Premier League

Ipswich Town 1 Nottingham Forest 1

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At the risk of sounding like Michael Parkinson, I think I read somewhere that the city of Nottingham was originally named after a Viking or an Anglo-Saxon called Snot and was known as Snotingaham, which was Old Norse or Old English for Snot’s gaff.   But when the Normans arrived, they had difficulty pronouncing “Sn” and so Snotingaham became Nottingham.  This was possibly also the inspiration for the 1980’s tv advert for Tunes menthol sweets in which a man with a head cold or undisclosed nasal/sinus problem initially fails to make himself understood when asking for a second class return to Nottingham.   I don’t suppose there is anyway of knowing if this is true, but what is certain is that tonight Gippeswic Town are playing Snotingaham Forest and I shall be at Portman Road to see it.

It’s been a nasty, intermittently wet, blustery late October afternoon and according to the message I received on my mobile phone from Greater Anglia, my train to Ipswich is going to be a minute late. But I am not unduly concerned because I am dressed for the weather, as we must in England, with my warm, water-repellent coat, ITFC beanie hat, blue and white bar scarf and home knitted fingerless gloves. My one worry is that I have lost my usual air of mystery and have made it too obvious that I am a football fan heading for a football match.  By contrast, when Gary joins me at the next station stop, he is wearing an orange coat and orange woolly hat emblazoned with a logo that announces hashtag 8 Super-Dry, whatever that means, and there is no way of knowing if Gary is a football supporter, an off-duty vicar or just someone modelling trendy ‘streetwear’.

It’s been a fortnight since Gary and I last spoke and we now talk of what we have done in the intervening period.  I tell Gary I have been in France and witnessed the manifestations (demos in English) by the school students and people wearing yellow vests (gillets jaune).  I ask him if he knows anyone who wants a Dior handbag and then we see one very grubby looking polar bear appearing to stare at a patch of grass as the train descends through Wherstead.

Arriving in Ipswich, the busy station plaza is gently illuminated by a haunting, fading light as the sun sets behind clouds the colour of bruises. We wait to cross into Princes Street to a soundtrack of swishing tyres on the wet road surface.   The aural and visual treats continue as we walk up Princes Steet, Museum Street and High Street to the Arb where, although I am first through the door, Gary gets the drinks, a pint of Lager 43 for him and pints of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me and Mick, who isn’t here yet but is on his way.  We retire to the beer garden to sit with just two other drinkers in the shelter that backs on to High Street where it is wet and miserable.  Occasionally, a strong gust of wind threatens to blow the large garden umbrella opposite us up and away into the evening sky, but fortunately it never does.  Mick, who has been in Felixstowe and got stuck in traffic on his way back, arrives, buys more drinks and a serving of cheesy chips.  We talk of people not having funerals, Mick’s recent visit to Stirling and Mick’s conversation with a Reform councillor who when asked why he stood for selection as a candidate said something along the lines of  “You should’ve seen the others”.  Gary says he feels as cold as he has ever done and we move inside, where I buy a further pint of Suffolk Pride for me and a Jameson’s whisky for Mick whilst Gary doesn’t have another drink at all, realising perhaps that drinking more chilled lager will not help make him feel any warmer.

We leave the Arb at twenty to eight, and I’m surprised to find on arrival in Portman Road that there are few queues for the Cobbold Stand.  This is a first since technology took over from tickets. The queues to be checked for weapons, explosives and scrap metal behind the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand are also shorter than usual, but those for the turnstiles are a bit longer.  The normally illustrious turnstile 62 helps delay mine and everyone else’s entry when it refuses to acknowledge my possession of a season ticket when I hold up my mobile phone to the screen.   A helpful steward takes me to one side and explores the settings on my phone discovering that something called the ‘NFC’ was turned off.   I have no idea what this means and can only tell him I didn’t have problem getting in to see Angers versus Olympique Marseille last Sunday.  I suspect meddling by the Russians as part of their plan to so enrage everyone that they lose all powers of reasoning and so vote for Reform UK Ltd.

After venting spent Suffolk Pride I get to my seat to find I have missed the first one minute and seven seconds of the match, but Fiona confirms that I haven’t missed anything important.  I will later deduce that Nottingham Forest must have had first go with ball, but it is self-evident that they are aiming it towards the goal just in front of me and my fellow ultras, who this this evening only consist of ever-present Phil who never misses a game and Fiona.  Apparently, Pat from Clacton has high blood pressure and feels ‘under the weather’ but Fiona has had a message from her to let me know she has remembered to wear her blue pants this evening, which I find strangely reassuring.

On the pitch, Julio Enciso claims the honour of first shot at goal, after five minutes, but two minutes later Christian Walton is making a necessary save before Abdoul Outtara also has a shot at goal for Town.  But overall, Nottingham Forest in their signature red shirts and white shorts, are looking much the better of the two teams and there is little consolation in the spectacle of the red and blue-shirted players looking like a real-life version of the Subbuteo Continental Club Edition from my childhood.  There is no consolation at all when in the thirteenth minute Nottingham stretch the Town defence for Neco Williams to score a goal, which from my seat I get an excruciatingly good view of.  The only positive is that the goalscorer makes me think of the alluring Christa Paffgen and the Velvet Underground’s weird and wonderful 1967 debut album “The Velvet Underground and Nico”.

The goal inspires Town to play better and they begin to not let Nottingham have the ball so much. Enciso hits a free-kick high over the cross bar, but with the exception of a decent shot straight at the goalkeeper Philogene is giving the sort of performance that in the hey-day of Brian Clough would have had him being labelled ‘a big fairy’. The first half of the first half drifts out of view and both Florentino and Enciso shoot at the economically named goalkeeper Matz Sels, before Nottingham have the only two corners of the half in quick succession and the second one is headed wide.  “Come on Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” entreat the home crowd somewhat desperately. “Fuck off Ipswich, Fuck Off Ipswich” comes the unwarranted reply from the Nottinghamians in the Cobbold Stand as they collectively imagine themselves as modern day Arthur Seatons.

Ipswich are awarded a free-kick.  “You don’t know what you’re doing” chant the Forest fans and a third of the match is only available as replays on Sky tv.  Ten or so minutes later however it is Forest’s Nikola Milenkovic who doesn’t know what he’s doing as Julio Enciso nicks the ball off him and embarks on an unhindered run at goal before shooting simply past Sels at his near post and the score is one all.  “Oh when the Town, go marching in” drone the home crowd as if in mourning. There’s time for Nottingham to almost take the lead again as Leif Davis clears off the goal line before two minutes of added on time are added on and half-time arrives with the promise of a trip downstairs to the gents.

