Ipswich Town 1 Manchester United 1

November 17, 2024February 4, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

When I was young, so much younger than today I would often travel to Layer Road, Colchester on a Friday night to see the U’s engage with the likes of Torquay United, Darlington or Aldershot, and then on Saturday afternoon I would watch Ipswich Town in the First Division. The days of ‘Col U’ playing on a Friday evening are sadly gone, as is Layer Road, but this weekend I had the opportunity to see two games in two days once again, taking my pick from an extensive menu of local non-league matches on Saturday afternoon and then catching the Town on Sunday afternoon with a wholly unwelcome four-thirty kick-off. As it turned out, I didn’t bother, but stayed indoors and courtesy of a ‘Firestick’ watched Paris FC play Annecy in French Ligue 2, and then Ligue 1 RC Lens play Marseille on the telly. I sometimes think I have lost my joie de vivre.

Today is Sunday and it is blowing a gale as I waste away a whole morning and much of an afternoon waiting to go to Portman Road. I tried drilling some holes in a wall to put up some shelves, but I think the party wall in my house must be made of granite and all the time I’ve been wondering if the trains are going to be disrupted, some have been cancelled already. Mick has been in touch to see what time I might be at the Arb’ but the Sunday train times either get me there earlier than I’d like or with not enough time for a couple of drinks. I should be able to sue Sky TV and the Premier League for the inconvenience. The pre-match tension is palpable.

In time, I decide that it would be best for everyone if I simply spent a bit longer at the pub before the game and so after a train journey on which Manchester United supporters sing ‘Eric Cantona’ endlessly to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas and on which I don’t see a single polar bear, I buy a programme in Portman Road and finally arrive at the Arb’ to purchase a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£4.14 with CAMRA discount). Mick has already texted me to say he is ‘on the bench in the beer garden’ and that is where I join him to discuss Gary’s absence, houses of multiple occupation, local non-league football, how Mick has been seeing ‘someone’ (a woman), newspapers, religion, today’s Town team and what time we go to bed; Mick is a bit of ‘night owl’ it seems, and if I didn’t get up at twenty past six each morning I think I’d quite like to be able to watch Newsnight too.

A good hour and twenty minutes drift by in a sea of words and more Suffolk Pride, and we realise that everyone else in the pub beer garden seems to have left, so we do too not wishing to miss the kick-off, although happy to forego the leaping flames and tiresome, over-excited young stadium announcer with his elongated vowels and slightly cheap-looking suit. There are no queues to get into what used to be Churchman’s and I arrive at my seat as ever to find ever-present Phil who never misses a game, his son Elwood, Pat from Clacton, Fiona and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) already here. There’s a lot of noise as the two teams process onto the pitch and I don’t know why, but I can’t help feeling rather bemused, so much so that I suddenly notice Pat from Clacton looking at me a bit quizzically because the over-excited young stadium announcer is reading out the Town team and I’m not bawling out the players’ surnames in the manner of a Frenchman. It’s been so long since Town were last at home that I’ve forgotten what to do and I’m lost in idle reverie. Returning to Earth, I try to make amends but find that the over-excited young stadium announcer is not in -sync with the score board and I therefore have no idea which surname comes next; it’s like a bad dream in which Murphy has returned but years younger and taller, and in a shiny suit

Kick-off comes as a relief with Town getting first go with the ball and aiming it in the direction of me and my fellow ultras. Town are of course in blue and white whilst Manchester United are in red shirts and black shorts, a bit like Stade Rennais, but messily the shirts are two shades of red and the shorts have red flashes on them. The relief is short-lived as within eighty seconds Manchester’s number 16 skips past a Town player, puts in a somewhat limp looking low cross and their number ten nips in to tap the ball past Aro Muric, who looks as if he was expecting to simply casually pick the ball up. My hopes that VAR will have spotted some invisible infringement in the run up to the goal are dashed, largely because there simply wasn’t enough time for anything to have happened.

The game resumes over a minute after the goal was scored and we all feel a bit shocked. The current Manchester United team is widely believed to be pretty useless I believe and here we are losing already. I thought we were going to win two-nil and had told Mick as much. Five minutes are almost gone however, as Town win a corner. Eleven minutes disappear and Sam Szmodics has a decent shot that the goalkeeper saves and in terms of attacking intent at least, Town have drawn level.

“United, United, United, United” chant the Mancunians and their friends from London and the Home Counties up in the Cobbold Stand, separating each ‘United’ with three quick claps. A little slow to catch on, the Blue Action group belatedly shout “Shit, just like people did in the 1970’s, but usually before the visitors had stopped shouting ‘United’. The football is quite good though. Lots of passing is going on and Ipswich are probably doing more of it than Manchester. The half is half over and finding himself next to Sam Morsy, the Manchester number seventeen falls to the ground and rolls over and over and over and over to both the anger and amusement of the home crowd. “Get up, ya great pussy” I tell him loudly. “That’s Garnacho” says the bloke in front of me. “Yer what?” I ask him. “That’s Garnacho” he says again. A bit confused being unfamiliar with the names of any footballers unless they play for Ipswich Town I say “So it’s not Pussy then.” “He’s a funny looking bleeder” says the bloke behind me of the aforementioned Garnacho and the bloke next to me momentarily reflects on how children don’t get called ‘little bleeders’ nowadays, and sadly I think he’s right. Amusingly, to me anyway, ‘ya little bleeder’ was probably the polite version of ‘ya little bugger’ which is how my grandfather affectionately knew me.

Another Town corner unexpectedly inspires a warm booming chant of “Come On You Blues” and Liam Delap earns a free-kick on the edge of the penalty area as United’s captain Jonny Evans looks bothered; having only this week watched a version on the telly, I think of Evans The Death, the undertaker in Dylan Thomas’s ‘Under Milk Wood’. The free-kick is neatly taken, but goes straight to the goalkeeper Andre Onana for whom I am amazed the United supporters do not sing KC and the Sunshine Band’s ‘Baby Give It Up’. Sensing my disappointment when Town don’t score, Pat from Clacton tells me that she’s already had her dinner today – a Marks & Spencer roast turkey ready meal. “It’s not even Christmas yet” I tell her and Town win another corner from which a shot is blocked after the ball had been headed back across goal. United breakaway up field, but Sam Morsy slides across to sweep the ball out for a throw with the sort of tackle that takes the Manchester player as ‘collateral damage’ and which the home crowd loves, especially against a rather ‘poncey’ team like this one seems to be.

With five minutes until half-time,Town produce the move of the match, tearing the Manchester defence apart as Leif Davis chases a raking long pass, checks inside and plays in Liam Delap who has a whole goal to aim at , but somehow Onana gets a hand or an arm or a shoulder in the way of the goal bound ball. Within sixty seconds, another move opens up a view of goal for Jens Cajuste, but he shoots over. The momentum is with Ipswich however and Omari Hutchinson claims the equaliser very soon afterwards with a shooting star of a shot from outside the penalty area which loops gently off a Manchester head on its rapid journey into the top right hand corner of the goal net, at last beyond the reach of Onana. Three minutes of added on time follow without incident and we are relieved not to be losing anymore, but also feeling like we could be winning.

