Ipswich Town 2 Blackburn Rovers 2

August 6, 2018August 6, 2018 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

The sun beats down upon a golden expanse of drifting barley and small fluffy clouds populate a hazy sky. I walk to the railway station past a line of traffic queuing for the coast and struggle to stay cool in sandals, shorts, T-shirt and a wide-brimmed hat as the mercury touches 26 degrees; it can all only mean one thing, it’s the start of the football season.
I meet my friend and colleague Roly at the railway station, who is similarly attired but less colourfully so, in navy blue and black. Roly looks a little glum when I first see him, he is sans hat and wearing some sort of training shoe rather than sandals, but then, he is only forty-one. I cherish a certain self-satisfaction that I am of a generation before ‘trainers’ and feel comfortable offering glimpses of toe and heel through the open sides of my footwear. Whilst not a religious man I ask myself what would Jesus have done and the answer has to be that he would have worn sandals. The train is on time but has no air-conditioning and we gently roast and sweat in equal measure at the front of the second car. All the windows are open on the train but they don’t help to alleviate the heat, it just means we have to shout to be heard. We shout at one another about comedians, of Stewart Lee, of how we agree that Lee Mack has a chip on his shoulder and how Frank Skinner is now over 60 and seems to be adopting the persona of some sort of amiable old grandfather of English comedy.

Arriving in Ipswich the train disgorges a good number of Ipswich Town supporters and we head up Portman Road towards St Jude’s Tavern, stopping off along the way to purchase a programme (£3). It’s a ‘new era’ beginning today I am told, but things seems little different in Portman Road, people with no life gather and wait for the turnstiles to open, others stand before the statue of Sir Bobby Robson whilst polythene bags containing an East Anglian Daily Times a bottle of water and a bag of crisps are sold for a quid each. Today, to mark the dawn of the ‘new era’ those bags also contain a cardboard face mask of Paul Hurst the man who has replaced Mick McCarthy as manager. The club shop, ‘Planet Blue’ is doing a good trade. But the Sporting Farmer pub (latterly known as the Drum & Monkey) is gone, demolished in the close season after a short life of just 56 years; in the end it was just too inebriated to stand up to progress and the march of the temporary car park.

St Jude’s Tavern is busy but I’m soon served and buy two points of the Match Day Special (£2.50), which today is Nethergate Priory Mild and to show there are no hard feelings I give one of the pints to Roly. I hear the pleasing, rich tones of East Lancashire accents at the bar and am happy to think that to these Blackburn supporters going to football and a decent pint go hand in hand; they may be northern, but they’re not so different. We’re not sat down long when Mick arrives and turning his nose up at the thought of Mild I treat him to a pint of a dark ruby beer the exact name of which I do not recall. “Why do people drink Mild?” asks Mick once he has sat down. “Because it’s cheap” I tell him. Our conversation meanders and we learn that Mick weighs 11 stone eight pounds ( 73kg), I divulge that I weigh about 12 stone 4 pounds(78kg) before Roly announces that he is a whopping 13 stone 9 pounds (86kg) despite being the only one of us who is under six foot at 5′ 9″ and a third. Mick accuses me of glory hunting when he discovers that I had slept with a Manchester United supporter. Roly buys me a pint of Black Country BFG but leaves St Jude’s before Mick and me because he has arranged to meet his friend Andrew at the ground and he has already kept him waiting for a good twenty minutes. Mick surmises that Andrew would be pretty pissed off and is surprised that Roly could be so rude, not to mention overweight.
A little past twenty minutes to three Mick and I leave the pub, he walks with me to Portman Road because he wants to pick up a fixture card, but he is not attending the match. We diverge on our separate orbits outside ‘Planet Blue’ and I stroll to the turnstiles of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand, renewing my acquaintance with the back of the Cobbold Stand with its shabby peeling paint and random collections of neatly discarded plastic bottles and drinks containers. A police car sits across Portman Road as if there has been some ‘incident’, but perhaps it’s there to stop runaway vehicles driven by embittered terrorists or Mick McCarthy (1.88m).
Inside the ground I drain off some surplus liquid and make for my seat, but not before I meet Roz (5′ 11″), wife of former colleague Ray (5′ 8″ and three quarters), she only comes to Portman Road when the weather is nice, which is as good a time as any. I have renewed my season ticket for the thirty fifth consecutive year, not that the club seems to have noticed my unswerving loyalty, although I have yet again moved seat. Having grown increasingly restless with age I am now officially settled somewhere within a seat or two of ever-present Phil who never misses a game and Pat from Clacton, three stalwarts together, or in close proximity anyway.

I don’t think it is just the sunshine but there is an uncharacteristically pleasant, optimistic and almost cheerful atmosphere within Portman Road today.

The thousand or so supporters of newly promoted Blackburn Rovers are in good voice and sing about returning to the Premier League, which seems a little premature not to say foolhardy and they should be careful what they wish for.

