Ipswich Town 1 Manchester United 1

November 17, 2024February 4, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

When I was young, so much younger than today I would often travel to Layer Road, Colchester on a Friday night to see the U’s engage with the likes of Torquay United, Darlington or Aldershot, and then on Saturday afternoon I would watch Ipswich Town in the First Division. The days of ‘Col U’ playing on a Friday evening are sadly gone, as is Layer Road, but this weekend I had the opportunity to see two games in two days once again, taking my pick from an extensive menu of local non-league matches on Saturday afternoon and then catching the Town on Sunday afternoon with a wholly unwelcome four-thirty kick-off. As it turned out, I didn’t bother, but stayed indoors and courtesy of a ‘Firestick’ watched Paris FC play Annecy in French Ligue 2, and then Ligue 1 RC Lens play Marseille on the telly. I sometimes think I have lost my joie de vivre.

Today is Sunday and it is blowing a gale as I waste away a whole morning and much of an afternoon waiting to go to Portman Road. I tried drilling some holes in a wall to put up some shelves, but I think the party wall in my house must be made of granite and all the time I’ve been wondering if the trains are going to be disrupted, some have been cancelled already. Mick has been in touch to see what time I might be at the Arb’ but the Sunday train times either get me there earlier than I’d like or with not enough time for a couple of drinks. I should be able to sue Sky TV and the Premier League for the inconvenience. The pre-match tension is palpable.

In time, I decide that it would be best for everyone if I simply spent a bit longer at the pub before the game and so after a train journey on which Manchester United supporters sing ‘Eric Cantona’ endlessly to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas and on which I don’t see a single polar bear, I buy a programme in Portman Road and finally arrive at the Arb’ to purchase a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£4.14 with CAMRA discount). Mick has already texted me to say he is ‘on the bench in the beer garden’ and that is where I join him to discuss Gary’s absence, houses of multiple occupation, local non-league football, how Mick has been seeing ‘someone’ (a woman), newspapers, religion, today’s Town team and what time we go to bed; Mick is a bit of ‘night owl’ it seems, and if I didn’t get up at twenty past six each morning I think I’d quite like to be able to watch Newsnight too.

A good hour and twenty minutes drift by in a sea of words and more Suffolk Pride, and we realise that everyone else in the pub beer garden seems to have left, so we do too not wishing to miss the kick-off, although happy to forego the leaping flames and tiresome, over-excited young stadium announcer with his elongated vowels and slightly cheap-looking suit. There are no queues to get into what used to be Churchman’s and I arrive at my seat as ever to find ever-present Phil who never misses a game, his son Elwood, Pat from Clacton, Fiona and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) already here. There’s a lot of noise as the two teams process onto the pitch and I don’t know why, but I can’t help feeling rather bemused, so much so that I suddenly notice Pat from Clacton looking at me a bit quizzically because the over-excited young stadium announcer is reading out the Town team and I’m not bawling out the players’ surnames in the manner of a Frenchman. It’s been so long since Town were last at home that I’ve forgotten what to do and I’m lost in idle reverie. Returning to Earth, I try to make amends but find that the over-excited young stadium announcer is not in -sync with the score board and I therefore have no idea which surname comes next; it’s like a bad dream in which Murphy has returned but years younger and taller, and in a shiny suit

Kick-off comes as a relief with Town getting first go with the ball and aiming it in the direction of me and my fellow ultras. Town are of course in blue and white whilst Manchester United are in red shirts and black shorts, a bit like Stade Rennais, but messily the shirts are two shades of red and the shorts have red flashes on them. The relief is short-lived as within eighty seconds Manchester’s number 16 skips past a Town player, puts in a somewhat limp looking low cross and their number ten nips in to tap the ball past Aro Muric, who looks as if he was expecting to simply casually pick the ball up. My hopes that VAR will have spotted some invisible infringement in the run up to the goal are dashed, largely because there simply wasn’t enough time for anything to have happened.

The game resumes over a minute after the goal was scored and we all feel a bit shocked. The current Manchester United team is widely believed to be pretty useless I believe and here we are losing already. I thought we were going to win two-nil and had told Mick as much. Five minutes are almost gone however, as Town win a corner. Eleven minutes disappear and Sam Szmodics has a decent shot that the goalkeeper saves and in terms of attacking intent at least, Town have drawn level.

“United, United, United, United” chant the Mancunians and their friends from London and the Home Counties up in the Cobbold Stand, separating each ‘United’ with three quick claps. A little slow to catch on, the Blue Action group belatedly shout “Shit, just like people did in the 1970’s, but usually before the visitors had stopped shouting ‘United’. The football is quite good though. Lots of passing is going on and Ipswich are probably doing more of it than Manchester. The half is half over and finding himself next to Sam Morsy, the Manchester number seventeen falls to the ground and rolls over and over and over and over to both the anger and amusement of the home crowd. “Get up, ya great pussy” I tell him loudly. “That’s Garnacho” says the bloke in front of me. “Yer what?” I ask him. “That’s Garnacho” he says again. A bit confused being unfamiliar with the names of any footballers unless they play for Ipswich Town I say “So it’s not Pussy then.” “He’s a funny looking bleeder” says the bloke behind me of the aforementioned Garnacho and the bloke next to me momentarily reflects on how children don’t get called ‘little bleeders’ nowadays, and sadly I think he’s right. Amusingly, to me anyway, ‘ya little bleeder’ was probably the polite version of ‘ya little bugger’ which is how my grandfather affectionately knew me.

