Ipswich Town 4 Burton Albion 0

March 5, 2023March 6, 2023 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Another Saturday, another football match at the end of another week, another few hours from which to extract fleeting pleasure, one hopes. That is the nature of life, it’s what makes it bearable unless of course you are lucky enough to be constantly in awe and wonder of everything around you and struggle not to stand with mouth agape at the multitude of different arrangements of atoms and molecules before us and of which we are of course just a tiny part. All this, and football too.

The vanquishing of Burton Albion is the source of today’s hopeful pleasure for many; it’s a fixture that reminds us of life’s elixir, beer. Historically, Burton-On-Trent was Britain’s beer brewing capital and it would be nice to think that in the same way that Grimsby Town once made gifts of boxes of fish to their opponents, so Burton Albion donate crates of beer to the needy wherever they go. Perhaps in the past, when Burton was the epicentre of responsible drinking they did, it would perhaps help to explain the demise of Burton Albion’s predecessors Burton Swifts and Burton United. Burton Swifts were members of the inaugural Football League Division Two back in 1892 when Ipswich Town were still mucking about playing nothing but friendlies when not getting knocked out of the Suffolk Senior Cup and the FA Cup respectively by the public schoolboys of Framlingham College and Old Westminsters. The beautifully named Swifts lasted until 1901, when due to failing finances they merged with Burton Wanderers to become the boringly but accurately named Burton United. The new club lasted in the Football League until 1907 when they finished bottom of the table and were voted out. It would take well over a century for Burton Albion to get the town back into the Football League, although they didn’t start trying until 1950.

My mind teeming with thoughts of football history, the nature of existence and beer, I park up my planet saving Citroen e-C4 and step out across Gippeswyk Park towards Portman Road football ground. The streets around the ground are quieter than they have been before recent games, but there are still people sitting out in the cold enjoying grilled meat products and leaning on Sir Alf Ramsey’s plinth to eat chips. I stop at one of the blue booths where I dream of one day of buying an ice cream as well as a programme. Today, I must make do with just the programme (£3.50), which I pay for in the modern cashless way. I carry on to ‘the Arb’ past the spiral car park, which I would like to see become one of Ipswich’s many listed buildings. On the steps nearby I overtake a man and a woman who possess two of the largest heads of hair I ever seen in Ipswich; the style is hippie rather than beehive, although either makes a good match with the 1960’s car park.

At ‘the Arb’ I invest in a pint of Lacon’s Encore (£3.59 with 10% Camra discount), but only because the Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride has reached the end of the barrel. I retire to the beer garden and sit in the shelter between a man reading a book whilst eating from a piece of slate, and a family of three. I sip my beer and read the programme, intrigued that Lincoln City have only lost seven games but are fourteenth in the table. I begin to read a five page interview with Harry Clarke, but to my shame lose interest at the end of page three; in my defence however, I have read “Remembrance of Things Past” by Marcel Proust. Mick rescues me from the pages of the programme and after collecting a pint from a new barrel of Suffolk Pride, he joins me. Barely has our conversation got on to the usual subject of death before Gary unexpectedly arrives carrying a pint of lager. We continue to talk of death, sciatica, terminal illness, TV programmes we always watch (I always record Sgorio on S4C), and a friend of Mick’s who has a lifelong collection of football and speedway programmes, which he keeps in a shed. When his friend dies, says Mick, he expects his wife will just throw them all away. None of us consider that his wife might die first. Filled with bonhomie by the joy of pre-match conversation, I return to the bar to buy a half of Lager 43 for Gary, a single blended whisky for Mick and a pint of Suffolk Pride for myself; I casually pay for the drinks having no idea of the cost.

