Sone Aluko

AFC Wimbledon 1 Ipswich Town 3

/ martinpbrooks / 1 Comment

With the end of Christmas, the return to the drudgery of work, the promise of more short, dark days, miserable weather and stale mince pies, the start of January needs something to lift the spirits.  Christians have Epiphany, and those football fans whose teams weren’t knocked out in the preceding rounds have the third round of the FA Cup; Christian football fans get both and no doubt count themselves blessed.

Having returned to the Second Division, Ipswich Town have this season avoided the first and second rounds of the Cup, and something like The Jam’s 1980 single ‘Going Underground’, which went ‘straight-in’ at No1 in the popular music chart, have gone ‘straight-in’ to the third round and a tie with fourth division AFC Wimbledon, who got here the hard way thanks to ‘going knap’ twice with  victories over Cheltenham Town and Ramsgate.  The joy of this third round tie is further enhanced by the fact that I haven’t previously visited to Wimbledon’s new ground at Plough Lane and they will become the first club I have seen play at five different ‘home’ venues. Take that ‘I-spy’ book of English Football League grounds.

But life is never simple, and the journey to Wimbledon is paved with rail-replacement buses, added to the fact that the year has started badly as I have broken my glasses and cannot see well enough without them to drive; safely anyway.  Just to add an extra layer of inconvenience to that, the match kicks off at the ungodly hour of 12:30pm in order that the good people of Aruba, Bolivia, the Central African Republic, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Myanmar, Norway, Rwanda, Sudan and Venezuela, amongst many others may share in our joy via the medium of satellite television on such channels as Star+, SuperSportGOtv LaLiga, DStvNow, NovaSport3, ESPNPlay Caribbean and SportKlub5 Serbia.

As I leave home a little before 8am, my wife Paulene is only just stirring from her slumbers, but I think she understands when I kiss her goodbye and tell her the cup of tea I made her is probably nearly cold. I collect my train ticket (£26.60 with over 60s railcard) from the automatic ticket machine at the railway station. The train is on time and travels through long, broken shadows as the sun rises spectacularly in the East through bands of grey cloud. I look on in wonder through the carriage window, glad I don’t need my glasses to see the glory of this.   “Welcome to this service for Witham, we will be calling at Witham” says the soothing female voice of the train announcement as we depart Kelvedon, and then after a short pause “Next stop, Witham”.  In no doubt that this journey involves going to Witham, I am not surprised when I arrive there and then switch to a smart, bright blue double-decker bus with high backed seats and leg-room that would be uncomfortable even for Douglas Bader.  In the seats behind me are three generations of a family. The grandmother and daughter talk of people they know who died over Christmas, but how they won’t be going to the funerals.  The daughter says everything twice and her mother repeats it; the granddaughter just occasionally squeals.  The bus speeds along down the A12, and the bit of the window beside me that opens shakes in the breeze, causing a draft, but at least it helps to stop the window steaming up.

The bus takes us to Ingatestone where we wait on platform 2 for a train and I talk to a fellow Town fan also on his way to Wimbledon.  We share the glory of Ipswich Town in 2023 and agree that whatever happens, it has been, and still is wonderful, and it is up to everyone to just enjoy it.  He’s had a season ticket since 2007; I don’t tell him I’ve had one since 1983, but hope he still has one in 2048.  The train arrives at Liverpool Street and I take the Elizabeth Line one stop to Farringdon, where I arrive a half an hour earlier than expected and soon board a Thameslink train destined for Sutton, although I will alight at Haydons⁹ Road.  It’s a marvellous ride over the river at Blackfriars and then on through the city’s ripped backside. I peer down into scruffy back gardens, amazed at the prevalence of plastic lawns. Rows of double-decker buses stand idle outside a depot. Vicious looking spikes deter trespassers on roofs and messy graffiti adorns crumbling walls and corrugated iron fences.