With half-time I dispose of excess Suffolk Pride and then speak with Ray, to whom it seems I haven’t spoken in months. We speak of car parks and Kemi Badenoch, whose surname Ray pronounces as Bad Enoch, which for those like us who remember Mr Powell seems worryingly appropriate. On the way back to my seat I congratulate ever-present Phil who never misses a game on having recently completed his quest to see a game at every one of the ninety-two League grounds in England and Wales. I tell him I got to around seventy-eight grounds about fifteen years ago but have never managed to get any further. I don’t tell him it’s a metaphor for my entire life.

The football resumes at twenty-four minutes to six when people without a subscription to Sky Sports TV are watching Countryfile and eating buttered teacakes. I notice the moving advertisement for Aspall cider which reads “made in Suffolk since 1728” , words that fosters images in my romantic mind of misty orchards, wooden vats and apple presses, horses, carts and crusted rustic characters, and then the illuminated display says “now available in a can”.

“Come On Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” we chant a good three or four times because Manchester are keeping the ball more than we’d like. The encouragement works and Town get the ball, Wes Burns whips in a low cross and Onana saves brilliantly again from Liam Delap and Town have another corner. Manchester break again and Jens Cajuste chases back to make a perfect tackle inside the Town penalty area and now Manchester have a corner. Not an hour has been played and Manchester are making substitutions as Evans the Death and some bloke who is so good he only has one name goes off and some other blokes I’ve not heard of come on. Up in the Cobbold Stand the away supporters sing songs about Roy Keane and Eric Cantona, perhaps because like me they don’t know who their current players are either.

Then Ipswich make substitutions; Sam Szmodics and Jens Cajuste departing and Jack Taylor and Jack Clarke arriving. “For me, Burns ain’t done nothing” says the bloke behind me clearly thinking he should have been substituted but perhaps not having noticed his pass to Omari Hutchinson for the goal, that cross for Liam Delap, or his defensive play. Twenty-three minutes are left and Manchester have another corner before a couple more substitutions; a bloke called Zirkzee comes on. “Sounds like a cleaning product” say the bloke behind me. This early afternoon and early evening’s attendance is announced by the over-excitable young stadium announcer in the shiny suit as being 30,017 with a very nicely rounded 3,000 of that number being here to sing about Eric Cantona.

Manchester United are mostly the team with the ball in the second half, but despite some grace and speed and long accurate passes they aren’t threatening the Town goal much, they just look like they could if they thought about it a bit more. Perhaps they just have too much confidence and and self-love for their own good. The good thing is it means Town look more likely to score, but as Pat from Clacton says to Fiona “You can feel the tension” . Eventually, the bloke behind me gets his wish as Wes Burns is replaced by Conor Chaplin, and the match rolls on into the final ten minutes of normal time. Ali Al-Hamadi shoots and Onana saves, again. Conor Chaplin shoots, but pretty much straight at Onana.

Only four minutes of added on time are added on and I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Do we need more time to score or less time so we don’t concede? “Oh when the Town go marching in, Oh when the Town go marching in“ drone the home crowd mournfully as if they’ll be following a coffin when it happens. Manchester United win a corner and the ball is booted clear to create maximum distance between it and the Town goal and then the match ends. Fiona and Pat from Clacton are quickly away, but not before Fiona says “See you next Tuesday”- it’s when Town play Crystal Palace.

It’s been another fine game, perhaps not as exciting as some of the others this season, but despite not dictating enough of the play in the second half there is no doubt Town can claim they deserved to win more than Manchester did, and Onana is clearly Manchester’s ‘Man of the Match’, although they probably won’t admit it. Leaving Portman Road for the railway station I think back to the first time I ever saw Town play Manchester United, in December 1971. That game ended in a draw too, a goalless one, and Best, Law and Charlton were all rubbish.

Ipswich Town 0 Everton 2

October 20, 2024October 20, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s a grey, wet, autumn Saturday morning and I’m thinking of the last time I saw Ipswich Town play Everton at Portman Road. It was almost exactly twenty-three years ago, on 13^th October 2001. In fact, that was the last time anyone saw Ipswich Town play Everton at Portman Road. The result that day was a goalless draw, and I have no recollection of it whatsoever. The first time I saw Ipswich Town play Everton at Portman Road however is a different matter, because that was the first time I ever went to Portman Road; it was the 6^th April 1971 and I sat with my father in the then soon to be demolished ‘chicken run’. We travelled to the match in the family Ford Cortina. It was an evening kick-off and I remember it being light outside the ground, then dark, and the programme having a photo of Johnny Miller on the front; it cost 5 pence but was effectively free because that was also the price of the Football League Review that was stapled inside. A vague, coincidental symmetry through time meant the result was another goalless draw as it would be thirty-one years later and, just as they are fifty-three years later, Town were fourth from bottom of the league table.

Today’s family Ford Cortina is a train as I embrace the concept of ‘modal shift’, and it’s on time. The rain has stopped, the sky is clearing, and I’m sat in the first of the two carriages with pointy ends which makes it easy for Gary to find me when he boards at the next station stop. Making life easy is a lot about planning. Gary is a generous fellow and today he is carrying a polythene bag from the Cadbury’s outlet shop inside which is a book called ‘Tinpot’, which is about supposedly forgotten football tournaments such as the Anglo-Italian Cup, Watney Cup and Texaco Cup, although of course no one in Ipswich or hopefully Norwich has ever forgotten that Mick Mills lifted the Texaco Cup at Carrow Road in 1973. Gary had bought a copy of the book himself and thought I would like one too, so he bought me one. Such random acts of generosity and thoughtfulness probably make the world go round, and I urge everyone to make them as often as possible and to send postcards when on holiday.

As the train speeds onwards towards Ipswich we talk of my recent holiday in France and the French football results, and as we descend the hill through Wherstead I think it may not only be my imagination that has the train lurching to one side as everyone finds a window through which to gawp at the polar bears; Gary and I spot two of them, bears that is, not gawpers.

Ipswich station forecourt is busy, as is the garden of the Station Hotel, which crawls with and echoes to the sound of Evertonians. Gary asks me if I’m going to buy an ice cream, and I tell him I am but unusually we don’t make it to one of the blue booths but instead buy our programmes (£3.50 each) from a young man at a sort of blue painted, mobile, metal desk; I ask for a choc ice and he ignores me, possibly because his mind is totally focused on programmes, possibly because he recognises an idiot when he meets one. To our collective disappointment, the programme cover today does not feature one of the much trumpeted and popular “Call me Ted” poster-like designs, but instead displays just a boring photograph of a running Ali Al-Hamadi. The poster design is instead on a tear-out page at the back, negating what we were originally told was the point of the exercise to have these posters as the cover. I ask myself why it is that even when professional football clubs get something right, they then manage to get it so very wrong?

Gary wants to buy a Town shirt for his nephew and says he will see me in ‘the Arb’ a bit later and so I wish him luck as he heads for the club shop and I stride on up the hill, becoming progressively warmer and sweatier as the sun shines down on what is now an unseasonably warm afternoon.