It takes a while for any football to break out and it’s the team in black who win the first corner of the game, neither with nor against the run of play, but following a poor kick by Christian Walton. “Blue Army, Blue Army” shout the home crowd after the corner leads to Town breaking away with Conor Chaplin whose deep cross is easily claimed by the goalkeeper. “Pushing high, in’t they” says the bloke behind me of the away team, and he’s right, they are putting Town players under pressure as they attempt to pass the ball about at the back; this should be creating gaps in the middle of the pitch for Town to exploit, but mysteriously the gaps are not appearing. Ten minutes have disappeared into the past and whoever this away team are, they win another corner.The twelfth minute and Freddie Ladapo impersonates Pele. The ball is played high towards him, he’s going to jump for it, but then doesn’t and instead turns and chases it as it sails over his marker’s head. It’s a piece of inventiveness that’s worth a goal, but the referee, Mr Boyeson, has no soul and soon awards a spurious free-kick to the opposition. To celebrate the first sixth of the game passing Harry Clarke gets booked. “If you can’t get the ball get the player, it’s what they’re taught” says the bloke behind me and Harry Clarke holds up his hands as if to say “It’s a fair cop guv’nor” . It’s a booking that underlines the fact that the away team, whoever they might be in their mysterious all-black kit, has so far had the best of the game, although they have not once come close to even threatening to score a goal.

At some time around twenty to three we depart for the ground, going our separate ways in what used to be Portman Walk. The portentous turnstile 62 sees me safely into the ground and once in the stand I edge past Pat from Clacton and Fiona to my seat next but one to the man from Stowmarket and a couple of rows behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game, although his young son Elwood isn’t here today. As former BBC Radio Suffolk presenter Stephen Foster reads out the Town team, Phil and I shout out their surnames like a French football crowd would and hope everyone else will join in, but they don’t. Phil remains optimistic that everyone will have ‘got with the programme’ by the time of the play-off final at Wembley.

After some boisterous “Na-na-nas” and re-wording of The Beatles ‘Hey Jude,’ the game begins, and Town get first go with the ball , heading for the goal at the far end of the ground from me and my band of crazy Ultras. Town are as ever wearing blue shirts and white shorts, but sadly Burton have decided to forego their proper kit of yellow and black and have instead opted to appear disguised as every other dull, anonymous team that ever played an away match, and they wear all-black; it feels like they’re not really interested in being Burton Albion, they might as well give us the points now. In their yellow shirts and black shorts the referee and his assistants look more like Burton Albion than Burton Albion do.

The bloke behind me says something about the game changing now Town have scored, and clearly he is on as good a form as the team today as once again he’s proved right. An injury to Wes Burns allows time for both teams to gather by the dug outs for a remedial coaching class and drinks party, and it’s Town that benefit most. When play resumes Harry Clarke heads off down the right flank, passes to Wes Burns who crosses low for Nathan Broadhead to put Town two-nil up. Even from the far end of the pitch it’s a thing of grace and beauty.Another visiting player is booked for fouling Conor Chaplin and then in an act of clear revenge Conor slips the ball to Freddie Ladapo to score Town’s third goal. Unlikely events notwithstanding, Town have won the match in the space of ten minutes and despite not having the mythical forty-goal a season striker, they are still the division’s top scorers.

Fear amongst Town supporters remains however and as the final minutes of the half and four minutes of added on time are played out there are desperate shouts of “Get rid of it” whenever Christian Walton has the ball at his feet.With the half time whistle I watch Mr Boyeson leave the pitch zealously holding the match ball, before venting some pre-match beer and chatting with Ray and his grandson Harrison who wants to hear all about the Robyn Hitchcock concert I went to in London last Saturday at the Alexandra Palace Theatre. I tell him it was fab because it was. Ray lets me know that he and his wife Ros have decided to help save the planet too and get solar panels fitted, and we laugh about the Tory government and how Rishi Sunak tells us with an almost straight face that Northern Ireland will benefit from something wonderful and new due to unique access to EU markets.

The football resumes at six minutes past four and, as with the Morecambe match a few weeks ago, the fear is that we’ve had our fun for the afternoon, and although logic predicts a 6-0 win, in all likelihood there won’t be any more goals because half-time cups of tea are laced with beta blockers and regret. This proves to be only partly correct however, as within a minute Massimo Luongo launches a curving shot wide of the post after Wes Burns runs down the wing and lays it back to him, then the all-purpose visiting team even dare to shoot past the post too; our post, not theirs. The fun continues as Wes Burns again makes hay on the right pulling back the ball again , this time for Conor Chaplin to not score the fourth goal. “Blue and White Army” shouts the bloke behind me unable to contain himself, but then Cameron Burgess makes a superb ‘last-ditch’ tackle after Luke Woolfenden is all too easily turned by someone in black shirt and shorts. Town concede another corner and then a number of throw ins which the opposition cunningly employ as attacking moves in the absence of proper passing football.

