nevertheless,  but then we pause to show our respects to the many thousands who have died in the recent earthquake across southern Turkey and Syria.  The silence is well observed as it should be; the only sounds being the squawking of seagulls and shushes from the Sheffield fans to those of their number emerging onto the stand ignorant of the gesture being made.

At two minutes past three o’clock the games begins with Town getting first go with the ball and hoping to stick it in the net closest to me, Pat, Fiona and Phil.  Town are in resplendent in royal blue shirts and white shorts whilst Wednesday are anaemic in pale yellow shirts with pale blue sleeves and pale blue short; it’s a kit that looks like it’s been washed too many times or has faded in strong sunlight whilst on the washing line.  “Hark now here the Wednesday sing, United ran away” chant the northerners in the Cobbold Stand showing an unexpected appreciation of Harry Belafonte and Boney M, which is matched by the Town fans in the Sir Bobby Robson stand who proceed to sing the same song but about Town and Norwich.  Other parts of the ground remain silent as if still remembering the earthquake victims. 

Almost a quarter of an hour passes before any football breaks out and supporters are reduced to jeering and cheering throws and mis-placed passes. A tall man sat next to me tenses and jerks forward every time it looks like the ball will come near the goal. Conor Chaplin bounces a shot into the ground which is easily collected by the Wednesday goalkeeper Cameron Dawson, who is a vision in cerise. A Wednesday shot travels spectacularly high over the Town cross bar. “Tell you what, they’re big at the back int they” says the bloke behind me of the three Sheffield defenders Akin Famewo, Dominic Iorfa and Aden ‘Larry’ Flint.   Iorfa previously played for Town,  but looks to have been on a course of steroids since then.

The afternoon is dull and still, the flags on the Cobbold stand hang lifelessly beneath heavy grey cloud, it’s like a summer’s day, just a bit colder.  The fifteenth minute brings a corner to Town and then another. With the second corner kick Wes Burns falls to the ground inside the penalty area. I see him fall but don’t spot the perpetrator who must have had a getaway car waiting, and it seems like that is everyone’s experience including the referee’s assistant who gingerly and briefly signals for a penalty kick. The referee, Mr Geoff Eltringham walks over to speak to his assistant before a posse of Wednesday players run over to argue the toss like professional footballers always do.  “Get over it” I shout, uncharacteristically. “Haven’t you ever conceded a penalty before?” I’m not sure what’s the matter with me.

Eventually, about four minutes later, the penalty is taken and Conor Chaplin’s kick fails to find any of the important corners inaccessible to goalkeepers and instead it strikes the diving figure of Dawson. What disappointment.  But life and the game carries on.  “He’s a unit, we’re not gonna beat him in the air” says the bloke behind me of ‘Larry’ Flint, still obsessing about the size of the Wednesday defenders as a Wes Burns cross is repelled.  It takes twenty-five minutes, but finally the Wednesday supporters find  their Welsh hymn books and sing “Your support , your support , your support is fucking shit”.  Two minutes later their piety and use of rude words is rewarded as Town ignore the fart-joke aficionados’ favourite player Josh Windass, allowing him as much time and space as he wants to cross the ball for the more prosaically named Michael Smith to twist a spectacularly decent header from near post to far post and into the Town net, and Sheffield lead.

Depression is setting in at Portman Road and only mild relief comes from Geoff the ref showing Wednesday’s Will Vaulks his yellow card for aimlessly wandering off with the ball in an attempt to waste time.   The pleasure this brings is soon lost however as a minute later Wednesday score a second goal when the ball is crossed and then drops to the ground conveniently for George Byers to smite into the goal.  Another goal almost follows as Town get in a muddle and Vaulks has a shot saved by Christian Walton.  A few rows behind me it’s all too much for one bloke who erupts into a tirade of expletives and sounds like he might burst into tears at any moment. A woman with him seems to plead for a more rational approach but this only seems to fuel his ire provoking a full scale ‘domestic’ which ends with what sounds like him telling her “Leave me alone”.   All this and a football match to watch too!