But Ipswich’s supporters seem mostly pleased to be here and there is warm applause as our club’s new manager and figurehead, the 5ft 5in tall Paul Hurst walks from the players’ tunnel to the dugouts and waves obligingly. A large flag is passed above the heads of supporters across the lower tier of the North (Sir Bobby Robson) Stand and the adulation, belief and enthusiasm amongst the above average crowd of 18,940 is palpable, if someway short of a Nuremburg rally. I resist the temptation to sing a song I had thought up in the toilet in praise of our new manager:

“We’ve got Paul Hurst
Little Paul Hurst
We knicked him from Shrewsbu-ry
He’s not very tall
In fact he’s quite small
But he’s taller than Ji-mmy Krankie-e.” (1.3m)

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The Town team includes four of Paul Hurst’s new signings, two from Third Division clubs, one from the Fourth Division and one on loan from the First Division who has brought his own hairstyle. I am reminded of the arrival of John Duncan thirty-one years ago, although I try not to recall how that ended. The game begins with Town trying to fill the goal just in front of me with well-placed footballs and if four minutes can be termed ‘straightaway’, Ipswich do this straightaway when a deep cross meets the forehead of the wonderfully Welsh Gwion Edwards (1.75m) and he guides the ball unexpectedly into the far top corner of the goal net past the inadequate dive of the Spanish Blackburn goalkeeper, who is listed on the back of the programme as “David Raya – Spain” (1.83m) The crowd erupts as well as an Ipswich crowd can. Crikey! This is the stuff of Town fans’ dreams.
Sadly the dream dissolves quite quickly into normal sleep patterns and standard ‘Championship’ fare with free-kicks and physical effort counting for more than skill and flair, which probably only exist in the World Cup anyway. In the 20th minute Blackburn equalise as a deep cross is ignored by the Ipswich defence; the ball returns across the face of the goal to be patted away ineffectually by Bartosz Bialkowski (1.94m) and Blackburn’s star-striker Danny Graham (1.83m) half volleys the ball into the goal. Blackburn deserve it inasmuch as they are no worse than Ipswich. But symptomatic of the revolution that has taken place since just before three o’clock this afternoon the North Stand break into a chant of “Come On Ipswich”, although not for very long. Nine minutes later and Blackburn score again as Ipswich right-back Jordan Spence (1.8m) offers no opposition to a run down the wing and a low cross is kicked into the Ipswich goal from close range by Bradley Duck, sorry Dack (1.75m).

The revolution is on hold and Town’s new striker Ellis Harrison (1.8m) earns the coveted first booking of the season as he tackles inexpertly enough for hairless referee Andy Davies to air his yellow card. Jordan Spence has looked troubled and seems to be clutching his head; he possibly has a migraine brought on by the uncharacteristic amount of crowd noise. Whatever the cause or nature of his affliction Spence is substituted and there are still a good ten minutes until half-time. Half-time comes and I seek the verdict of ever-present Phil; he remains positive, the new signing’s need time to gel. Ray on the other hand is unimpressed and thinks we look worse than last season. I eat a Panda brand stick of liquorice and then a cup cake which Ray directs me to inside a tin inside a picnic bag; it is Ray’s son’s birthday so cakes are being shared amongst the little community of fans at the back of the disabled enclosure.
The game resumes and nothing much changes. Blackburn have most possession probably but it doesn’t do them any good or Ipswich any harm. The crowd are less excited than they were. I notice that the buddleia on the roof of the stand is still flourishing and has been joined by a couple of friends, Portman Road is on its way to becoming a grand ruin of the sort painted by early nineteenth century romanticists.

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Blackburn’s Bradley Dack falls to the deck in an attempt to win a penalty. It’s an obvious and blatant dive but at the same time rather good, but again equally so bad it is amusing. “Duck!” I shout whilst thinking “What a dick”. Dack is dark and bearded and could easily grow to resemble the late Welsh international Trevor Hockey, if he let himself go a bit. I like him.
The game is in neutral with neither side looking particularly likely to score again. Elliott Bennet fouls Town’s Trevoh Chalobah (1.9m), Town’s loanee from Chelsea with two tone hair, and becomes the first Blackburn player to be rebuked by yellow card by baldy Davies. Chalobah is fouled quite a lot but shows his Premier League pedigree (not that he’s ever played a Premier League game) by clutching his limbs and not just ‘getting on with it’ like a bloke might if he played Aussie Rules. Town’s second Premier League loanee, Adetayo Edun (1.7m) of Fulham replaces Flynn Downes (1.72m) and looks pretty nifty, and he only signed up for Town yesterday but football skills should be easily transferable form one club to another, shouldn’t they?. Blackburn replace Dominic Samuel (1.82m) with Kasey Palmer (1.75m) whose hair bears comparison with that of Trevoh Chalobah, they may even have the same hairdresser and I think I catch them eyeing one another with suspicion.