Another Town corner unexpectedly inspires a warm booming chant of “Come On You Blues” and Liam Delap earns a free-kick on the edge of the penalty area as United’s captain Jonny Evans looks bothered; having only this week watched a version on the telly, I think of Evans The Death, the undertaker in Dylan Thomas’s ‘Under Milk Wood’. The free-kick is neatly taken, but goes straight to the goalkeeper Andre Onana for whom I am amazed the United supporters do not sing KC and the Sunshine Band’s ‘Baby Give It Up’. Sensing my disappointment when Town don’t score, Pat from Clacton tells me that she’s already had her dinner today – a Marks & Spencer roast turkey ready meal. “It’s not even Christmas yet” I tell her and Town win another corner from which a shot is blocked after the ball had been headed back across goal. United breakaway up field, but Sam Morsy slides across to sweep the ball out for a throw with the sort of tackle that takes the Manchester player as ‘collateral damage’ and which the home crowd loves, especially against a rather ‘poncey’ team like this one seems to be.

With five minutes until half-time,Town produce the move of the match, tearing the Manchester defence apart as Leif Davis chases a raking long pass, checks inside and plays in Liam Delap who has a whole goal to aim at , but somehow Onana gets a hand or an arm or a shoulder in the way of the goal bound ball. Within sixty seconds, another move opens up a view of goal for Jens Cajuste, but he shoots over. The momentum is with Ipswich however and Omari Hutchinson claims the equaliser very soon afterwards with a shooting star of a shot from outside the penalty area which loops gently off a Manchester head on its rapid journey into the top right hand corner of the goal net, at last beyond the reach of Onana. Three minutes of added on time follow without incident and we are relieved not to be losing anymore, but also feeling like we could be winning.

With half-time I dispose of excess Suffolk Pride and then speak with Ray, to whom it seems I haven’t spoken in months. We speak of car parks and Kemi Badenoch, whose surname Ray pronounces as Bad Enoch, which for those like us who remember Mr Powell seems worryingly appropriate. On the way back to my seat I congratulate ever-present Phil who never misses a game on having recently completed his quest to see a game at every one of the ninety-two League grounds in England and Wales. I tell him I got to around seventy-eight grounds about fifteen years ago but have never managed to get any further. I don’t tell him it’s a metaphor for my entire life.

The football resumes at twenty-four minutes to six when people without a subscription to Sky Sports TV are watching Countryfile and eating buttered teacakes. I notice the moving advertisement for Aspall cider which reads “made in Suffolk since 1728” , words that fosters images in my romantic mind of misty orchards, wooden vats and apple presses, horses, carts and crusted rustic characters, and then the illuminated display says “now available in a can”.

“Come On Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” we chant a good three or four times because Manchester are keeping the ball more than we’d like. The encouragement works and Town get the ball, Wes Burns whips in a low cross and Onana saves brilliantly again from Liam Delap and Town have another corner. Manchester break again and Jens Cajuste chases back to make a perfect tackle inside the Town penalty area and now Manchester have a corner. Not an hour has been played and Manchester are making substitutions as Evans the Death and some bloke who is so good he only has one name goes off and some other blokes I’ve not heard of come on. Up in the Cobbold Stand the away supporters sing songs about Roy Keane and Eric Cantona, perhaps because like me they don’t know who their current players are either.

Then Ipswich make substitutions; Sam Szmodics and Jens Cajuste departing and Jack Taylor and Jack Clarke arriving. “For me, Burns ain’t done nothing” says the bloke behind me clearly thinking he should have been substituted but perhaps not having noticed his pass to Omari Hutchinson for the goal, that cross for Liam Delap, or his defensive play. Twenty-three minutes are left and Manchester have another corner before a couple more substitutions; a bloke called Zirkzee comes on. “Sounds like a cleaning product” say the bloke behind me. This early afternoon and early evening’s attendance is announced by the over-excitable young stadium announcer in the shiny suit as being 30,017 with a very nicely rounded 3,000 of that number being here to sing about Eric Cantona.

Manchester United are mostly the team with the ball in the second half, but despite some grace and speed and long accurate passes they aren’t threatening the Town goal much, they just look like they could if they thought about it a bit more. Perhaps they just have too much confidence and and self-love for their own good. The good thing is it means Town look more likely to score, but as Pat from Clacton says to Fiona “You can feel the tension” . Eventually, the bloke behind me gets his wish as Wes Burns is replaced by Conor Chaplin, and the match rolls on into the final ten minutes of normal time. Ali Al-Hamadi shoots and Onana saves, again. Conor Chaplin shoots, but pretty much straight at Onana.

Only four minutes of added on time are added on and I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Do we need more time to score or less time so we don’t concede? “Oh when the Town go marching in, Oh when the Town go marching in“ drone the home crowd mournfully as if they’ll be following a coffin when it happens. Manchester United win a corner and the ball is booted clear to create maximum distance between it and the Town goal and then the match ends. Fiona and Pat from Clacton are quickly away, but not before Fiona says “See you next Tuesday”- it’s when Town play Crystal Palace.

It’s been another fine game, perhaps not as exciting as some of the others this season, but despite not dictating enough of the play in the second half there is no doubt Town can claim they deserved to win more than Manchester did, and Onana is clearly Manchester’s ‘Man of the Match’, although they probably won’t admit it. Leaving Portman Road for the railway station I think back to the first time I ever saw Town play Manchester United, in December 1971. That game ended in a draw too, a goalless one, and Best, Law and Charlton were all rubbish.

