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Ipswich Town 5 ABBA 5

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

The football season is over save for the silly play-offs, and now it’s the height of Spring,  and with little else to occupy him a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of the Eurovision Song Contest;  or maybe not.  But last week’s transmission of the bizarre, annual , musical  television ritual extravaganza was inevitably accompanied by the airing of a clip show on BBC4 of past performances by the competition’s only notable success, Abba.  I have never bought, stolen, borrowed or owned an Abba record, tape, download or CD, but I will admit to being unable to suppress a smile when I hear one played.    Equally, I couldn’t resist watching that clip show and felt rewarded when it brought back memories of a road trip I made in the summer of 1995, which took me and my then girlfriend via Parkeston Quay, DFDS Seaways ferry, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Uppsala and Sundsvall to Pitea in northern Sweden, where we stayed with my girlfriend’s pen friend and her husband.  It was a very long drive for which the soundtrack for several stages of the journey came courtesy of a CD of Abba Gold belonging to my girlfriend.

The experience of listening to Abba on that road trip has stayed with me and it led to an article in the erstwhile Ipswich Town fanzine A Load of Cobbolds.  Now, in the spirit of nostalgia inspired by the fortieth anniversary of Ipswich Town’s UEFA Cup win and  in the absence of anything better to do I have reproduced that article below, updating it to modern times where necessary:

When you’re an eleven or twelve year-old football and pop music loom large as pre-pubescent priorities.   I bought my first record (Happy Christmas (War Is Over) by John Lennon & Yoko Ono) in 1971,  the same year that I started watching Ipswich Town, and I  soon began to feel that footie and pop music were somehow inextricably linked. The late Sixties and early Seventies was a time when it was easy to confuse footballers with pop stars and my two worlds satisfyingly collided.  The fashion for any bloke who aspired to being hip and trendy was an enormous thatch of hair coupled with equally vast sideburns.  Squeezed into a pair of bollock-hugging, crushed-velvet flairs and sporting a deafeningly loud shirt,  Ian Collard or Rod Belfitt might have been members of The Hollies, or Kevin Beattie a member of Nazareth.

The similarities in the appearance of pop stars and footballers subsided a bit as the Seventies wore on and sadly, sartorially Punk Rock never seemed to catch on with any footballers at all.  There were however still some startling lookalikes within the ranks of the PFA, I thought.  It could have just been my addled perception, but I always felt that Arsenal’s Frank Stapleton and Shakin’ Stevens were the same bloke.  Moving on into the 1980’s the separation at birth of Oldham Athletic’s Andy Ritchie and Jimmy Somerville was ‘well documented’ at the time, but less well-known is the fact that Roy Keane and Sinead O’Connor were also twins.

More amazing than these superficial similarities, which admittedly are largely the invention of my fevered imagination, is the very precise correlation between the success of one particular football club during the 1970’s and early 1980’s and a particular pop group.  Both were at their peak between 1973 and 1982. The football club of course was Ipswich Town and the pop group was Abba.

If you take time to trawl through the collected works of the famous Swedish songsters, as Dave Allard might have called them, you will not only enjoy a richly rewarding aural experience, but you will soon reach the conclusion that the fact that Town and Abba were both at the peak of their powers over precisely the same period of time is no coincidence.   Listen carefully to the lyrics and you will be able to trace the history of the Town’s success through that glorious era.  You will find that listening to Abba Gold (Greatest Hits) is as close to a religious experience as you can hope to get;  something akin to an Ipswich Town Dreamtime, harking back to an epoch when Portman Road was inhabited by ancestral figures of heroic proportions who possessed supernatural powers.   In the film Muriel’s Wedding the eponymous Muriel says that Abba’s songs are better than real life.  Now, as we sit in the murky depths of the third division and look back at Town’s glorious past you too will believe this is true.

As you might expect from Europe’s foremost supergroup many of the songs make reference to Town’s European campaigns of that era in the UEFA and European Cup Winners’ cups.  It is likely that it was through Town’s exploits on the continent that the talented Swedes first became Town supporters, although we were actually only drawn against Swedish opposition  once when in 1977 we met Landskrona Bois and most inconveniently The Stranglers played the Ipswich Gaumont on the very same night as the home leg.  Naturally, I missed The Stranglers concert and sadly never got a second opportunity to see them.    There is clearly a reference to Town’s UEFA Cup triumph over Lazio in the title of the number one hit ‘Mamma Mia!’, a song which also contains a lyric that suggests one of Abba had perhaps had a brief flirtation with a Town player or supporter and may explain the uncanny connection between Abba and the mighty Blues;

“Yes, I’ve been broken hearted, Blue since the day we parted.”

The moving ballad ‘Fernando’ is sung to an imaginary Spanish fan and recalls those sultry September and cooler autumn evenings when we entertained Iberian opposition from Real Madrid, Las Palmas and Barcelona.