The quiet, even silent brooding of the home crowd ,with the obvious exception of the two having the domestic, is worrying me and as Town win a free-kick for a foul on Nathan Broadhead near the penalty area I begin to sing “Come On You Blues” and “Allez les bleus” in the hope that others will join in to build a crescendo of noise which will carry the team to victory. Ever-present Phil joins in and I think Fiona and Pat do too; I keep it going for long enough for several people to look round fearfully to see who the weirdo is.  Then Nathan Broadhead takes the free-kick and hits the top right-hand corner of the goal net with the ball, it’s a fantastic goal. “Your singing, it worked” says a young girl in front of me smiling broadly amongst the cheers and the joy. Well, why wouldn’t it?

Four minutes of added on time are the prequel to half-time and I go down the front to see Ray and his grandson Harrison. The consensus is that Wednesday are big and physical and do a lot of pushing for which the Geoff the ref has not given us the appropriate number of free-kicks.  Also, until we let Wednesday score we were doing alright; after that it wasn’t so good.  Ray asks about my solar panels because his wife has asked him to ask me about them.  Regrettably I have not come to football armed with the facts and figures, so I tell him I will have to gather the data and let him know, although the main point is that money aside, whilst the solar panels are making electricity no one is having to burn fossil fuels to power my house or car, hence life on Earth will be saved and future generations will be able to enjoy football like we do.

Returning to my seat, the bloke behind me apologises for his language, I shrug my shoulders and purse my lips as if I were French.  I hadn’t really noticed to be honest, and he should probably apologise to Pat rather than to me.  The game resumes. Within five minutes the scorer of Wednesday’s second goal, Byers, is booked for a foul on Conor Chaplin and from the free-kick  Leif Davis launches the ball into the top corner of the goal.  That’ll teach Byers.  It’s a fabulous comeback by Town and without doing much more than taking a couple of free-kicks after getting hacked down by the dirty Wednesday players.  I am at once both ecstatic that we are no longer losing but disappointed that we haven’t yet scored a proper goal by carving open the opposition defence with cunning passes and superior wit. Pat from Clacton reveals that in the ‘draw the correct score’ competition on the Clacton supporters’ bus she has drawn 3-2 to Town.

The second half largely belongs to Ipswich. Corners are won and the ball is passed and seldom comes near Christian Walton’s goal.  Town have shots on goal, but most are blocked and when Conor Chaplin fashions a seemingly spectacular effort, turning and striking the ball athletically in a single movement it seems impossible that it ends up going straight to the goalkeeper for an easy catch.  The usual clutches of substitutions are made, and for once they don’t make much difference. For a short while Wednesday get back into the game as they hurl in some long throws and win a couple of  corners that threaten, and ‘Larry’ Flint finds space to head across goal and then blast the ball over the cross bar.  Today’s ‘sold out’ attendance is announced by Stephen Foster as  29,072 with 2,148 fans from Sheffield although he doesn’t mention that where I am sat there are at least six empty seats within a couple of metres of me.  For a sell-out crowd the level of vocal support for the Town has been very disappointing however, just as it was against Plymouth, with an aire of tortured anxiety pervading the stands.

The game rolls on towards its not fully satisfactory conclusion. Desperation arrives as Pat from Clacton releases the figure of the masturbating monkey from her bag and rubs his head for luck.  Sadly, the powers of this Cambodian or Vietnamese lucky charm seem to have drooped or left him altogether. Sheffield Wednesday substitute their small Scottish captain Barry Bannan for Dennis Adeniran and I remark to Fiona that there have never been many players called Barry, past or present.  We try to think of some, but all I can come up with are Barry Sheen and Barry White, neither of whom were footballers.  At primary school a teacher sat me next to a boy called Barry, hoping I would be a good influence on him, but sadly it was bad Barry who had more influence on me.  A late flurry sees Freddie Ladapo have a shot which looks like it is goalward bound, but it flies past the side of the goal post that doesn’t have a net to stop it and that’s that, the game is drawn.

It’s both a point gained and two points lost for Town today, so it’s best not to dwell on it, we can leave that for the future when it  won’t feel like it matters so much and it’s just history .

Post Script: I remember Barry Butlin playing for Luton Town.