An hour has passed and Ray Reardon is substituted, Christian Walton makes a low diving save and the team in black win three successive corners. Three Canada Geese fly over in tight formation and from another long throw the ball pings about the Town box like we’re suddenly watching Bagatelle or the Pinball Wizard. Mr Boyeson indulges himself with a final yellow card for the afternoon as Nathan Broadhead is fouled by Conor Shaughnessy and a pigeon lands on the cross bar of the goal at the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand end of the ground. The pigeon remains unmoved as Nathan Broadhead sends a curling shot narrowly passed the angle of the post and cross bar with a bit more than twenty minutes still to play. Two minutes later, and Town lead 4-0 as Leif Davis sets up Conor Chaplin and his shot catches a slight deflection to take it past the goalkeeper.

The game is now as good as over and the mass substitutions can begin, not to affect the result, but just so fewer people feel left out. First to go are Broadhead, Chaplin and Ladapo who have all been excellent. The clock ticks down further towards going home time and today’s attendance is announced as 25,003, with 147 of that number turning up from Burton-On-Trent to watch a team who based on their boring away kit might have been from anywhere. The crowd applauds itself and the travellers from Burton, who I like to think blush a little in the face of this show of affection. On the Clacton supporters’ bus the winner of the ‘guess the crowd’ competition is just forty-five out with an estimate of 24,958. Ten minutes of normal time remain and Leif Davis requires treatment leading to another opportunity for remedial coaching on the touchline, but it’s too late for that and Burton are left to just guzzle their isotonic drinks and regret their choice of kit. Davis is replaced Janoi Donacien and the Sir Bobby Robson Stand sing what sounds like “Bluey, Bluey, you’re a cunt” at the cuddly and permanently startled looking Town mascot, striking the only unseemly note of an otherwise pleasant afternoon’s football. Bluey reacts playfully as if the crowd are merely chanting something like “Bluey, Bluey, you’re a one”. Perhaps they are and it’s me who is coarse and reliant on sexual swearwords to amuse myself.

Despite the stoppage for the injury to Leif Davis, and both teams making the utmost of available substitutes, the fourth official sensibly calculates that only three minutes of additional time should be played, what’s the point of playing more. It’s been a lot of fun, but no one wants to stay here past five o’clock and the final whistle brings the final joyful release of the afternoon before we all head off into the deepening gloom of a damp, grey Ipswich evening. The mometnts of fleeting pleasure have been many for Town fans today, as for Burton, at least they’ve still got beer.

Ipswich Town 0 Swansea City 1

April 25, 2019October 2, 2021 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Despite being fortunate enough to grow up and go to school in Suffolk, I was born in Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, Wales, where I lived until I was a few months old and my parents moved to my mother’s home village of Shotley and took me and my sister with them, like the good parents that they were. The nearest Football League club to Haverfordwest is Swansea City, (still Swansea Town when I was born) and there is an argument that says I might follow their fortunes, but I don’t. The dual nationality comes in handy when Wales do well in the rugby and I like leeks, cheese on toast, Ivor the Engine, Sgorio and daffodils; but that’s as Welsh as I am see. I wouldn’t normally mention it but today Town play Swansea City, and I’ve written this first paragraph in a Welsh accent.

At the railway station it’s another gloriously warm, cloudless day and sunlight glints off the tracks. The only travellers are all bound for Ipswich and the match; the train is on time. The carriage is sparsely populated and I share it with a hard looking woman and two young children, a girl and a boy. As the train arrives into Colchester she scolds them in a harsh voice that sounds like a man’s. “Drake, McKenna get away from the door”. I can’t help but derive amusement from the names of children nowadays, it’s my age. The children seem almost to roll their eyes as she speaks. Pleasingly they leave the train at Colchester and twenty five minutes later I arrive peacefully in Ipswich.