Time added on for injuries, sundry stoppages and drinks breaks to stave off de-hydration approaches and Town have upped their game, they’re pushing Blackburn back, but are vulnerable to breakaways. But I still feel positive and no one has dared boo yet, although I did once call upon Paul Hurst to ‘Sort it out’. Substitutes Ben Morris and Tayo Edun have had an impact and Edwards has broken down the right a couple of times too. It’s now or never as Edun puts in a low cross following a free-kick and the far post is there to sweep the ball into the net and save a point for Town. Soon afterwards Mr Davies, whose performance has won him no fans, even amongst other bald referees, thankfully blows his whistle for the final time and another round of generous applause cascades from the stands.
The dream and the revolution are still alive; it was meant to be a famous victory to sweep away the poisoned memory of Mick McCarthy and usher in the new era. But a draw in the final minute will do, a goal to save a point in the final minute will nearly always do and today it feels like a win. It hasn’t been a great match; it has been goodish at very best, but to quote Ron Atkinson, something that generally only white supremacists now do with much conviction, it is still ‘early doors’. But I enjoyed my cup-cake at half-time and the revolution may yet be televised.

(Except where dependent upon individual honesty, all personal statistics were as accurate as a quick look on the interweb would allow at the time of writing)*

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World Cup 1 Ipswich 0

July 8, 2018April 15, 2022 / 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.

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

in Marseille then I can thoroughly recommend the

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.

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.

Havre AC 2 Tours FC 0

May 19, 2018 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It is Friday 11th May and tonight the 38th and final round of matches will be played in the French second division, known as Ligue 2, which despite the French reputation for gastronomy is sponsored by Domino’s Pizza. Tours have already been relegated to the Ligue National having been bottom of the league for much of the season. Le Havre, known as HAC, by contrast, have been within striking distance of les barrages (play-offs) positions for much of the season and a good recent run finds them in fifth place and needing a win to ensure that they will play in les barrages.
My wife Paulene and I arrived in Le Havre on Wednesday afternoon and bought our tickets (10 Euros each) at the smaller of two club shops, the one in the Place Perret in the centre of the city (the larger shop is in the Docks Vauban shopping mall, about 15 minutes away on foot). There is no longer a ticket office or club shop at the Stade Océane where HAC play their home matches, although guichets do open there on the evening of the match. Place Perret is named after the architect whose practice was charged with rebuilding Le Havre after a phenomenal 80% of it was destroyed by allied bombing in 1944. Perret was a great advocate of concrete construction and his planned city centre with its wide boulevards, massive city square and classically inspired concrete buildings is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Walking its streets is like being in an idyllic 1950’s vision of the city of the future.

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The Stade Océane is at the very edge of what is a sprawling city, with its vast docks strung along the mouth of the River Seine. The HAC website refers to shuttle buses (navettes) that run from the city centre to the stadium but it doesn’t provide details. The bloke in the club shop didn’t seem to know anything about the navettes, disappointingly recommending travelling by car; nor did the woman at the Tourist Information centre, although she was able to supply a bus map and timetable for the regular service that passes close to the stadium. The HAC website does however provide a link to the website of CODAH (Communauté de l’agglomération havraise) the local public transport undertaking who provide the free navettes and where I learn that buses will run every forty minutes from Quai D (stand D) of the bus station (gare routier) beginning at 6.30pm. After the match four separate routes will run to various destinations across the city.

Although kick-off is not until 8:45pm we are perhaps over keen and are waiting at the bus station at 6.30 where a handful of people including a nerdish looking youth in a HAC tracksuit top are already hanging around Quai D. A white Mercedes bus swings onto the stand and first in the queue is a small boy who climbs aboard and stretches up to hug the driver, who it seems is his dad. Pausing briefly to go “awww” we board the bus and after waiting a few minutes, during which time no one else boards the bus who hadn’t already been waiting for it, we set off. The journey takes us through some less salubrious areas of the city, close to the docks through streets that might be termed both ‘gritty’ and ‘urban’ amongst other things.
The journey takes about 15 minutes at the end of which we are dropped off next to some tenement blocks beyond which, across a railway track and grey concrete open space is the amazing, bright blue Stade Océane, which looks like an enormous beached rubber dinghy. A few fans wait by the entrance to a subterranean world into which the team coaches will soon descend, but we ascend a flight of steps to the concourse around the

ground where not much is happening. A friendly faced man in the mobile club shop speaks to the nerd from earlier and then peers out in vain for customers who don’t think he is selling ice creams. I take a look

at his stock and he tries to convince me to buy a scarf; I tell him I already have a petit fanion (pennant) from the shop in town and this seems to satisfy him. He asks me who my team are in England and is complimentary when I say it is Ipswich Town, revealing that his knowledge of the English game is perhaps not up to date.
We hang about waiting for the turnstiles to

open. Some people arrive and buy tickets at the guichets where club employees arrange plastic barriers and then take them away again. The huge car park beyond the stadium fills up slowly with a trickle of cars from the main road that runs close by. Children are being admitted free tonight and school parties gather at the south end of the stadium, where more barriers snake a path to the

turnstiles. As we lean against a concrete wall two young women hand out free copies of the A4 sized, glossy four page match programme. There is a hot food van with the rather wonderful name of Friterie Momo parked on the concourse, providing a supply of massive cartons full of chips and sausage-filled baguettes (7 euros) to an increasing queue of casual diners. I wouldn’t usually eat this in England so see no reason to eat it in France, although it is likely to taste better, but I do buy a 500 ml can of Ch’ti Blonde (4 euros) the local beer of Pas de Calais and Picardie, which at 6.4% alcohol could probably not legally be sold at a football ground in England. But French people will drink one can of Ch’ti, English people would try and drink eight or ten.

