It is Friday and at last after four consecutive games at Portman Road, the chance to enjoy the relaxed, happy atmosphere of local non-league football and the associated audible swearing from the players and coaches. It’s a typically cold winter’s evening and just a short drive to Coggeshall from my house. The streets of Coggeshall are quiet and dark, but the fluorescent light of the local Co-op shines like a beacon drawing me in to buy dairy-free white chocolate for dairy intolerant Mrs Brooks, who is unable to come out on a cold night like tonight because her asthma won’t allow it. I’d hate to miss the game because I was stuck in the back of an ambulance with her; in sickness and in health etc.
Back on the road the narrow streets of Coggeshall are suddenly busy with traffic coming in the opposite direction so progress is slow, but at length I turn into the rough car park where a sizeable collection of automobiles is bathed in the soft light spilling out beyond the ‘stadium’ from the floodlights. Football in the evening is all about the lights.
There is a queue at the turnstile, not really because of large numbers of people wanting to get in but more because the fella on the gate likes to have a chat with everyone and entreat them to ‘enjoy the match’; he has a beer and a fag on the go and says it’s nice to see me again as I hand over a tenner and the odd 50p to cover the £6 entry and £1.50 programme and already I feel pleased to be here.
Just inside the stadium tonight a local Nimby group called PAIN (Parishes Against Incinerator) have a table set up and are collecting signatures from anyone wanting to object to plans to build an incinerator at nearby Rivenhall. Seeing as Rivenhall straddles the river of carbon monoxide and diesel particulates that is the A12 my initial reaction is that a little ‘cleaned up’ smoke from a very tall chimney would be rather lovely by comparison and it seems preferable to landfill, but I don’t know the full facts; I don’t sign up but take a page of tightly typed A4 to learn more.
Heading along the path towards the clubhouse I meet four Wivenhoe fans I know; four of the self-styled SOBS (Sad Old Bastards) who have followed ‘The Dragons’ through thin and thin since the 1990’s. One of them jokes about coming to visit the home of one of the nouveau-riche of non-league. These guys don’t care overly that Wivenhoe are bottom of the league with a goal difference of minus 66 after 30 games (Coggeshall are fourth with a goal difference of plus 66 after 26 games), they just like football and having a good time watching it; I see them as Messiahs, placed on earth to show supporters of professional clubs the error of their football supporting ways. Further along the path I meet Paul my next door neighbour and then speak with Miguel, brother of Ipswich Town’s Tristan Nydam and a player and youth coach for Wivenhoe.
The clubhouse is busy and people stand around by the changing rooms drinking tea,
coffee and beer and scoffing sausage rolls, waiting for the teams to emerge from the ship-lap clad changing rooms. I look at the team sheet, pinned to the outside wall. I like the names Ross de Brick and Kyan Gulliver who, along with Gary C Birdett, sound like they might have been in a 1960’s American ‘garage’ band. Amusingly, long serving Wivenhoe
centre-half Tim Dennis has been re-named on the team sheet as Dennis Timothy.
It is 7.45 and the game begins with Coggeshall in their red and black striped shorts and black shorts kicking towards the clubhouse; Wivenhoe are in all blue. It’s all quite keenly contested but Coggeshall are clearly the more talented side and just before 8 o’clock number seven Tom Monk hooks a shot into the top corner of the Wivenhoe goal from about 20 metres. I stand on the grassy bank that looks down on the pitch with Jonny, one of the SOBS; we talk about football and Jonny tells me about an interesting book he has read called The Chimp Paradox which is about how our minds work. Jonny’s advice is to get a copy and rip out about the first thirty pages, read them and throw the rest away because it gets repetitive after that. Twenty-four minutes of the game have passed and ‘The Seedgrowers’ number nine, Nnamdi Nwatchuku shoots across the Wivenhoe goalkeeper from a narrowish angle to put Coggeshall 2-0 up. .Six minutes later Nnamdi scores again; the most spectacular goal of the night, a shot from 20 metres-odd into the top right hand corner of the goal. Seven minutes after that and Coggeshall score a fourth goal and Jonny and I have no need for a telescope as we get a perfect view of a free-kick, which is swept over the defensive wall and just inside the far post by number eight Conor Hubble.
