Pearl & Dean

Ipswich Town 1 Watford 1

/ martinpbrooks / 1 Comment

 Leaving off work on a November evening is one of life’s many pleasures, as indeed is leaving off work at any time of day or year but the fading light and swirling russet leaves, like in the opening scene of The Exorcist, somehow add a layer of gloomy beauty that enchants.  Add the prospect of an evening kick-off at Portman Road, and the streets of Ipswich are alive with worried expectation.  Opposite the bus depot I ‘bump into’ Richard, a long-since disillusioned but long-time Town supporter, who now occasionally catches a game when he can but mostly watches local non-league football.  He’s on his way to meet a friend for a pre-match drink but has arrived early, so we have time to stand in the glow of a streetlight and talk of Brightlingsea Regent, Wivenhoe Town, Hackney Wick, SOUL Tower Hamlets and Kings Park Rangers, who sound from Richard’s account of a recent match like hired hitmen.  Richard is concerned that the team that starts tonight’s match will not be the same one that started the match on Saturday.

Leaving Richard to go his own way, I have time to visit the recently installed ‘portal’ on Cornhill, and because I’m not sure what else to do, wave to people in Dublin and New York, some of whom wave back.  Unfortunately, I hadn’t thought ahead and prepared a rude comment about Donald Trump to hold up on a piece of cardboard.  I had wondered what the point of the portal is and still do but think I like it.  It’s good to know I can momentarily make meaningless, mute contact with someone in Lithuania, Poland or Brazil.

At ‘the Arb,’ there are people crowding around the bar umming and ahhing over what they want to eat. Over their heads I order a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride, and they seem surprised when I am being served, and they are not.  When did people stop understanding the etiquette of pubs and bars?  I add an order of chilli, chips and cheese (£13) and retire to the beer garden with my beer to wait for Gary, Mick and the chilli, chips and cheese.  Gary is first to arrive in his orange puffa jacket and with a pint of Spanish lager.  The chilli, chips and cheese are next, followed by some cutlery, and then Mick who arrives before I finish eating.  Mick has a pint of Suffolk Pride, Gary then has chilli, chips and cheese and Mick has chips and Emmental and he also buys another round of two pints of Suffolk Pride and Spanish lager as we talk of how busy the funeral business is currently, inter-sex sports people, Gary’s favourite places in India, Gary’s quiz team, the sale of Mick’s deceased neighbour’s house, a woman Gary and I knew who reached the final of tv’s Mastermind, whether Quorn comes from Quorn in Leicestershire, re-using Haig Fund poppies, the presence of gender in the Romance languages and  other things that I’ve probably forgotten.  There’s finally still time for me to buy another half of Suffolk Pride for myself and a whisky for Mick, but Gary is too full of chilli, chips, cheese and gassy Spanish lager to consume another drop.

As ever, we are the last to leave for Portman Road; it is twenty-three minutes past seven.  At Portman Road there is no queue into the stand formerly known as Churchman’s and seeing the security staff brandishing their magic wands for detecting weapons, I stick my arms out wide as I approach. The security man smiles broadly, “You’re flying already” he says in a jolly Afro-Caribbean-cum-London accent.  “High as a kite” I tell him, pretending to be, in the words of Marge Simpson ‘whacked out of my gourd’. After venting the spent drug of my choice, Suffolk Pride, I emerge into the stand in time for a minute’s silence for Armistice Day and the last post, something I still find odd in the context of attending a football match. Inevitably, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul) and ever-present Phil who never misses a game are already here, but Phil’s son Elwood is absent and so is Pat from Clacton, although on the end of the row sits a woman in dark glasses who looks a bit like her.  Of course, in reality, the woman on the end of the row is Pat from Clacton and she’s not in disguise, only shielding her eyes from the glare of the floodlights having recently had cataracts removed.