Haydons Road is a miserable little railway station, two scruffy, open platforms either side of two sets of rails; this is suburbia and it’s ugly, but mainly because of the roads and the traffic; if trees and grass replaced tarmac and cars it would probably be lovely.  It’s cold and there are spits of something in the air, but it’s only a five minute walk along Plough Lane to the football ground, which is mostly hidden behind mixed-use development of plain appearance, but with attractive brickwork, which is preferable to render and cladding.  I buy a programme and the woman selling the programmes seems to recognise me, almost as if I’m a regular at Plough Lane.  I wonder for a moment if I have a doppelganger living an alternative life in suburban London, then I head into the club shop to admire the exhibits, which include bears, but not Wombles. Outside the shop are two display cases showing models of the previous Plough Lane ground and the Kingstonian ground plus other sacred artefacts.

As someone who has broken the habit of never missing a game home or away, I had no chance whatsoever of getting a ticket (£15) as an away supporter for today’s match.  I have therefore employed guile and cunning to get an old friend, Chris, known as ‘Jah’ because of his knowledge and love of Reggae, who lives in relatively nearby Kingston, to acquire tickets, just as he did when Town played Wimbledon shortly before lock down in 2020.  I had arranged to meet Jah at Haydons Road station, but my earlier than anticipated arrival has messed things up a bit and he was still in the shower when I texted him from Farringdon.  But I get time to explore and enjoy the delights of a sculpture carved from a tree trunk,  a bench that features Orinoco the Womble and an overflowing rubbish bin, the delightful street name ‘Greyhound Parade’, a featureless but clean alleyway behind the away end and a grotty looking pub called the ‘Corner Pin’.  When we finally meet, Jah reveals that he has spotted a bar and cidery nearby which also looked enticingly grotty and we head there to find that it is in fact rather marvellous, being a small bar attached to a cidery inside a rundown looking industrial unit.  It reminds me a little bit of a similar establishment called La Cave du Kraken, which is on the outskirts of Bruay-la-Buissiere in northern France.  I order two pints of an unidentified Porter and a packet of Piper’s Jalapeno and Dill crisps (£13.50). Unfortunately, I couldn’t read the pump label without my glasses. We are soon joined by a friend of Jah, introduced initially only as Mr Lynch, who is also a Town fan and who now also lives in Kingston, but was originally from Tattingstone.  Back in this same bar after the match, I will learn that at school he was taught geography by a man whose daughter I went out with in 1979.

The bar is only small and has perhaps eight or nine tables, so it is odd, given that is no more than 150 metres from the football ground that it is not full. Odder still, it is only ten past twelve and people are already supping up their beer and leaving.  When we eventually depart, about twelve or thirteen minutes later, we discover why, as there are long queues at the four turnstiles to the economically named Ry stand.  We miss the first six minutes of the match. Once we find our seats, Jah, who is a Newcastle United supporter, asks me who he should look out for in the Ipswich team.  Town have a corner.  I tell him Nathan Broadhead and no sooner have the words left my lips than Nathan hits a shot from the edge of the penalty area which he skilfully deflects off the heels of one and then a second Wimbledon player and into the corner of the goal. Town lead one-nil and having just sat down and advised Jah to look out for the Nathan Broadhead I claim some of the responsibility.  The bloke next to me curses the Wimbledon defence with tsks and sighs for their failure to stop the goal.

Wimbledon wear all blue with a yellow band across their chests, whilst Town look like Walls Calippos in all over orange, and clash somewhat with goalkeeper Christian Walton who is in pink, or as Jah suggests, ‘rose’.   In front of us, a large Womble trails a blue wheelie bin behind him and occasionally stops to rhythmically bang the lid as a prelude to the crowd shouting “Wombles”.  We join in because it’s fun, and already not being in with the Town fans has worked out quite well.  I haven’t long enjoyed the sight of a large electricity sub-station in the corner near the away end, when Wimbledon are awarded a penalty, I’m not sure why, even with the aid of the glasses Jah kindly lent me when we were in the pub. “That’s what you need” says the bloke sat next to me, and Wimbledon equalise less than ten minutes after Ipswich went ahead.