Half-time comes and I join the queue for a pounds worth of tea. “Man United are winning 1-0” says a bloke in front of me to his ponytailed friend. “Fuck, it’s Cup weekend innit” says the ponytail. The bloke in front of me gets a Twix and the teams are returning to the pitch just as I get my tea and add a splash of milk from a six pint plastic bottle of Cravendale. The girl behind me in the queue asks “Can I get a tea and a coffee?” That’s an odd use of English I think to myself. If I was the young girl in the tea bar I think I would reply that she can have a tea and coffee, but I will get them for her. I don’t often think about being a young girl in a tea bar, but know that the girl in this tea bar needs some help at half-time because there is still a queue for teas and sausage rolls
Wivenhoe have a substitute on for the second half, but within five minutes they are five-nil down as Coggeshall substitute Aaron Cosgrove scores from not too far out at an oblique angle. I am now standing with Bob and Rich’, two more SOBS who I know from my own days watching Wivenhoe, but then I wander off to talk to Paul my next door neighbour and just watch the game from different perspectives, because I can. Behind the goal that backs on to the car park a group of six or seven nine or ten year old girls muck about and do handstands, they’re here to see teeny bopper heart throb Olly Murs, who is on the Coggeshall bench but not named as a substitute; his uncle runs the place.
Despite being second best by some way, some of the Wivenhoe players seem very committed to the cause and they shout and remonstrate with one another as things inevitably go wrong; at one point it looks like they might come to blows. There is much waving of arms and shouting and I’m struck by the fact that the only word I can really make out from any of these animated conversations is “fuck”. One or two players also seem to spend quite a bit of time lying very still on the damp turf. Fortunately they
recover and play on, but it can’t be good for them. A Wivenhoe player lies prone in his own penalty area but the game carries on. When the Wivenhoe goalkeeper eventually gets to boot the ball into touch the game is stopped and Wivenhoe’s ginger-haired number four proceeds to berate the referee Mr Andrew Gray angrily; I am amazed he is not booked, many a more sensitive referee would have sent him off for such front.
One of the Wivenhoe defenders is a large man and although it is a cold night he appears to be sweating more than his team mates and his visibly damp shirt clings to his back unpleasantly. Wivenhoe rarely venture beyond their own half in any numbers but they are now managing to plug the gaps a bit more successfully, although Coggeshall still miss several ‘sitters’. At one point a Coggeshall shot smacks against the cross bar and rebounds down bouncing close to the goal line. None of the players appeal for a goal and play just carries on, but a couple of blokes stood up on the concrete path are adamant the ball was over the line; who needs goal line technology when there are a couple of blokes with beers stood forty yards away.
Surprisingly, no more goals are scored, although the contest is still kean with plenty of neat football played, particularly by Coggeshall who have looked very good tonight, despite not scoring as many goals as they often do against the weaker teams in the division. I have returned to stand with Rich’ and Bob, who has offered me a mint which I am sucking upon as Mr Gray blows his whistle for the final time. We hang around as the players leave the field and wait to have our photos taken with Olly Murs. I talk to another Paul who the programme says is Coggeshall’s Football Analyst/Media Manager before finally heading out into the car park. On my way out I wander through the now empty stand, erected in 1964, and look at the signs and foam padding, placed on the stanchions to protect the skulls of people taller than five foot four. Outside on the grassy bank there are rabbit droppings. I head into the car park with a car load of SOBS who are still in good spirits, we wish each other well ‘until the next time’. It’s been a good evening.
Town’s on-loan Kosovan Bersant Celina hits a post with a shot, the imposing Mr Roberts, who likes to stand with his hands on his hips, blows his whistle for half-time. I head down to the concourse and devour a piece of left-over Christmas cake that I had brought with me in lieu of thebacon butties or pies that others might eat to see them through the afternoon. I gaze up at the TV set delivering the half-time scores and first half stats, which are clearly wrong. I learn that I could buy a hospitality package for £35 plus VAT. I look at the programme and am impressed by the diversity of the Leeds squad with players from fifteen different countries. Ipswich players come from just seven countries, and one of them is Wales. The Leeds squad also has some fine surnames, my favourites being Roofe and Grot although Borthwick-Jackson and Peacock-Farrell also deserve a mention. Inside the programme there is a tribute to Ted Phillips, but if as the tribute says he is a legend, and he is, it should probably run to several pages, not just two. Also in the programme is the usual piece from club captain Luke Chambers. Luke is in philosophical mood today and amongst other nuggets says “I think football stadiums in general have become places where supporters can vent their frustrations over 90 minutes, sometimes that frustration comes from life as much as football. You see it everywhere now ”. It’s a very funny read.
The train is three minutes late and I board it along with a bearded man in a khaki hat and camouflage jacket and a teenage boy and girl who are carrying skateboards. In the far corner of the carriage a bearded hippy in a leather jacket drinks from a tin one of those peculiar ‘ciders’ that contain fruit other than apples. The man in the camouflage jacket huddles into another corner as if trying not to be seen, but he clashes horribly with the blue moquette of the train seats.
leaves the station inexplicably moves to the other end of the carriage leaving me alone with my winter clothing and enthusiasm for the FA Cup. Arriving in Ipswich the afternoon is not as bright, there is a pall of grey cloud. Football supporters spill out of the station and across the bridge opposite, there are three swans swimming in the river below; the tide is high and all is quiet, almost serene.