Ipswich Town 2 Peterborough United 1

December 11, 2022December 12, 2022 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Henry VIII’s original ex, Catherine of Aragon died on the 7^th January 1536 in Kimbolton, Cambridgeshire and was then buried in Peterborough cathedral, and indeed what is left of her still is. This burial is perhaps the city of Peterborough’s main claim to fame, and I must admit to being quite impressed, although given that after Henry split up with her in 1533 Catherine lived in Hatfield, Enfield , Ampthill and a couple of other places too before rocking up in Kimbolton it seems like just a bit of luck for Peterborough that she finally conked out in the PE postcode area. Peterborough’s other claim to fame is its football club’s impressive record in competitive fixtures against the mighty Ipswich Town. In sixteen games since November 1955 Peterborough have won nine, drawn four and lost only three fixtures. Amongst those victories for Peterborough were two FA Cup ‘giant killings’ as a non-league club in the 1950’s and then this century a stonking 7-1 thrashing live on TV, although this can excused by the fact that Town were at the time managed by Roy Keane, who if not insane is at the very least a bit odd and after ‘Hurst the Worst’ was easily Town’s most terrible ever manager.

Today sees the seventeenth competitive meeting between Ipswich Town and Peterborough United and just to make it memorable it’s kicking off at 12:30pm, presumably to ensure anyone travelling from beyond the Ipswich area can get home in time to watch England lose to France on the telly in the World Cup quarter finals. For even more added interest, it’s a particularly cold day with a thick frost clinging to the windows of my trusty Citroen C3 and many other surfaces as I prepare to set off for what I now call ‘The Arb’ for my usual pre-match drink with friend Mick. Having parked up the Citroen, the walk to Portman Road through Gippeswyk Park is glorious beneath a clear, pale blue sky across earth as hard as iron and frosted, quietly crunchy grass. The icy air feels clean and fresh as I breathe it in. On Ranelagh Road I follow a man for whom the peculiarly low crotch on his trousers makes him look like he has very short legs and a long body, but then again perhaps he has. Constantine Road is quiet and what used to be Portman Walk is too. As usual I pause to buy a programme (£3.50) from the kiosk on the corner of Alderman Road. The kiosk window is steamed up due to the cold and I can only see the middle third of the programme seller, who remains legless and headless. To add to my retail experience, I go to pay by card, but the touch screen thing doesn’t work and I have to insert my card into the plastic contraption and tap in my PIN number. “I hope I’m not charged twice” I tell the midriff, and a disembodied voice tells me to take it up in the shop if I am.

I cross the threshold of ‘The Arb’ at 11:15 and buy a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.95) which I take into the garden where I text Mick to tell him “Je suis dans le jardin”. Mick soon arrives, pint of Suffolk Pride in hand, and asks if my sitting in the garden is still a reaction to Covid. I tell him it is, but it also saves me having to take my coat off. Our conversation as ever is about sex and death. We finish our drinks by noon but hang on another ten minutes because we don’t want to arrive too early.

We join the match-bound crowd as we and it cross Civic Drive. What used to be Portman Walk is full of people crossing paths and making beelines for their chosen turnstiles. The low chatter of the crowd, the purposeful walking and checking of tickets, the approaching kick-off, it’s all part of the mounting excitement. There is a queue at turnstiles 59 and 60 to the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand and I find myself behind a man called Kevin. I compliment him on the 1970’s vibe of his cap, donkey jacket, Doc Marten’s and turned up jeans, he says he’s come as a Council dustman.

I step onto the former terrace of Churchman’s as the teams form parallel crocodiles onto the pitch and the crowd rises to applaud, it feels like quite an entrance. I edge past Pat from Clacton and Fiona to sit next but one to the man from Stowmarket. Two rows in front of me ever-present Phil who never misses a game is here, but his son Elwood is not. Phil and Fiona hand me Christmas cards and Stephen Foster the stadium announcer reads out the teams and then the match begins, with Peterborough getting first go with the ball. Town are rightfully in blue and white whilst Peterborough are sadly in black as if perhaps still mourning Catherine of Aragon, although apparently Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn both wore yellow to mourn her. The Aragonese flag is of yellow and red stripes which would make a cracking away kit. From up in the Cobbold stand comes the unlikely chant of “Peterborough, Peterborough FC, The finest football team the world has ever seen” to the tune of the Irish Rover. As if in response the Sir Bobby Robson stand sing something a bit tuneless, which nevertheless ends with a joyful “Wo-oh-oh-oh-oh, Wo-oh-oh-ohh” and the melting frost that had been clinging to the roof of the stand drops in large, loud splashes on my SuperDry coat, which seems ironic.

The first ten or fifteen minutes of the game are a bit frantic and formless. With half the pitch in deep shade the sombrely dressed Peterborough players appear as dark silhouettes in the gloom, a bit like the people in an architect’s conceptual drawing. “Football in a library, de-de-de” chant the Peterborough fans tunelessly before going for the jugular with the Welsh hymn Cwm Rhondda, to which they apply the words “Your support is fucking shit”, just like everyone from every other club always does,

Peterborough’s hefty looking, almost chubby, and extensively surnamed Jonson Clarke-Harris goes down in a very large heap. “Get Up!” bawls someone behind me not unreasonably, and with no one showing him much sympathy he does. Peterborough get the ball to the by-line. “Come on Boro’, Come On Boro’ ” chant the away tribe supportively. “Addy, addy, addy-O” chant the home fans happily. The flags on the Cobbold stand hang limply in the cold, still air.