I seem to have missed the announcing of tonight’s team, the ritual of remembrance having taken precedence over the usual pre-match ritual, and with players’ huddles out of the way it’s Ipswich who proceed to get first go with the ball, which they predominantly aim in the direction of the goal in front of me and my fellow ultras.  As usual, Town sport their signature blue and white kit, whilst visiting Watford sport lurid, garish yellow shirts with red stripes and red shorts, colours which remind me of centrifuged blood and the French second division team Le Mans FC.

Ipswich quickly win a corner, so quickly in fact that I forget to chant “Come on You Blues” and the attacking opportunity is hopelessly wasted before I even realise.  I’m still getting to grips with the diminutive height of the referee and the poppies on the players’ shirts as Town win a free-kick and Jaden Philogene places the ball very inexpertly and disappointingly over the Watford crossbar.   A short while later Jens Cajuste shimmies wonderfully between a couple of Watford players on the edge of their penalty area, and the home crowd sing supportively for their team. Watford look tidy, but Ipswich are tidier.

Almost inevitably, despite not being as tidy as Ipswich, it is Watford who score.  The sixteenth minute is Town’s undoing along with a general melting away of any defence on the right-hand side of the pitch, resulting in a low cross and a simple close-range goal from the misleadingly named Louza.  “We’re winning away, we’re winning away, how shit must you be?  We’re winning away” chant the Watford supporters to the tune of the Beach Boys’ Sloop John B in what passes for humour amongst most football crowds.  Meanwhile I snigger because Watford’s number six is called Matthew Pollock, I just can’t help myself when people are named after certain fish.

Happily, Watford won’t be winning for long and after George Hirst heads over the crossbar, central defender Cedric Kipre provides a through ball worthy of any midfield maestro and Jaden Philogene scoops and curls the ball over the prone body of Watford’s Norwegian goalkeeper, and the score is one all.  “We’re no longer winning away, we’re no longer winning away, you’re better than we thought you were, we’re no longer winning away” chant the Watford fans, except of course they don’t.  Instead, the excitable young stadium announcer tells us excitedly and loudly that the goalscorer is “Our” Jaden Philogene, and he then proceeds to bawl “Jaden” and wonderfully allows the crowd to chant “Philogene”, which happens three times, as if we were in the Stade Roudourou or somewhere equally French.  Ever-present Phil who never misses a game turns around wide-eyed, with a look of surprised recognition on his face to celebrate the moment with me. “All hail the excitable young stadium announcer” I think to myself.

There are still the best part of seventy minutes left to record a famous victory, although the tiny referee seems to want to make things as difficult as he can as he takes his time allowing Chuba Akpom back on the pitch after receiving treatment.   The expected goals don’t happen. Watford win a couple of corners. “Event cleaning” say the electronic advertising boards on the Sir Bobby Robson stand before promoting the name of RJ Dean Plasterers, and probably because this is advertising, I think of Pearl & Dean at the cinema; Baba, baba, baba, baba, bababa. There are three minutes of added on time, which is long enough for Watford’s Kwadwo Baah to claim the first booking of the evening. BahBah, BahBah, BahBah, BahBah, BahBahBah.    The Watford supporters complain, perhaps because given the number of fouls that had previously gone unpunished they thought their team had diplomatic immunity, and the Town supporters claim to have forgotten the Watford supporters were here.  “Plus ca change” I think to myself, briefly returning to the Stade Roudourou.

With the half-time whistle I speak to Ray his son Michael and grandson Harrison at the front of the stand.  Strangely, we don’t mention the match, perhaps because we can’t hear ourselves think, let alone speak above the deafening public address system.

The second half brings a booking for George Hirst after ten minutes after he is fouled and no free-kick is given and so he not unreasonably assumes it’s open season; if it is it ends just before he gets to the other bloke.  “Watford, Watford, Watford, Watford” sing the Watford fans to the tune of “Amazing Grace”, which is itself amazing and also rather funny.  Nearly an hour has gone the way of history, and we get to cheer another booking for Watford’s Mark Bola, who is momentarily as popular as Ebola.  The second half has ebbed and flowed a bit but whilst Watford create no chances whatsoever, they still pass the ball very nicely and I think they look quite good, which might help explain an unusual interlude in which Jaden Philogene and Azor Matusiwa almost come to blows and probably would do if Cajuste doesn’t step into keep them apart.