The goal inevitably excites the home crowd who begin to celebrate the smallest victories all across the pitch; throw-ins, the easiest of tackles and any small failures by Town players are either cheered or jeered  enthusiastically as if instead of the Town shirts bearing the Ed Sheeran logo thing, they bear the words “We are mighty Ipswich and we’re loads better than you, you snivelling little menials and we are gonna stuff you at least 10-0”.  Sadly however, I think there are some supporters who would like this printed on the Town shirts.

Town win a corner and a chant of “Come You Blues” drifts up the pitch.  The corner comes to nothing, as they often do, but being camped in the opposition half is always nice, even if fleetingly.  Their defensive successive inspires more rhythmic clapping and chants of “Wombles” from the inhabitants of the quaintly named Reston Waste Stand to our left behind the goal that Town are attacking.  Taking the home supporters’ lead of cheering their team,  the Town fans shout “Ole”  as one Town pass follows another, but may be they had hoped for more consecutive passes.  Oddly, Town are giving the ball away more cheaply than usual.  It’s just gone one o’clock and Nathan Broadhead displays excellent dribbling skills to set himself up for a shot for which he displays not quite so excellent shooting skills; both the words ‘high’ and ‘wide’ are unfortunately accurate descriptions. “Championship,  You’re ‘avin’ a laugh” sing the home fans to the tune of “Tom Hark” by Elias and his Zig Zag Ji-Flutes and later The Piranhas.

Marcus Harness is the first Town player to see the referee’s yellow card following a foul but not before referee Mr Donohue first bends down to speak to the prostrate victim, as if to ask him “Would you like me to book him for you?”.  Town haven’t done very much of note since Wimbledon scored, and with Town fans rarely ones to help their team in adversity, ⁹the home fans ask the question “Can you hear the Ipswich sing?” before slightly annoyingly telling us the answer, “No-oo, No-oo”,  but then admitting this is because they are all profoundly deaf, singing “ I can’t hear a fucking thing”.  It is to be hoped however that it’s due to nothing more than a build-up of excess earwax.   

Half-time will be here in less than ten minutes and Freddie Ladapo gets in a shot, but it is weak and easily saved by the Wimbledon goalkeeper Alex Bass, a player who shares his surname with a very tasty type of fish.  Another superb piece of foot-based trickery from Nathan Broadhead then earns Town another corner from which Axel Tuanzebe stretches to head the ball into the Wimbledon goal and Town are back in the lead.    The goal excites the crowd again and the home fans once more clap rhythmically and shout “Wombles” and it’s too silly and too much fun not to join in.  “You ‘af to win that, he’s a foot taller than the other geezer” says the bloke beside me as some Wimbledon player loses out in a struggle to head the ball before we learn that the first half is going to last forty-nine minutes instead of forty-five.  It’s a four minutes in which Omari Hutchinson has a run and shot, the bloke next to me says that at least Wimbledon have got good full-backs, Freddie Ladapo shoots over the cross-bar, Town fans sing “Addy, Addy, Addy-O” and the home fans respond with “Come On Wombles” and “Ole, Ole, Ole, Wombles, Wombles” despite not having heard the Ipswich fans singing.

With the half-time whistle Jah and I drain off some excess Porter and then tour the street food vendors which line the perimeter wall of the stadium offering a wide range of foods.  We look for the shortest queue and separately join queues for crispy pancakes and pies to see who gets served first.  The queue for pies moves much more quickly and I buy us each a sausage roll (£7.00 for two), although the pies have sold out.  When we get back to our seats the game has re-started and I will never know which team kicked off first; not unless I ask someone who knows.  I enjoy my sausage roll and Jah enjoys his too as Wimbledon earn a corner and their number eight, Harry Pell, glances a header into the arms of Christian Walton.  Ten minutes later and Pell is booked for a second time this afternoon and is sent off, we’re not sure why. “It looked like a head butt” says Jah, “But it didn’t seem that bad” he adds, revealing a worrying indifference to casual violence.