It’s the thirteenth minute and it’s unlucky for Janoi Donacien who is laid low by a mystery injury, perhaps due to the extreme cold, and he is replaced by Kane Vincent-Young. The first shot on goal arrives in the twentieth minute as Sone Aluko bounces a hooked attempt into the ground and past a post at the end of a move down the Ipswich right. Two minutes later and another move on the right ends with the ball played back and then crossed by Sam Morsy. Running towards the ball Conor Chaplain leaps and twists his neck to glance the ball into the far corner of the goal and give Town the lead. It’s a beautiful goal, but one that unearths that tired cliché about the shortest player on the pitch scoring from a header, as if to say players under 1.8m in height aren’t allowed to jump.

I start to dream of another three points banked and more importantly a long-awaited victory over these upstarts with their medieval cathedral and royal tomb. A third of the match has now gone to join the reformation and Catherine of Aragon in the past and a woman arrives in the gangway next to Pat from Clacton, who appears to be lost. It seems she went to the loo and hasn’t been able to find her way back to her seat. Helpfully, ever-present Phil, who has the ‘knowledge’ to be a Sir Alf Ramsey stand taxi driver, if such a thing were possible, gives her directions ‘home’. Distracted by this incident perhaps, we have allowed Peterborough to win their first corner of the game and as a subsequent angled cross by Kwame Poku arcs towards the far post I spot Peterborough’s Frankie Kent lingering on his own and realise he is likely to score, and he does. It’s almost exactly like one of the goals Town conceded against Barnsley; it doesn’t help that Frankie Kent sounds like he could have been an associate of the Kray twins if given the pre-fix ‘mad’.

The goal provokes chants of “E-I, E-I, E-I, O, Up the football league we go” from Peterborough which seems optimistic on the strength of one equalising goal, but you have to get your pleasures where you can. “We should be shuttin’ ‘em down a lot quicker that what we are doin” says the bloke behind me by way of explanation for our disappointment. “Fuck off you cunt” shouts a less philosophical character from further behind me as the Peterborough goalkeeper Lucas Bergstrom then takes his time over a goal kick after Sam Morsy has sent a pretty solid looking shot narrowly wide of the goal.

Not unexpectedly the Peterborough fans now alter their words for Cwm Rhondda from ”Your support is fucking shit” to “You’re not singing anymore”, failing to spot the inconsistency in their song-based argument.

Seven minutes until half time and Sone Aluko produces a piece of skill worthy of the great Clive Woods as he dribbles mazily to the by-line before pulling the ball back, only for Bergstrom to somehow get lucky and grab the ball as it is sent goalward by Wes Burns. Bergstrom stays down on the turf to eke out some more time and I decide that with his short, lank hair and lanky stature, from behind Bergstrom looks a bit like Gareth in ‘The Office’. Sam Morsy has two more shots on goal, one at Bergstrom and one over the cross-bar before Stephen Foster announces that there will be 3 minutes of added on time. A bit like the match versus Fleetwood, the game started quite well but has descended into uncertainty, but I take solace by chatting to Ray although his son Michael and grandson Harrison are absent today, having made one of their overly frequent visits to CenterParcs for rest and recuperation. Ray tells me about his cruise to Madeira and Cape Verde and how he vomited in the Bay of Biscay.

The match resumes at 13:36 and Cameron Burgess lumps the ball up field. Shadow now enshrouds most of the stadium and weirdly I have the sensation that I feel warmer when the ball is in one of the shrinking sunlit parts of the pitch. “Come on Ipswich, Come on Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” chants the crowd at the north end of the ground as if having resolved over a collective half-time cup of hot-chocolate to help the team to win today. It seems to work as the ball now stays mostly in the Peterborough half. Ten minutes into the second half and Town win their first corner courtesy of a nippy and busy Kayden Jackson. “Come On You Blues” chant the Sir Bobby Robson stand just like in the old days, and a few of us join in around the ground. Down the right-hand side Wes Burns skips past one player and the crowd roars, he goes past another, and the roar is louder still producing a sound only ever heard when a wide player goes past a defender, and I’m reminded again of Clive Woods, Mick Lambert, Kevin O’Callaghan and Bobby Petta. There is momentum building and Town win a second corner. The ball is crossed from the left, a Peterborough head glances it away but only to Conor Chaplin who instantly controls it and slams it high into the roof of the goal net to give Town back the lead. It’s another perfect goal from Chaplin and it’s the Town fans’ turn to sing “E-I, E-I, E-I -O, Up the Football League go”, and with some justification as the goal takes Town back to the top of the third division.

The pressure on Peterborough continues for a while and Sam Morsy gets his customary booking, unusually for supposed diving, which draws chants of “You don’t know what you’re doing” directed not at Morsy but at referee Ollie Yates; sadly and perhaps surprisingly neither assistant referee is called Stan, but strangely one of them does look a bit like Lionel Messi. Peterborough make multiple substitutions including bringing on a bloke called Jeandro Fuchs, a case of Fuchs on rather than Fuchs off. Mr Yates then achieves the ironic cheer from the crowd as he finally gives Town a free-kick. Behind me, the bloke who was displeased by Bergstrom in the first half has spotted what a big fellow Clarke Harris is. “Looks like he could be a scrum half, that cunt” he says, using his descriptive powers to the full.

