Portman Road

World Cup 1 Ipswich 0

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Oh how I love the World Cup. For a month every four years football is somehow reinvented; transformed into something more magical, intriguing, strange and joyous and I just want to wallow in it.

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The World Cup is not just sixty-four football matches in a month on the telly; for the first two weeks it’s thrice daily football on the telly and this year on the first Saturday there were four matches to watch in one day. But it’s not just the overdose of football that excites, we’re not exactly short of televised football anymore; what makes the World Cup so different, so much better is that it’s a celebration and it’s all so exotic. It’s not the same-old boring diet of Premier League and Champions League that gluts the airwaves the rest of the year, with the same boring, conceited, miserable clubs playing each other over and over and over again. Some of the players are the same, but lots of them aren’t and for a month they are released from prostituting themselves for filthy TV money and they play for something higher, for the glory (okay, there have been a few exceptions, step forward Togo2006 for example).
Just the idea of Japan v Senegal, Serbia v Cost Rica, Iran v Spain, Panama v Belgium, Australia v Peru and Iceland v Argentina is thrilling; such diversity of geography , weather, indigenous wildlife, people and culture is mind boggling and it’s all united for a month by football and a desire to hear each country’s national anthem at least three times, and of course the national anthems are marvellous. The South American countries have anthems that are like mini-symphonies with an overture and then what follows is so grand and so passionate. Then there is the wonderful Russian national anthem and of course the Marseillaise, in my opinion the finest of all national anthems. If you are ever

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in Marseille then I can thoroughly recommend the

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museum in Rue des Arts which is devoted to the Marseillaise and its history. As the anthems play we get to see the supporters in the stand, many in fancy dress or national costume, singing and holding on to the moment.
On the pitch there are players of different creeds and cultures representing those creeds and cultures that define their country, and whilst those things are beautiful and fascinating and really matter, and each team is driven by national pride and the essence of what identifies them as a nation, at the same time these things do not matter because the World Cup is actually all about the football; football is the common language and it unites. So whilst we cannot help but be aware of all this diversity of race, beliefs, attitudes, cultures and national anthems which matter to individuals from each country, at the same time we can ignore it and get on with just playing football. This is how not being racist really works, being aware of race and respecting it but simultaneously paying no attention to it at all, so that you don’t actually notice what race a person is; we are all just people.
Enthused by the melting pot that is the World Cup therefore, when I saw a Tweet from Ipswich Town saying that the fanzone would be open for people to watch England World Cup matches on a big screen I re-Tweeted it with this comment:
“Here’s an idea, what about showing Poland’s games and Portugal’s games in the fanzone too? Not everyone in Ipswich supports England. In fact, why not show every game?”
It wasn’t long before someone Tweeted a two word response; “Terrible idea” they Tweeted, which I thought was rather rude and a bit arrogant. If you want to disagree at least explain why. A polite person would surely have begun their Tweet with “Sorry, but I do not agree that that is a good idea, for the following reasons…” Foolishly rising to the bait, I replied to the rude tweet asking in an innocent and curious tone “Why’s that then?”. The ‘answer’ to my question was soon Tweeted, although it wasn’t really an answer but rather an unnecessary question, which suggested that the other Tweeter hadn’t really read and understood my initial Tweet properly; his question was “Where would it stop?”. I replied that it wouldn’t and that the whole of the World Cup could be shown. A further reply was soon forthcoming, once again in the form of a question, but with a couple of statements at the end.
“You want the whole of the World Cup shown in a fan zone, in a sleepy suffolk town. Columbia vs Japan? Azerbaijan vs Kazakhstan? There’s just no market for it Martin.” There were plenty of things wrong with this response beyond the absence of a capital ‘S’ in Suffolk and the mis-spelling of Colombia I thought, but the final sentence of this Tweet sent this exchange of tweets hurtling into the abyss with what I can only describe as the ‘punchline’; “Lets not forget brexit means brexit” it read. Despite the missing apostrophe I was particularly amused by the use of the words “Lets not forget… ”, but nevertheless, the overall effect on me was one of disappointment and incredulity. What was this bloke on about?
I didn’t reply to the Tweet because of the whiff of xenophobic nutcase that it had released. I had however desperately wanted to reply so that I could point out that neither Azerbaijan nor Kazakhstan are in the World Cup finals, that the Tweeter had seemingly confused Ipswich with Wickham Market or Eye (sleepy Suffolk Town?) and to ask for the evidence that there was no market for showing all of the World Cup in the Portman Road fan zone. But of course mostly I wanted to know what the heck the World Cup, Colombia, Japan, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan had to do with ‘Brexit’. In fact what does anything have to do with ‘Brexit’, a composite word for something that doesn’t exist and which to date no one can define.

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At the very beginning of Simon Critchley’s book “What we think about when we think about football” he quotes nineteenth century American philosopher William James who wrote “I am sorry for the boy or girl, man or woman who has not been touched by the spell of this mysterious sensorial life…with its supreme felicity”. I know exactly what William James meant. It is so sad that people have such a blinkered, joyless perception of the world around them, that their worlds are so closed. I hope that the Tweeter I have quoted was the exception and not indicative of the general opinion of Ipswich Town fans, but later two other Tweeters ‘liked’ the “Terrible Idea“ response to my initial Tweet and I died a little inside.
But I’m alright again now, for the time being, until August when Championship football comes home to Portman Road once again.