Ipswich is best under a blue sky and everything is beautiful as I walk up Princes Street and past the peeling paint of Portman Road with its ragged club flag to St Jude’s Tavern, which is dingy and the customers are reassuringly as old and ugly as ever. I order a pint of the Match Day Special (£2.50) Nethergate Venture. At the bar I meet Kev’ who I know from my days with Wivenhoe Town. Kev’ is wearing a dark flat cap which in the gloom of St Jude’s looks like a beret. I am wearing my “Allez les bleus” T-shirt today and tell him I thought the French had come to take me “home” to where I imagine I belong – that’s France, not Wales. I sit with the regular old gits who assemble here on match days. I talk to one of them (Phil) about statues of footballers and tell him that even Carlisle United has one, although I can’t remember who it is a statue of. Phil suggests it’s not a footballer but one of the Hairy Bikers because he knows one of them is from Cumbria. I tell him the Hairy Biker he’s thinking of is from Barrow In Furness, where the nuclear submarines come from. I drain my glass and fetch a pint of Butcomb Gold (£3.60), which seems livelier than the Venture even though I can’t help thinking Butcomb might be a West Country word for anus.

With the big hand heading up the clock face towards the figure eight, the pub empties and carried on a gentle human tide I soon find myself back in Portman Road. A selection of people are hawking copies of the Turnstile Blue fanzine where Portman Road meets Sir Alf Ramsey Way and I buy one (£1); it’s issue 20 and it’s much like the previous nineteen in its tone, but it’s nice when things are familiar. Unusually there are queues to get into the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand; not because of weight of numbers but because not all the turnstiles are open. Nevertheless, despite my desire to be French I like a good queue to get in the ground; it carries a faint hint of the ‘big match’ atmosphere, which is the best 17,247 people can really hope for in a 30,000 seat stadium. I enter turnstile number seven and wish the bespectacled female operator a happy Easter as she returns my freshly scanned season ticket card to me. She looks up, surprised as if she’d forgotten about the resurrection.

Bladder drained, I occupy a seat near ever-present Phil who never misses a game and just along from Pat from Clacton. Pat is fed up because a large man in a red hat is sat directly in front of her today and she’s only short; whichever way she looks a big red head is in her field of vision. We sit and wait for the teams to appear from the tunnel.

Town have been officially relegated for over a week now and today’s match is amongst the most pointless they have ever played, childishly I live in the hope that they will therefore treat it as a bit of fun, a bit like testimonial games are supposed to be. Would anyone be bothered if the two teams each agreed to play a 2-3-5 formation? I am not optimistic for this however as professional football tends to take itself much too seriously, like many of the fans, as the drivel that appears on social media testifies. The teams are announced and my hopes of football for fun are dashed.

The flags of tiny mascots and larger furry mascots sway to an amplified soundtrack of swirling music giving an undeserved aura of grandeur to the two teams as they walk out for this meaningless encounter, but I stand and applaud nevertheless, swept up with the lie that this match is bigger than really it is. As the game begins the noise level simmers down and a degree of reality returns. Town are hopefully aiming at the goal just to the left of me, ever-present Phil and Pat from Clacton; they inevitably wear blue and white shirts adorned with the unwelcome red adidas stripes and that nasty sponsors’ logo. In crisp white shorts and black shorts Swansea look like Germany, they are the Teutonic Taffies.

“One Dylan Thomas, There’s only one Dylan Thomas” sing the male voice choir from Swansea from the top corner of the Cobbold Stand, or perhaps they don’t. A serious looking steward collects blue and white balloons that have drifted from the stand, thereby suppressing someone’s expression of joy; no doubt the balloons had strayed dangerously close to the pitch. I like to think that as part of the club’s Community programme the balloons will later be released at the birthday parties of deprived children. Next to me Pat from Clacton continues to glower at the big red hat on the big head of the big man sitting in front of her. On the touchline Paul Lambert is celebrating Easter with a new jumper, a grey one, an infinite number of shades lighter than his usual black one, and people still accuse Scots of being dour.