The football resumes at four minutes past nine and after just six minutes the spectre of VAR appears as Issa Diop slides across the pitch on the wet grass and a Nottingham player sprawls headfirst.  Referee Mr Thomas Bramall plays on initially but then VAR announces a review for a possible red card and having seen the tv camera’s view Mr Bramall shows Diop his yellow card and gives Forest a free kick.  The Forest fans can’t see the wood for the trees and predictably bleat on about Mr Bramall not knowing what he is doing again.  Three-minutes later the bookings are evened up as Town’s Emmerson is fouled by Murillo, a player who interestingly has a haircut that looks like Davey Crocket’s hat.

Nearly an hour has been added to history as Nottingham earn another corner and Walton needs to make another couple of saves before the first substitutions are made and the excitable young announcer introduces “Jack! Clarke!”  and Zian Flemming as Philogene and Emmerson take their rightful places on the bench.

Nottingham are dominating again, but more so.  “Come on Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” we plead en masse, and I give some encouragement to time itself to hurry up a bit.  Maeda replaces the ineffective Fatawu and Rory Delap misses two opportunities for Forest in quick succession as he heads over the cross bar from close in and then shoots past a post. “Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottingham” chant the Nottingham supporters imaginatively but more or less to the tune of John Philip Sousa’s “The Stars & Stripes Forever”.

The final ten minutes of normal time are with us at last and again we plead “Come on Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” and Town grimly hang on as they struggle to get any touches on the ball, which they never manage to retain when they do get it.  Desperate for something to change Matusiwa and Akpom replace Florentino and Enciso but it’s a change that seems unlikely to make a positive difference in terms of ability.  Today’s attendance is announced excitably as 29,198 and we are thanked for out “incredible support” even though it’s a few hundred less incredible than it was for the last match, but perhaps we’ve been noisier per head; it’s the sort of thing they never tell us.

The final minute turns up seemingly on time but is apparently eight minutes early, giving the opportunity for Forest’s Hudson-Odoi to shoot narrowly wide and then, more importantly, Jack! Clarke! to run across the edge of the penalty area and also shoot narrowly wide, although this late in the game he usually scores. Just four added on minutes remain to be added on as Nottingham substitute Rory Delap for Chris Wood, a footballer whose surname hopefully determined that he should play for Nottingham Forest rather than his ability.  Fiona and I agree, now that he has left the pitch, that Delap was rubbish and we’re glad Town sold him.

The final whistle brings relief and with reports of trains being delayed due to the weather, Fiona and I both clear off sharpish, although I needn’t have bothered because there will be no trains south tonight thanks to a tricky tree that has fallen on the line between Ipswich and Manningtree.  As I make arrangements to get home,  I reflect that Town may have been the poorer team tonight but happily they were probably the luckier one, a bit like how Gippa, the bloke after whom Ipswich was named was luckier than the bloke called Snot.

SCO Angers 2 Olympique de Marseille 5

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Angers is an historic city in the valley of the River Loire in western France famed for its massive castle, partly built by the early Plantagenet kings of England, which is home to the remarkable fourteenth century Tapestry of the Apocalypse.  Visiting the castle to see the tapestry is one of the reasons why my wife Paulene and I have made the eight hour, seven-hundred- and twenty-three-kilometre drive in our planet saving Citroen e-C4 to be here, but another is that today SCO Angers are playing Olympique Marseille (OM) at the Stade Raymond Kopa in a Ligue 1 fixture.  We have seen Angers play OM before, back in 2015 at the Stade Velodrome in Marseille (Angers won 2-1), but being the type of people who feel strangely compelled to watch football in as many French towns and cities as possible, this is an opportunity not to be missed.  Also, it’s easier to get tickets for Angers v OM than it is get them for Ipswich Town away games, which I have therefore given up on.  Meanwhile, Paulene is the only person in the world to be a fan of both OM and Paris St Germain!

From our hotel near the St Serge University, it’s a two-minute walk to the tram stop where a Ligne A tram takes us to Foch Haras from where we change to an articulated number one bus that makes its way up rue Paul Bert and rue Volney towards Saumuroise, where we alight (fare 1.70 euros) and then take a short walk down rue du Colombier to the Stade Raymond Kopa.  The Stade Raymond Kopa was until 2017 called the Stade Jean Bouin, but since 2019 it has been undergoing its latest upgrade with two new stands being built.  From rue du Colombier Stade Raymond Kopa now looks less like a football stadium and more like a large, perforated, grey metal box, largely because it is. The dark grey reflects the monochrome club colours of SCO Angers but could probably do with a few splashes of white or some groovy signage to jazz it up a little, especially on a grey, cloudy autumn day like today.

It’s about twenty past one and crowds are gathering in the street at the back of the Tribune Saint-Leonard awaiting the arrival of the Angers team who soon step out of a compact black and white coach and skulk into the stadium through an anonymous opening in its grey metal walls.  A crowd of mostly children cheer and wave black and white flags whilst cheerless looking security guards look out from beneath frighteningly short haircuts.  The players are greeted and ushered beyond the grey wall by people in shiny suits wearing huge white plimsolls, which make them resemble the children on the Magic Roundabout.

With the Angers players safely inside the stadium, an air of expectancy still lingers in the street outside and perhaps even increases because the OM team bus is now on its way.  OM are without doubt the biggest club in France but they have no dodgy middle eastern state to bank-roll them and are instead mis-managed by a succession of incompetent owners who ride the football gravy train, sell any decent players, buy in those the top clubs don’t want and build up debts before moving on, leaving in their wake a sort of underfunded, Mediterranean version of Tottenham Hotspur.  But OM supporters are all over France and are faithful to their club, they are also probably masochists.