It’s always time for change with about a half an hour left to play and tonight is no exception as Clarke, Azon and Taylor usurp Jaden Philogene, George Hirst and Jens Cajuste.  Pat from Clacton clearly thinks in the same way as Keiran McKenna, but with no substitutes of her own to bring on she just delves into her handbag to pull out the masturbating monkey charm, who reportedly has changed many a game in the past, although I’ve never witnessed it myself. The monkey passes from Pat to Fiona to me and I ask what I’m supposed to do with him. “Rub his head” says Fiona. Relieved, I hand him back to Fiona who hands him back to Pat who puts him back in her handbag.  Victory is now assured.

Time takes us into the last twenty minutes of ‘normal’ time and Watford make a copycat triple substitution as the bloke beside me complains that “There’s no end product” and then says it again.  Moments later there is an ‘end product’ from Ivan Arzon, but what should be a decisive net-rustling header is one that goes unpleasantly wide.  Akpom and Johnson are replaced by Nunez and Greaves.

Eighty-two minutes have joined the persistence of memory and Arzon misses again, this time shooting over the cross bar, and we are told that there are 27,184 of us here tonight, the lowest attendance for a home fixture in over two and half years; since we played Shrewsbury Town and the Shrews brought just 343 supporters with them.  As time begins to run away from us, Watford win a corner and then Ivan Arzom has a header saved by the Watford goalkeeper. Two minutes remain of the original ninety and it’s Town’s turn to have a corner from which the ball lands at the feet of Nunez, clear at the far post and perhaps six yards from it.  Nunez proceeds to display how he may always be tainted by having played for Norwich City and boots the ball hopelessly high and wide of the gaping target.

Seven minutes of added on time are added on and whilst it seems like renewed hope, of course it isn’t , and we even have to defend another couple of Watford corner kicks, although I remain confident that there will be no injury time defeat snatched from the jaws of victory, mainly because we’ve never been winning.  With the final whistle I rise from my seat and promptly depart because I have only eight or nine minutes in which to get the ‘early’ train home.   I console myself with the thought that although we should have won, at least we didn’t lose, although at the railway station I will meet Richard again, who will  describe himself as ‘underwhelmed’, but may be he doesn’t enjoy leaving off work on a November evening as much as I do.

Ipswich Town 0 Brighton & Hove Albion 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s been a much more eventful, activity-packed day than usual, with visits to my dentist and my surviving aged parent, a bit of driving around Ipswich, and spending my once a week day in the office, from the window of which I saw the Brighton and Hove Albion team bus drive by.   It’s nevertheless been a grey day, but now, as I pass through the portals of ‘the Arb,’ darkness has fallen and as it’s not raining or snowing the weather is no longer noticeable, although for January it’s quite mild.  Most incredible of all however, today is Thursday, and the Town will be playing at home tonight.  Foolishly nostalgic, I pine for the days when no football was ever played on a Thursday unless it happened to be Boxing Day, or two clubs were embroiled in multiple FA Cup replays, such as when Ipswich gloriously beat Leeds United on Thursday 27th March 1975, or less gloriously lost at home to West Ham United on Thursday 6th February 1986. But whatever, I’m here now.

In the present, Mick is already stood at the bar ordering a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride and some food and he kindly buys me a pint of the same, and when I say I want to order some food too, he says he’ll pay for that as well; what a great bloke he is.  We repair to the beer garden, which is deserted, and wait for our food.  Over vegetarian burgers with what we think are sweet potato chips, we discuss how our lives and attitudes have been shaped by passing the 11-plus and being sent from rural primary schools to ‘posh’ schools at the expense of the County Council,  working class people’s mistrust of authority,  comedy, and how the environmentally friendly ‘Ecover’ cleaning brand is actually owned by evil multi-national Johnson and Johnson. After another pint of Suffolk Pride for me, and a Jura whisky for Mick because I misheard the bar maid when she said they only had Jamieson Stout and thought she said that the Jamieson is ‘out’, it is nearly ten past seven and time to exit through the now totally deserted bar towards Portman Road.