On the pitch referee Mr Darren England, which seems a good name for a football referee, makes himself unpopular with the home support by seemingly giving fouls against Ipswich players and not Swansea ones. “You’re not fit to referee Subbuteo, you tiny little bugger” bawls an incensed voice from somewhere behind me, failing to notice that being tiny is actually one of the main requirements of being a Subbuteo referee along with being made from brittle plastic and glued into a circular base. The game is rather boring and Swansea are hogging the ball; like every other club that has been to Portman Road this season, they have the better players. into the Swansea penalty area and wins a corner. Will Keane misses a header and scuffs the ball against a post, the ball bounces about like it’s made of rubber bands before Trevoh Chalobah sends it flying past the other post into the stand. Sixty seconds later, give or take, another corner is won and Toto N’siala heads Alan Judge’s kick solidly over the cross bar. The supporters behind the goal are getting almost as much possession of the ball as Andre Dozzell. Pat and I are breathless at the sudden burst of attacking football from Town and are glad for the rest that half-time soon brings.

I use the facilities beneath the stand, eat a Panda brand liquorice stick and catch up on the half-time scores. A young man in a shirt and tie and smart trousers compliments me on my ‘Allez les Bleus’ T-shirt, “Cool T-shirt” he says brightly. He’s not wrong. The match stats on the TV screen above the concourse are blatantly wrong however, claiming Ipswich have had eight shots to Swansea’s six; it’s as if the stats are being reported by Donald Trump or the Brexit campaign. I return to the stand to talk to Ray who confesses to being underwhelmed by the first half.

At six minutes past four the game resumes. I laugh when Gwion Edwards stretches to head the ball by the touchline then tumbles out of sight over the perimeter wall; “well for me” to quote Mick Channon, it’s the best move of the match so far. Happily, Gwion quickly bounces back up and plays on, but that’s the sort of entertainment end of season games need. Minutes later Dean Gerken makes a quite spectacular low, diving, ‘finger-tip save’ from a Daniel James shot before the very tiny, thirty-four year old Wayne Routledge, whose shorts almost reach his calves, runs the ball over the goal line and is met with jeers and guffaws from the appreciative crowd in the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand. But Wayne has a friend in fate today and within a few minutes a shot rebounds off Town’s right hand post and straight onto the turf in front of Wayne who is quick enough not to miss an open goal and Swansea are winning.

The attendance is announced as 17,247 with 557 of those being from Swansea; Collin Quaner and Kayden Jackson replace Andre Dozzell and Will Keane. Wayne Routledge is replaced by Nathan Dyer. “I can’t believe we’re losing again” says Pat from Clacton. I make a sympathetic humming noise in reply, I couldn’t think of any proper words to say. Behind Pat sit two large middle aged women. “We don’t really get the sun here, do we” says one obviously engrossed in the game, before adding “Coronation Street’s on tonight”.

Town struggle to equalise and Pat and I are a little despondent, “I don’t really enjoy coming here anymore” she says “It’s not like it used to be”. We are Ipswich’s spoilt generation who remember the 1970’s and early 1980’s. But Pat is already planning to renew her season ticket and might get one for her young niece too. Of course I am going to renew mine as well as will ever-present Phi who never misses game; I’m looking forward to the big discount when the other 13, 996 sign up. Pat takes a photograph using the 20x zoom lens on her compact Sony camera and picks out her brother stood in the North Stand, it’s one of the most impressive things I’ve seen all afternoon.

Time drifts by under a hazy blue sky and at last the stadium clock turns nine minutes to five. It’s been a disappointing hour and a half of football and to add insult to injury we are forced to sit through six minutes of time added on; as if relegation wasn’t bad enough we are now all in detention. Hopes are raised with a last minute corner and Dean Gerken leaves his goal to join in the penalty area melee at the far end; I stand up and lurch forward as if to join him too, but realise just in time that that sort of commitment is generally frowned upon nowadays. Little Alan Judge’s corner kick is poorly judged and sails away over everyone’s heads anyway. Finally Mr Darren England makes a belated and vain bid for popularity by blowing the final whistle.

Normally the team does a lap of honour or appreciation around the pitch after the last game of the season, but because the last game of this season will be against Leeds United that lap is occurring today. Having been relegated the Town players don’t want thousands of oafish Yorkshireman flicking v’s at the them and screaming at them from the Cobbold Stand to “Fuck Off” as they wander round clutching assorted babies and toddlers and waving nicely. The players re-emerge from the tunnel without delay and I slavishly applaud as they drift by beyond a wall of stewards; within a couple of minutes I go home for my tea.