At last, the blue lights of the police motorcycle escort appear and following behind the OM team bus, which parks up behind the lines of comically grumpy security staff and disgorges its cargo of shifty looking athletes into the grey metal box. We stand next to a man who shouts insults at the players and doesn’t seem to notice the scary looks he receives from a huge security guard standing just a metre away.  With the excitement over, Paulene and I head round the corner to the fanzone, where there is a bouncy castle, a bar, tables and chairs and a trestle table from which an attractive young couple are flogging a limited range of club ‘merch’.  Also here is a collection of balloons arranged in the shape of a heart to promote ‘October Rose’, an annual event in French football to raise awareness of and money for research into breast cancer.  Most clubs produce a special shirt and associated merchandise and have a fixture dedicated to it.  Today, Angers will be wearing their special shirt.  Paulene shows solidarity by buying a pink scarf and we are both given pink ribbons to wear on our coats.  With an hour still until kick off I make a trip to the bar for a 50 cl ‘glass’ of Affligem beer (9 euros for the beer and 1 euro for the re-usable ‘October Rose’ branded cup).  It might be expensive and a bit too cold, but Affligem is a decent enough beer (even if it is now owned by Heineken) which at 6.7% alcohol by volume offers a strength and flavour no one would dare allow football fans in England to enjoy.

Having supped the Affligem, we head into the grey box.  There are no turnstiles, just people with scanners to check your ticket or the QR code on the screen of your mobile phone.  Everyone, everywhere, as at all French football game wishes you “bon match” and everyone is given a polythene flag displaying the SCO Angers club badge.  Inside the grey box it is as grey as it is outside, with the steel frame of the stand painted grey or coated with what looks like a hard, grey pulp or even icing.  The perforated metal walls let in a lot of light however and the concourse is spacious, although the toilets aren’t and streams of people made anxious by full bladders snake out of them.

There are two flights of stairs up to our seats in the lower tier of the Tribune Colombier but conveniently our seats are at the end of the row.  Three unaccompanied youths, who look no more than twelve years old sit in front of us but then move to the seats next to me, and a nervous looking man with dark receding hair and a young boy sit in front of us instead; he gives the three boys a slightly quizzical and disapproving look as if to ask, “Vos meres savent-elles que vous etes ici?” (Do your mothers know you are here?)

When the game begins it is OM who get first go with the ball, which they are aiming at the goal in front of the Tribune Colombier, which is the fullest of the four stands and is where Paulene and I are sitting.  Somewhere far behind us is the suburb of Trelaze where the number one bus that we caught was heading.  Today, OM are wearing a change kit of all navy blue whilst Angers are not in their usual black and white stripes that make them look like a classy, Gallic Harwich & Parkeston FC but instead wear their special, all-white with a pink splodge on the front, ‘October Rose’ kit.

The ball is quickly booted into touch from kick off as if OM never really wanted first go with it anyway.  Over to our left in the end of the otherwise mostly empty Tribune Jean Bouin the OM ultras are in full voice, waving banners and jumping about, as they have been since we arrived. “Marseille! Tum de tum, Te dum dum! Marseille!” they chant, according to the scribble in my notebook.   It is OM who have the first shot on goal when after nine minutes Igor Paixo strikes the ball wide of an Angers post at the end of a coherent passing move.  Two minutes later, and as I am afflicted by wafts of body spray from the nervous looking man with a receding hairline sat in front of me, Anthony Lopes the Angers goalkeeper gesticulates unhappily at the players in front of him.  A pattern begins to emerge as another good passing move from OM in the twelfth minute ends with Tochukwu Nnadi also shooting wide.

Angers haven’t featured much so far but this of course means that in the fourteenth minute a cross from the left sails over the head of Angers’ Lilian Raolisoa only for it to strike an OM defender deflect back onto Raolisoa and into the goal knocking Raolisoa over in the process.  It’s a comedy goal as many that OM concede are, but it gives Angers a surprise one-nil lead, nevertheless.  “Allez Angervins” chant the home crowd and the nervous looking man in front stands up to wave his polythene flag and jump up and down, and he encourages the boy to do so too. Perhaps he’s not so nervous after all.

A goal down, some of the OM players begin to roll around on the floor when the opportunity arises but the referee Monsieur Jeremie Pignard ignores them quite brilliantly and as the first half of the first half fades into the past OM shoot wide again and then do nothing memorable with the game’s first corner before Angers make an inevitable quick break away, only for Amine El Ouazzani to shoot spectacularly high and wide of the OM goal.

The first third of the match is over and to mark the occasion Raolisoa slices a clearance to give OM a second corner, but OM only proceed to miss a couple more chances and Paixao has a header easily saved by Lopes when he probably should have scored. Another OM corner is then easily cleared before finally, with seven minutes left until half time, a cross from Timothy Weah is headed firmly but simply into the Angers net from close range by bearded OM captain Himad Abdelli.  “Ole, Ole, Ole” chant the OM fans to the tune of the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine”. In all the stands OM fans stand up to cheer and unlike in England where people are outraged when an “away” supporter sits in the “home” end, no one seems that bothered, but then unlike the English, the French like to save their anger for the things that matter, like liberty and equality.

Three minutes remain until half time and OM up the corner count again when Lopes saves another shot, this time from Amine Gouiri. From the resultant corner, despite being 1.83m in height Nouhoum Kamissoko seems to go un-noticed by the Angers players and he heads firmly into the middle of the goal and OM lead 2-1.  A minute of added on time is added on but nothing changes except for a lot of cheering from pre-pubescent voices; Paulene suggests that someone has just found a stash of sugar.

Half-time is a time to vent some spent Affligem, buy a bottle of water (3 euros) and see the Angers mascot, Scoty the Panda swagger onto the pitch in a somewhat surly manner with feet at ‘ten to two’, perform some perfunctory task and then frighten a couple of children and swagger back into the stand.  My father, a naval man, would have said he walks like a “dockyard matey”.  We had hoped to meet Scoty in the fanzone but we’re not so disappointed that we didn’t now, he just looks like a fat middle-aged bloke in tracky bottoms with a panda head on; added to which the pink splodge on the front of his October Rose shirt makes him look like he’s been stabbed or is coughing up blood.

It is a minute past four when the football resumes, and OM are now sending the ball towards the cathedral and castle in the city centre and the Angers ultras in the Tribune Coubertin. OM quickly win another corner and Lopes saves from Nnadi, before with the new half twelve minutes old Angers make a first substitution, swapping the wonderfully named Louis Mouton (it means Louis Sheep but sounds like Louis Vuitton) for the equally wonderfully named Prosper Peter (just nice alliteration).   The impact is immediate as Amine Gouiri runs at the Angers defence and into the penalty area and has his ankle tapped by Yassin Belkhdim and Monsieur Pignard awards a penalty.  Gouiri’s penalty is saved but Lopes can only parry the shot and Gouiri scores from the re-bound. It’s 3-1 to OM.