With ten minutes until kick-off, Portman Road is thick with queues, but I buy a programme from a queue-free seller and make my way around to approach the Sir Alf Ramsey stand from the direction of Russell Road. I join a shuffling queue but am quickly ushered towards a side gate in the style of Mr Benn and find myself inside the stadium just in time to bawl out the surnames of Burns, Broadhead, Hutchinson and Delap like a Frenchman would, as the excitable young stadium announcer reads out the Town team.  Around me, the familiar faces of Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, but not his son Elwood, who is absent tonight, await the imminent kick-off to a soundtrack of na-na-nas from The Beatles’ song ‘Hey Jude’.  Kick-off is delayed however because tonight is the annual “Memorial Matchday” and we are told that a minute’s applause for recently deceased Town fans will begin with the referee’s whistle, but instead it starts straight away, so keen are the remaining Town fans to celebrate the dead. Perhaps football has finally replaced religion.

It’s Brighton who get first go with ball, which they mostly try to send in the direction of the goal fronting the Sir Bobby Robson stand; they wear a kit of all yellow, just as they did when I first saw them play a league game at Portman Road back in 1980.  Unless you’re FC Nantes, in which case it’s your home kit, all-yellow is the anonymous, archetypal away kit, which is what away kits used to be before everything was put up for sale, or ‘monetised’.  The Town are of course in blue and white.

“Al-bion, Al-bion” chant the Brighton fans boringly, as if they’re here under duress, before launching off into some song or other which at one point sounds disturbingly like ‘On The Ball City’.  On the pitch, Brighton start well, selfishly keeping the ball to themselves.  “Who’s the Brighton manager?” asks Pat from Clacton.  He’s German isn’t he says Fiona.  “I don’t know who he is” I reply, “Alan Mullery?”.   “Alan Mullery!” says Pat as if she’s really saying “Pffft”.   “I suppose Steve Foster is playing at the back is he?” scoffs Fiona.  Behind me, two blokes discuss the Brighton team, although this mostly consists of them saying players’ names and then adding “Yeah, he’s good”.

Brighton claim the game’s first corner in the eighth minute and we are treated to more morose repetition of “Al-bion, Al-bion”, which compares unfavourably with what I expected to hear, which was the much more upbeat “Sea-gulls, Sea-gulls”.  But in the final league table of disappointment over the course of the evening I don’t expect it to rank highly.  Ten minutes have passed and so far the game is all Brighton, and Ipswich fans are looking to the floor or the sky and whistling as if a little embarrassed, before some Bobby Robson standers eventually sing “Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, the Norwich ran away” in an attempt to change the subject.

“Thank you to today’s sponsors” reads the illuminated strip between the two tiers of the Sir Bobby stand but I quietly curse Umbro for apparently objecting to the poster style front page of the programme like philistine, money-obsessed bastards. The Brighton fans sing “Football in a library, der, der, der” to no particular tune.  Twenty minutes pass and Brighton have dominated them all, but without looking as if they will score, and therefore the belief remains that if only Ipswich can keep the ball for more than a few seconds they might nip away and demonstrate to Brighton what the point of the game is.  Brighton win another corner to no effect, before hope springs from the fleet of foot Nathan Broadhead, who runs away down field, shoots and the modern equivalent of Perry Digweed makes a diving save to give Town a corner and an opportunity to shout “Come On You Blues” with feeling .  It’s an event that changes the pattern of the game and enlivens the home crowd as chants of “Blue and white army” ring out. The twenty fifth minute, and Omari Hutchinson runs and shoots and ‘Digweed’ saves again.  “Town have woken up.“ says the bloke behind me and three minutes later Liam Delap runs and shoots at ‘Digweed’ too.  The words “Mezzanines, Staircases” flash across the front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand and Liam Delap oafishly barges his marker Paul van Hecke, to the amusement of many, and referee Mr Harrington awards a free kick.  Moments later Delap is fouled by van Hecke in what looks like revenge, but Harrington plays on.  “Winding him up” says the bloke behind me.