This is a reasonable game of football, with both teams mostly playing nicely and just trying to win, rather than not lose.  It’s what used to make Cup matches more of an attraction than dull, same old same old league games, but times change and people seem more serious and earnest nowadays.  Ipswich mostly dominate possession, but every now and then Wimbledon get the ball and quickly put in a cross to see what happens.  For Ipswich, Marcus Harness shoots weakly at the end of a flowing move and Walton makes a decent save from the interestingly named Armani Little after Axel Tuanzebe gives the ball away in the penalty area having earlier been booked.  With fifteen minutes to go Luke Woolfenden has a goal disallowed following a corner and Sone Aluko and Wes Burns replace Omari Hutchinson and Marcus Harness. I tell Jah that Wes Burns is another player to watch and I realise I forgot to tell him about captain Sam Morsy.

I decide I like Plough Lane football ground, it’s very much what a football stadium should be like in a big city, pressed up close against neighbouring buildings, but somehow quite spacious too.  The main stand (The Cappagh Stand) is quite impressive even if it does look a bit like it’s been transplanted from a racecourse and  Jah and I debate how it should be pronounced; is it Capparff as in laugh, or Cappa as in Fermanagh or perhaps Capparrrrrr as in some made-up, more amusing pronunciation.  Either way it gets us through to late chants of “Come On Wombles” and an almost frighteningly inaccurate Sone Aluko shot before Wes Burns runs, crosses and Jack Taylor taps the ball in from close range and Ipswich have won 3-1.  The attendance is announced as 8,595 with 1,390 from Ipswich, although the latter figure is actually at least 1,393 if you count me, Mr Lynch and the bloke sat next to him who Mr Lynch later tells us is  Mick Stockwell’s cousin. Four minutes of added time make no difference except to our ages, but then not much.

It’s a lovely feeling winning a Cup tie, especially away from home when there is no need to rush back, and instead we adjourn to the Against the Grain cidery just round the corner, and Jah is elated too because Newcastle have thrashed Sunderland  three-nil.  After leaving the cidery and Mr Lynch, Jah and I will head ‘into town’ for we have unlimited travel of tfl services and we will talk of all manner of things long into the evening, or at least until about ten past seven when I reckon I ought to be getting home.  We’ve had a lovely day, which is probably pretty much what the Magi said when they turned in for bed 2024 years ago.  

Ipswich Town 1 Fulham 3

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I have been at work all day today, since before eight o’clock; not working at home as I usually am, but in ‘the office’, experiencing first-hand the sounds and smells of my fellow human beings and colleagues.  It’s been a long day, but now at nearly five o’clock I can release myself from the yoke of gainful employment and look forward to knocking off early tomorrow afternoon because I have clocked up an unseemly amount of flexi-time.  But I strive to live more in the moment, and before tomorrow afternoon’s idleness comes the hopeful pleasure of League Cup football at Portman Road, as second division Ipswich Town confront first division Fulham.

 It was almost exactly fifty years ago to the day that I first saw Ipswich Town play Fulham, and uncannily, or more probably just by mere coincidence, it was also in a League Cup tie, albeit a replay.  Like today, Ipswich were riding the crest of a wave, enjoying a season in which we would go onto beat Southampton 7-0 and win both legs of the Texaco Cup final against Norwich City, and in which we had already despatched Real Madrid and Lazio from the UEFA Cup and the then mighty Leeds United from the League Cup. Town were the only domestic club to beat Leeds United in the 1973-74 season before late February when Stoke City inflicted upon them their first League defeat of the season, and how everyone cheered, because everyone hated Leeds United back then; even Leeds United hated Leeds United back then.  Fulham would be the first second division team I ever saw. Town won 2-1 that night, but as I recall, and as the scoreline hints, it wasn’t an easy win.  My father was in the Royal Navy back then and was able to get his hands on the complimentary tickets to the director’s box that the club provided for the captain of HMS Ganges at Shotley.   We had those seats in the directors’ box for that match and as Town struggled to get the better of Fulham, I remember drawing disapproving glances from people who must have been Fulham officials as I shouted out “Come on Town, you can beat this lot, they’re only second division”. Tonight, fifty years on, the tables are turned.