The game moves into its final third and Paulene and I resign ourselves to the nervous looking man with the receding hair and child not returning, he left at the end of half-time and hasn’t been seen since. I didn’t like the smell of his body spray anyway, so am quite pleased.  Prosper Peter is looking alert for Angers as his name suggests to me he should be, and as the game moves on through the sixty-fifth and sixty-sixth minutes he heads wide and then delicately flicks a cross onto the OM cross bar.  Angers’ Emmanuel Biumla then fouls Gouiri and consequently sees Mr Pignard’s yellow card before the OM ultras embark on a chorus of “Aux Armes, Nous Sommes les marseillais, Et nous allons gagner, Allez l’OM!” (To arms, We are the Marseillais, And we are going to win, Go OM!) and the OM fans scattered throughout the rest of the stadium attempt to echo the chant.

More substitutions are made by Angers and this time the effect is positive as three minutes later they win a corner and in defending it Nnadi wrestles Carlens Arcus to the ground and Mr Pignard awards a penalty to Angers, which Amine El Ouazzani quickly and confidently despatches past Jeffrey de Lange, who effectively steps out of the way of the kick, and the score is 3-2. Nnadi is booked.  “Lo lo lo, Allez les SCO’s” sing the home supporters optimistically, and then sing it again  and again, and again. “Faites du bruit” (Make some noise) announces the scoreboard simultaneously advertising a barbers’ shop called ‘Point-Cut’, and they do.

The final ten minutes approach and there is hope for an unlikely Angers comeback as OM make a couple of substitutions. “Allez les SCO’s” continue the home supporters but once again the substitutions seemingly have instant results and a square ball across the edge of the penalty area from Nnadi is soon expertly stroked into the Angers goal beyond Lopes by Amine Harit to make the score 4-2 to OM. A minute later and the score is 5-2 as a lobbed ball forward from Egan-Riley is headed back by Weah and drops to Paixao who strokes the ball into the net in a similar manner to Amine Harit but from about five metres nearer to the goal.

It doesn’t seem likely that Angers will make any sort of comeback now although OM have often shown themselves to be more than capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in the past.  Both teams eke out the remaining five or six minutes or normal time with more substitutions and another six minutes of added-on time are added on too, but with a steady rain now falling the score remains unaltered.

With the final whistle the OM players go over to their ecstatic ultras to share a rare success and milk the moment in the likely knowledge that disappointment and frustration are never far away.  It’s been an entertaining game in terms of the number of goal scored and OM games are always fun if only for the presence of their fans who Paulene as a Pompey fan considers she has a strong affinity with.  Happy therefore, Paulene and I steal away into the deepening gloom of the damp October evening and walk back up rue Volney and rue Paul Bert to the tram stop and the ride back to our hotel.  Tomorrow we return home.

Ipswich Town 2 Fulham 1

/ martinpbrooks / 1 Comment

It seems hard to believe that despite it now being a third of the way through October, and with the football season having started in August, Ipswich Town have so far only played two league games at home. But that’s modern football and the Premier League for you, just another part of the mad scramble to concentrate as much money as possible into the hands of as few people as possible before the apocalypse, which will probably be streamed live on tv.  Today, as the season begins for a second time, Ipswich will play funny old Fulham, the jokey little London club loved by Tommy Trinder, Wolfie Smith and Terry McCann.

It had been quite a good week, I had returned home from my personal pilgrimage to Haverfordwest and spent a day with my brother-in-law, which was entertaining.  Yesterday however, I received the sad news that my dear friend Ray had died that afternoon.  As everyone I know who knew him agrees, he was such a lovely bloke; thoughtful, funny and kind, he was so good at being those things he didn’t need to be anything else.  Ray didn’t believe in God and given that he is now dead, but Donald Trump still lives, I think he was probably right.  The existence of Satan might be a different matter, however.  On a happier note, this morning I have been vaccinated against influenza, so that’s good.

The train to Ipswich is late but only by a minute or two and when Gary boards at the next station stop it’s not a topic of conversation, instead we talk of my trip to Wales and of the contrasting customer service of Greene King and Royal Mail. In my recent experience Greene King dispense beer vouchers and complimentary cases of beer whilst Royal Mail witter on in lengthy AI generated e-mails and pay no attention to what you tell them; as Royal Mail pensioners, Gary and I both agree it wasn’t like that in our day.

Arriving in Ipswich, the sky is overcast and the station forecourt and Princes Street are busy with folk. We make our way through the town past the ‘new’ (it was the original town museum) ‘Museum of the Environment’ on aptly named Museum Street to the Arb, where I join a queue for the bar whilst Gary heads for the beer garden to look for a vacant table.  Mick soon appears and he buys the drinks, a pint of Estrella Galicia for Gary and pints (one each) of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for Mick and me.  As we emerge into the light of the beer garden Gary simultaneously nabs a table as other lunchtime drinkers leave.  Our conversation rambles, I buy another round of drinks (Suffolk Pride, half of Estrella and a Jameson’s whisky for £12 something with Camra discount) and we express surprise and amusement at how by half past two we seem to be the only people left in the beer garden.  Mick attributes this to a modern epidemic of anxiety. I worry he might be right.

At twenty to three we drain our glasses and set off for Portman Road.  As ever, there are queues for the Cobbold Stand in Portman Road and at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand.  Making a quick assessment of the relative length and speed of each queue I join the shortest, fastest moving one where I stand behind two men discussing their holidays. “Yes” says one “We went on a cruise down the Rhine” and then as if it was the most natural thing in the World “It was drink all you want”.  I’ve stopped smirking by the time I reach the front of the queue where I congratulate and name as ‘employee of the month’ the young, handsome man of Asian origin who is so quickly scanning us for weapons and scrap metal and letting us go onto the second challenge of the afternoon, the turnstiles.  The queue for illustrious turnstile 62 looks a bit sluggish so I go for the next best thing, turnstile 61, which turns out fine once a steward explains to the bloke in front how to present his mobile phone, and I’m soon shuffling past Pat from Clacton and Fiona to my seat where I say hello to the bloke next to me and to the man from Stowmarket (Paul), and see the backs of the heads of ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood.