Town make substitutions, bringing applause for departing Kayden Jackson and Sone Aluko, and this afternoon’s attendance is announced as 24,849 with 1,230 of those being from Peterborough. “Your support, Your support, Your support is roughly 5% of ours (numerically speaking)” chant the Magnus west stand, whilst the Sir Bobby Robson Stand quickly chant “Here for the Ipswich, You’re only here for the Ipswich” before the away fans get the chance to claim that anyone has only turned up exclusively to see the Boro’. Incidentally, Catherine of Aragon came to Ipswich at some point between 1517 and 1522 to visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Ipswich which was somewhere near where Lady Lane is now, so just a couple of goal kicks away. On the Clacton supporters bus Kieron is today’s winner of the guess the crowd competition with an estimate of twenty-five thousand seven hundred and something.

After the excitement of the Town goal and the pressure that led to it, the game has settled down and Peterborough, despite being behind, are slow to get forward as they pass the ball about amongst themselves. “Let ‘em fuck around with it” calls the bloke behind me in a “see if I care” tone of voice. Soon however, both teams are succeeding in frustrating their own supporters as Peterborough continue to “fuck around with it” whilst Ipswich fans are expecting their team to get the ball and go and score a third goal as insurance against the late disappointment witnessed at Charlton and versus Fleetwood.

Peterborough make a fourth substitution bringing on a bloke called Kell Watts, reminding me of the Australian TV series Kath & Kim in which Kim’s mother Kath has a metrosexual boyfriend called Kel who proudly owns a ‘man bag’. Town ‘score’ with two minutes of normal time left, but I’d spotted the offside flag so remain seated as all around me people rise and cheer. Pat from Clacton admits to feeling nervous. There will be five minutes of additional time Stephen Foster tells us, and Peterborough chuck in a couple of awkward looking crosses preferring to rely on barging and jumping more than incisive passing football to carve open the Town defence. “Smash ‘im, smash ‘im” bawls the bloke behind me every time a Peterborough player has possession. Town attempt to waste time making two final nihilistic substitutions and the game wanders off into a seventh minute of additional time, but then all of a sudden, it’s over, and Town have won.

Beating Peterborough feels like a much bigger thing than it probably should, but that’s no doubt because Town haven’t beaten them in more than a decade, not that we have met very often, and Town have also lost the last two games to Peterborough at Portman Road. Elated, our little group wish each other a happy Christmas and head off into the cold mid-afternoon with a farewell that says “See you Boxing Day”. As for Catherine of Aragon, well at least she was still breathing when she visited Ipswich.

Ipswich Town 5 ABBA 5

May 28, 2021October 26, 2021 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I want to sing it out to everybody

What a joy, what a life, what a chance

So I say Thank You for the music

The songs I’m singing

Thank you for the joy they’re bringing…”

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

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

Ipswich Town 0 Charlton Athletic 2

November 29, 2020November 29, 2020 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Despite my father growing up in Gosport , the only football match I recall him mentioning going to as a boy was when his uncle George, who lived in Plumstead, took him to see Charlton Athletic at The Valley. This would have been at some time in the late 1930’s when Charlton were one of England’s top teams and having been promoted in consecutive seasons under Jimmy Seed from the Third Division South to the First Division, the ‘addicks finished runners-up, fourth and then third in the three seasons before the outbreak of the Second World War. Charlton had the largest club ground in the country at the time and in February 1938 a record 75,031 people piled in to watch an FA Cup tie versus Blackburn Rovers, it is reckoned that even then the ground wasn’t full. If it was that match that my father’s uncle George took him too, and it might have been, it’s little wonder he remembered it.

Now, over eighty years on and nobody can go to the football anymore and the stadiums sit empty as we watch the games on the telly. Not going to football is better than dying a horrible death from Covid-19 of course, so I’m not complaining, but footie on the telly is losing its appeal and logging into the ifollow each week is becoming a chore. At least I think that’s the problem, but it might just be that my team Ipswich Town keep losing and against the background noise of social media and the silence of the empty stadium football is no longer as enjoyable as it was back in the good old days of Paul Hurst, Mick McCarthy, Paul Jewell, Roy Keane, John Duncan and Bobby Ferguson.

Although in melancholy mood, I nevertheless log in to my lap-top and the ifollow and make the connection just in time to hear the tail end of a report from Carrow Road on Radio Suffolk, which ends with the words ‘mind the gap’. I understand these words are meant as a reference to Norwich City being in a higher division than Ipswich Town, but I find it rather endearing that people from Norwich should find travelling on the London Underground so memorable that they have taken to repeating a station announcement in this way. I settle into my Ikea Poang chair and as the pictures of Portman Road appear on my tv screen I take the opportunity to drink in sight of the pitch, seeking solace in a bottle of Titanic Plum Porter (two for £3 from Waitrose).

The mellifluous voice of Brenner Woolley introduces Mick Mills who waxes long, but not necessarily lyrically about the failure of Paul Lambert to prevent relegation in 2019 or to achieve promotion in 2020. The failures of last season seem to be being repeated again; and not achieving promotion again, says Mick, is “what worries local people”. Micks mention of ‘local people’ immediately has me thinking not of the Football League but of the League of Gentleman, and my mind’s eye puts Mick in a floral headscarf, thick-framed glasses and poorly applied lipstick repeating ‘local people’ in a high-pitched voice .

The lining up of the players for the start of the game and a minute’s applause for the recently deceased Diego Maradona curtail the disturbing image in my head. Maradona had, says Brenner “… a pure love of the ball and it loved him back”. Brenner’s attempt to get all poetic is appropriate given Maradona’s brilliance, but I can’t help thinking that affording emotions to inanimate objects is just a bit weird. Nevertheless, when it is eventually Brenner’s turn to shuffle out of his mortal commentary box I like to think that someone somewhere will be moved to say that Brenner loved his microphone and it loved him back, and that the same was true of Mick Mills.