Fearless as we are, and confident in our general familiarity with modern electrical appliances we use the dryers nevertheless, despite the jolting, tingling sensation it gives us. It is two minutes to three by the scoreboard clock as we take our seats, but the teams are already lined up and ready to kick-off. Town are of course wearing their traditional blue shirts and white shorts with blue socks, but I am bitterly disappointed, mortified even to see that Sheffield United are not wearing their distinctive red and white stripes with black shorts. Instead, the visiting team sport plain white shirts with black shorts, like some sort of pathetic imitation of Port Vale or Germany. What is wrong with these people? They just keep finding new ways to ruin the game.
team during the preceding minutes now do so with added joy and vigour. The 10,957 odd home supporters haven’t made much noise up until now and still don’t, although their team really needs some encouragement right now. The game dribbles on to half-time as depression sets in with the majority of those in attendance. Mick and I are sat in Block Y which is in the centre of the top tier of the West Stand; normally these are the most expensive seats in the ground, they are padded and they’re brown, not blue. But the people who sit in them are as quiet and miserable as the people I usually sit with in the more modestly appointed Sir Alf Ramsey Stand, they just look better fed and sound more pleased with themselves. A Sheffield player goes down injured and requires treatment, or at least that’s what we’re led to believe. I remark to Mick how back in 1974 the North Stand would have been braying “Dig a hole and fuckin’ bury him”, but now they just grumble a bit to each other. People knew how to make their own entertainment back then.
Portman Road is its usual Saturday afternoon self as I walk along it. The turnstiles are not yet open and people who must have very little else to do indeed, queue by them.
Burgers and buns are eaten, programmes are bought, blokes with strange ‘North meets the Midlands’ accents talk of the “Station Hotel or summat” where, as visitors to Ipswich they might be allowed to buy a drink.
blood donors. Season ticket prices won’t be going up this year, but supporters will be required to donate a pint of blood each. I need to urinate and so visit the toilets. I wash my hands and use the blow dryer, which breathes warmly across my wet hands with the force of a chronic asthmatic. I take my seat and to the strains of Frank Sinatra singing ‘My Way’ the teams take to the field. ‘My Way’ was apparently Bobby Robson’s favourite song, but amusingly it could equally be the theme tune of current manager Mick McCarthy or the elusive and seemingly parsimonious club owner Marcus Evans. Is the club having a laugh at our expense?
cheap enough. Crazee the edgy, urban Suffolk Punch mascot struts his stuff in front us; if he’s trying to rally the supporters he’s almost literally flogging a dead horse. I think of a disturbing scene in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment in which a peasant flogs his feeble old horse to death in the street and onlookers join in. Crazee can add masochism to his list of edgy behaviours, which really only amount to wearing sunglasses and a hat which is on back to front.
it’s a pleasant stroll down through sunny Gippeswyk Park beneath a pale blue winter sky towards Portman Road. From the top of the Park there is a fine view across the town centre, which takes in the Portman Road floodlights and the back drop of town centre office blocks which define down-town Ipswich from a distance. It’s a bit after two o’clock and the streets are quiet; I walk past the railway station not quite believing that it could be shut, but it definitely is.
pantomime at the Regent theatre; aside from the railway station being shut, it’s the only sign that it might be Christmas. Across the car park from Portman Road the former Sporting Farmer public house sits shut and awaiting demolition; it’s been a part of the match day landscape of Ipswich since 1962, but there is no seasonal, pre-match boozing this year, just Heras fencing and darkened windows.
note and apologise, but add that the club doesn’t make her job any easier by sticking odd ten pences onto their prices. She agrees that the prices are awkward for what is supposed to be a fast service. Any way to squeeze an extra few pence out of the supporters though. Clutching my Cadbury’s branded cup of pale brown liquid I find my seat. The club mascot Bluey is prowling the aisle that leads to my seat, offering himself up for selfies and hugs. Bluey doesn’t speak and a woman tries to communicate with him through grunts and sign language; odd.
ensure that all of the chocolatey gunk which contains the flavour has dissolved. I taste the pale brown liquid; it’s watery and the water has a slight tang which fights with and then beats off the chocolate flavour. Hot chocolate should be thick, this isn’t; I won’t be buying it again.
suffering in the QPR penalty area. The only cheers from the crowd are derisive ones as a pass goes wildly astray or someone falls over, which happens quite a lot; derisive cheers are what the Portman Road crowd does best.
trippingovertheball 