The game begins beneath grey clouds after the Fulham captain Bassey (Shirley) has got up off his knees and finished praying, to whom or what, or for what it is impossible to say.  It is Ipswich who get first go with the ball though, sending it when they can, mostly in the direction of the goal in front of me and my fellow ultras.  Ipswich are of course in classic blue and while, whilst Fulham look a mess in red and black chequer-board shirts and red shorts, when their traditional white shirts and black shorts would have suited the occasion perfectly well.  We can but hope however, that they will lose as a result.  “Fulham, Fulham” chants the Fulham supporters, supportively, before launching into a rendition of Frankie Valli’s 1967 hit “Can’t take my eyes of you” which sadly sort of peters out after the words “I love you Fulham”, as if nobody was really sure of the words after that.  “MSC, moving the world together” announce the neon advertising boards on the Sir Bobby Robson stand and I feel we should get the United States government to fund a message directly after it reading “Donald Trump, moving the world further apart”.

“Super Fulham, Super Fulham” sing the Fulham fans and after eleven minutes and a spell of pressure Ipswich become the first team to win a corner. “Come On You Blues” everyone chants, more or less.  “Create more space with a mezzanine floor” announces that neon sign, which seems to have taken to providing surreal in-game coaching advice to the team.  Two minutes later and Town have another corner, the game is fast and Portman Road is noisy, a few of us again chant “Come On You Blues!”!  A further three minutes pass and the highlight of the half for Town arrives with a neat move down the right, a touch back and a measured, curling, low shot past the post from Julio Enciso.

The first half is never as good again for Town and Leif Davis is soon booked for a not particularly bad foul. “Sets a precedent” says the bloke beside me suggesting anyone could be booked for anything from now on.  The sky remains cloudy and grey, Fulham win a corner, “Come On Fulham” chant their fans and the neon sign says “Hot Sausage Company” and then “The ideal pre-match meal”, hopefully information that any watching scouts from Town’s next opponents, Manchester City will take to heart and implement. On the touchline, Gary O’Neil strikes a pose which if he was wearing a white suit with wide lapels and flared trousers rather than a zip-up cardigan might make him resemble John Travolta.

Fulham have begun to dominate possession and in one of the growing number of dull moments Pat asks if I’ve seen her new blue and white earrings, which she then displays by turning her left ear towards me. I ask if she’s wearing her blue pants too and a look of horror crosses her face as she realises she has forgotten them, although happily she does have some underwear on, although apparently it is beige.   Fulham’s dominance of possession continues and chants of “Blue Army!” fail to reverse the tide. Fulham win a second corner and hit a shot wide of the Town goal.  “The future of flat roofing today” says the neon signage.  The half concludes with a minute of added on time and an equalising booking for Fulham’s number seven Gonzalo, who tackles Lukic in a different financial year to the current one.

At half-time, the scoreboard wishes happy ninetieth birthday to Sheila who sits across the gangway from Pat from Clacton, and who miraculously doesn’t really look any older than Pat does. I use the remainder of half-time to vent spent Suffolk Pride and then chat briefly with Dave the steward, to whom I proudly reveal that I am now retired and it’s marvellous. Dave won’t retire for another four years, poor devil. The football resumes at two minutes past four and Leif Davis is soon launching a really lousy free-kick high over the Fulham cross bar before at the other end Fulham players come out with some very imaginative appeals for a penalty before hanging about in the Town box winning three corners in quick succession.  The third corner is headed clear by Diop but falls to Fulham’s Ryan Sessegnon, who is lucky enough to see his speculative low shot from 25 yards avoid all of the thirty to forty ankles and boots in between and then nestle in the corner of the Town goal. “Super Fulham, Super Fulham FC, the finest football team the World has ever seen” chant the Fulham fans and then “We are staying up, We are staying up”, which seems an unusually modest ambition for the greatest football team the World has ever seen.

Within five minutes, Ipswich come close to equalising but Emmerson ’s close range header hits a post instead of the net and the Fulham fans begin to get a bit cocky with chants of “No noise from the Tractor Boys” and “How shit must you be we’re winning away”.  Without the gift of foresight they are living in the moment, blissfully unaware of what is to come.

It is the sixty-second minute, and Town bring on Exequiel Palacios and Jack Clarke for Florentino and Philogene, immediately improving the team. “Come on Town!” shouts the bloke beside me with rekindled optimism “These are fucking rubbish”. Palacios soon helps Town to gain and keep more possession whilst Clarke runs at defenders.  Nine minutes later and Akpom and Flemming replace Enciso and Emmerson.  The grey cloud has lifted, the sky is blue and the sun shines into the faces of the Fulham fans in the Cobbold stand.  Fifteen minutes remain and Daizen Maeda prompts VAR into action after he falls to the ground in the penalty area, but predictably no foul is acknowledged. The best substitution of the match follows soon afterwards when Fulham replace Bobb with Kevin, although regrettably the excitable young stadium announcer wastes the opportunity to pronounce Bobb in the way that Rowan Atkinson did in the first episode of Blackadder 2.

The last ten minutes of normal time arrive with a final substitution for Town as Eggy replaces Daizen, which is nice for our Norwegian supporters but less so for our Japanese ones.  Today’s attendance is announced as being 29,445 and we are thanked for our “…incredible support”, and without a hint of sarcasm. Town are dominant but I am far from convinced that we are going to do anything other than lose one-nil. Pat from Clacton debates whether or not to get the masturbating monkey charm out of her handbag but she probably shouldn’t, Fiona’s niece is here with us today and she’s only twelve.  Town are getting plenty of crosses into the Fulham penalty area. Another goes in and is cleared by Shirley (Bassey) but only to Abdoul Outtara who has been brilliant at right-back all afternoon.  Outtara takes a touch, steps forward and unleashes the proverbial ‘rocket of a shot’ from may be 30 metres out; it arrives instantaneously just inside the far post, and the score is one-all. As if being an 88th minute equaliser isn’t enough it’s fantastic, it’s spectacular and makes Sessegnon’s earlier flukey goal look like a tap-in.