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Eventually the turnstiles open; they are automatic and read the barcodes on the tickets, but entry to the stadium is not speedy because once through the turnstiles everyone has to be patted down. Then the turnstiles go haywire as the barcode readers stop working, but it doesn’t matter because people are already backed up at the security check. Happily the turnstiles begin to work again and we are both into the stadium and up the steps to the upper tier; we make our way to as near to the half way line as we can get. It is a ‘sit where you like night’ tonight in this part of the stadium because there will be displaced supporters from behind the north goal where the seats will remain empty after fans threw objects onto the pitch during the recent derby match with Quevilly-Rouen.

The Stade Océane is only six years old, it cost 80 million euros, it has a few more than 25,000 seats and the two I sit in were more comfortable, spacious and felt much more solid than the average football stadium seat; they even have a smooth spring action to tip up. I sit in two different seats because the bloke just along from my first seat is puffing an e-cigarette, which emits clouds of sickly fruit scented vapour that make me feel slightly ill; he also has quite a pungent body spray so it is doubly necessary to move a bit further away. I can’t believe that his natural smell was so bad that he had to go to such desperate lengths to cover it up.
The players warm up on the pitch as the ground fills up; eventually the ground will be almost exactly half full, which with a nice sense of numerical symmetry is about twice as full as it is has been for most Ligue 2 games this season. The teams are introduced in the customary French manner with the stadium announcer providing players’ first names and the crowd shouting out their surnames, it’s a lot of fun but I don’t think it would work as well with English surnames. Banners display the club crests and the teams enter

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the arena. There is a band of ultras in one corner at the southern end of the ground they wave flags and then sing the national anthem, the British national anthem, which for Le Havre is the club song. (https://youtu.be/Wy2MhV8sFyw) Havre Athletic Club is France’s oldest football club, founded in 1872 by a bunch of Englishmen from Oxford and Cambridge universities, so possibly a Tory cabinet, and this English connection explains the use of Thomas Arne’s tune.
Le Havre kick-off the match towards the empty Tribune Nord wearing what is possibly an Oxbridge inspired kit of Cambridge blue and Oxford blue quarters with Oxford blue shorts and socks. Alternatively, the two blues could be of those of the sky and the sea as HAC are known as Ciel et Marine (sky and sea); two things that are prominent in Le Havre and somehow define the city and it situation. Tours meanwhile wear all white, but with blue and white checked sleeves. Havre are quickly on the attack passing the ball zippily on the lush playing surface and soon earn a corner and within four minutes the beautifully named Zinedine Ferhat crosses from the right and Jean-Philippe Mateta sends a fine header into the bottom left hand corner of the Tours goal. Six minutes later and a precise through ball from Jean-Pascal Fontaine precedes a right foot shot from Mateta and Havre are winning two-nil, with Tours having explained graphically why they are bottom of the league. That’s all that needs to happen this evening, if Havre can keep the score as it is they will be in les barrages. To an extent it seems that they realise this and after such an exciting opening ten minutes the game settles down to be not quite so exciting.
It takes twenty minutes for Tours to have a shot and despite the score the Le Havre supporters don’t seem overly thrilled; perhaps they are not wanting to tempt fate by celebrating too soon. The ultras provide another rendition of the club song, but the most interesting development is in the stand where some people complain to a steward about

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two blokes who are stood at the top of the steps watching the game. The young steward is pressured into asking them to sit down or at least move because it seems they are blocking the view, which they may well be. The older of the men, who looks well in his fifties gesticulates and argues but eventually moves, walking past his accusers and jabbing his index figure at them angrily; it’s marginally more entertaining than the match, although Tours are now having more shots and their Baptiste Etcheverria is booked by referee Monsieur Olivier Thual for a rather violent assault on the impressive Zinedine Ferhat. Meanwhile, the other man who had been ‘outted’ for standing moves to stand at the side of the stairs and lights a cigarette.
All around the open sections of the ground there are people standing in the area at the

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back of the lower tier, and skulking in the Tribune Sud behind the completely empty away supporters’ area are masses of police, all just watching the game apparently. I don’t know if the police were expecting Tours fans who never turned up; perhaps they were delayed, but heard the score after nine minutes and decided not to bother; it is a three and a half hour drive after all. With about five minutes to go until half time some rhythmic clapping breaks out and then the ultras sing another burst of ‘God Save The Queen’ as they hold their scarves aloft like English football fans used to before the Premier League spoiled everything.
Half-time arrives and I head downstairs to release some of that Ch’ti that I drank before the match and have since processed as nature demands. Passage downstairs however, is

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difficult because bizarrely and surely contrary to safety requirements, the bottom of staircases E3 and E4 are blocked off with Heras fencing. This may be an odd attempt to keep the people who have paid 10 Euros for a seat out of the centre of the stand where normal prices have been charged, but it just has the effect of making people in the cheap seats walk through the central section to get to an open staircase. Down in the lower concourse children are playing on bouncy castles and the light shining through plastic outer ‘skin’ of the stadium creates a bluish hue. At the back of the lower tier people stand and smoke.