It’s not much past six o’clock when I enter ‘the Arb’ and order a pint of Wolf Brewery Howler (£3.70 with Camra discount).  After a delay to look at a menu, I also order chips with chicken and chilli (£8) before retiring to the beer garden in which there only four other people, two young blokes, and a large woman who swigs beer from a bottle; she is with a smaller man who has a glass of fruit juice; they are  a drinks-based version of Jack Spratt and his wife.  Later, the man and woman will leave to be replaced by two couples and another man on his own.  Not unexpectedly for the first night of November, it’s not warm, and it’s breezy too.  I drink my beer and eat my food and try to read the programme (£3) that I had bought earlier in the club shop. But the light is dim, and I find it hard to read the small typeface.  I cannot find any mention of the match of fifty years ago in the programme, only the less specific reminiscences of  Simon Milton, who before becoming famed in the writings of Dave Allard of the Ipswich Evening Star as “the former paintsprayer and van driver from Thetford”, lived with his parents in Fulham.  I buy another beer, this time a pint of Nethergate Compete Howler (£3.87 with the Camra discount).  The two blokes beside me talk about television programmes they have seen.  One of them has seen a programme about prison inmates and says “One of them was a serial kidnapper and torturer, so he kidnapped people and tortured them.”  They ramble on to discuss cold hands and wearing hats and thermals, and a television character who had a “New York twinge” to his accent.

With no Mick with me tonight, because he has to attend his daughter-in-law’s birthday celebration, I sup up my beer and leave for Portman Road a bit earlier than usual.  Portman Road is busy and my path along it is regularly blocked at ninety degrees by queues for the Cobbold Stand. The mass of people at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stands is so dense that I don’t even attempt to negotiate it and instead walk around the old Churchman’s building and approach from Russell Road, which is much easier, although I still have to queue for a few minutes to get to my beloved turnstile 62.  I feel a sense of achievement as I successfully pass through the turnstile using the QR code on the e-mail on my mobile phone, and to think, I failed my Physics ‘O’ level. Tonight, by way of a change, but mainly because the flat rate ticket price of £20 is an opportunity to sit somewhere ‘better’ than the cheap seats where I usually sit, I have purchased a seat in the upper tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand.  Thinking of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand as Sir Alf’s face, if my usual seat is somewhere on his chin or at the corner of his mouth, tonight I am up on his left cheek, at the corner of his eye, where in the days before Kieran McKenna the seats were probably always damp with Sir Alf’s tears.

I am in good time to see the teams parade onto the pitch tonight and hear stadium announcer Murphy attempt to enthuse the crowd with mention more than once of “being under the floodlights tonight”. Murphy proceeds to make a complete hash of reading out the teams, hurrying through the names like they’re a shopping list, failing to synchronise with the big screen as the faces of the players appear on it and failing to pause at all between first and second names so that the crowd can bawl out the surnames as if we were French. I do the best that I can to shout out those surnames, to the amusement of the two young men next to me, but Dom Ball is a step too far and in the mouth of Murphy sounds like Doughball.   Murphy then reads out Elkan Baggott’s name and number twice; if he read a bit more slowly, perhaps he wouldn’t make so many mistakes.  “Murphy, you’re bloody useless” I call out and the blokes beside me laugh again.

The game begins and Fulham get first go with the ball, kicking it to their best of their ability in the direction of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand, Handford Road and Akenham and Barham far beyond.  Ipswich are wearing their traditional blue shirts and socks and white shorts and it’s pleasing to see that Fulham are also wearing their signature kit of white shirts and black shorts, just like they did back in 1973, although this year they have black sleeves also.  “Super Fulham, Super Fulham FC” sing the visiting supporters up in the Cobbold stand.  The opening action on the pitch is muddled and uncertain. It’s as if the teams know not everyone has taken their seats yet, so they’re waiting a bit until we’re all in before beginning in earnest. The seats behind me and in front of me are empty.  In the dullness of the early minutes, I notice how the bottom tier of the Cobbold Stand is painted matt black, like the interior of a 1980’s theme pub.  The Ipswich supporters in the other end of the Cobbold Stand and the Sir Bobby Robson stand are singing, but sound like they’re in the next room.  “Go on!” says the bloke next to me suddenly as a Town player gets the ball, and several in the crowd clap in time to the Sir Bobby Robson stand supporters singing “Addy, addy, addy-O”.  The row in front of me is being  filled with small children and their parents along with three teenage girls with very long straight hair, lots of make-up and hands grasping polystyrene containers full of chips.