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Ipswich Town 1 Arsenal 0 – Our Blue Heaven

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s Saturday May 6th 1978, I will be eighteen in about seven weeks’ time and today I am going to the FA Cup final. I am going with my dad; we were two of the 24,207 who saw Town beat Hartlepool United in the fourth round of the FA Cup and the 29,532 who witnessed the 3-0 win in the fifth round replay against Bristol Rovers; we went to the semi-final at Highbury on a supporters’ coach from Shotley. We saw Landskrona Bois, Las Palmas and Barcelona at Portman Road back in the autumn and have seen about a dozen league games on top of that, so we had the requisite vouchers to get tickets for the final. But this morning my father has woken up feeling unwell; he doesn’t think he’ll be up to going to Wembley and so for my friend Tim who lives five doors away, it’s his lucky day. I walk along the street, knock on his front door and ask if he wants to come to the FA Cup final; he does. Tim’s dad Charlie will this evening deliver a bottle of sherry by way of a thank you.
I listen to a few selected tracks from Blondie’s first album ‘Blondie’ (released in December 1976 )as I get ready to go; ‘Look good in Blue’ seems apposite this bright morning as does ‘In the sun’ with its lyric “In the sun , we’re gonna have some fun”. We get to Ipswich railway station somehow; on the 202 bus, or does someone give us a lift? Ticket to WembleyFrom Ipswich we are on a special chartered train that turns right at Stratford and plots a course through north London round to Wembley Central. In Wembley Stadium the terrace steps at the tunnel end are much bigger and steeper than those in Churchman’s or in front of the East Stand, blue and white abounds. The sun shines and Arsenal, wearing yellow and blue, kick off with Ipswich playing towards that blue and white tunnel end. Paul Mariner hits the cross bar, John Wark twice shoots against a post, Pat Jennings saves acrobatically from George Burley, Paul Mariner misses, bigmouth Malcolm McDonald is rubbish, Clive Woods is brilliant, David Geddes crosses, Willie Young is a lumbering donkey, Roger Osborne scores, we cheer, we sing, Roger Osborne is substituted for Mick Lambert, Town win and Mick Mills lifts the FA Cup and turns to show it to us.
Back at Wembley Central railway station after the match a half-brick or a stone bounces off the window of our train as we wait to depart back to Ipswich. Arriving back in Ipswich, Tim and I celebrate with a couple of pints of Tolly Cobbold bitter in the Railway Tavern on Burrell Road as we wait for a lift home in Tim’s dad’s green Morris Minor 1000.