At ‘the Arb’ the bar is surprisingly not very busy, so I am soon clutching a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.96 with Camra discount) and seeking out Mick in the beer garden, which is very busy. Luckily, a table is vacated much the same time as I arrive, allowing us to sit and talk of bowels, cancer screening, colonoscopies and prescription drugs in the afternoon sun. I also explain why Gary will be joining us later but am surprised when he appears sooner than expected bearing a glass of Lager 43 lager but no Ipswich Town shirt. It seems the only shirts available are in outlandish sizes and apparently his nephew is neither tiny nor vast.

We talk, we drink, Mick buys another round and we talk and drink some more. The Suffolk Pride is extremely good today but resisting the temptation to just stay and drink it all afternoon we leave for Portman Road, although not until all our fellow drinkers have done so first. Portman Road is busy, thick with queues as if the turnstiles are all clogged up with fans who need outsized shirts. Ironically, it is Gary who hears the public announcement that kick-off is delayed by fifteen minutes and so, having bid Gary and Mick farewell somewhere near Sir Alf’s statue, I amble nonchalantly through the crowds and queues past lumps of molded concrete decorated with empty plastic glasses, paper cups, drinks cans and paper napkins.

Joining the queue for my favourite turnstile, number 62, I am followed by two blokes who are complaining about the queues; they’re the sort of blokes who describe anything that goes a bit wrong as “a fucking joke”. I explain that the kick-off has been delayed until a quarter past three and they seem disappointed that they can no longer be outraged at possibly missing kick-off. Then one of them notices a steward, who is not white, at the front of the queue checking people’s pockets, bags and jackets. “I’m not racist but…” says the previously outraged bloke “but all these stewards, they’re…” As I eventually pass through the turnstile, I hear the bloke who isn’t racist remonstrating with the steward for touching him.

On the lower tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul) , ever present Phil who never misses a game and his son Elwood are as ever all in place awaiting the delayed plucking of the ball from its Premier League branded plinth as flames climb high into the pale blue afternoon sky and everyone cheers enthusiastically. Since the Fulham match at the end of August, when I was last here, the stadium announcer seems to have completed a degree course in Stadium Announcing,probably at somewhere like the University of South Florida, and over-dosed on vowel-expanding drugs. He sounds utterly ridiculous, and I think I hear him at one point refer to “The Everton”, but he does at least synchronise his team announcing with the scoreboard allowing me to shout out the surnames of the Town players as if I am at a game in France. For this I am very grateful.

Eventually, the now heavily choreographed prelude to kick off arrives. A young man in crumpled trousers and jacket, which don’t match, appears to orchestrate the grand arrival of the teams and I think how I miss ‘Entry of the Gladiators’ and how with its acquired circus connotations it would be so appropriate in the Premier League. The teams pour onto the pitch from beneath what looks like a stack of speakers at a rock concert or a part of the Nazis’ Atlantic Wall fortifications. When everyone settles down a bit, Town get first go with the ball and mostly aim it in the direction of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand. Town are of course in blue shirts and white shorts whilst Everton sport what at first looks like white shirts and blue shorts, but closer up the shirts look off-white and the shorts a sort of bluey grey. How very moderne, I think to myself. Confusingly, the front of the Everton shirt appears to bear the word ‘Stoke’, but given how all things football now mostly relate betting it probably says stake, which coincidentally is what the Premier League needs driving through its heart.

Everton take an early lead in corner kicks, the Town fans sing “Blooo and White Army” and Pat from Clacton tells me how she’s just got back from her annual week playing whist in Great Yarmouth, and she won a bit shy of thirty-five quid. Then excitingly, a break down the right from Wes Burns ends with Jack Clarke shooting hopelessly high and wide of the goal. As the bloke beside me remarks of Clarke’s shot “That was awful”. But it’s good enough for the northern end of the ground to break into the joyless dirge that is their version of ‘When the saints go marching in’, substituting the word saints for Town of course. But despite this, Everton are looking the better team and their players seem much quicker in both thought and deed. Aro Muric makes a save from the Everton number nine who has only Muric to beat after a criminally poor pass from Kalvin Phillips, but then Muric boots a back pass from Luke Woolfenden out for a corner, possibly a comment on the back pass.

With just seventeen minutes consigned to the history of goalless football, Everton score as a result of some poor ball control in the penalty area from Wes Burns, which hands the ball to Iliaman Ndiaye, who only has to score, which he does. Everton are playing as if on Ecstasy, whilst Town are on Temazepam. Nevertheless, it’s not as if Town haven’t gone 1-0 down before and Omari Hutchinson is soon being hacked down by number five Michael Keane who is booked by referee Michael Oliver, who from the look of his hair I have deduced isn’t related to Neil Oliver and doesn’t visit John Olivers the chain of East Anglian hairdressing salons.

A free-kick and then a corner follow and then Jack Clarke slaloms into the penalty area only to tumble to the ground and Michael Oliver points to the penalty spot. In leagues not totally beholden to the wonder of the cathode ray tube this would be enough to give Town a free shot on goal, but being the Premier League VAR must decide and it’s time to place your bets on whether Town will get a penalty or not. My money is on not and I win the unwelcome jackpot as Mr Oliver decides with the help of video assistance that it was actually Jack Clarke who kicked an Everton player rather than the other way round. How very convenient. “You can stick your Premier League up you arse” I chant coarsely to the tune of ‘She’ll be coming round the mountain’. This is what the Premier League does to people.

Town win another corner and the crowd chants “Come on You Blues” at least twice before Everton win two corners of their own, after the second of which Town fail to clear the ball properly and somehow allow the previously convicted Michael Keane to get behind the defence and score from a narrow angle. “Everton, Everton, Everton” sing the Evertonians, revealing themselves as true heirs to the lyrical imagination and genius of Lennon and McCartney.

The pantomime of VAR has resulted in six minutes of added on time as well as the mental scars of having been given and then having dashed all hope of a swift equaliser. Kalvin Phillips offers more hope with a free-kick after Leif Davis is cynically fouled, but he then dashes that with his shot over the Everton crossbar instead of under it. Meanwhile, I can’t help thinking that the name Calvin-Lewin on the back of the Everton number nine’s shirt looks like it reads Calvin Klein. I surmise that this is because I have become overly used to seeing the words ‘Calvin Klein’ on the fashionably exposed waist bands of millennials’ underpants.

Half-time is a sort of relief and I talk to Ray who I haven’t seen for six weeks, but then at twenty three minutes past four the football resumes. “They’re chasing shadows int they” says the bloke behind me and Everton win two corners as the clock tells us that the game is two thirds over. Conor Chaplin and Harry Clarke replace Wes Burns and Dara O’Shea. Pat from Clacton wonders whether she should unleash the masturbating monkey good luck charm from her handbag, and I wonder if Kieren McKenna would have an opinion on that. Perhaps Pat should write to him and ask when he’d like her to ‘bring him on’.

Sammy Szmodics and Jack Taylor replace Kalvin Phillips and Jack Clarke, and today’s attendance is announced as 29,862, with 2,977 being Evertonians. The excitable stadium announcer uses words such as incredible, amazing and fantastic to describe the support and I begin to wonder if he might need a sponsor for his incontinence pants.