Nine minutes have gone and as Fulham push forward Ipswich suddenly seem to have no left-back. Fulham exploit the oversight and the fulsomely named Bobby Decordova-Reid provides the wide pass that allows Harold Wilson time to take off his Gannex raincoat and light his pipe before taking the ball around Christian Walton and rolling it into an unguarded goal net. Fulham lead one-nil, which wasn’t expected. “Que sera sera, Whatever will be will be, We’re going to Wemb-er-ley” sing the Fulham fans joyously, and the two blokes next to me laugh.

“Here for the Fulham, You’re only here for the Fulham” sing the Fulham fans partly gloating and partly realising that they can’t see many empty seats, but more probably ironically acknowledging that no one other than a Fulham supporter would normally go anywhere to see Fulham.  Twelve minutes have gone forever, and referee Mr Lewis Smith awards the first free-kick of the game, to Fulham.  I notice that the name on the shirt of the Fulham number three is Bassey, and I wonder if he’s known as Shirley.  Ipswich now lose their right-back somewhere and in the aftermath Janoi Donacien deflects a Fulham shot onto the Town cross-bar.

Ipswich haven’t done much so far by way of creating goals of their own, but Kayden Jackson has a shot deflected past the post for a corner after Fulham generously give the ball away. “Come On You Blues” I chant four times making the blokes beside me laugh, but no one else up here makes a sound.  Janoi Donacien heads over the crossbar.  “We’re on our way” sing the Sir Bobby Robson Stand alluding to hoped-for promotion, which seems an odd thing to sing at a League Cup tie. These millennials eh?   From where I am sitting, I can see the top of the roof of the West Stand and forty years of accumulated lichens and grime; the stand looks quite old-fashioned and industrial from here, I rather like it.    

Back on the pitch, and Town’s passing isn’t always reaching its intended recipients, there is a degree to which these players don’t look as though they have played very much together before tonight.  “What’s going on here boys?” calls a bloke behind me, whilst another just says “Fucking shit”.  The Fulham fans meanwhile enjoy themselves with a snippet of opera to which they sing the words “Is this a library?”  and indeed, the Ipswich crowd is doing what it does best, keeping quiet in adversity.  Sone Aluko  draws some appreciation however, with a fine cross-field pass to Kayden Jackson and Mr Lewis then gives a  free-kick to Fulham, the bloke behind me exclaims “ That’s bloody bollocks that is”.  

  As the game enters its middle third, Mr Lewis suddenly remembers his yellow cards and books Marcus Harness, Fulham’s Sasa Lukic and Town’s Jack Taylor, although none of them had done anything particularly heinous.  If it was an attempt by Mr Lewis to get the crowd to sing about him it worked, and he is treated to numerous renditions of “Who’s the wanker in the black?”   which many a Welsh chapel or colliery choir would surely be proud of.   The young blokes beside me laugh, twice.

Half-time draws ever closer and both sets of fans have gone quiet, it’s that kind of a game.  Four minutes until half-time and the Fulham fans blink first and blurt out a song of encouragement, albeit just “Come on Fulham, Come of Fulham” which sounds more forlorn and desperate than it does inspiring, as if the words “Oh for God’s sake” have somehow been edited out. Just a minute before the first half is due to expire, and following a corner, Christian Walton has to make a save from a shot by Shirley Bassey.  Three minutes of added on time are announced by Murphy, although I doubt he’s got it right, and Town have the ball for a brief period. “Now we go, now we break” says a bloke behind me, but he’s wrong, and we don’t.  Half-time comes as a relief when it arrives and so I go downstairs to drain off some surplus ‘Howler’ and ‘Complete Howler’.

Having returned to my seat, there’s not much to enjoy about half-time. Murphy interviews some local boxer and makes an arse of himself by speaking like a boxing bout compere, but when that’s over I enjoy the fountain-like pitch sprinklers and the odd names of what I assume are children attending their first matches tonight; I hope Jonah doesn’t live up to his name and wonder about the origins of Beau and Guinea.  If I have a dull moment before the Swansea City game I think I might write to the club claiming I shall be attending my first match and that my name is Kermit or Beaker. I always liked the Muppets.