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Forty years and eighteen days later it’s a dank evening in Ipswich, I have been to work, visited my mum, parked up in Portman Road and arrived at the New Wolsey theatre, which didn’t exist in 1978, although there was repertory theatre in Tower Street. I am with my wife Paulene. My father has been dead for nine years, happily his cause of death was unrelated to his illness of 6th May 1978, he enjoyed almost 21 years of good health subsequent to that and made it to the UEFA Cup final second leg in Amsterdam. Tim now lives in Weymouth and oddly he still only gets to see the Town when I get him a ticket (this season we went to Brentford). The Railway Tavern has been demolished; the green Morris Minor was scrapped long ago. But the name of Ipswich Town is still inscribed on the plinth of the FA Cup.
My seat at the Wolsey theatre tonight is in the front row of the auditorium, my wife Paulene is sat in the row behind; she sat behind to give me more legroom. The production is so popular we couldn’t get two seats together. We are the first people in the auditorium, Paulene’s asthma means she needs time to acclimatise. I read the programme (£4) and think “Cup final prices”. The stage is just a metre in front of me, the ‘boards’ are under a green covering patterned to look like turf. At the back of the stage a pair of blue doors look like the doors at the back of the old North Stand, above them is a projection of the type of corrugated cladding also redolent of the old North Stand. But there was never a sign that said ‘Welcome to Portman Road’ back then, there isn’t now. Also part of the projection is the old Ipswich Town crest, the slightly imperfect yellow and blue one, which should be restored out of respect to the past and to John Gammage who won the competition to design a distinct crest for the club back in 1972.41429848635_33f2609053_o
I watch the ‘crowd’ as the auditorium fills up to the sounds of assorted 1970’s pop hits, nostalgic but mostly awful. The majority of people here seem to be my age or older, old enough to have witnessed the 1978 Cup final. A few people are sporting blue and white scarves; one man wears a bright red blazer as if he’s just got here from Butlins. In the front row are three young lads, pre-teens, one of them wears a parka which lends an unexpected layer of 1970’s authenticity. Paulene says she feels cold, I say if I’d known she was going to I would have brought a blue and white bobble hat for her.
The lights dim and tonight’s performance of ‘Our Blue Heaven’ begins with Blondie’s “Hanging on the telephone” played live as the soundtrack to a domestic scene in which a young couple, Mel and Scott arrange their wedding for Saturday 6th May 1978, and then the draw for the third round of the FA Cup is announced. I resist the temptation to put my hand up to point that Blondie’s Parallel Lines album, from which ‘Hanging on the telephone’ was taken as a single would not be released until September 1978. I am not really a pedant and whilst I may not always like it, I do understand the concept of artistic licence and have been known to use it myself; I deny all accusations that it was merely lying.
Mel’s sister Sue is a dedicated and faithful Town fan and from the start foresees that she will want to be at Wembley on May 6th. Meanwhile, in a parallel story Smudger and Ange are awaiting their first child, with Ange’s ‘expected date of confinement’ surprisingly enough being 6th May, although the nurse at the hospital, who happens to be Mel and Sue’s mum Sheila tells them that babies never arrive on time. Smudger is as committed a Town fan as Sue and is predictably torn between his love for the Town and supporting his wife.
The simple domesticity portrayed is all a bit ‘Play for Today’, particularly when it transpires that Mel and Sue’s dad Paul is a striking fireman, whilst Scott’s dad Brian is a Thatcherite policeman; and that just adds to the authenticity and feel that it is 1978. I am transported back in time on a wave of Nostalgia (from the Buzzcocks Love Bites album and like Blondie’s Parallel Lines, also not released until September 1978, but also sadly not in the show).
Scenes from the two families’ stories are spliced with Town’s progress through each round of the FA Cup introduced by popular songs of the time, Bowie’s ‘Heroes’, Patti Smith’s ‘Because the night’, something or other by the Bee Gees. For the sixth round trip to Millwall the band plays the Clash’s London Calling, at which point I really do want to put my hand up because the Clash’s album was not released until December1979, a whole 20 months later. I only hold back when London Calling runs into White Riot, which is much more temporally authentic having been released as a single in March 1977, and a cracking tune to boot.
For each match a group of male and female dancers act out the crucial on-pitch events to the background of the songs and a BBC radio style commentary. My friend Gary texted me before the performance to tell me there was just one thing he did not like about the production and later he will tell me that it was the football sequences. Re-creating football well is notoriously difficult to do, as proven by awful films such as Yesterday’s Hero, in which incidentally the football sequences were filmed at half-time during a game at Portman Road; this is why I don’t consider that the director really bothered to do so. The dancers don’t look like footballers and they are only dancing, creating an impression through movement; they could have been supporters recreating the goals, children doing so in the school playground, and that is authentic. So Gary, you are wrong and need to brush up on your critiquing skills.
The intertwined stories of the families and the FA Cup run are good ones, there is drama, pathos, human emotion aplenty, humour and of course a happy ending. But the thread that runs through the production is the character of Bobby Robson who intermittently comes on to the stage like some sort of visiting angel wearing a series of 1970’s style suits and coats, imparting words of wisdom and assorted homilies about football and the wider experience of our lives beyond. As if this isn’t enough, the actor playing him, Peter Peverley does so brilliantly, better even than Michael Sheen’s rendering of Brian Clough in The Damned United. Peverley has the accent which is easy enough, and he has perfected the mannerisms too, but more than that he has captured the slight hoarseness in the voice, it’s almost uncanny. He wears a pretty bad wig though.
The finale to the production has the marriage, the birth and the FA Cup final taking place on stage simultaneously following the singing of Abide With Me, the Cup final hymn since 1927; a maudlin little number but a cracker nevertheless because it is the Cup final hymn and has been marinated in 90 years of Cup final history. Being sat right at the front, my view is now partly obscured by some of the on stage props, so I watch the audience. People who know the words sing along with Abide With Me, whilst others hold their scarves aloft. It is likely that many of the people here, like me were at the Cup final in May 1978 and are part of the story, but this makes people feel involved all over again, it’s nostalgia with knobs on, re-enacting the past, albeit part fictional, but this is somehow how it felt.
The story ends and it truly feels like Town have won the FA Cup all over again, and then Roger Osborne, the personification of the day because he scored the winning goal enters the stage, inevitably to a standing ovation. The ultimate finale however, comes with the cast all assembled on stage with Bobby Robson leading us in a sing-song, some Cup final community singing of our own; a rousing rendition of Edward Ebenezer Jeremiah Brown. It’s bloody marvellous and everything that matches at Portman Road no longer seem to be, utterly joyous. I give it my all.
I have had a most marvellous evening and for much of it I am not ashamed to admit I have had a tear in my eye. I have been taken back in time, but don’t know if I’m tearful for my lost youth and the passing of the days when Ipswich Town was such a wonderful football club and team, and when the FA Cup was something that really mattered, or if these are tears of joy and happiness, for a love of my team and a sense of belonging that has been re-kindled.
Nostalgia is warm and cosy, but it’s not a healthy thing, because we cannot go back and we have to live in the present; but tonight after watching Our Blue Heaven I genuinely feel uplifted.
My name is Edward Ebenezer Jeremiah Brown
I’m a football supporter of Ipswich Town
Wherever they play, you’ll find me
I haven’t missed a game since I was three
With me scarf and me rattle and me big rosette
Singing where was the goalie when the ball went in the net
Follow the Town
Up or Down
I’m Edward Ebenezer Jeremiah Brown but everybody calls me Ted.

Football, Football,
Whose the greatest of them all,
Let’s put it to the test
Come to Portman Road on a Saturday and you’ll see the best
Oi!
Ipswich! Ipswich! Come On The Town!
Ipswich! Ipswich! Come On The Town!

My name is Edward Ebenezer Jeremiah Brown
I’m a football supporter of Ipswich Town
Wherever they play, you’ll find me
I haven’t missed a game since I was three
With me scarf and me rattle and me big rosette
Singing where was the goalie when the ball went in the net
Follow the Town
Up or Down
I’m Edward Ebenezer Jeremiah Brown but everybody calls me Ted.

2-4-6-8 who de we appreciate?
It isn’t hard to tell
Just you take a closer look at me
And you’ll know darn well
Oi
Ipswich! Ipswich! Come On The Town!
Ipswich! Ipswich! Come On The Town!

La la la
La lala la lala lalala
Lala lalala la lala lalala
La lalala lalala, and lots more lalalaing, you get the picture ?