With the changes to the team, Town seem to have improved a bit and are dominating the last fifteen minutes as Liam Delap shoots spectacularly past the post, Omari Hutchnson shoots and wins a corner and Cameron Burgess heads over the cross bar. Then, as Pat from Clacton worries whether the baked potato she is having for he tea is going to be burnt to a cinder by the time she gets in, George Hurst replaces Liam Delap and from a Town corner Conor Chaplin shoots straight at the Everton goalkeeper before Jack Taylor forces a low diving save from him. Four minutes of added on time fail to influence events although Muric prevents a third Everton goal as Calvin Klein runs through on his own again.

With the final whistle I am one of many quick to head for the exits to catch trains and buses and without really knowing the exact time I am surprised to get to the station two minutes before my train is due to depart. It’s a small victory on a day of defeat, but heck, there are still another fifteen home games to endure or hope for better.

Ipswich Town 0 Liverpool 2

August 18, 2024August 19, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

The start of a new football season feels a bit like flying to Australia; you depart Heathrow in the spring and in the space of less than twenty four hours, you’re in Sydney, Melbourne or Perth and it’s autumn. Where did the summer go? Did it ever come?

To add to my feeling of disorientation today, Town are playing Liverpool, who I don’t think I’ve ever heard of. I am of course familiar with The Beatles, Ken Dodd, Jimmy Tarbuck, Derek Hatton, Cilla Black, Sandra and Beryl the Liver Birds, Roger McGough, Adrian Henri and Brian Patten, the Mersey Sound, The Scaffold, the Pier Head, Paddy’s Wigwam, Hope Street, Lime Street station, Penny Lane, racing from Aintree, the Albert Dock, St George’s Hall, the Queensway tunnel, the Three Graces, Brookside, the ferry ‘cross the Mersey, the ‘Boys from the black stuff’, Littlewoods Pools, Letter to Brezhnev, dodgy blokes in shell suits with ‘taches and perms, the Anglican Cathedral, Alexei Sayle, the Echo and Scouse, but who knew there was a football team too? If they’ve got one, they certainly haven’t been frequenting the sort of exotic places we’ve been visiting in recent years.

It was only when staring into the distance and idly reminiscing about when Ipswich used to nearly be the champions every year, a long time ago when we was ‘fab’, that I remembered that it was a team called Liverpool that mostly were the champions every year. Then I remembered Mich D’Avray heading home a cross from Kevin O’Callaghan as Sammy Lee sat on his bum on the wet turf and watched, and eventually, much later, Adam Tanner and Marcus Stewart scoring winning goals at Anfield. Yes, I remember Liverpool now.

I meet Gary on the train to Ipswich, and he tells me that only one of the current ninety-two football league teams is in a parliamentary constituency that has a Tory member of parliament; he asks me which one I think it is. I think for a moment and say “Cheltenham”. But I’m wrong, it’s Bromley. So much for Siouxsie Sioux and the ‘Bromley contingent’, although I guess that’s what they were escaping from, even if some of them did like to wear swastikas. We carry on talking as if life is a pub quiz and Gary seems impressed that I know that when George Best played for Dunstable Town, Barry Fry was the Dunstable manager. Suddenly, following a tangible moment of recollection that is visible on Gary’s face, he pays me for his ticket to see Stewart Lee at the Chelmsford Civic Theatre next February (£31 including booking fee) and we complain to each other about the scandal of booking fees. I never paid a booking fee to see Rick Wakeman at the Ipswich Gaumont in 1975, or for my FA Cup final ticket in 1978, or to see Buzzcocks at the Brighton Top Rank Club in 1979, when I recall being handed tickets by a person from behind a glass screen and not having to print anything myself using printer ink, paper and electricity paid for by me. If they’re going to riot, this is what people should be rioting about, not a few unfortunates being made to waste away their days in a Best Western.

Disappointingly, we do not see the polar bears of Wherstead today as the train descends into Ipswich, but at least the bloke mowing the grass in their enclosure lives to mow another day, and arriving in Ipswich we head for the Arboretum, travelling via the ice cream kiosks that sell match programmes. We buy a programme each (£3.50) and are both impressed by the design of the front cover, which has taken a step away from the usual boring fare, although it’s a shame about the same old drivel inside, and the price. Portman Road is busy; very busy considering that there are another two hours to pass into forgettable history before the game begins. Middle- aged blokes with estuarine accents hawk blue and red scarves that are half Ipswich and half Liverpool, no one seems to be buying. At the Arb’ there is no queue at the bar, and I quickly order a pint of Lager 43 for Gary and one of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me (£8.35 including Camra discount). In the beer garden all the tables are occupied, so we sit on a park bench and have barely discussed anything before Mick arrives, before leaving again to acquire his own pint of some beer or other, probably Suffolk Pride, before returning to discuss ‘half and half’ scarves, which Mick says are like being bi-sexual. It’s much worse than that I tell him, and we all laugh, much more than we probably should, and for a variety of unspoken reasons.

Mick asks what time we should leave for Portman Road, anticipating that the turnstiles will be busy. I tell him that its likely all our fellow drinkers will leave here long before we do because they will be wanting to experience the Premier League circus, and we should be able to rock up just before kick-off and walk straight in as if we were playing Preston North End. My prophecy will come to pass, but we nevertheless agree to depart shortly after midday, and after Mick buys a round of three more pints, which he sensibly carries from the bar on a tin tray, that is what we do, although not before discussing why Mick may not go to Nice next weekend after all, today’s team selection, how to spell Szmodics and how I don’t feel as excited as everyone else seems to be; it’s just another new football season, another game.

Portman Road is still busy, mostly with queues for ice creams that turn out to be programmes. At turnstile 62 at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand, there are no queues, but a man who looks older than me seems to be struggling to get his season ticket to work, so rather than create a queue with just me in it I use turnstile 61 and am soon hugging Pat from Clacton who then photographs me in an embrace with ever-present Phil who never misses a game. Ever-present Phil’s son Elwood, Fiona and the man from Stowmarket are all here too of course and soon the teams are on the pitch and flames are leaping into the air which are much bigger than any flames that we’ve ever seen before at Portman Road, because these are Premier League flames.

The teams are announced by an enthusiastic bloke in a grey suit who looks about half the age of Murphy, the now pensioned-off, one season wonder of an announcer who took nearly all of last season to learn how to read out the names of the team. Unfortunately, Portman Road is so noisy today and the PA system so unintelligible that I can’t hear a word this fresh young fellow says and am reduced to having to try and lip read as he tells us the Town line-up, but I think I do a reasonable job of bellowing like a French football supporter the surnames of the players as he says them. Except for the obvious and necessary concrete bits, the stands are mostly a sea of blue shirts.