At nine minutes to nine, according to my mobile phone, the football resumes. Five minutes in and Fulham lead two-nil as a well angled cross from the Fulham right is tucked into the Ipswich goal from about seven metres out by a Brazilian called Rodrigo Muniz. If there is anything wrong with the Ipswich Town squad at the moment it is that we don’t have enough foreign players. As World Cups repeatedly show, teams of players who aren’t from Britain are invariably better than ones who are from Britain.  Impressively the Fulham starting eleven fields just a Welshman and a Scot as the only representatives of the British Isles.  “Who are ya, Who are ya?” chant the Fulham fans inquisitively, as if to say “you can’t be anyone special because you’re losing to us”, which is a fair point.

Whilst Town came back from two-nil down to beat First Division Wolverhampton Wanderers in the previous round of the League Cup, what has happened so far tonight does not suggest such a comeback will happen again this evening and indeed Fulham continue to pass the ball amongst themselves most of the time and Ipswich don’t.  Much of the remainder of the game belongs to the Fulham supporters whose chanting is as close to witty as football chants ever get.  “We love you Fulham” whilst not witty sounds heartfelt, but the singing of the Internationale with words altered to speak of shoving “your blue flag up your arse” is amusing both because it is directed at Britain’s greatest poseur football club Chelsea, and because it resurrects memories of Fulham’s most famous fictional fan, Citizen ‘Wolfie’ Smith.

“One of ya!” bawls a bloke behind me as Kayden Jackson and Sone Aluko both go for the ball at once and both miss it, and then the increasingly creative Fulham fans begin to sing about their former, but now deceased owner Mohamed Al-Fayed, although I guess they could be singing about his son Dodi.  I have no idea what they’re singing, but I imagine it’s fun. With time running down, Town bring on Elkan Baggott, a young man who apparently has nearly as many Instagram followers as the club itself.  With their team comfortably two goals up the Fulham supporters surpass themselves with the surreal chant of “Shit Leyton Orient, you’re just a shit Leyton Orient” to the Latin strains of Guatanamera. The young blokes beside me laugh, and so do I at what I think might be the first genuinely funny football chant I have ever heard.

There are twenty-one minutes of normal time remaining as George Hirst and Omari Hutchinson step forward onto the pitch charged with the task of pulling back two goals, and Freddie Ladapo and Janoi Donacien sink back into what look like knock-off sports car seats where the dugouts used to be.  “Blue and White Army” chant the home crowd, digging deep for some optimism and Murphy announces tonight’s attendance “here at Portman Road”, just in case we wondered where we were, as 28,221 including 1,685 Fulham followers. 

“We can still do this” people are surely thinking to themselves drawing on the spirit of Escape to Victory, but then Fulham break down the right and Tom Cairney scores from about 12 metres out shooting at and through Christian Walton.  A legion of faithless, soulless, part-time Town supporters get up and leave, the clatter of their tipping up seats sounding like sarcastic applause to the imaginative ear.   The game is lost it seems, but hope springs eternal, and consolation and a large two-fingers to the receding backs of all those who have just left the stadium comes just two minutes later as Town win a free-kick and Elkan Baggott stoops to head the ball into the Fulham goal and Town once again trail by only two goals, not three.  The last ten minutes of the match runs down with barely renewed hope, but the home chants suggest we don’t care anyway because “E-i, E-i, E-i-o, Up the Football League We Go”, and apparently that’s more important than getting to the next round of the sort of trophy Norwich City were once capable of winning.  We only came out tonight for a laugh, or the blokes next to me did, and they leave early too.

The last minutes of the game are some of Town’s best, but Fulham don’t look likely to give up the ghost just yet and Hallowe’en was last night anyway.  A stonking eight minutes of time added on give us incurable romantics another dollop of hope, but whilst Omari Hutchinson, Dominic Ball and Kayden Jackson all manage shots on goal, none of them realises the prize and Town’s League Cup run is over yet again.