 

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Ipswich Town 2 Middlesbrough 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It is Sunday, the day of rest when traditionally, indigenous western Europeans would go to OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAChristian church services, but nowadays most people just generally laze about if they can and nurse their hangovers. It is wrong therefore that I have to keep looking at the clock in order to be sure I shower and breakfast before twenty to eleven when I will need to catch the train to Ipswich for the final match of the season. Curse the Football League and Sky television and their ridiculous 12:30 kick off, something that could never happen in a civilised country like France where lunch is important. Other than tired, I cannot imagine how Middlesbrough supporters must feel having to travel the best part of three hundred miles to get here from Teesside.
The 10:55 train is on time and generously peopled with Ipswich Town supporters. I sit down on the end of a row of three seats; a sinewy bald man wearing last season’s Town shirt is at the other end; he moves his rucksack off the middle seat as I sit down; he reads a Sunday supplement and then The Economist. Nerd. A gregarious elderly man from Witham gets on at Colchester and walks down the train. He sees the blue shirts and asks “Any true Blues here?” He receives a few grunted acknowledgements “Haha, well done!” he says and then sits down. Seeing a lad in a Town shirt on the next set of seats he gets up again and asks “How far have you come for the match today then?” The boy answers “Braintree.” The old man laughs. “Ha, ha Braintree!” he says “ ‘orrible sodding place isn’t it? ”
It is a glorious sunny day and in Ipswich Middlesbrough supporters are gathered in the

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beer garden of the Station Hotel, a pub which will miss the football season and the regular visitations from people from other towns and cities intent on enjoying a day out. Portman Road is busy, the turnstiles are open, I buy a programme (£3) and consider that people will eat burgers at any time of day. Up on St Matthews Street St Jude’s Tavern is not very busy. I purchase a pint of the Match Day Special, which today is St.Jude’s St Clements (£2.50) a light beer with a hint of a tang of orange citrus; ideal on a hot day like today. A man speaks to me who seems to know me, I have no idea who he is, he even sits at the table where I am sat. I am soon also joined by Ollie however, a much younger man and work colleague. I have a ticket for Ollie which he has purchased from Roly for a knock down price of a tenner, because Roly has a fortieth birthday bash to attend on the Norfolk Broads. Ollie offers to buy me another drink, but I decline. Ollie has a pint of the match day special too.
At about five past twelve we head for Portman Road bidding farewell to the jolly landlord who wishes us “Bon match” except in English. I enter the stadium to the strains of “Living on a prayer” by Bon Jovi, a depressing song, both because it is awful and because it recalls 1986 the year Ipswich Town were relegated from the first division and the long decline began. My first port of call is the toilet where, with a bloke stood at either end of the urinal a third man annoys me by standing in the middle with no room either side of him.
Having recovered my composure I take to a seat a row or two in front of Pat from Clacton and next to ever-present Phil, who hasn’t missed a game in 30 years and his son Elwood. The teams aren’t out yet but a guard of honour of youngsters with flags lines the

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way from the players’ tunnel. Crazee the mascot is heroically waving a much larger flag, a bit like Liberty Leading the People in Delacroix’s painting depicting the revolution of 1830, although I doubt many other people think so and Crazee hasn’t bared his breasts either. A woman at the front of the stand wearing a strapless top which looks like it has been partly torn off her could possibly fill in at any moment, if required.
Rapture and applause for the conquering heroes of Reading out of the way the game begins. Town kick off in their customary blue and white towards me and the other occupants of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand. I am pleased to see the ‘Boro not opting to wear some superfluous away kit, but instead adorned with their traditional all red kit with a white band across the chest, like back in the 1970’s. I am reminded of Jack Charlton and the Middlesbrough team that had one of the greatest collection of surnames of any team ever: Platt, Craggs, Boam, Spraggon, Foggon, Brine and Woof. Today the white band bears the name of the shirt sponsor, something called ‘Ramsden Currency’. I thought Ramsden’s was a Fish & Chips franchise but they seem to have diversified into banking, hence the expression ‘cheap as chips’ I guess. Seeing as they’re from the northeast it’s probably something to do with pay day loans.
Portman Road is unusually noisy, due in part to over 1,800 Smog Monsters, as the

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inhabitants of Middlesbrough are sometimes unkindly known, although a diet of ‘Parmos’ doesn’t do them a lot of favours. But Ipswich fans in the Sir Bobby Robson stand are in reasonable voice and the drum in the corner is being beaten enthusiastically. It helps that Town start the game like a team on a mission to win, which I guess they are. For the first ten minutes Ipswich dominate and then Freddie Sears scores a searing goal, winning the ball wide on the right before advancing and making the ball disappear before making it reappear as it hits the back of the net.
The goal perhaps changes matters and Middlesbrough begin to keep the ball to themselves to prevent such a thing happening again. It’s not long before the ‘Boro fans are borrowing a Pet Shop Boys tune to complain to the Ipswich fans that despite their team winning they are still not singing. It’s a fair cop. Then Town’s Cole Skuse collapses Britt Assambalonga in full flight and is booked by referee Mr Coote, who sadly has a full head of hair. There is a lot of hair on display today with the ‘Boro’s Ryan Shotton sporting tied-back tinted dreadlocks which resemble a trussed up Tarantula. Adam Clayton’s tiny top notch, a sort of My Little Ponytail looks pathetic in comparison, but clearly the barbers of Teesside are doing alright off the back or head of the football club. This is why a successful football teams is said to be so good for the local economy.
In the Sir Bobby Robson stand Town fans turn “Oh when the saints going marching in ” into a dreadful dirge as if predicting Southampton’s relegation. The song subsides and with a half an hour gone the Boro fans are asking if this is a library and where the nineteenth century American literature might be found. They go on to advise that Town fans “Only sing when you’re farming” before asking the whereabouts of our combine harvesters, immediately giving away their ignorance of the farming year and the fact that no one much has their own combine harvester anymore. It’s five past one and time for a drinks break. The old couple behind me moan and groan as if this is some terrible affront to them. It wasn’t like this in their day, dehydration was a fact of life and you had to get on with it, like you did with diphtheria and fatal industrial accidents.
Thirty nine minutes pass before the Boro fans decide they cannot take it any longer and get out their Welsh hymnals and sing that “Your support is, your support is, your support is fucking shit”. I enjoy the sense of anticipation created by the repetition of the first line. Half –time arrives and Ipswich are still winning 1-0 although defending has had to become their playing style of choice. I speak with Ray and his wife Ros who is making her annual visit or pilgrimage to Portman Road. I check on the buddleia on the roof of the stand; it’s still there and doing well but it’s too high up to see any butterflies. It is forty years ago today that Ipswich Town won the FA Cup and as a half-time treat five