Clearly inspired by the tribute to Maradona, Brenner is quick to get into footballspeak with the phrase “early doors from Pratley” as Charlton’s Darren Pratley does something or other early in the game. On the pitch David Cornell, with his first touch of the ball in his first league appearance for Town, slips and sends his goal-kick out for a throw-in. For the first five minutes Brenner can’t mention a Charlton Athletic player’s name without also telling us all the teams he’s ever played for. It’s as if he has researched all this information and he’ll be damned if he’s not going to use it, and as quickly as possible. The ball has been booted upfield by both teams several times in the opening minutes and Mick tells us this makes the game quite entertaining. I’m not convinced, and gain more pleasure from Brenner’s reference to “the pony-tailed Woolfenden”, although in truth, whilst in favour of long-haired footballers, I am not that impressed by the ponytail itself, but give it time.

The weirdly named Keanan Bennetts falls to the ground in the penalty area and Brenner tells us that “ two or three players put their blue-sleeved arms up there”. Mick however gives those blue-sleeved arms’ owners short-shrift and sounds somewhat disgusted that they should have appealed for what was clearly not a penalty. ‘Good old Mick,’ I think to myself, ‘you tell these youngsters’. Mick is having a good early afternoon and after Brenner tells us that Charlton have two ‘makeshift’ centre-halves in Darren Pratley and Chris Gunter, Mick explains his hopes for Town because James Norwood is a “very knowledgeable striker”. This probably means however that Norwood will be mostly looking to win free-kicks rather than appearing in a future episode of ‘Only Connect’. In a rich vein of form Mick goes on to explain why he and Brenner say that Town are playing a 4-3-3 formation, even though Town manager Paul Lambert has denied this and refers to more complicated permutations such as 4-1-2-2-1. “We’re trying to paint a picture” says Mick, although sadly he omits to mention painting by numbers, Abstract Expressionism or Kayden Jackson Pollock; it’s an opportunity missed by the Town legend.

In the thirteenth minute Luke Chambers wins Town’s first corner through the unexpected means of a shot with the outside of his right foot. Three minutes later and Brenner says “Town the better side at the moment” and he’s not wrong, although it’s not long before Charlton are passing the ball within the left hand side of Town’s penalty area; it’s a situation “very similar to how McGuinness gave away a penalty ….here……before” says Mick sounding as if he is struggling to remember that it only happened last Saturday against Shrewsbury. In the twenty-first minute Charlton score having made easy progress through the left side of Town’s defence once again.

Brenner tells us that Brett McGavin wins a free-kick because of a “high-shoe” from Andrew Shinnie, who we have to hope scores lots of goals with his lower leg. Dozzell sends a lofted pass “over the top” but “ there’s too much on that from Andre “ says Brenner with cosy familiarity as the ball sails out of play. From upstairs I hear a shout ,“Oooooooh”. My wife is in the bedroom with Pompey, King’s Lynn Town and the FA Cup on BBC iplayer. Not expecting to miss anything much at Portman Road I nip up the stairs in time to witness a replay of some Pompey player or other sweeping the ball into the top corner of the King’s Lynn net from a few metres outside the penalty area. “Is he allowed to do that?” I ask. Apparently he is. Pompey will go on to win 6-1, which makes my wife happy and me too because it’s good to see teams from Norfolk lose.

I return to Portman Road in time to see James Norwood fall to the ground clutching his hamstring. “That’s gutting for the lad” says Brenner going into footballspeak overdrive and thereby sounding like a public schoolboy straining for ‘street cred’. “What is the matter with this club? asks Mick more pointedly, querying why we have a whole team’s worth of players out through injury. Mick believes someone seriously needs to carry out some research into why we have so many injured players. Once the game restarts little Alan Judge comes close to scoring but for a fine flying save from Ben Amos in the Charlton goal , and then Judge becomes the only player of the afternoon to be booked.

Asked to sum up the first half by Brenner, Mick says “ It’s been indifferent really”. Asked his opinion of Charlton, Mick says they have players who have “…been around a long time. They can play. They’re okay”. What this glowing eulogy says about Town I can’t make out. After a cup of tea and a Nature Valley chocolate protein bar the second half begins.

Ipswich win a corner, they don’t score. Eleven minutes pass and my eyes are feeling heavy. “We do have to think about changing direction again” says Mick as if Town had struggled with the change of ends at half time. It’s the 59^th minute. In the 65^th minute I open my eyes to see Town’s converted electric milk float ferrying Charlton’s Paul Smyth off the pitch. I’ve been asleep. The wonderfully named Omar Bogle replaces Smyth and Town’s players don’t notice, allowing him to remain unmarked beyond the far post so that he can easily divert either a cross or a poorly aimed shot from Darren Pratley into the Town net. Charlton lead 2-0.

The remaining twenty-two minutes do little for me, although I do not fall asleep again and am kept entertained by the name of the next Charlton Athletic substitute, Ben Purrington, who replaces Chukwuemek Aneke. I can’t decide whether Purrington is having a great game or whether it’ s just that I find his surname so unlikely, but the word Purrington is now all I can hear from Brenner’s commentary. Mr Purrington, it sounds like the name someone might give to their pet cat. “Prodded away by an alert Purrington” says Brenner, sounding as if he is enjoying the substitutes surname as much as I am.