There will be five minutes of added time and having scored so late we could be happy with a draw, but the feeling is we can win this, it’s like Escape to Victory all over again.  The match is now into time added on and Chuba Akpom wins a freekick on the left; Jack Clarke takes it, flighting the ball to the near post, and then the ball bulges the net from Dara O’Shea’s imposing header.  Town lead two-one and there are ecstatic arms, legs, bodies and other things joyously jumping, flailing and hugging and being thrown and bounced around all over the place.   There’s still time for Christian Walton to make a match winning save with his left leg from Kevin but in yet another marvellous climax Town emerge victorious and Fulham live up to the comedy billing of their eternal association with Citizen Smith.

Fiona and Pat from Clacton make their customary sharp exits with the final whistle but I hang on to applaud and sing of Edward Ebenezer Jeremiah Brown, who everyone calls Ted.  In truth, Town have only been good in parts, but what parts they were and of course football punditry wisdom tells us that it’s good to play badly and win, even if in fact we didn’t play badly. Whatever, it was a magnificent win and although I’m not a sentimental man it feels to me like a win for Ray.

Clacton Town 8 Diss Town 0

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s just under 37 kilometres from my house to the Rush Green Bowl, home of Clacton Town Football Club, but as far as I can tell the quickest that it is possible to make this journey by public transport is one hour and thirty-six minutes, and this involves a challenging degree of co-ordination of buses, trains and footsteps, probably not possible on a Saturday and not convenient for a 3pm kick-off, and then I still have to get home.  Never mind, I think to myself, I have an electric car so can save an hour for worthy purposes and still try and save the planet too whilst travelling to watch non-league football, and so that’s what I shall do today having chosen to watch Clacton Town versus Diss Town in the snappily monikered Thurlow Nunn Eastern Counties League First Division North.

It’s been a while since I last saw Clacton play; eleven years and eight months to be almost precise, but rocking up at the Rush Green Bowl it doesn’t seem that very much has changed in all that time but for a superficial and recent switch from being FC Clacton back to being Clacton Town, and as William Shakespeare might have said if in a sarcastic mood, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. 

It’s a gloriously sunny, early autumn day as I step out of my neatly parked Citroen, breath in the briny scent of sea air and walk to the turnstile along the back of the clubhouse beneath an ugly gable and a sign bearing the Clacton Town crest, the word ‘Welcome’, a CCTV camera and a burglar alarm.  The turnstile itself is a magnificent piece of iron work but is set at a somewhat impractical angle as if an overly large person had tried to force their way through it or it had been rescued from a shipwreck. I ask the lady operator if it’s from the pier, but she doesn’t know.  Entry for a ‘senior’ costs a fiver, but more importantly and satisfyingly Clacton Town still produce a programme (£2.00), an impressively glossy twelve-page effort between stiff covers. Through the turnstile, a man sells old programmes and ‘goes’ on a pub card on which the pubs are football clubs. Seeing that Ipswich Town has already been bagged by someone called Richard, I plump for Burnley, who Ipswich beat to the 1962 version of what is now called the “Premier League” title.

There is still most of a half an hour until kick-off and so I look about a bit. I poke my head in the club house, a large, gloomy space that smells of body spray and has a large bar at one end; the back of the door is where the team line-ups are posted.  Returning outside, I take in the architecture comprising three small stands and a gathering of blue portacabins linked by a porch that looks like a massive nesting box and features another gable, which in this case grandly announces, “Hospitality Suite”.  Mostly blokes stand about awaiting kick-off as last-minute adjustments are made to the goal nets at the clubhouse end of the ground.  Some blokes hold plastic pint glasses of pale beery liquid.  One of the blokes not holding a plastic pint of beery liquid turns out to be Richard of pub card fame, who I know from our mutual historical association with Wivenhoe Town. Richard had booked a trip to the nearby Essex County Council dump to dispose of some garden rubbish and to my amusement had decided to combine that trip with one to the Rush Breen Bowl, which handily is next door.  We stand and talk and listen as the Clacton Town club secretary, a man called Karl, looks at his mobile phone and reads out the teams over the public address system.  Richard and I look at each other askance as the name of Clacton’s number three is announced as Lincoln Green.  “Surely, that’s a colour not a left-back” we almost say as one.

When the football begins, it is visiting Diss Town who get first go with the ball, which they despatch in the general direction of the club house and the North Sea, whilst hoping the goal net stops it from going that far.  Diss, known as “The Tangerines” wear an attractive kit of orange (more accurately tangerine) shirts and navy-blue shorts.  Richard and I agree that you can’t go far wrong with an orange football shirt. Clacton meanwhile sport white shirts with royal blue trim and royal blue shorts.  To avoid doubt they have the words Clacton and Town printed across their shoulders where players at professional level have their names.  Any musings about the comparative merits of the team kits are quickly forgotten as Diss Town soon lose possession and inside a minute Clacton dismantle the Diss defence and number seven Sonny Carr scores with a low, casually placed shot into the corner of the goal to give Clacton a very early lead.  It’s a lead which is almost doubled very soon afterwards as Letts’ header is saved and number two, Logan Green has a shot cleared off the goal line.

After thinking that Clacton might run away with the game, it settles down into one of scuffs and miskicks on the hard, uneven and dusty surface.  More than one hoofed clearance is propelled at an unexpected angle and into the undergrowth beyond the pitch.  Diss make it into the Clacton penalty area to win a couple of corners but seem to lack attacking players.  “’kin ‘ell” shouts a Diss player in response to a high boot and the game is held up as the Diss physio runs on carrying what looks like a first-aid kit from the glove compartment of his car. The game resumes with a Diss free kick which is booted straight out beyond the goal line from a good 40 metres out.   Cirrus clouds wheel above us, a small plane takes off from the adjacent airfield.   “We’re fuckin’ walkin’” shouts the totally bald Clacton coach as the game fleetingly descends into the not unusual swearing match often associated with local football.  “Keep it down for the kids” says Richard to me quoting the Thurlow Nunn League’s long-time mantra, and weirdly it seems to do the trick.

It’s now twenty-six minutes past three and all of a sudden Clacton lead two-nil as the speedy but diminutive number nine Adam Wrathall runs at goal, number seven Carr has a shot blocked at close range and number ten Letts bundles the ball into the roof of the net from even closer range. It’s a goal which owes its existence to pace and poor marking and the home crowd cheers. The Rush Green Bowl as its name more than implies is shaped like a bowl and on three sides there are mostly overgrown banks of grass on which spectators stand like the occupants of broken-down cars at the side of a motorway.  In front of us Diss’s number eight Ellis shepherds the ball out putting himself between it and the Clacton number five Cooper-Macklin. As the ball crosses the touchline Cooper-Macklin kicks Ellison on the ankle in what might generously be described as an act of petulance. The referee Mr Mills explains to Cooper-Macklin that the ball was already out but fails to book him for his spitefulness.  Soon afterwards, karma takes a holiday and after a Clacton corner kick the ball runs to Cooper Macklin on the edge of the penalty area and his low shot is deflected into the Diss goal to make the score three-nil.