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The football returns and the scoreboard encourages the fans to get behind the team; “Faites Du Bruit” it announces, “Make Some Noise”. The ultras obey but no one else much does. On the opposite side of the stadium is the directors box and it amuses me a little that above this are the words “Shopping, Restaurants, Loisirs (leisure)”, as if advertising

the thoughts of the wealthy people in the seats below. In the players’ tunnel a man in a suit, presumably a club official, lolls casually against the concrete wall with his hand on his hip, perhaps summing up in his casual posture the

apparent attitude to the ongoing failure tonight to promote supporter safety in the Tribune Est (East Stand) opposite. A procession of people descend the steps of the Tribune Est expecting to be able to go down the staircase to the toilets or buvette, but of course they find the foot of the stairs closed. A small girl gets quite distressed until led away by her older brothers and an elderly man looks equally perplexed when he finds his way barred. There is no easy way to the other staircases except by walking along whole rows of seats and asking people to stand up to let you through. I just hope there is no need to evacuate the stand quickly.
As the game approaches its final minutes, at last a tangible sense of anticipation and excitement returns to supporters other than the ultras. There is clapping and singing and the fans at last seem confident that their team is capable of holding on to a 2-0 lead against the league’s bottom club and despite three minutes of time added on they do. Le Havre qualify for the play-offs where they will be at home to Stade Brestois 29, another club from a great French port that was also bombed heavily by the allies towards the end of World War Two. We leave the supporters to celebrate without us in order to head for the navette, because we’re not sure what time it will leave.
It has been a good night, but a slightly disappointing one nevertheless. The Stade Océane is fabulous, but has not been shown at its best and its management tonight has been nothing short of alarming. Everything is in place for football to be memorable in Le Havre, but the club really needs that promotion.

Coggeshall Town 3 Stowmarket Town 2

May 6, 2018October 30, 2021 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

The final Saturday of the football league season has arrived, a special day in the football calendar because it can mean such a lot, or so little. It can be make or break, or it can be pointless, futile, a complete waste of everyone’s time. Too lazy to search for the least important fixture of the day I opt to go to the nearest, which just happens to be the one at which Coggeshall Town will be presented with the Thurlow Nunn Eastern Counties

Premier league trophy, which is in fact a substantial looking cup. But first it will be necessary to endure another ninety minutes of football.
It’s a warm sunny day in early May, blackbirds and sparrows are nesting in my garden and a nesting box for swifts, swallows or house martins has just this morning been put up under the eaves of my house. It’s the May Day Bank Holiday, which people who vote Conservative shouldn’t be allowed to take; hypocrites. Because the weather is warm and fine Mrs Brooks, who has chronic asthma, is able to accompany me today. Anticipating plenty of people wanting to see Coggeshall presented with the league trophy we set off before two o’clock. It’s a slow journey behind a farm tractor but it still only takes about ten minutes.
The sun beats down on the dry and dusty car park at West Street; the Stowmarket team

bus is here, provided by Squirrel’s Coaches on which I like to think an-on board hostess offers passengers nut-based snacks. At the turnstile I hand over a twenty pound note, a pound coin and fifty pence piece. In return I receive £10, a programme and a colour picture of the team that won the league on Tuesday night. Admission is £6 for me and £4 for Mrs Brooks who is over 60. Inside the ground the Coggeshall team appear to be having fun warming up on the pitch.

Radio Essex is here in

female form. Near the main stand we see Jim and Keith; Keith is wearing a T-shirt and shorts, Jim has a coat and a hat. We follow them into the stand to exchange pleasantries; Mrs Brooks hasn’t seen Keith for quite some time, or Jim come to that. Keith is over seventy but points out Olly Murs warming up with the team.
Acquaintances renewed, we head for the bar where Mrs Brooks has a white wine spritzer with soda (£4.00) and I have a pint of Caledonian Brewery Coast to Coast (£3.90), a cold, fizzy beer which I drink very slowly indeed to mitigate its unfortunate repetitive qualities. We step outside to enjoy the Spring sunshine and convivial atmosphere. There are plenty of people on the deck drinking like us and chatting. There is a barbecue set up

around the corner of the dressing rooms beneath a white gazebo. People are stretched out on the grassy bank to the side of the seated stand. This is lovely, a football match crossed with a village fete. “The toilets are fairly good in there” says a Suffolk accent. “ They’re bigger than when I last come” says another in reply.
What looks like a mixture of players from Coggeshall’s Under 9’s and Under 10’s teams lines up at the foot of the steps from the

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changing rooms to the pitch. Coggeshall’s giant poultry mascot Rocky the Rooster joins them having been led down the steps by his beak. The Stowmarket Town team joins them too. We wait, and wait a bit more. A sort of Haka can be heard from home team dressing room before the Coggeshall team appears and waits on the steps, why they wait is unclear. Eventually however the players step down towards the pitch to be applauded by their ‘guard of honour’. Handshakes ensue and then we’re ready for the game to begin.

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Coggeshall kick off aiming towards the club house and in their customary red and black striped shirts with black shorts, very good they look too. Stowmarket Town, kicking towards the West Street vineyard and the town of Coggeshall itself, sadly haven’t put as much thought into their kit today; they wear their home shirts of amber and black stripes, but because their usual shorts would be black like Coggeshall’s they have ‘borrowed’ the red shorts from their away kit. The result is an unholy mess, all they needed was white or amber shorts and they would have looked fine, but instead they look like they got changed in the dark.