The final ten minutes of normal time arrive. Little Alan Judge shoots at goal but his shot is straight at Amos the goalkeeper; if he’d shot like that at Amos the old testament prophet, he would probably have saved it too. “Charlton up to fourth, and third if they can get another goal” says Brenner optimistically. Town win their second corner of the half. Seven minutes of added on time are to be played, some of it perhaps because the milk-float that carried off Smyth “ran into traffic”, a phrase I don’t remember Brenner using today. “What do you think Mick Mills?” asks Brenner with a weary sigh. “We lost to Hull and we deserved to lose this one as well” is Mick’s honest and accurate assessment.

With the game over I watch the players leave the pitch before the ifollow broadcast ends abruptly, a bit like my enjoyment of today’s game, although that didn’t last as long. Whatever, I’ll be back for the next game.

Ipswich Town 1 Nottingham Forest 1

March 18, 2019March 18, 2019 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Thirty-eight years ago today, give or take ten days, Ipswich Town played Nottingham Forest in the sixth round of the FA Cup. I travelled up to Nottingham for the game, taking the train from Brighton where I was at university and then, having met up with three other Town fans in London, by Morris Minor 1000 up the M1. We spent the night in Nottingham after the match, ate mushy peas and chips, drank large quantities of Home Ales bitter, slept on a floor of someone we knew at Nottingham University and drove back down south the next day. Nottingham Forest were the reigning European Cup holders and in two months’ time Ipswich Town would win the UEFA Cup. They were happy times.

Today, both clubs languish in the second division, Town awaiting inevitable relegation whilst Forest struggle in vain for a play-off place; but they meet in the day’s only match between the former winners of European cup competitions. It is a dull, blustery, mid-March day and layers of grey cloud are stacked up overhead as I walk to the railway station. Blossom from the trees is blown into the gutter. I pass by a newspaper recycling bin and feel perplexed that it is considered necessary to paint a sign on it advising people not to climb inside. At the railway station I meet Roly; the train is on time. Roly shows me a short video on his mobile phone of his eighteen month old daughter kicking a ball. Roly is nothing if not a very proud father.

Arriving in Ipswich the weather hasn’t changed; Roly gets some cash from an ATM whilst a group of Ipswich supporters struggle to get a car park ticket from an automatic machine. We head down Princes Street towards Portman Road and on to St Jude’s Tavern. As usual people mill about aimlessly in Portman Road waiting for the turnstiles to open, they must retain the hope that one week they will open early, otherwise why get here early week after week after week? There is always hope.

At St Jude’s Tavern Roly has a pint of Nethergate Bulldog (£2.50) and I have a similar quantity of the Match Day Special, which once again is St Jude’s own attractively named Goblin’s Piss (£2.50), a name that St Jude’s should really offer to Greene King for their IPA. We sit at a table next to the usual retirees who meet here pre-match. We talk football. Another clutch of retirees arrives, “What do you recommend” one asks looking at the beer list, “That you clear off somewhere else” is the response. Statler and Waldorf live. Not entirely satisfied by the ‘tired’ condition of our first pints, Roly and I switch to Nethergate Venture (£3.40) for our second; it’s okay but a bit too ‘floral’ for my tastes.

At about twenty to three the pub begins to empty out and Roly and I leave too. He doesn’t admit it but I suspect Roly wants time to get something to eat, that’s the kind of guy he is. With fifteen minutes until kick-off Portman Road is busy but the club shop isn’t and I pop in, much as I might pop to the Co-op, and buy a programme, redeeming the 115 loyalty points I have accrued from previous purchases in the process. In the past week I have now enjoyed two free programmes (at Kirkley & Pakefield and Colchester United) and a cut-price one, I am feeling blessed and if this carries on I will soon have saved enough to retire; hopefully Brexit won’t happen and I can go and live in the south of France, although if it does happen that is probably all the more reason to move to the south of France, or anywhere.

There is no queue at the turnstiles, I smile and thank the moustachioed turnstile operator as I pass through. After a brief conversation with Dave the steward, a former work colleague, I use the toilet facilities and then take up my place alongside Pat from Clacton, ever-present Phil who never misses a game and his young son Elwood. There are a lot of Nottingham Forest supporters here today (the score board will tell us during the second-half that there are 1,691 in a crowd of 16,709) and Phil recounts how he visited his mum in Newmarket this morning and as he left he even saw one heading for Newmarket railway station. The teams enter the field and my view is through the net of a practice goal which hadn’t been wheeled away before the concertina-like players’ tunnel was extended out to the corner of the pitch.

The game begins with Nottingham Forest getting first go with the ball and playing towards the Sir Bobby Robson Stand and Alderman Road rec’, they are wearing red shirts, shorts and socks. Town are in their customary blue and white kit, despoiled by an ugly advert for an on-line scamming organisation, a likely contributor to this season’s eventual relegation; they are aiming in the direction of me, Pat, Phil and Elwood, but hopefully a bit to our right. The Nottingham supporters are in very good voice regaling us with a lyrically altered version of Land of Hope & Glory that tells of how they hate a number of other clubs but love Nottingham Forest, it’s an old favourite and takes me back to the 1970’s; the old ones are the best I think, sounding like my late father and his father and probably his father before that. Enjoy your youth while you can Elwood, because one day you will be an old git too.

Barely five minutes pass and Town produce a quick move of short passes in front of the East of England Co-operative Stand and the lifeless souls that populate it; Gwion Edwards gets behind the Nottingham defence, delivers a low cross and like a magical genie the hard to hide Collin Quaner appears from nowhere to deftly stroke the ball into the goal to give Ipswich the lead. It was a most beautiful goal. I have heard so-called supporters say rude things about Collin Quaner but I like him, he’s German, he has the distinctive, exotic look of an Easter Island statue (minus the big ears), but most of all he plays for Ipswich Town and therefore he’s alright.