The Town continue to look the most likely team to score; Hutchinson sends Wes Burns down the right, Burns pulls the ball back but Jens Cajuste and Hutchinson both go to shoot at once and bounce off one another like Keystone Cops as the ball runs on and is cleared.  “Blue and white army, Blue and white army.” Chant the Sir Bobby Robson standers over and over and over again. Pat from Clacton tells me she had her tea before she came out; toad in the hole.  Brighton win a corner, “Al-bion, Al-bion.”  “Blue and white army, Blue and white army, Blue and white army.”  Two minutes to half-time and again Hutchinson shoots and ‘Digweed’ saves.  A minute of added on time is taken from the well of infinity and I wonder if we get ‘added on time’ when we’re about to die; if so, I expect to get quite a bit, some for the few days when I was in a coma in 2019, but mostly just for time wasting.  With that minute soon gone forever and half-time in full swing I go down to the front of the stand to chat with Ray, who with his wife Ros has been on a cruise to the unfortunately named Canary Isles and has missed the last three home matches.  He was sick in the Bay of Biscay too; I’m glad I stayed at home, not that I was invited, that would have been very weird.

The football resumes at twenty-eight minutes to eight.  “RJ Dean Plasterers” say the bright lights of the illuminated adverts on the Sir Bobby Robson stand and I think of Pearl and Dean the cinema advertisers before Liam Delap seemingly barges Joel Veltman just for the hell of it, like a sort of hobby to undertake in idle moments; Delap is booked.  Four minutes later, Joao Pedro, Brighton’s number nine, raises the level of violence as he flies through the air to shoulder charge Christian Walton.  Pedro is also booked, despite much baying for a red card from home fans, and VAR confirms that a yellow card is sufficient censure, possibly because he didn’t draw blood.

The half is almost twelve minutes old and the ball drops to Wes Burns in the Brighton penalty area, but his snapshot carries on beyond the far post.  It will prove to be the Town’s last decent attempt on goal and the game is about to change course as within two minutes Jacob Greaves can’t quite stop a ball from going beyond him and Yasin Ayari gets behind the Town defence and pulls the ball back to O’Riley, but it’s Mitoma who sweeps it into the net.  It’s the goal either Jens Cajuste or Omari Hutchinson would have scored in the first half had they not both tried to score it at the same time. 

It’s only 1-0, we’ve been one down before, but from here on Town are not going to be in the game. Pedro turns and forces an excellent flying save from Walton, Brighton win corner after corner and Town play the ball across their defence but seldom retain possession as far away as the centre circle.  Substitutions make no difference and finally, eight minutes from the end of normal time a free kick on the left is played into the Town penalty area, is deflected onto Jack Taylor and falls to Georginio Rutter, who is able to turn and stroke the ball into the Town goal.  VAR decides that the man on the pitch with the best surname, Lewis Dunk was not interfering with play when stood offside and Town are losing two-nil.

“How shit must you be , we’re winning away” sing the Brighton supporters, putting yet another set of carefully crafted lyrics to the football supporters’ staple ‘Sloop John B’, and the excitable young stadium announcer tells us that our ‘incredible’ support numbers 29,403, although 2,977 of us have been shouting for the wrong  but nevertheless winning team.

Six minutes of additional time fail to adequately atone for the lost hope and disappointment suffered, and with the final whistle Pat from Clacton, Fiona and ever-present Phil are away faster than greyhounds out of a starting trap.  I’m hot on their heels as I try to put distance between myself and the scene of yet another of life’s failures but feel a bit like I’m the dog who’s been doped.  I’ll be back on Sunday though, having forgotten all about it, perhaps until that final moment when my life will flash before me and I head for the ultimate memorial matchday.  Once a Blue, eh?