The bald Clacton coach standing near the touch line in his blue tracksuit continues to shout and encourage.  Clouds of dust accompany almost every kick, and such is the apparent lack of any reaction in the Diss Town dugout I wonder if Diss have a coach at all, or whether the team functions as some sort of autonomous collective.  There are five minutes of the nominal first forty-five remaining as Clacton score their fourth goal from the penalty spot courtesy of captain Emmanuel Ikwuegbu after Wrathall runs at and around the Diss centre-half Viner and seems to be about to shoot when Mr Mills points to the penalty spot.  Richard and I agree it looked a soft penalty decision (shirt tugging?) and we wonder if Wrathall wouldn’t have scored anyway.  As if to let the world know that yes, he would have scored, five minutes later Wrathall rattles in a fantastic shot into the top corner of the Diss goal from something like 30 metres out.  When the half-time whistle is blown at twelve minutes to four the score is a probably decisive Clacton Town 5 Diss Town 0.

Richard and I have, during the course of the match, been making our way around the pitch and with half-time, we move from the sunny eastern side to the more shaded area next to what passes as the main stand.  On our way, we go onto the pitch to get around the subsiding terrace stand behind the goal that is now closed off for safety reasons.  It is at the same time a shame that the stand cannot be used but it also strangely adds to the character of the place and the delightfully depressing sense of decay and dilapidation that often characterises lower league football. 

The football resumes not much after four o’clock and at three minutes past Clacton score a sixth goal as number eleven Morton receives a square pass and from about 10 metres shoots the ball into the top right-hand corner of the Diss Town net.  The game resumes again and a man in a blue shirt, Diss Town club tie and possibly stay-pressed trousers, walks past us from the direction of the hospitality suite.   Earlier this afternoon as we stood near some of the Diss Town committee members I reflected on how even now some club officials come to games looking like refugees from the 1950’s with their collared shirts and club ties and sometimes even blazers and as a result they can’t help but also look a bit like coach drivers.    Richard suggests that if Diss have a bus in the car park they should make a note to park it in front of their goal in future. Our reverie is broken as the ball flies off the pitch and lands in the long grass next to me.  As I throw it back, I think it feels a bit soft, but on a rock-hard pitch that’s probably a good thing.

A Diss player is the first to be booked by Mr Mills, possibly for tugging a shirt, we’re not sure, and  as a cool breeze blows in off the sea the players shadows begin to lengthen across the mottled green of the pitch.  Diss win a freekick outside the Clacton penalty area, the Clacton captain is booked and from the kick Clacton’s goalkeeper Palmer, palms the ball away for his only save of the game.  Four minutes later and Clacton score their seventh goal as Wrathall scurries into the penalty area holding off a towering defender before sending a scorching shot high into the top corner of the net at the goalkeeper’s near post.

The last fifteen minutes of the match have arrived and to their credit Diss Town continue to do what they can to score and Ellis should do so when confronted with an open goal, but instead he boots the ball high over the subsiding stand. Four minutes later and once again I have to throw the ball back onto the pitch for a second time, I think I’ve now had more touches than the Clacton Keeper’ and the Diss centre forward.  Clearly a sympathetic man, Richard is hoping for a Diss goal but all they can manage is a shot that sails higher above the subsiding stand than the previous one and another which curls increasingly wide of the goal after leaving the Diss player’s boot.  It is a quarter to five when Clacton score an eighth goal, an audacious lob over the luckless Diss goalkeeper’s head from 50 metres after he misguidedly leaves his penalty area and clears weakly.

Finally, after an uncomfortable sounding clatter of shin guards on studs there is a late caution for Diss Town’s number three and captain Bray, who had deserved a booking for some earlier successful attempts to con freekicks out of Mr Mills.  With the final whistle, an understandably appreciative crowd applaud the teams and Richard and I make for the car park only to wonder if either of us had won the pub card.  Although it’s been a one-sided game in terms of goals, it has still been an entertaining one and on a beautiful autumn afternoon. After a rotten day for Diss Town however, we can only wish them and their coach drivers a safe journey home.

Ipswich Town Reserves 2 Arsenal Reserves 4

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Arsenal fans seem to get everywhere, like those tiny black insects that you find in picture frames, or like ants in your pantry.  I shared a house in Brighton with one called John, an Arsenal fan that is, not an ant, I also used to travel home from work on the train with one called Alan, I still work with one called Felicia, I used to work with two others both called Chris, a friend went out with one called Ellie, I had a lodger called Mark who was one and my mother worked with one called Yvonne.  As if that wasn’t enough, Osama Bin Laden, Ronnie Biggs and John Lydon were/are also followers.  This evening they will be everywhere at Portman Road because Ipswich Town are playing Arsenal in what is nominally the Football League Cup but is likely to be more like a throw-back to the days of the Football Combination with both teams fielding what are effectively reserve teams mostly made up of players who didn’t start in the team last weekend and won’t start in the team next weekend.

I leave home a smidgeon over three hours before kick-off and meet Gary on the train to talk of having not gone to the Chappel beer festival last week because of the rain and how a woman told Gary she didn’t like him when she first met him and he was able to truthfully tell her he didn’t like her either. The descent into Ipswich then reveals three polar bears all doing passable impressions of furry hearth rugs. Ipswich is bathed in soft early evening, late summer sunlight when we arrive and make for ‘the Arb’ heading up Princes Street, Museum Street and High Street against a background of cumulous clouds and several Grade II listed nineteenth century buildings.  Ipswich is the best I tell Gary, it just needs the gene pool pepping up.  

At the Arb I ‘get’, as modern parlance dictates, a pint of Estrella Galicia for Gary and one of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me (£10 something with Camra discount). We repair to the beer garden to wait for Mick who ‘gets’ more beer when he arrives and a portion of “mini fish and chips”, which looks very good and makes me a tad jealous and regretful that I ate Toad in the Hole at lunchtime and then vowed not to eat again and only drink beer.