The goal gets the home crowd going for a short while, “Allez, Allez-Allez-Allez” some of us sing, enjoying the linguistic abilities that a meeting of two former European competition winners bring. The noise of the crowd rises and swirls around in the strongly gusting breeze. But by and by the enthusiasm recedes and that goal is one of the last exciting things that happens at my end of the pitch as Nottingham Forest go on to un-sportingly monopolise the remainder of the first half winning four corners to Town’s none and having eight shot to our two. It’s not long before the home crowd is quiet once again and the Nottingham Forest supporters can begin their goading. “One-nil, and you still don’t sing” they chant to the tune of the Village People’s “Go West”, but without the manly bravura of the original version. Exasperated perhaps by the lack of a reaction the Forest fans invoke the Beach Boys’ Sloop John B to sing “We’ll sing on our own, we’ll sing on own”, which is probably the sensible thing to do in the circumstances, before their attention then turns to an obese Town supporter to whom they sing “Fatty, Fatty, give us a song”. After enquiring through the medium of song if he has ever seen his own genitals they entreat him to “Get your tits out for the lads”, he duly obliges. It’s hard to say if ‘Fatty’ enjoys his five minutes or fame, but he doesn’t return to his seat after half-time.

The game carries on and Ipswich are denied what looked like a corner “That was literally in front of you, you Muppet” shouts a woman from behind me at the linesman. Would that we could really have Muppet linesman I think to myself; the FA and The Jim Henson Company should forge closer links. I note how many foreign players Nottingham’s are fielding and am impressed by the performance of Pele at number 28 which is remarkable for a man in his seventies, but I am surprised to learn from the tiny little Guinea-Bissau flag against his name on the back of the programme that he is no longer Brazilian. My attention is also drawn to Forest’s number 29, Tunisian Yohan Benalouane who, with his completely bald head and pale complexion makes me think of Nosferatu; I don’t get a look at his finger nails.

It’s just gone half-past three and Nottingham Forest win a corner, the ball is directed towards goal, Bartosz Bialkowski dives to his left, Nottingham players raise their arms and the diminutive referee Mr Keith Stroud signals a goal, which the scoreboard attributes to the Malian number 13 Molla Wague, although it will later be said to be a Jon Nolan own-goal. It’s a shame for Town, for Molla Wague and for Jon Nolan and given that the goal has brought so much disappointment I am surprised it is allowed to stand. “Que Sera Sera, Whatever will be will be, You’re going to Shrewsbury, Que Sera Sera” sing the gloating Nottinghamians, revealing a hitherto unexpected admiration for Doris Day, although the earlier Go West song was perhaps a clue as to their preferences.

Half-time arrives and briefly Portman Road is once again back in the long lost 1970’s as the PA system provides an aural treat in the sound of Bachman Turner Overdrive’s “You ain’t seen nothing yet”, a song which makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time. I visit the facilities beneath the stand to drain off some more of that Goblin’s Piss; at the urinal I stand next to a man who is simultaneously either texting or checking the half-time scores on his mobile phone. I find the scene rather disconcerting and leave as quickly as nature allows before consuming a Panda brand liquorice stick as a tasty half-time snack and to help me forget.

The second half begins and Trevoh Chalobah replaces Cole Skuse. At ten past four Trev’ unleashes a spectacular shot that whistles just centimetres outside the right hand post of the Nottingham goal. Sometimes such a narrow miss is more thrilling than a goal, particularly an opposition one. The second half turns out to be much better than the first for Ipswich and Town dominate the attacking play, although admittedly without making too many clear cut chances to score. Chants of “Come on You Blues, Come on Blues” burst from stands on all sides of the ground and with increasing frequency. The referee Keith Stroud, who ‘has previous’ as far as Town fans are concerned adds to his record of failure and bias by not awarding Town free-kicks whilst giving undeserved favour to Nottingham, whose fans are now largely quiet. “Short refs, we only get short refs” sing Phil and I to the tune of Blue Moon. On the touchline Paul Lambert, as ever in his black v-neck jumper and black trousers, swings his arms about encouraging his team and the crowd. Little Alan Judge crosses the ball and Jon Nolan heads wide of an open goal.

On the Nottingham bench Roy Keane at first looks his usual sullen self, but as Town dominate more and more and the game moves into its last ten minutes he stands in the technical area gesticulating, looking annoyed and filled with murderous intent. The combination of the ‘enigmatic’ Martin O’Neil and psychopathic Roy Keane as a sort of latter day Celtic incarnation of the Clough/Taylor partnership can surely only end badly, but it could be fun to watch. I ensure that when the game is over I stay on long enough to boo Keane from the field for what he did to Ipswich Town. I offered to my friend Mick to boo Keane on his behalf as he could not be here today, he said to feel free and he was happy for me to spit for him too if I wanted. I thought that was going a bit far, although I imagine it is the sort of protest Keane might respect as he would then feel justified in meeting it with extreme violence.

Ipswich deserve to score again but don’t and the result is yet another one-all draw. This has arguably been the best game of the season at Portman Road and curiously despite being bottom of the league by several points for several months, with very little or no hope of staying up and only two home wins since August it has been the most enjoyable season for several years. What is more, the crowd are at last getting behind the team; if this is what it takes perhaps Town should just go for relegation every year.

To the tune of Auld Lang Syne….all together now…

We’ve won the League, we’ve won the Cup

We’ve won in Europe too

Now every week we draw one-all

There’s f-all else to do.