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blokes in their sixties, who it turns out are members of that winning team are paraded onto the pitch with an FA Cup (there’s more than one apparently). They remain by the dugouts and a bloke with a mike asks some dull questions, before they are lead away. It would have been better if they could have been driven around the pitch in some sort of football version of a “pope-mobile” to take the applause from each stand in turn.
The second half sees Ipswich defend more and more, and more desperately, with shot after shot being blocked. Middlesbrough are much the better team in terms of being able to pass to each other and take shots on goal. Too often Ipswich hit the ball with more hope than subtlety or careful weighting so that it finds another Ipswich player. There is a skills gap, but as time rolls on it looks like it might be Town’s lucky day; but then it turns out not to be as following a corner Stewart Downing takes a shot from the edge of the penalty area and miraculously it doesn’t hit anyone or anything between Downing’s boot and the goal net.
Seventy-five minutes have passed and it’s time for another drinks break. “Ohhhh, what the heck is goin’ on?” says an angry old voice “What a load of ….” but he trails off unable to think of a word for what it is a load of. Despite having already been introduced to the OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAconcept of the drinks break in the first half, the old folks’ understanding and acceptance has not improved. They must be quite mean spirited to want to deny a drink to people who have been running several miles on a hot sunny day. Health professionals tells us that old people do not drink enough and it would seem they don’t want other people to drink either.
Perhaps reinvigorated by the drinks break, Ipswich begin to attack again with seven minutes of the match remaining earn a penalty, which Martyn Waghorn makes into a goal and Ipswich are once again winning. There are no complaints about the lack of support now as Ipswich fans nervously urge their team to hold out against the Boro’ who set up tents around the edge of the Ipswich penalty area. The Ipswich cross bar is smote and Daniel Ayala, a former Norwich player heads the re-bounding ball into the net, but is delightfully deemed offside. Ayala does not accept the decision gracefully, which only adds to the fun.
The game enters uncharted amounts of time added on, probably because of those pesky drinks breaks, and thirteen minutes after Waghorn’s penalty a Middlesbrough corner is headed ‘home’ by Patrick Bamford, an oddly upper class looking player who could be up for the weekend from Eton or Harrow.
Isn’t it a pity, isn’t it a shame? Yes, but the final whistle now blows and the news is that Norwich have been thrashed 5-1 by Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich have therefore finished above Norwich in the final league table and so all’s well that ends well etcetera. It has been an exciting match which Middlesbrough should have won but Ipswich could have won and that seems enough at the moment to make some Town fans optimistic, but it’s probably just the sunshine.

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Felixstowe & Walton United 2 Coggeshall Town 4

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It’s rare that I finish work and take a trip to the seaside but this evening, having ‘logged out’ and put away the tools of my trade for another day, I find myself heading for the 16:58 from Ipswich stopping at all stations to Felixstowe, which means Westerfield, Derby Road and Trimley St Mary. It’s a bright, breezy evening as the single carriage box on rails roars into life and departs the platform ten seconds early. The frantic diesel engine growls and then subsides as if the driver is searching through a crash gearbox and struggling to double de-clutch. We pass over the bridges of Bramford Road and Norwich Road and I look along those streets to down town Ipswich with its chunky, if not gleaming towers and the Portman Road football ground, which looks massive beyond the low, humble rooftops of Ipswich’s residential streets. On a bright Spring evening Ipswich shows off its trees; it’s a fine town.
The train is fairly full of people heading home from work. Opposite me a simian looking man in a grey anorak; behind him a tall man with a crew cut wearing a red Adidas tracksuit top; he looks like a Russian cosmonaut. On the other side of the train to him is a luxuriantly bearded man with long hair hanging over bristly temples, he is wearing an infantile coat decorated with a gaudy cartoon character; the woman with him could surely do better than that. “Hello Mum, how are you doin?” says another man answering his mobile phone. The cheery conductor asks to see my ticket (£3.05 for a single with a Goldcard) and scribbles on it in biro. He hasn’t singled me out, he looks at other people’s tickets too. I only bought a single because it is impossible to get back from Felixstowe to most intermediate stations between Colchester and London after 9.25pm. I shall be cadging a lift home with two Coggeshall regulars Keith and Jim.
The journey takes about 25 minutes and is well worth the £3.05 fare, with its tour of the cuttings, embankments, bridges and viaduct of Ipswich and then the open countryside towards Trimley with its glimpses of the tops of dockside cranes. The track runs parallel to the road for some way and as we hurtle along and overtake a bus I am reminded of the Titfield Thunderbolt; Greater Anglia should have a bar on this commuter run.