“There was something in the air that night, the stars were bright, Fernando….

Though we never thought that we could lose, there’s no regrets. If I had to do the same again I would, my friend Fernando”

That last line referred to the fact that Town were twice drawn to play Barcelona, whilst the line  before that refers to our having lost both ties despite being confident after winning the first leg.  Another song, ‘Super Trouper’, whilst still referencing games played under floodlight, perhaps because of the lack of daylight hours in Sweden during the English football season, refers to an individual player and employs little-known Swedish rhyming slang in a thinly disguised paean to goalkeeper Paul Cooper.

“Super Trouper lights are gonna find me shining like the sun, Smiling having fun feeling like a number one”

In the 1978 Abba hit “Take a chance on me”   the subtle Swedish Blues fans reveal the little known story of how Frans Thijssen successfully pleaded with Bobby Robson to let him join his compatriot Arnold Muhren at Portman Road and to try his luck in English football. 

“Honey I’m still free, take a chance on me. If you need me let me know and I’ll be around. Gonna do my very best and it ain’t no lie, if you put me to the test, if you let me try”.

Although those days were such wonderful times for Town, not every song described a happy or uplifting event.  There were sad days too at Portman Road back in the Seventies and hard decisions had to be made for the good of the team.  The 1977 ‘Number One’ hit ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ was about the departure of former Portman Road favourite David Johnson, the one-time ‘King of Portman Road’, who left Town to join rivals Liverpool.  In the song, the reflective Scouser looks back on the good times he has had at Portman Road since his move to Town from Everton four years earlier.

  “Memories, good days, bad days, they’ll be with me, always”. 

David appreciates however that his recent form has not been good and in the circumstances a move is the best thing for everyone.

  “Knowing me, knowing you, there is nothing we can do, we just have to face it this time we’re through; Breaking up is never easy I know but I had to go, Knowing me, knowing you it’s the best I could do”.

Back in the Seventies, money wasn’t the driving force in football that it is today.  Nevertheless, the spending power of clubs such as Manchester United, who were able to make expensive signings virtually every season despite being rubbish, rankled with Bobby Robson and he longed to be able to make big signings for Town.  Abba’s “Money, Money, Money” was a song about his frustration. 

“In my dreams I have a plan, if I got me a wealthy man…  “

”All the things I could do if I had a little money…”

“Money, money, money, always sunny in a rich man’s world”

Both ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ and ‘Money, Money, Money’ showed something of the downside of those glory years and as we look back on those days from the fag-end of the first quarter of the miserable twenty-first century a melancholy aura pervades our memories, in part because ultimately Town failed to win the League Championship that we deserved, but perhaps also because even at the time we knew it all had to end one day, and when Bobby Robson left to manage England in 1982 we secretly knew it had.  Abba knew it too and two of their hits put these feelings in to sharp perspective.  The haunting melody of ‘Winner takes it all’ explores the pain that looking back on the good times would bring; it begins:

 “I don’t want to talk about things we’ve gone through, though it’s hurting me now it’s history”

Abba’s last big hit ‘Thank you for the music’ is sung from the perspective of our legendary club captain Mick Mills who reminisces, having regretfully left Town for Southampton, about the joy and beauty of those days between 1973 and 1982.  If you’ve listened to the slightly dull monotone of Mick’s summaries as he sits alongside commentator Brenner Woolley on BBC Radio Suffolk, you will appreciate the opening lines to this song; 

“I’m nothing special in fact I’m a bit of a bore, If I tell a joke, you’ve probably heard it before…”

But Mick’s talent was as full-back and captain of the greatest Ipswich Town side ever and this was the ‘music’ referred to in the title of this most moving of Abba songs.  This was a song from the heart of ‘Mr Ipswich Town’, Mick Mills, and it is truly uncanny how Mick with his blond locks and luxurious facial hair even looks like a bit like a composite of Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Anderson the song’s composers.  This song is the ultimate celebration of those ten seasons at the top in which Mick thanks fate for the glorious hand he was dealt.

“I’ve been so lucky, I am the girl with golden hair

I want to sing it out to everybody

What a joy, what a life, what a chance

So I say Thank You for the music

The songs I’m singing

Thank you for the joy they’re bringing…”

The songs of Abba define and encapsulate a golden period in the story of the twentieth century and the time before Thatcherism and neo-liberalism destroyed your innocence.  Abba’s songs, their success and the glory of Ipswich Town, the nicest professional football club the world had ever known did not happen together by coincidence.  The proof is in the lyrics of the songs, and shows that cosmic forces were at work.  Those of us who lived through the 1970’s were truly blessed to have experienced the music of Abba as it happened, but we are doubly blessed to have been Ipswich Town supporters too.