‘The Knee’ is taken, which we haven’t seen for a while, and the game begins with Liverpool having first go with the ball and wearing all red, pretty much like they did back in 1974 when I first saw them at Portman Road and Bill Shankly spoke to me, telling me in his gravelly Ayrshire accent “Aye, you’ve a good team”. As ever, Town are in blue and white and when they get the ball, they send it in my direction and that of ever-present Phil, Elwood, Fiona, Pat and the man from Stowmarket. My early impressions are that there are new illuminated advertisements between the tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand, one of which advertises Universal Customs Clearance, whatever that is. I like to think it is something to do smuggling because this fits in with my pre-conceptions about the dodgy owners and sponsors of Premier League clubs. I also notice that the Liverpool number four has the name Virgil on his shirt and so I think of both the Aeneid and Thunderbirds. Sadly for Town, from his stature, Virgil looks more likely to be a classical hero rather than a jiggly puppet that appears like all Thunderbirds puppets to be suffering from Parkinson’s Disease. Omari Hutchinson has an early shot on goal for Town but Liverpool are awarded the game’s first free-kick. After six minutes Luke Woolfenden greedily claims the first booking of the Premier League season for some shirt grabbing and torso grasping of Jota who had run around Woolfenden as if he was a large bollard with a blond wig.

The game is even, with Liverpool having more possession but Ipswich looking no less likely to score, albeit on the break. Thirteen noisy minutes have disappeared for ever, only to be repeated on satellite tv and Match of the Day, and Omari Hutchinson is booked for a supposed foul, for which any decent player would be embarrassed to be awarded a free-kick. We need to keep an eye on the referee Mr Tim Robinson, he may prove to be a bit of a berk. The game continues in much the same manner to a back-drop of general noise, but no discernible organised chanting, as if the Premier League just makes everyone talk very loudly, which I think in some ways it probably does. Town win a free kick and Jacob Greaves heads the ball straight at the Liverpool goalkeeper; would Terry Butcher or Kevin Beattie have scored? We’ll never know, so it doesn’t really matter.

The first half is half over and referee Tim Robinson, whose name is a little too much like ‘Tommy Robinson’ for comfort, confirms that he is a complete berk as he books another Town player, this time Wes Burns, for a supposed foul that most under-fourteen players would not have noticed. Much booing ensues and I join in, swept up in the maelstrom of silliness that is the Premier League, and we haven’t even had the VAR out yet.

Less than a third of the half is left and after a Liverpool corner Omari Hutchinson breaks away, beats two Liverpool players and then shoots, but not well enough to avoid the goalkeeper’s elongated but comfortable looking dive. “Your support, your support, your support is fucking shit” chant the Town fans at a Liverpool player whose truss has come apart, or may be at the Liverpool fans who are quietish and so far don’t compare for enthusiasm to those of clubs in the second division that are only ‘fashionable’ in their home towns.

Eight minutes until half-time and Christian Walton makes a fine diving save from a Luke Woolfenden diversion, but by way of balance Axel Tuanzebe heads the ball onto the roof of the Liverpool net before Town win a corner, and in the last action of the half the Liverpool have their first recognisable shot on goal, courtesy of the lengthily named Trent Alexander Arnold, whose names seem to have either been arranged back to front or mostly taken from a map of Nottingham. After a minute of added on time spent finding the ball after TAA’s shot, Robinson blows his whistle and we all get the opportunity to boo him again as he and his minders wander off for a cup of tea and to do whatever referees and their assistant’s do at half-time.

The consensus amongst those around me is that it was a satisfactory half in which Town did pretty well and arguably had the better chances to score, although it could be a worry therefore that they didn’t. For half time entertainment Ray’s son Michael and a much larger man wearing possibly an XXXL Town shirt take part in a little quiz, the first few questions of which are stupidly easy and appear on the large screen between the Cobbold Stand and the Sir Alf stand. Later questions unfortunately, do not have multiple choice answers and are therefore read out over the incomprehensible PA system, so we have no idea what is going on.

At twenty-seven minutes to two the second half begins, and Liverpool have substituted their number 78 for a more sensible number 5, who is Ibrahima Konate and also plays for France, so is therefore likely to be pretty good. But, eight minutes into the half and it is Town who are appealing for a penalty as Leif Davis is barged over. There is a brief VAR check, during which I find myself praying to someone or something, perhaps divine providence, but conveniently for Liverpool and the status quo, the linesman has his flag raised for offside. The bloke behind me jokes that with all the recent works to the stadium the electrics for the VAR haven’t been finished yet, so the protocol is just to wait for five minutes and then say “No”.

As if being denied penalties isn’t bad enough, Wes Burns seems to be hurt and has to be substituted for Ben Johnson. Three minutes later Christian Walton has to make a fine save and then gets lucky as the ball is crossed back in and an unmarked Jota heads wide of an open goal from close range. Just a minute further on however, Jota scores as the ball is pulled back from the by-line and the Town defence is ripped apart. The Liverpool fans in the Cobbold stand can suddenly be heard, and above the general hubbub comes a jubilant roar. “Someone’s just found a quid I reckon” says the bloke behind me.

Town substitutions follow in the 64^th minute with Conor Chaplin and Massimo Luongo being replaced by Marcus Harness and Jack Taylor. Just a minute later Liverpool lead 2-0 as Salah tucks the ball neatly over Christian Walton from an angle. Liverpool seem to have simply changed up a gear and Town have been overrun. Omari Hutchinson manages a volley from quite close in that might have headed goalwards, but doesn’t, and the bloke beside me says “A goal would be nice, wouldn’t it?” The bloke behind me says “Yes”. Marcus Harness has a shot, but it goes high over the bar.

More substitutions follow, Ali Al-Hamadi and Sammy Szmodics replacing Liam Delap and Axel Tuanzebe but Liverpool are still the better team. I ask Pat from Clacton what she’s having for her tea tonight. A baked potato with barbecued chicken slices is the answer. Fiona and I are both having left over curry from Thursday night, both our curries were home-made, not takeaways. The attendance is announced as 30,014. It’s the first time there have been over 30,000 people at Portman Road since 20^th April 1981 when we played Arsenal; we lost that afternoon 2-0 too, and I remember standing with my father in the North Stand, it was the only place where we could get in. It was a result that severely and unexpectedly dented our hopes of winning the league and I can still recall vividly how royally peed off I was, I think I still am.

It is now clear that Town are going to lose today, and Liverpool come close to scoring several more times as Christian Walton plays an absolute blinder in the Town goal, a state of affairs confirmed by the Sir Bobby Robson stand’s embittered chanting of “Two-nil and you still don’t sing” followed by a reprise of “Your support, Your support, Your support is fucking shit”. A monstrous eight minutes of added on time is announced to give us hope of a miracle, and last season Town would probably have won, but today it’s Liverpool who nearly score again, twice, with Christian Walton making a brilliant ‘double save’ although ‘man of the match’ is awarded to Jacob Greaves. Scant consolation for the result arrives in the form of a late booking for Liverpool’s number 18 Cody Gakpo, which is greeted with ironic cheers and sarcastic ripples of applause from the home crowd. The bloke behind me wonders if Mr Robinson had lost his yellow card somewhere and only just found it.

The final whistle draws appreciative applause from all around the ground and it has been a decent couple of hours of football, although after Liverpool scored Town were no longer in it to win it, only to keep the score down, which they did. “You’re gonna get relegated aren’t ya? ” Says a Scouser to me as I walk back to the station. “Not today” I tell him. “We’ll be alright”. The football season has started so it may be approaching autumn, but it’s not winter yet, and I’m still hoping for an Indian summer.