Mrs Brooks and I sit on the grass slope between the club house and the main stand. The first notable action is when the ball is booted out and hurtles like a space capsule re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere onto the grassy bank, making a man in a red and blue checked shirt spill his beer. At the far end of the ground six blokes from Stowmarket sing and bang the perimeter fence like the drunks that they probably are. In front of us a golden retriever or labrador, (who really knows the difference?) looks on and barks excitedly when the ball is hoofed out of defence or when the action gets a bit feisty.

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It’s twenty past three and Stowmarket’s number seven is booked for a foul; referee Mr Harrison, a very clean cut, angular looking man raises his yellow card slowly, pointedly

and dismissively as if to humiliate and punish at the same time. The first corner of the game follows soon after, falling to Coggeshall, but Stowmarket defend it easily and within a minute take the lead as a low cross from the right is turned into the net by the lunging boot of number nine Ace Howell who has evidently wandered un-noticed into the Coggeshall six yard box. Nearby a woman applies sun screen to her arms and the smell of male body spray is wafted by on the breeze, as it does on warm days.
Seven more minutes pass and a deep Coggeshall cross from the right is knocked back into the path of number eight Conor Hubble who steps effortlessly past one defender, sidesteps another and then wellies the ball into the corner of the Stowmarket goal as if to say “ You didn’t really think we wouldn’t equalise did you?”. The Labrador gets excited. Emboldened by the goal, a few Coggeshall supporters shout randomly. “Ridiculous, ref!” is heard as a free-kick goes the ‘wrong way’ and then “Be strong” as if every now and then players are prone to inexplicable weakness and they need reminding not to be.
The shouts of encouragement seemingly have no influence on the score however, which remains 1-1 as Mr Harrison blows for half time. In the break we speak with Paul who is videoing the game and has taken time out to get something to eat at the barbecue. We then meet our next door neighbour, also called Paul who has arrived ‘hot-foot’ from Harry Potter World. Paul is here with his son Sam, who we don’t see at first, but apparently he cuffs the back of his dad’s head as he walk past. Kids of today, eh?
The second half soon unfolds before us and we stand at the other side of the main stand to get a better view of the Coggeshall goals when they arrive, because going to football is all about being optimistic. Stowmarket are now playing into the sun but stood in the metal bus shelter-like stand at the clubhouse end of the ground their fans are even more vociferous than before, although it could all be down to acoustics. The sun is reflecting

off the corrugated tin roof of the main stand and a bearded man with long grey hair, tied in a ponytail stands by his bicycle and looks on, which you couldn’t do at a poncey Premier League game, or even at Colchester United, and definitely not for six quid.
“Shall we sing, shall we sing, shall we sing a song for you” sing the Stowmarket fans, confusingly already singing a song. No one responds, understandably. The Stowmarket fans sing the same song, but alter the words. “Who the fuck, who the fuck, who the fuck is Olly Murs?” is now the refrain. No one helps them out, so they make up their own answer, seamlessly switching from the Welsh hymn tune to the Latin American rhythm and beat of Hector Anulo’s ‘Guantanamera’, and singing “Shit Robbie Williams, You’re just a shit Robbie Williams”.
The second half is as competitive as the first on the pitch, but to some extent the teams are both good enough to be cancelling one another out. May be the stalemate is what is causing the Stowmarket fans behind the goal to make their own entertainment by constantly stretching their musical and lyrical imaginations, if not their talent. They get that end of season ‘here to celebrate’ feel as they call to the team manager and others in the dugout to “give us a wave”, which they obligingly do. It’s about twenty five past four and Stowmarket earn two corners either side of a fine diving save from the Coggeshall goalkeeper James Bransgrove. “Small club in Marks Tey, You’re just a small club in Mark’s Tey” sing the Stow’ Town choir once again employing Hector Anulo’s most famous tune.
Coggeshall are having more possession of the ball and are getting forward more frequently. Nnamdi Nwachuku taunts the Stowmarket full-back Ollie Brown with his pace and tricky footwork. A man in a Tottenham Hotspur shirt also taunts the full-back, repeatedly telling him he is has no pace; happily the full-back plays on with a smile. It’s nearly half past four, Coggeshall have a corner and Nnamdi Nwachuku jumps athletically, firmly heading the ball into the goal net. It might be the last game of the season but it means a lot and the players mob Nnamdi joyfully. “Twenty big minutes” shouts someone nearby in a spirit of encouragement; I wonder if to Stowmarket the minutes will be the same size as usual or smaller.
It is half past four and Stowmarket equalise, their number nine, the almost fictionally named Ace Howell slipping the ball past the Coggeshall goalkeeper, applying a very fine end to a passing move. The goal means a lot to Stowmarket, who have won their previous ten consecutive matches and presumably would like to add an eleventh. Now everyone’s minutes are the same size again. Coggeshall return to the Stowmarket end of the ground and Nnamdi Nwachuku is sandwiched between two Stow’ defenders. “Every time” bawls someone to my right as if the visiting defenders follow Nwachuku around in pairs, one either side of him.
It’s twenty to five now and Coggeshall have another free-kick, somewhere near the half way line. The ball is punted beyond the Stowmarket defence; only Coggeshall substitute Tom Monk reacts; he runs on, brings they ball under control and smashes it past Stow’ goalkeeper who has at least moved, unlike his team mates. With every goal the celebrations increase in excitement; it’s now officially a ‘five goal thriller’ as the lead has swung back and forth. The remaining ten minutes are probably going to be big again, although no one mentions it. Coggeshall almost get a fourth goal as their number four George Cocklin spectacularly hits the cross bar with a beautiful 30 yard shot which drops over the goalkeeper’s head, rattles the cross bar and bounces down on the goal line in the way shots have ever since the 1966 World Cup final, but without being goals.
The game is dragging on, Mr Harrison the referee doesn’t seem keen to stop, but of course eventually he blows for the final time this season. Then we wait and wait and