Thank you for the music Bobby Robson and Mick and all the lads who played for us between 1973 and 1982 , and thank you for the music Agnetha Faltskog, Benny Anderson, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Anni-Frid Lyngstad.

Ipswich Town 0 Hull City 3

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

A surfeit of snow last Saturday week resulted in a rare postponement at Portman Road and now the joy that emanated from the relief of not having to go out on a grey, cold, icy afternoon is re-doubled as we reap the benefit of the inevitable mid-week match under floodlights.
On the basis that yes, it is possible to go to the pub too soon, I play the unaccustomed role of thrusting career man by working until five o’clock, but then walk directly to St Jude’s Tavern along with my accomplice for the first part of the evening, Roly. It feels odd that it’s still light, but that’s the wonder of the Earth’s rotation on its tilted access around the sun for you. In Sir Alf Ramsey Way a white van disgorges its load of transparent, polythene, East Anglian Daily Times ‘goodie-bags’ onto the pavement behind the North 40813963291_4cdf1f5084_o(Sir Bobby Robson) Stand and a few stewards stand about and chat before entering the ground. I wave to a moustachioed man called Michael who is hanging about in a blue Ipswich Town jacket by one of the burger vans on the Portman Road car park.
At St Jude’s Roly and I quickly decide to enjoy a pint on its own before moving onto a pie and a pint. We each choose the Match Day Special (£2.50) and before we have finished our pints Phil the ever present fan who never misses a game walks in carrying a bag of chips. Phil asks me to hold his chips while he asks at the bar if they feel comfortable with him consuming food purchased off the premises; they do and thanks to this grown-up, relaxed and progressive attitude he is able to join us with a half a pint of something about which I don’t know the detail. We talk football but also, in an homage to ‘What’s My Line’, of our respective employment and Phil reveals that he once worked at a music venue where he ‘roadied’ for Iggy Pop. He did the same for other recording artists apparently but having heard him mention Iggy Pop, I wasn’t paying attention after that. I soon return to the bar to arrange pies and pints (£5 for one of each); the last Steak & Kidney pie in the fridge for Roly and Chicken and Mushroom for me. I choose Elgood’s Cambridge for my pint whilst Roly remains faithful to the Match Day Special.
St Jude’s is filling up with bands of middle aged blokes heading for the match, but determined to at least get some enjoyment from the evening by drinking some good beer first. Chips, pies and pints savoured, Phil and Roly then each imbibe a half of Nethergate Priory Mild whilst I enjoy a full pint (£3.20) because I am going home by public transport and can drink as much beer as I like. Phil leaves for the game before Roly and I and before we in turn leave I speak to a cap-wearing, bearded man called Kevin, who I know from our shared experience of Wivenhoe Town. Kevin has come to St Jude’s after reading about it in this blog. Roly and I are leaving earlier than I would wish because he wants a ‘goodie bag’, or at least the packet of crisps it contains.
The walk to the match is as ever brisk and full of anticipation as the glow of the floodlights draws us down Portman Road like moths to a flame. As we pass the end of Great Gipping street I catch a glimpse of an upright lady gliding past on her black, Dutch, Azor bicycle, her dark curls buffeted by the breeze. “Gail!” I call and she stops. It’s my friend and former colleague who I have correctly identified as Gail, riding home from work. She’s late because her train was. I admire her red leather gloves and am impressed that she has negotiated the Portman Road crowds on her splendid black bicycle. We kiss one another on the cheek like the sophisticated Europeans that we are, no Brexit for us, and exchange all too brief words before carrying on our respective ways. Under the far-off gaze of Sir Alf Ramsey’s statue Roly and I part company as he heads for the East of England Co-operative stand to take up his ‘posh’ seat, which is more suited to Waitrose than the Co-op.