Felixstowe station has a beautiful canopy and concourse which are Grade II listed, it’s just a shame a the platform is now divided in two by a surface car park. The fate of the railway station is that of Felixstowe in microcosm, one of faded, compromised Edwardian grace and occasional grandeur. Felixstowe could be posh like Southwold and Frinton and in places it is, but it has an unfortunate underbelly like most of divided Britain; on Hamilton Road a man sits on a bench wrapped in a sleeping bag. I do a spot of sightseeing, walking down to the cliff top get a glimpse of the sea and then back along Grosvenor Road, stopping off for a pint of Sharp’s Doom Bar (£3.35) in the Grosvenor Arms, a typical Greene King pub, weirdly decorated like a cross between an hotel lounge and a small town museum.

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It’s just gone six o’clock and I amble back towards the railway station and cross over the road into Beatrice Avenue, a clichéd, leafy, suburban street of detached houses with Tudorbethan gables. I half expect to see a Reggie Perrin. The ‘Goldstar Ground’ and Dellwood Avenue, home of Felixstowe & Walton United, runs off Beatrice Avenue and is much the same, but it’s got bungalows too. There are two stewards in day-glo waistcoats at the entrance to the club car park, clearly tonight’s game is a big one. I crunch my way across the beach-like car park, past the old club house which stands forgotten, forlorn and falling apart; there are tiles missing from its roof and the paint is peeling from its weather boarded walls. It could look good if restored as a cricket pavilion, but as it is it looks like it might soon be offering up spare parts for allotment sheds.

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The turnstiles have only been open a few minutes and there is no queue, only an array of signs, one of which refers to ‘Spectator Balls’ and would seem to be purely for comedic effect. I pay my £6 entry fee and collect a programme (£1.50) from a man sat at a foldaway table. I head towards the swish new club house, a low brick building with black timber cladding, which only opened at the start of the season; it sits behind a tarmac area in the shade of a row of small trees like a French town square. I make for the snack bar and order a chip buttie (£2 – ticket no 57) and very good it is too, with lots of crinkle cut chips served in a little cardboard box. I sit and eat at a Yogi bear-style picnic table and gain amusement from the pre-match music play list; Dancing Queen (Abba) ; Since You’ve Been Gone (Rainbow) Don’t Stop Me Now (Queen); The Boys Are Back In Town (Thin Lizzie) and so on. It’s no surprise when the stadium announcer sounds like Mike Smash, drawing out the final syllables of every sentence. Someone needs to tell him it’s no longer 1980.
Finding Keith, my driver for the night, already ensconced in the stand with his sidekick Jim, I offer to get them a drink; two coffees (£1 each) and I pop into the bar, a plain but

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durable looking room, for a pint of Guinness (£3.50), but am very, very disappointed that there is no real ale, not even Greene King IPA. I return to Keith and Jim and settle down in a seat for the evening as the crowds begin to roll in, gathering mostly in the area in front of the bar, but fanning out all around the perimeter fence too. Both Felixstowe and Coggeshall have already secured promotion to Bostik Division One North, but if Coggeshall win tonight they will be Champions; if Felixstowe win they will go top of the league and could clinch the Championship on Saturday. The excitement is palpable and clearly worth six quid of several people’s money. The eventual crowd will eventually be announced as 1,541, easily the biggest attendance in the Eastern Counties League this season and possibly since the 1960’s and nearly 700 more than watched Morecambe play Colchester United earlier this season in the fourth division.
Kick-off is delayed for five minutes because there are still queues at the turnstiles but referee Mr Aaron Farmer seems keen to get on as the teams appear on time to go through all that handshaking malarkey. The teams are announced over the PA in the style of a bingo caller. “On his o-w-n, Numb-e-r One, Dann–y Cruuuuump”, except he didn’t say “On his o-w-n”, sadly. Felixstowe & Walton United being “The Seasiders”, it is entirely possible that their stadium announcer’s day-job is on the pier. The teams line up and we wait about as the swirly, impatient sounds of Fat Boy Slim’s “Right Here, Right Now” build the sense of occasion; I always think that that tune should be played at bus stops and on station platforms in the minutes leading up to arrival and departure.
Eventually, Coggeshall Town kick off in the direction of Woodbridge wearing a change kit of all blue with white sleeves, which makes them look rather fetchingly like the mighty Ipswich Town, a good omen for them surely. Felixstowe & Walton United meanwhile model their customary Signal toothpaste inspired design of red and white striped shirts with red shorts and socks; they are kicking towards the town and the North Sea. Fat Boy Slim breaks off abruptly, but not before the game has started.