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wait for the presentation of the league championship trophy. Tables and billboards are put in place. A stack of what look like small shoe boxes sit by the trophy. Bottles of Prosecco are stood on the tables. The players of both teams loaf about on the turf, the Stowmarket players look increasingly bored. Finally, a short announcement precedes each player each receiving a shoe box as his name is announced to generous applause and then the Coggeshall captain Luke Wilson lifts the trophy in a brief orgasm of streamers and pyrotechnics. Joy and happiness abounds, but for us the afternoon is finished and we go home for a barbecue of our own, leaving others to stay and celebrate.

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Ipswich Town 0 Wolverhampton Wanderers 1

January 29, 2018April 17, 2022 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

The relief brought on through the carefree joy of watching non-league football at Coggeshall last night was brief and within twenty-four hours I am back to watching “Championship” football, by which I mean Football League Division Two football at the theatre of the un-dead that is Portman Road.
But today’s game is against top of the league Wolverhampton Wanderers, a club that as much as Leeds United reeks of 1974, smells of the 1950’s and the scent of the Beverley sister who married Billy Wright. The Wolves have done very little of note in the last sixty years, but for a couple of League Cup wins in the 1970’s, and even Norwich have won the League Cup; but they still have a certain je ne sais quoi, as well as old gold shirts and black shorts.
It is a dull, grey January day as I walk to the railway station; there are spits of moisture in the air, the portents of more to come. I arrive at the station about a minute before the

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train, which is on time, I board a freshly refurbished carriage which has a faint smell of new car given off by its grey upholstery; the theme is grey, with a white ceiling; it’s bright but dull, but heck, it’s not my living room, just a train. On the opposite side of the carriage sits a man with a beer belly, he is slumped with his head resting against the window, a blue cable leads from his trouser pocket to the electrical socket beneath the window; it’s as if his loins are on a life support machine. He has hair like the late Reg Varney. Opposite him an unnaturally blond woman of a similar age is engrossed with a mobile phone. They both cough and get off the train together at Colchester. As the train pulls into a Manningtree a man is sat on a bench on the platform for London, he is wearing a large set of earphones and is eating a sandwich from a tin foil package spread open on his lap. Five people get onto the train, one is a man with a bald head and three rings through his left ear lobe that look like he could hang a curtain from them.

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In Ipswich the weather is the same. As I cross the road a group of blokes smoke cigarettes outside the front door of the Station Hotel, which is where Wolves supporters and only Wolves supporters have been directed to drink. On the back of a traffic light there is reminder of Town’s last home fixture against Leeds, a sticker that says

“McCallister,Strachan, Batty, Speed, Last Proper Champions”. It is a view I subscribe to because the Premier League is an abomination, but I worry about the omission of the other seven players in the Leeds team of 1992, particularly Lee Chapman.

Portman Road is being blocked off whilst supporters stand about waiting for the turnstiles to open. I follow a man up Portman Road who is wearing a grey tracksuit with a hood, he looks like an enormous toddler in a romper suit, the seat of his tracky bottoms is baggy like he’s forgotten to put on his nappy. I open the door to St Jude’s Tavern; bloody hell, the place is heaving. Most of the clientele are Wolves fans with a love of real ale. Having worked my way to the bar I order a pint of St Jude’s St Mary Stout (£3.60) and then work my way back to sit at a table where three blokes in their sixties are sat; they seem to be together but they’re not talking and even seem to be avoiding eye contact. I turn to one and say “Are you all Wolves fans then, or are you just here for a quiet drink?” . They’re Wolves fans and they’re up from London, they go to every game. They tell me that there are branches of Wolves fans from London, Daventry and Cheltenham in the pub. I remark that they are all men of a ‘certain age’ and they laugh agreeing that if you haven’t got a bus pass you probably don’t follow Wolves.
A friend of mine, Mick, soon arrives and we talk of blood pressure, the Hairy Bikers, tielles, sciatica, this blog, holidaying in Corsica and Marseille and the difficulty of choosing where to visit from so many wonderful places across Europe. I drink a pint of Irvin Ruby (£3.60) and we both have a half of St Jude’s Darkest Blessings (£3.80 a pint), which is very strong (9.5%) but smooth and delicious with a hint of hazelnuts and vanilla.
All the Wolves fans have already left when we leave the pub at about a quarter to three, Mick heads home and I head for the match. It’s raining properly now. Whilst I may tire of the present incarnation of Football League Division Two, I never tire of the sight of