Ipswich Town 1 OGC Nice 0

August 14, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

As far as I can recall, the last time Ipswich Town played French opposition was forty-three years ago when ‘Les Verts’ of St Etienne visited Portman Road in the second leg of a Uefa Cup quarter final tie. For me, as someone who feels certain the world would be a better place if only Napoleon had won the battle of Waterloo, this is nothing short of a personal tragedy, but one I’ve tried to make up for by watching French football whenever possible. I can now boast (and I do) having been to every stadium in Ligue 1 except Stade Meinau in Strasbourg and Stade Raymond Kopa in Angers, having seen more than half of the teams in Ligue 2 and scores of those in Ligue National and the regional leagues below, and I’ve been to the final of the Coupe de France at the Stade de France. When I heard therefore that Ipswich would be playing Olimpique Gymnast Club Nice (known as Le Gym or Les Aiglons – The Eaglets) in a pre-season friendly I was as happy as a Frenchman with a fresh baguette and a 2 litre bottle of Pastis. But, as someone who thinks access to pre-season friendlies should ideally be free, I also immediately regretted having already forked out a stonking twenty quid for a ticket for the pre-season friendly versus German second division club Fortuna Dusseldorf, and with good cause as it turned out, because that match was a stinker.

After ten days or more of mounting anticipation, today is the day of the match. Resisting all temptations to have croissants and champagne for breakfast, it’s not long before I’m on the train to Ipswich with my wife Paulene and friend Gary looking out for polar bears as we descend past Wherstead, the A1214 and into town; we see three, two of whom are stretched out on the ground like a big game hunter’s fireside rug. Arriving at Ipswich station there are the inevitable queues at the gates as two trains disgorge in quick succession and people struggle with QR codes on phones before eventually, a wise ticket collector simply opens the ‘sluice’ gates to prevent the human tide backing up into Greggs, a brand which I imagine any French person on the station concourse would instinctively keep a safe distance from.

Gary and I cross the road to the Station Hotel whilst Paulene makes straight for Portman Road because she wants to watch the players of OGC Nice warm up before the game; she has a particular interest in the forty-year old Brazilian colossus Dante, former Olympique Marseille players Morgan Sanson and Jonathan Clauss and the attractively monikered Gaetan Laborde. Unfortunately for Paulene, Nigerian forward Terem Moffi isn’t in the squad today because of a cruciate ligament injury. Meanwhile, back in the Station Hotel, Gary buys me a pint of Abbot Ale and some heavily advertised lager or other for himself. As we sit down, Mick arrives , and once he has a pint of Abbot Ale too, we talk of the Olympic games, the complicated cycling events such as the Madison and Omnium, how Gary might buy programmes for the home matches this season and the local Nicois or Nicard language or dialext of Nice as we struggle to hear ourselves talk above the noisy family who are enjoying a pre-match drink on the other side of the room. They annoy me a bit, but Mick thinks it’s good to see families out enjoying time together. Mick is very resaonable man. Mick also has plans to be in Nice (Nissa in Nicois) for a jazz festival a fortnight today and I quickly interrogate the interweb to discover that OGC Nice will be at home to Toulouse that weekend too. I advise him that the Ligne 3 tram will take him to the magnificent Stade de Nice or Allianz Riviera as it is also known.

Resisting temptation for a second time today, I don’t have another pint of Abbot Ale; the first one wasn’t that great, and it also seems that today in the Station Hotel is a dress rehearsal for hosting the supporters of Liverpool next week because we are having to drink from plastic glasses. Liverpudlians are also only allowed to use scissors if supervised by a responsible adult. Mick and I briefly discuss oxymorons before heading off for Portman Road; Gary has left already because he is making a visit to the club shop to collect one of the bright pink third choice shirts which went on sale recently and when worn will cause many a Town supporter to look like a raspberry blancmange. Weirdly, the club has allowed Ed Sheeran to advertise one of his many bland tunes on the shirt by scrawling an impression of Framlingham Castle across the front. It would make sense on a Framlingham Town shirt, but with its high-Victorian Town Hall, Italianate Customs House, brutalist St Francis Tower, Orwell bridge, Meccano-like dockside cranes and a Corn Exchange which wouldn’t look out of place in any French city, Ipswich has more than enough interesting architecture to conjure up a skyline of its own for a Town shirt.

Mick and I don’t quite get as far as Portman Road itself because we end up approaching the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand across the site of the former Staples store in Ruseell Road and I remark that the wide tarmac approach to the stand would be a tree-lined avenue in France; both Mick and I buy programmes (£2.50) from the ice cream booth which is situated where the first London Plane would be.

Once onto the lower tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand it seems odd not to be greeted by Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket and most strangely of all ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood. I’m not sure if ever-present Phil counts pre-season friendlies in his long back catalogue of games he has not missed, but if he’s not here today I for one think he risks losing his epithet, and no one wants to see that. I am however re-united with Paulene and together we ‘go down the front’ to talk with Ray and his grandson Harrison. Paulene asks Ray about his solar panels, and he tells us that they are very successful although British Gas don’t seem to be paying him the money for the electricity his system puts into the grid. We tell him to dump British Gas and sign up with Octopus.

Back in our seats, the Town line-up is announced, I think, but I’m not sure because the public address system is completely unintelligible, which is shame on today of all days when I imagine everyone will want to pretend to be French and call out the surnames of the players after the announcer reads out their first names. The stadium announcer seems not to read out the names of the Nice team at all, perhaps for fear of embarrassing himself with poor pronunciation, not that it would matter when no one can understand a word he says anyway. Eventually, the teams appear and I recall how for home games in Nice, the pre-match ritual includes ‘Mefi’ the eagle flying around the stadium; perhaps Town should have a Suffolk Punch rolling the pitch. When the game begins it is Town that get first go with the ball and aim it mostly in the direction of the goal almost in front of me, Paulene, Mick and Gary in the Sir Alf Ramsey stand. Town wear their signature blue and white kit today, whilst Nice wear an unnecessary away kit of all-white, which is huge shame because their red and black home shirts and black shorts are a visual treat.

After almost eighteen minutes I glance up at the scoreboard and say “Is that all? It feels like we’ve been here far longer.” The game has so far displayed a dullness to rival the thoughts of Michael Owen or that of the Dusseldorf game. But after an impromptu drinks break, when a Nice player receives treatment for acute boredom, the game miraculously perks up and both teams venture forward by means of neat passing and winning corners. “Allez les Bleus, Allez les Bleus” I chant at an appropriate moment, and Paulene tells me later that people gave me funny looks as a result. Liam Delap runs through on goal for Town and has a shot saved by the Nice goalkeeper and everyone starts to think that may be the new season might be ok after all, except for Paulene who supports Portsmouth and so doesn’t really care. Then, with half-time approaching like a motorway service station on a not overly long journey but one where it’s probably as well to stop, it looks like George Edmundson and Axel Tuanzebe both make a bit of a lunge on Evan Guessand, a player with whom incidentally, Debbie Harry, Alan Sunderland and I share a birthday, albeit not in the same year. Presumably unaware of Guessand’s star sign, not that it makes any difference, referee Mr James Bell awards Nice a penalty. Mohamed-Ali Cho takes the penalty kick for Nice, but unusually the laws of physics are defied in Town’s favour for once and the ball strikes the inside of Muric’s right-hand post and deflects out of rather than into the Town goal. It’s a lucky escape for Town and after only literally seconds of added-on time Mr Bell says it’s time for a cuppa and the opportunity to reflect.