I breathe in the smells of bacon, chips and onions and move on down gently-lit Portman Road to the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand, which is forever Churchmans. It seems the club has not opened all the turnstiles tonight and so I join a queue and remember what it was to go to a ’big match’ in the days of terraces. Inside the ground the strains of ‘My Way’ are reaching their conclusion; played in honour of Sir Bobby Robson whose favourite song it was, but poignantly and probably unknowingly tonight in honour of the man who wrote it. Cabaret singer Claude Francois or ‘Clo-Clo’ as he was popularly known in his native France, died forty years ago this weekend just gone. A nasty little man by many accounts, but beloved by thousands of middle-aged French women, he died in mysterious circumstances when he stood up in a hotel bath to correct a flickering light bulb. In France the fortieth anniversary of his death is front page news.
The game begins with tonight’s opponents Hull City, in their customary tiger suits of amber and black striped shirts with black shorts kicking towards the Sir Bobby Robson (North) Stand, but Ipswich get first go with the ball and start the game quite well. Within the first ten minutes Town win a corner and a header from Jordan Spence strikes a post. But Hull respond with shots at goal of their own and Bartosz Bialkowski makes a couple of neat saves. A drum is drummed in the North Stand and a chant chanted. Hull supporters make equivalent sounds. The man in the aged couple behind me says “That’s three shots their had”. “Yes” says his partner. “We never have one do we”. His partner doesn’t respond, hopefully she remembers the header against the post, although strictly speaking I suppose that wasn’t a shot.
I dare to think things aren’t that bad, but then a free-kick is passed to a Norwegian man called Markus Henriksen, who like the villain in some Scandi-noir stabs Town fans’ hearts with a right footed shot past big Bart’. I look to the bench expecting to see Mick McCarthy holding his head like the isolated figure in Edvard Munch’s The Scream. I’d been hoping for a third consecutive goalless draw, and now this. I rally and chant on my own whilst every other Town fan recedes into their customary introspective gloom. Twenty-three minutes have passed and the visiting supporters, of whom there are 290, advise the home supporters that “Your support is fucking shit” as the familiar Welsh hymn goes. They are of course right and I imagine Mick McCarthy would respect their bluntness; no pussyfooting about asking if this is a library. But they know all about libraries in Hull, or Philip Larkin did.
Freddie Sears and Grant Ward dash down the right and cross the ball to an invisible force, which fails to score. Meanwhile down the left not so much happens; Town’s nicely named left-back Jonas Knudsen may be in the Danish international squad, but I can’t be optimistic about a player nicknamed ‘Mad Dog’; less marauding Viking and more appreciation of Soren Kierkegaard and hygge is what’s needed.
Forty minutes pass; referee Mr Jeremy Simpson, the least amusing of Matt Groening’s characters, fails to spot the ball ricochet off a Hull player for a corner to Ipswich and instead play heads north at the feet of the Tigers and a low cross is turned into Ipswich goal net by a young lad by the name of Harry Wilson. Wilson is a player crying out to be managed by the late, great Brian Clough who would doubtless have referred to him as Harold Wilson. The 0-2 score line is enough for some in the North Stand to brush off their copies of The Beachboys’ Pet Sounds and sing along to Track 7 letting Mick McCarthy know that his “…football is shit”. Half-time comes and the expected booing ensues.
In common with the theme for the whole evening, there is no entertainment at half-time. I flick through the glossy but dull programme. Scanning club captain Luke Chamber’s column I see a headline “There is not enough communication and people approaching you to discuss your options. There is no help with planning going forward”. That’s an unusually frank and honest assessment I think, imagining he’s talking about playing for Town; it turns out however that he’s writing about the lack of help and advice the Professional Footballers Association gives to players towards the ends of their careers. Or so he says.


The game begins again and within two minutes Hull City are winning 3-0 as someone called Jarrod Bowen kicks the ball between Bialkowski and his near post. Once again the North Stand let Mick McCarthy know about his stinky football, which seems a bit harsh because I doubt he told the players to just let anyone in a stripey shirt run past them and score, which is what they actually did. But at least the Hull supporters are happy and they ask if they can play us every week; which is nice.
The game is effectively over now and Hull are happy to allow Ipswich to endlessly pass the ball about between themselves, as long as they don’t kick it at their goal, and that is largely what happens. As the ball nears the Hull penalty area someone shouts “Shoot”. The old boy behind me responds “They don’t know the meanin’ of the word” whilst his partner reflects “I reckon that’s all they do up Humber Doucy Lane, keep passing the ball to one another”. Some spectators make their own entertainment, cheering sarcastically with each pass but largely the atmosphere is morose. The chill night air further deadens all feeling and for a few moments I lose myself in the heady smell of the damp turf. Two of the Hull players sport pony tails, which is a bit dated, another is balding and with his bushy beard looks like a member of the Russian royal family or King George V. The Buddleia still grows in the roof of the stand. The attendance is announced as a palindromic 13,031. Just after a quarter past nine Freddie Sears manages a shot, which isn’t very far wide of the goal and draws some applause. When Hull’s Will Keane runs largely unopposed through the defence and forces Bialkowski into a save a ripple of unrest passes through the East of England Co-op stand like a shiver. The old folks behind me leave and there are still eight minutes left of normal time; he says something about watching paint dry.
The final minutes have a slightly new soundtrack as the North Stand sing “Get out of our club, Get out of club, Mick McCarthy, Get out of our club” naturally to that tune for all occasions, Sloop John B. I don’t fully understand why, but in my head I’m singing “If you want a lot of chocolate on your biscuit join our Club”.
Jeremy Simpson is a kind man, irrespective of his poor eyesight and only three minutes of added time are joined on to the usual ninety; once these have expired I am quick to turn and leave, closing my ears to the boos and the wailing and gnashing of teeth. It’s only a game after all and I’m pleased for Hull; any city that can boast an association with William Wilberforce, Phillip Larkin and Mick Ronson deserves the odd 3-0 away win.