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Portman Road with its proper floodlights at each corner and all the activity outside on match day as kick-off approaches, it’s what being is all about, especially when it’s raining. Martin Heidegger would have understood, although by all accounts he was a bit of a knob.
I pass through the turnstile and am approached by a steward who asks me about the photos I have taken out in Portman Road, I explain that they are for a blog and flick through a few of them for him. He seems happy with that, but I can’t imagine he knows what to say; what did he expect to see other than photos of Portman Road? I suppose my camera might have really been a water pistol, not a camera, I had one like that when I was about eight years old.
The teams are walking on to the pitch and in the stand I am surprised to find a man and a woman occupying my seat and the one next to it. They’re not doing anything rude, just sitting. I go and sit in the next seat along, I don’t care. One of them says something about not being able to see from their allocated seats and a steward had told them to sit anywhere where there was a space.
The game begins and it’s okay, a fairly even contest to start with and Town’s Callum Connolly has a shot after about 11 minutes. It only takes the Wolves fans eight minutes however to announce that “You’re support is fucking shit” and no one is arguing; no one even cares except perhaps for John Hughes who wrote the tune Cwm Rhondda; but that was in 1907, so he must be past caring by now. In the fifteenth minute it’s not only the support that is so scatalogically poor, as the Town defence dissolves into the rain, the ball is crossed and a bloke called Matt Doherty heads it unchallenged into the Town net; Wolverhampton Wanderers have, it turns out, won the match…and it had all started so well.
The Ipswich crowd do not react at all and make no effort to help raise their team’s game through vocal encouragement; I do though and throw myself into a few rounds of “Lo, lololo lolo, Allez les bleus” as Town win a couple of corners. There is not the slightest hint that anyone wants to join in with my efforts on behalf of the team and in a fit of pique I get up and leave my seat. I go to sit with Phil the ever-present supporter at the other end of the stand, who at least understands and will sometimes even join in with me, a bit.
The game carries on and Town play reasonably well in an unspectacular sort of a way, but Wolverhampton are good, they’re several points clear at the top of the league table and we are seeing why. A little short of 1,900 Wulfrunians are following their team today, but I’m a little disappointed by them. For a team who wear such a distinctive kit there is very little of the lovely old gold and black on display and they’re singing is mostly of a negative nature. But when I think I hear them sing “Wanky wanky, wanky wanky Southerners” to the tune of Chicory Tip’s ‘Son of my father’ it raises a smile, even though Ipswich is not in the South, it’s in the East. Bloody Brummies.
At half-time I stay where I am and enjoy the occasional drip of rain through the leaking roof on which I can see buddleia growing; I’m not sure that makes it a ‘green’ roof, but it’s a start. I have no half-time snack and don’t visit the toilet, but Phil does and I guard his bag whilst he’s gone. Town stalwart Tommy Smith appears on the pitch in a smart overcoat to say farewell to the crowd before he heads off to play for Colorado Rapids in Denver; he waves, I wave back.

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I then muse upon the names of the Wolverhampton team and feel strongly that Ivan Cavaleiro should be wearing a wide brimmed hat and a cape, or he should at least walk out onto the pitch in such attire, even if he doesn’t play in it. Wolverhampton Wanderers are owned by Guo Guangchang, one of China’s wealthiest people and in Helder Costa and Ruben Neves have the two most expensive players in League Division Two; midfielder Neves cost a colossal £15.8m and both players are clients of football agent Jorge Mendes who is an advisor to the club. Read more about Wolves’ attempt to buy success in the editorial to the February edition of the always excellent When Saturday Comes magazine.
The teams return, Phil returns and play resumes. Ipswich aren’t so good this half, I reckon Wolves have sussed us out and they control the game completely, because they have much better players, some of whom, as you now know have cost obscene amounts of money. They also have a manager called Nuno Espirito Santo who, with a name like that, you would always back against plain old Mick McCarthy. I have a theory that people voted to leave the EU mainly because they feel inferior to all these clever, stylish Europeans, and they are. Town have two new players in their team today, a free transfer called Gleeson and a thick-set monster of a man on-loan from Tottenham Hotspur, who rejoices under the seven syllables of the name Cameron Carter-Vickers. They do okay, but Bartosz Bialkowski is the star for Town as he makes a succession of essential saves to stop Wolverhampton scoring more goals. The Wulfrunians in the Cobbold Stand again sing coarsely of the execrable Ipswich support and look for the geography section of the library. Meanwhile, I continue to sing ‘Allez les Bleus’ very loudly and have a most enjoyable time. Singing is proven to be good for you and even though Town lose I am as happy as I can be given the pointlessness of it all. Watching Ipswich Town is what you make it.
The three minutes of added on time offer hope, but that’s all and soon the final chirrups sound from beneath the shiny and completely naked pate of referee Mr Simon Hooper. Unusually, I stand and applaud the teams today; all my singing has made me high as a kite.