Half-time permits a thorough read of the match programme, because we don’t get much for £2.50, and for some unfathomable reason the text incorrectly, but consistently, refers to OGC Nice as OGM Nice. I wonder what the half a dozen Nice supporters up in the Cobbold stand think of this poor journalism, particularly given that they are used to match programmes being free.

Beneath oppressive grey skies the second half begins and carries on where the first half left off. Both teams pass the ball tidily, but Nice possibly have a bit more flair, and in keeping with both teams’ respective country’s geographies, Nice’s passing is more expansive whilst Town’s is tighter; l’hexagone against Little England. Napoleon would have understood.

Early second half action sees George Edmundson clear a shot from Jonathan Clauss off the Town goal line, but then the thirteenth minute of the half proves unlucky for Nice as a goalmouth melee is abruptly ended by Axel Tuanzebe lashing the by now disorientated ball into the net from inside the six-yard box. Town lead, but less pleasantly four minutes later Omari Hutchinson suffers the ignominy of being booked for a foul in a friendly match, although to his credit he does look sorry. A minute later and mass substitutions are made, and the hopeless PA system sounds off to full effect, like a malfunctioning foghorn. The Town players who are replaced gather in the corner by the Cobbold and Sir Alf stands presumably to warm down, causing us to speculate on whether the gym is full of building materials or whether this is just a PR exercise and the players are merely getting close to their public. I suggest that they are going to form a cheerleading troop, but no one is overly surprised although they may be disappointed when events prove me wrong.

The highlight of the final seventeen minutes is a low shot from substitute Freddie Ladapo which strikes the inside of the far post and predictably deflects out of the goal, not into it, and Marcus Harness is arguably a little too careful with his follow up shot, which consequently is booted clear by a retreating defender. When the time comes, the final whistle is blown promptly by Mr Bell (Monsieur Cloche in French) with no un-necessary added-on time, and we all agree that it has been an enjoyable game full of free-flowing football. Paulene and I bid farewell to Gary and Mick at the railway station as Gary catches an earlier train and Mick collects his bicycle. We look forward to seeing the Polar bears again on our journey home and I reflect on how if only Town were in Ligue 1 we might be playing Olympique Marseille next week, not Liverpool.

Ipswich Town 2 Huddersfield Town 0

May 5, 2024May 27, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

After a 10.7 kilometre ‘trip’ on a static exercise bike whilst listening to an assortment of tunes by The Jam, a shower, a shave and a hearty breakfast of sausage, poached eggs, tomatoes, toast, Welsh cakes, tea and coffee I suddenly find myself under azure skies waiting on a railway platform for a train to take me to Ipswich to see Ipswich Town play Huddersfield Town in the last match of the football league season. Courtesy of the ridiculous 12:30 kick-off, it’s not even half-past ten yet. “It’s not the end of the world” says a man to a child stood by the grey concrete bridge over the railway tracks, and something inside me hopes that’s the last time I hear that phrase today.

The train departs three minutes late. Inside the carriage, on the other side of the gangway to me a man stares out of the window grooving to the sounds coming through the headphones clamped over his ears. “The sticks man” he says to himself almost laughing and sounding like the school bus driver Otto in the Simpsons, and we pass by bucolic scenes of farmyards, duckponds and country cottages. I think to myself that he could, as Marge Simpson once said, be “…whacked out of his gourd”. But as I get up to change trains at the next stop he calls “Hey, your scarf man!” and I turn to find that my blue and white scarf had fallen on the floor. I thank him and he tells me it’s cool.

On my second station platform of the day, I meet Gary who looms, smiling, out of the throng of blue and white attired people also awaiting the next train to Ipswich. It’s been a very blue a white day so far. The train is packed full, but I get a seat for Gary and one for me by asking two well-spoken young men if they would mind moving their bags of golf clubs from the seats next to them and into the luggage rack above. They are very obliging and as they move their luggage one of them admits to supporting Leicester City; the other wears a garish striped blazer, like a kind of young Michael Portillo, but not as weird.

We look for polar bears as the train passes through Wherstead, but only see Arctic wolves. Arriving in Ipswich it takes some time to alight from the train, an activity further hindered by stupid people trying to get on it before everyone else has got off. Our passage to Portman Road is then slowed again by the ‘automatic’ ticket barriers which unhelpfully haven’t simply been left open to let everyone pass through speedily and safely. Eventually however, we find ourselves crossing Burrell Road and Princes Street bridge and Gary asks me if I’m going to get an ice cream; I tell him I am. Portman Road however, is packed with people, and there are long queues at the programme booths which, because I am an impatient person for whom standing in queues does not align with ‘living in the moment’, I decide not to join.

Today we are meeting Mick for a pre-match drink, but he still hasn’t returned to full fitness after the operation on his foot and so rather than trekking uphill to our preferred boozer, ‘the Arb,’ we are only making for the Fanzone, because it’s nearby. Having negotiated the muddled multitude of supporters milling about in the shadow of the Sir Bobby Robson stand, and waited in a short but nevertheless annoying queue, we enter the Fanzone and meet Mick who had arrived moments before us. With nothing else for three over-sixties to do in the Fanzone but queue for the bar, we queue for the bar having first walked in the opposite direction to discover the end of the queue, like nineteenth century explorers searching for the source of the Nile. The queue is slow moving today which is because it actually turns out to be two queues, which merge just before the entrance to the beer tent. By and by we reach the front of the queue and I generously buy a pint paper cup full of San Miguel Lager for Gary and pint paper cups full of fizzy Greene King East Coast IPA for myself and Mick, it costs me at least double what I would have spent on beer in a week back when Ipswich won the UEFA Cup. I had told Gary I would ask if there was a discount for Camra members, but out of deference to the pretty young woman who serves us, I don’t.

Brimming paper cups in hand, we arrange three collapsible chairs in a circle and discuss the health of Mick’s foot and what a “spazz” (Mick’s word not mine) Ipswich ‘s Tory MP, Tom Hunt is. At about a quarter past twelve a steward asks us whether our seats are in the West stand. Mick’s and Gary’s are, but mine isn’t and she advises that I prepare to leave the Fanzone as there will be queues at the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand. I complain mildly to Gary and Mick about being hurried along in this way, but Mick admonishes me, telling me the steward is only trying to be helpful and also that he quite fancies her; as he does so he crushes his cardboard cup in his hand spurting residual beer froth onto the ground like spilt seed. For a moment time stands still.

Never one to argue with Mick when his dander’s up, I bid him and Gary farewell and make my way round to the Sir Alf Ramsey stand along Constatine Road past a man stood with an enormous flag at least twice the size of the tricolour in Eugene Delacroix’s masterful painting “Liberty leading the people”. The crowds have dispersed now, and I stop to buy a programme (£3.50) at the ice cream booth in the former Churchman’s factory and then Staples’ car park. I tell the attractive young programme seller that I am surprised there are any left given the queues earlier, and then ponder that Spring really does seem to be in the air. There are no queues at all at the Sir Alf Ramsey stand, contrary to popular belief, and having passed through turnstile 62, I’m soon greeting the broad smiles of Pat from Clacton and Fiona as I take my seat next but one to the man from Stowmarket (Paul) and two rows behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood.