Coggeshall start well and quickly have a shot on goal, the Felixstowe goalkeeper Danny Crump making a diving save from Coggeshall’s number ten Ross Wall and the Seedgrowers win an early corner. Coggeshall get forward well, particularly down the left wing with Aaron Cosgrove, but gradually Felixstowe edge back, although their play is more about just getting the ball into the box. There are a few chants of “Sea-Sea-Seasiders” mostly from the area in front of the bar, but not as many as you might expect from a crowd of this size. Behind the goal at the ’Woodbridge end’ a loan voice occasionally bellows support for Felixstowe.
Coggeshall are looking the better team, but it still surprises me when Jamie Shaw heads Coggeshall into the lead from a Curtis Haynes Brown cross; the ball is seemingly cleared off the goal line but the linesman signals that the ball had crossed the line. This LAR (Linesman Assisted Referee) system really works. Then Coggeshall score again, Aaron Cosgrove displaying the sort of skill that on the night is setting Coggeshall apart from their rivals. Barely twenty minutes have been played, the night is young, it isn’t even dark yet.
The goals dampen the home crowd’s ardour, but the game is played at a furious pace so there is still excitement aplenty as muscular tackles and thundering hoofs are punctuated by occasional flashes of pace and skill and a booking for each team. Felixstowe spectacularly hit the Coggeshall bar with a shot from Boardley and then a cross into the box from a free-kick is swept in from close range by Felixstowe captain Rhys Barber. It’s 2-1 to Coggeshall as everyone breaks ranks for half-time and many of us discover that the two urinals and one toilet in the clubhouse aren’t enough tonight. I take a walk around the ground to take in the sights as daylight rapidly fades and is swapped for floodlight and the unique atmosphere of the night match. Such a big crowd stood on the grass beneath the trees, it feels more like Bonfire Night.
Returning to my seat just in time for the re-start, the ground is now transformed by the floodlights. The grass seems to glow beneath the dark blue sky and backdrop of lofty trees. The score line is finely poised. It’s five to nine and once again Coggeshall’s Aaron Cosgrove runs at speed at the Felixstowe defence, this time at its very heart. Cosgrove is tripped by Dan Davis who is booked for his efforts and Conor Hubble arcs a glorious free-kick over the defensive wall in to the top left hand corner of the Felixstowe goal. Not long later Cosgrove is tripped again, this time in the penalty area, and Coggeshall captain Luke Wilson makes the score 4-1 from the spot.
Felixstowe substitute Jamal Wiggins still manages to get a second goal for Felixstowe from close range and then the game changes into a lower gear. Half chances come and go but Coggeshall are largely in control. In the stand some of the spectators betray their loss of hope, appealing desperately and randomly to players, the referee and anyone in earshot. “Keep the ball!”, “Put it up there!” “What’s he doing now? Booking the ball?” More players of both teams are booked and the referee becomes equally unpopular with both sets of supporters, as is only right. One voice has given up on goals and just wants Coggeshall players booked for swearing; has he never been to a football match before I wonder. The best of the game has passed, but it remains exciting nevertheless and Keith and I speculate about the damaged greenhouses and cold frames in the gardens of the detached houses beyond the far touch line, as numerous balls are booted out of the ground.
The crowd thins out as it becomes evident that Felixstowe will not win, and they don’t. Coggeshall Town are champions of the Thurlow Nunn Eastern Counties Premier League and the game ends in a burst of deserved and prolonged applause for both teams.
It’s novel to see a team win something, it’s not something that as an Ipswich Town supporter I have witnessed lately and I have had to experience the joy of winning trophies vicariously through other clubs. Tonight has been memorable.

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Ipswich Town 0 Aston Villa 4

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It is April 21st but today it feels like summer. The sun shines brightly in a cloudless blue sky and it’s warm as I catch the train to a Saturday match in Ipswich for the last time this season. The platform is busy with people of various ages and shapes. Young men show off their legs and women their bra straps. A grey-haired man with a crooked mouth wears polyester trousers and carries a rucksack. The train is on time. On the train a bare-legged man drinks Smirnoff vodka with tonic from a can and looks at his mobile phone. A smooth-faced, bald headed man wearing two hearing aids looks at his mobile phone and talks hoarsely to his grey-haired wife. At Manningtree five ‘lads’ board and share out a pack of Budweiser beers. They all wear knee length shorts with turn-ups. One wears a Ralph Lauren polo shirt and Ray-Bans, he picks his nose.
At Ipswich there are policemen in what looks like spongeable ‘battledress’ on the

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platform and outside on the forecourt and on the bridge over the river and in Portman Road; the implication is that large numbers of people from the West Midlands cannot be trusted to behave nicely. In Portman Road huddles of stewards in hi-vis await the arrival of the Aston Villa team bus. Soft rolls and burgers get folded into mouths of will-be spectators and everyone is standing and waiting. I carry on and orbiting the club shop, Planet Blue, buy a programme (£3.00). Up Portman Road and round to the right St Jude’s Tavern is busy, I head for the bar, nodding hellos to the regular patrons. The Match Day Special today is Springhead Left Lion and I order a pint (£2.50). I take a seat next to the regulars, glance through the programme and talk a little with them; the regular next to me can recall Town being promoted from Division Three South in 1957, no one else here can. In a while I am joined by Mick, who treats me to another pint of the Match Day Special and I give him his birthday present, which I have wrapped in a page from an old road atlas of France, handy if he needs to travel from Chalons-sur-Saone to Dijon. It was Mick’s birthday three weeks ago, so I’m a bit late. After yet another pint of Match Day Special, which is now Wigan Junction (same price as before) it’s time to set off for the main event, the match which Mick will be listening to on the radio; he has said he is considering getting a season ticket for next season, but seems unsure. I can’t say I blame him.
Back in Portman Road people are scurrying to the turnstiles, kick-off is fast approaching. Aston Villa have a large following at the game today as their team chases promotion;

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there are several supporters’ coaches parked up behind Sir Bobby Robson’s statue, which looks as if he’s helpfully pointing the way from the coach park to the away fans enclosure. Entry through the turnstile to the Sir Alf Ramsey stand is swift, but as I leave the gents under the stand the strains of ‘My Way’ are receding and the game is set to begin.