Some forgettable conversation and another round of drinks later it is gone seven-thirty and hopefully with no other Town supporters showing such cool by not leaving earlier we at last make our way to Portman Road.  Selecting the queue that looks like it’s shuffling fastest we make our way towards men of Asian descent with wands, and the turnstiles but are ushered to a side entrance like three Mr Benns where magically my mobile phone is interrogated by a man with a cross between a taser and one of those ‘guns’ you scan your shopping with at Sainsbury’s. A quick stop to drain off excess spent Suffolk Pride and we’re ascending the umpteen flights of metal stairs to the top tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand.

Arriving at our seats, the queues to be checked for explosives, scrap metal and weapons outside have resulted in us missing the first three minutes and twenty-eight seconds of the match but to our relief the scoreboard still says nil-nil and I check with the bloke who is going to be next to me for the rest of the evening, who isn’t Mick, that we haven’t missed anything.  He reassures me that we haven’t and makes a witty remark, which I quickly forget. I don’t know who got first go with the ball tonight but unusually for the first half the Town are kicking towards the London Road Baptist church end of the ground. Both teams are in their signature home kits; Ipswich beautiful in blue and white, Arsenal with their red shirts and white sleeves looking like Rotherham United in go-faster Adidas stripes . “You know who we are” chant the Arsenal fans and I guess they probably know who we are too or otherwise they would never have found their way to the right football ground. We are of course the team who beat Arsenal in the only Cup final the two teams have ever met in.

Seven minutes are nearly up and some bloke in red with white sleeves with a stupidly high number on his shirt (fifty-six) jinks past a slightly ponderous Cedric Kipre and Arsenal lead one nil.  “Bugger” I say under my breath.  “We are the Champions, the Champions of England” chant the Arsenal fans.  It’s a chant which in its attempt to boast fails almost as one that goes “By far the finest team, Norwich has ever seen”.  We all know that the real words to the song are “We are the Champions, Champions of Europe”, which sadly for Arsenal they are not.  They (Ipswich) were doing alright until you got here” jokes (I think) the bloke next to me who isn’t Mick. He could well be right.

“He shudda gone down there” says a depressingly worldly-wise pre-pubescent voice behind me as Nunez is clipped lightly when traversing the centre circle.  Fourteen minutes are nearly up. “Come to see the Arsenal, You’ve only come to see the Arsenal” chant the visiting fans and I reflect on how hard it would probably be for Town fans to inject sufficient sarcasm into a chant of “Yes, yes, of course we have”, but I wish they’d have a go.  A minute later and Arsenal score a second goal as Town give the ball away and their number twenty passes the ball into the net.

It is the nineteenth minute, and Town have their first shot at the Arsenal goal courtesy of a bloke called Florentino whose signing for the Town must have passed me by; I felt I had to admit to Mick that I hadn’t heard of him before, but found that nor had Mick.  “ITFC!” shouts the worldly-wise kid behind us and the clock ticks forward to the point where Gary exclaims “We’re kicking the wrong way” and a woman walks up the gangway next to us who I think looks a bit like the late Tony Hancock.

With the twenty-sixth minute, possibly the highlight of the first half for the Town is Outtara overlapping down the left, crossing the ball, Flemming touching it back and Nunez shooting over the bar to general applause. Six minutes later and the Arsenal fans in the Cobbold Stand still can’t stop telling us that they are the champions, the champions of ….England!  It’s a chant whose repetitiveness inspires Town to gain two corners in quick succession before the Arsenal fans begin to enquire “Is this a library?”, a question which I always understood was ‘invented’ at the famously dull Emirates Stadium.  In front of us, a man who looks a bit like the late Jimmy Savile might have looked with short hair leaves his seat in anticipation of the half-time break and behind us a woman complains loudly about people standing in the gangway, which as far as I am aware never happens in the Suffolk County library Northgate Street.  It’s an incident that has me suggesting to Mick that people should be strapped into their seats like on a fun-fair ride. “Ah, I knew there was a fascist in you somewhere” says Mick.

The half ends with the Arsenal fans’ most ironic chant of the evening as they sing “Bus stop in Norwich, you’re just a bus stop in Norwich” when Arsenal literally is a tube stop on the Northern Line.  A minute of added on time is announced with an air of excitement, which it inevitably fails to live up to and half time arrives.

The football resumes at four minutes past nine and at six minutes past nine Town are losing by three goals, although Mick and I blame this on a sudden distracting explosion of white light from the advertising hoardings around the pitch. It reminds me, with a bit of artistic license, of the lighting at the Brighton Centre in 1981 when I saw The Who perform ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’.  Coincidentally, but perhaps not, Roger Daltrey is an Arsenal fan.

Despite the early disappointment, Town rally as Anis Mehmeti is put through on goal but fails to shoot, although Arsenal are then awarded their first corner and two minutes before the match enters its final third a fourth goal results from a shot from the edge of the Town penalty area, which strikes the inside of one post and pings across to the corner of the net behind the other.  It’s another good goal and I reflect that it’s a bit like watching Paris St Germain, except of course that they’re not the champions of England.

With an hour passed into history, now is the time for substitutions, and Chuba Akpom and Jack Clarke replace Jaden Philogene and Zian Flemming.  The results are instant as Clarke typically jinks past some bloke in a fake Rotherham shirt, squares the ball and Mehmeti passes it into the Arsenal net like a hot knife through butter, which has already been out of the fridge for several minutes. Easy.  Flushed with success, Gary O’Neill soon makes more substitutions with Davis and Eggy replacing Outtara and McAteer.  Nothing much happens at first, but with ten minutes left Town trash Arsenal in the corner count by three to one, unless I missed some, but then Arsenal get one back before tonights attendance is announced as being 28,566 and seemingly the greatest excitement of the evening for some home supporters is the sight of Arsenal fans in the ‘home’ stands revealing themselves as such and being ejected from the ground.

Finally, a sensible two minutes of added time turn up and another break down the right and a squared ball for Town finds Chuba Akpom, who pirouettes and scores into the corner of the Arsenal net with a smidgeon of help from an Arsenal player’s back.  There’s barely time for the scoreboard to catch up with the present and the game is over, with Ipswich yet again out of the League Cup, but not to lower league opposition as so often used to happen under Mick McCarthy, but to the champions of England, or at least their reserves.