Like it often is nowadays, Portman Road is noisy today and I struggle to hear stadium announcer Murphy read out all the names of the Town team, and as a result and to my eternal shame I don’t manage to be the consummate French football supporter as I fail to bawl ‘Tuanzebe’ at the right moment; Fiona laughs. Shouts of “Blue Army, Blue Army, Blue Army, Blue Army” follow the usual singing of the “na-na-nars” in The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” and the match begins with Conor Chaplin playing the ball back to Luke Woolfenden as Town get first go with the ball. As ever, Town sport their signature blue and white kit, but Huddersfield Town are in a necessary change kit of day-glo lime green, a kit that would not look out of place on a hot day on anyone mending the pot-holes in the roads of West Yorkshire.

“Leeds, Leeds are falling apart again” sing supporters of both teams in a touching display of unity and schadenfreude, and then Town fans launch into a song about Sam Morsy to the thirty-year-old tune of “She’s Electric” by Mancunian ‘Brit-Poppers’ Oasis; I particularly like the lyric “He’s fucking brilliant” which I think says all anyone needs to know about the Town captain. Eight minutes pass and clearly unaffected by my earlier faux-pas, Axel Tuanzebe delivers the first shot on goal which results in a comer to Town which begets another, before two minutes later a low Wes Burns cross results in yet another corner and a header wide before after yet another three minutes Town win another corner and two minutes after that Conor Chaplin shoots wide. There is no doubt, Town are on top.

Nineteen minutes are history now, joining the preceding billions of years in spent eternity and news arrives that Leeds United are losing, which if it became a result would mean Town could happily lose too and still be promoted. “Leeds, Leeds are falling apart again” sings the crowd to the tune of Mancunian miserabilists Joy Division’s forty-four year old hit “Love will tear us apart”. I briefly wonder to myself why back in 1980 we never re-worded the hits from the mid to late 1930’s such as ‘March winds and April showers’ or ‘I only have eyes for you’. Interrupting my reverie, Wes Burns shoots hopelessly over the angle of post and bar before the dirge version of “When the Town going marching in “ drifts slowly from the stands as if relegation rather than promotion was the likely outcome of the afternoon.

The half is more than half over and Conor Chaplin puts Wes Burns through on goal; agonisingly he rolls his shot wide of the target, but like a man with three goes at a single dart finish, that shot was just a marker and three minutes later, receiving a pass from Conor Chaplin,Wes makes amends ramming the ball between post and goalkeeper. “E-I, E-I, E-I, E-I-O” chants the home crowd, and Huddersfield substitute their No 8 for No 21. Six minutes later and Conor Chaplin falls to the turf inside the penalty area. Several supporters bay for a penalty. “You bald cunt” shouts a bloke somewhere behind me, presumably at referee Simon Hooper, but no one really knows.

Five minutes until half time and I sing “Allez les bleus, Allez les bleus “ a couple of times on my own, which I like to think inspires Omari Hutchison to shoot wide, and then the Huddersfield goalkeeper fumbles the ball but catches it at the second attempt. “At least we haven’t got to go to the play-offs” says Pat from Clacton, clearly feeling confident. “I think we’re alright” she continues “We can have a nice holiday now”. Three minutes of additional time are announced by announcer Murphy using his important announcement voice, and Massimo Luongo shoots over the crossbar before Huddersfield have their very first shot of the game, as number 44 Rhys Healey shoots wide. With the half-time whistle, I travel to the front of the stand to talk to Ray and his grandson Harrison. Ray talks about not believing in a god or gods, I’m not sure why, but I tell him that at least if you worship the sun, or the trees, you can be sure they exist even if popular song says they don’t listen to you.

The second half begins at twenty-six minutes to two and I notice that the Huddersfield goalkeeper is called Maxwell, and I think to myself that if he’s got a silver hammer, we should get a few penalties. Looking up, I see the clouds have changed shape, with towering cumulus being replaced by just a smear across the sky. Three minutes into the half and Omari Hutchinson runs at goal, he is forced to run across the face of goal but he’s too quick for the Huddersfield defence and makes space to shoot; the shot is too hard for the Huddersfield goalkeeper and Town lead 2-0. That’s Ipswich promoted, surely. “Stand up, if you’re going up” is chanted from the stands, and people stand up. What more proof is needed?

For twenty minutes it’s like being present at a concert of Town supporters’ greatest hits of the 2023-24 season. “Are you watching Norwich scum?”, “Carrow Road is falling down”, “One Marcus Stewart.” punctuate corners and a shot over the bar from Leif Davis. The usual double or triple substitutions on the hour aren’t really needed today, so are delayed until the seventy-third minute and serve only to draw ovations for a season’s efforts from the departing players. Announcer Murphy announces today’s attendance as 29,011 and even the seat next to me is occupied, by an extremely tall youth who neither says nor sings anything. “Small Town in Norwich, You’re just a small town in Norwich” chant the Huddersfield fans bizarrely, or at least those who’ve never seen a map of Britain do. But “The Town are going up, The Town are going up” is the carefree response to the intended sleight.

Huddersfield don’t seem capable of threatening Town’s two-goal lead, let alone overhauling it, although their No21 gets Alex Matos himself booked for a foul on Jeremy Sarmiento, perhaps in an attempt to at least show willing. But their supporters know the truth and happily and pleasingly sing “We’re on our way, To Division One, We’re on our way” . With the game entering the final ten minutes, stewards and police begin to surround the pitch and a helicopter circles above. Surely they can’t be hoping to prevent a pitch invasion, and I begin to wonder if Rishi Sunak is going to have us all machine-gunned as punishment for Thursday’s Council election results; he does after all hope to place Britain alongside Russia and Belarus as one of just three countries in Europe not signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights. After the game, the man from Stowmarket (Paul) will tell me he would have felt happier if the helicopter had been being tailed by an Apache from nearby Wattisham.

As the edge of the pitch fills up with people in day-glo jackets, it starts to become difficult to distinguish the Huddersfield players from our would-be murderers, but reassuringly there will be only three minutes of additional time and I think with promotion now assured, our lives may yet be saved. With the final whistle Ipswich Town are indeed promoted, having secured second place in the league, six points clear of the team in third, Leeds United, who have apparenrtly fallen apart again, but may yet be able to put themselves back together in the play-offs if they can beat Norwich City, who finish twenty-three points behind Ipswich. As my friend Pete will remind me later this evening as he congratulates me, from now on Town will be in the “best league in the world”, a world within a world of Sky hype, obscene amounts of money, gambling responsibly and no three o’clock kick-offs on a Saturday – or very few. As happy as I am that Town are successful after years of misery, and as much as a surfeit of beer, Cremant and red wine will result in my falling asleep early in the second half of Stade Brestois v FC Nantes as I watch it on the telly, I still can’t help but think of the words of Mick McCarthy “Be careful what you wish for.”

It is possible this will be my last blog for a while that features Ipswich.