Portman Road stadium

The stadium is looking good today, two-thirds full under a summer sky. Town kick off towards me in their customary blue shirts and white shorts, but Aston Villa disappointingly sport a dull and anonymous all-black kit that says the club has no imagination; such a pity when their first choice colours are tasteful claret and pale blue.
For one of the few occasions this season the home crowd are in good voice, but somewhat weirdly they sing “Hark now hear, The Ipswich sing, The Norwich ran away…” The song trails off before the end as ‘the choir’ seemingly becomes aware that the words go on to mention Boxing Day, which is somewhat unseasonal on a day like today; but they probably never got to sing it in December, numbed as they were by the dire goalless draw with QPR. Picking up perhaps on the Town fans’ choice of a Christmas carol the Villa fans then proceed to sing an equally unseasonal ditty, “Walking along, Singing a song, Walking in a Villa wonderland”. It’s all a little odd and smacks of football supporters no longer fluent in supporting their team through the medium of song.
On the pitch, Ipswich start quite well with an early corner and with Grant Ward and Jordan Spence progressing down the right to send in crosses to the big man up front that only they can see. Town’s Luke Hyam commits the first foul and Miles Kenlock has the first shot. Perhaps this inspires over confidence in the home supporters in the North Stand or perhaps they are just being ironic, but they sing to the Villa fans “You’re support is fucking shit”. Alternatively they could just be the type of people for whom something is always “fucking shit” as they so eloquently describe it, and with the loss of Mick McCarthy’s football they had to find something else to bemoan. Off their faces on their miraculous new found optimism, Town supporters applaud an offside. But Aston Villa look like they have a plan and they also have some very sharp haircuts and luxuriant facial hair, particularly number 15 Mile Jedinak whose enormous beard makes him looksMile Jedinak like an Imam. Villa’s number 19 Jack Grealish has calves the size of other men’s thighs and by twenty past three Villa are somewhat greedily beginning to keep the ball pretty much to themselves. They win some corners and then at about twenty five past three rudely score a goal as Conor Hourihane shoots when unsportingly close to the goal.
Unusually, the goal provokes a positive response from some Town supporters who chant “Blue Army”, although sadly these chants don’t build into a crescendo of noise that pushes Town onto quickly equalise and then take the lead with a display of scintillating short passes and powerful running. The singing soon dies away and normality returns as the Villa fans employ Guiseppe Verdi in the time honoured way to ask “Is this a library?”, although understandably it’s taken them a while to realise today. Buoyed by the discovery of their own razor sharp wit they eschew any reference to opera with their subsequent chant of “You’re fucking shit, you’re fucking shit, you’re fucking shit”. What is it with football supporters and “fucking shit”?

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Three minutes before half time Grant Ward is sent off by the shiny cue ball-headed referee Mr Simon Hooper for a poorly executed attempt at a tackle. Ward’s victim Neil Taylor recovers and is consequently booed thereafter for his trouble. It’s why we love the game. Ward receives generous applause from the Town fans as he walks to the dressing room.
Half-time brings some relief as the players hide in the dressing room for ten minutes or so and I talk to Ray who is nearby with his grandson Harrison who has cerebral palsy. Ray is of the opinion that Bersant Celina is not doing much, I agree and add the simple truth that overall Town’s players are not as good as Aston Villa’s. I re-visit the gents, eat a Panda brand stick of liquorice and look at the programme which contains a marvellous picture of the late Colin Harper in which he sports extensive sideburns and a moustache as if he was a member of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; it was a great look, in 1967. I recall attending Harper’s testimonial versus a Don Revie XI, I think the final score was something like 6-5, which is what the final score should be in all benefit matches. Also in the programme is a piece by a fellow supporter I know called Steve Cook in which he talks about his late mother’s dementia; I find it quite touching. Cookie is a lovely bloke.
The footballers return before I do and I miss the first minute of play but it doesn’t matter. A bit before a quarter past four Aston Villa score a second goal through Lewis Grabban, a former Norwich City player. As he runs behind the goal to celebrate in front of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand Grabban cups his hand to his ear, but quickly desists as if realising that he is in Ipswich so there wasn’t much noise even before he scored. Today’s attendance is announced as 20,034 and as if to torment Town fans further by reminding us of the year when Villa pipped us to the League Title, the number of visiting Aston Villa supporters is recorded as 1981.
Aston Villa are comfortably in control of this match and from the touchline theirSteve Bruce corpulent manager Steve Bruce looks on over his expanded waist, possibly affording time to imagine the enormous meal that he will perhaps later eat to celebrate the victory. I hope he has regular cardiovascular checks. Around him Villa’s coaching staff look like UPS delivery drivers in their dull uniforms. I admire the angles of the roofs of the stands at the other end of the ground.
With thirty minutes left to play, Martyn Waghorn has a shot for Ipswich and the Ipswich fans applaud, but honestly, not sarcastically as they had been doing a few weeks ago. In the 78th minute American, Cameron Carter-Vickers, one of Town’s inevitable cohort of loanees passes the ball rather carelessly to Villa’s Josh Onomah who quickly passes to Grabban, who scores for a second time.
The Villa fans, now feeling secure enough to gloat, once again ask if this is a library, but then something almost miraculous happens as a chorus of “I’m Ipswich ‘til I die” drifts up from behind the North Stand goal; it doesn’t last long, the team doesn’t respond and in the 82nd minute another former Norwich player (albeit a loanee), Henri Lansbury scores a fourth goal for Villa. I think of Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Murder, She Wrote. Ipswich are well and truly beaten, soundly thrashed even and the dream that many people perhaps harboured that with Mick McCarthy gone the team would straightaway blossom into a creative, attacking force and would never look back is dashed. Nevertheless, Town fans rally and there is clapping and singing the like of which has not been heard almost since the days of terracing, or at least since 2001. It’s a bit late in the game, but the Town fans are giving vocal encouragement to a struggling team. Town are 4-0 down at home to a club managed by an ex-Canary and three of the goals have been scored by ex-Canaries, but it’s the happiest some supporters have been all season.
But I wonder if they are really supporting the team, or are they just covering their embarrassment that the football is actually no better despite Mick McCarthy’s departure? Sensibly it’s probably too soon to say, but we shall see if the same sort of support continues.
Summer is not here yet, even though the sun is shining.

Bluey at Portman Road