Ultimately, it has been a disappointing evening.  It’s not been a great match; it was okay, but Fulham were too good for Town’s second- best team, who never really did much, but we knew it had to end at some time or other.  At least we can’t lose at home to Birmingham City in the next round like we did in 1973.

Ipswich Town 2 Bristol Rovers 0

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When the draw for what used to be called the League Cup was made, I was quite pleased to find that Ipswich had drawn Bristol Rovers; this was because Bristol Rovers were the only one of Town’s third division opponents I didn’t see last season.  I’m not sure why that mattered, it’s not as if I keep notes on each team, although in an odd way, through this blog, I suppose I do. Oh dear.

Despite my earlier happiness at the draw, it has taken me until the night before the game to get round to buying a ticket because despite the grotty weather, in my head it’s still summer, and summer is for dreaming and for World Cups, oh, and occasionally for European Conference League qualifying games.   Football is mostly something for autumn, winter and spring.  As usual for League Cup matches, because all the seats cost a tenner I choose not to sit in my season ticket seat, but to explore one of the twenty-nine and half thousand odd other viewpoints.   Usually, I head for the best view and the padded seats of Block Y, and there are still single seats available, but craving company I texted my friend Gary to see if he is going; he is, and gives me his seat number which he tells me is close to where he usually sits in what used to be called the West Stand.  I buy the seat next to Gary which turns out to be uncomfortably  close to the corner of the ground; but it’s okay as I had warned Gary that I would blame him if the seat wasn’t very good, and now I can.  To think, I could have been in Block Y.   I also texted my friend Mick to see if he is going to the game, but he tells me that he has “no interest in the League (Carabao) Cup”, which I thought was a bit haughty of him.

Having parked up my planet-saving Citroen e-C4 in a street between Norwich Road and Anglesea Road, it’s a short walk to the Arb on High Street where I obtain a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.60 with Camra 10% discount). The bar is not very busy, and I tell the barman that I had expected it to be busier, but he tells me most people are in the beer garden.  He’s correct, most people are, but there are still free tables and I can only see one bloke in an Ipswich Town shirt.  I settle down to drink my unexpectedly cloudy pint, and read Issue 26 of the Turnstile Blue fanzine, a small pile of which were in the corridor between the bar and the gents.  I read an article which, in the context of the ‘fuss’ surrounding the death of the old queen, attempts to debunk the apparently mythical status afforded to former Town chairmen John and Patrick Cobbold.  The basis of the argument seems to be that they were incredibly wealthy and posh, and ‘Mr John’ drank and swore a lot.  I don’t read much more because the penetrating voice of a man possibly in his late twenties, who is with the bloke in an Ipswich shirt, and the mild but loud Ipswich accent of a woman probably in her forties are preventing me from concentrating.  After half an hour of slow supping and covering my ears, I leave for Portman Road.

Arriving in Sir Alf Ramsey Way shortly after seven-thirty, I buy a programme (£2.00) in the modern cashless manner and am then surprised to see long queues at the turnstiles.  Tonight, in the spirit of saving the planet by not using unnecessary pieces of paper, my ticket is on my mobile phone and my inner Luddite wonders if technology is the reason for the slow progress into the stadium.  Moments before reaching the turnstile, my finger slips on my phone screen  and I accidentally delete the e-mail that includes my ticket, but fortunately I know I can still find it if  I look through all my e-mails and that’s what I do.  Happily, the QR code on my e-mail also works and I pass through the turnstile just in time to drain off some Suffolk Pride and make it to my seat before the names of the Ipswich team have all been announced.  I try to call out the surnames of Town players in the manner of a French football crowd, but the ‘new’ stadium announcer Mark Murphy says Dom Ball instead of Dominic Ball and ruins things completely.

The match kicks off at fourteen minutes to eight according to the digital clock on the scoreboard. Town get first go with ball, kicking it mostly towards Sir Alf Ramsey’s stand, and are wearing the traditional blue and white kit, which this season has broad white stripes down the sleeves that from some angles make the whole sleeve look white.  Kits have to be imbued with meaning nowadays and we are told that the design is inspired by the kit worn by the promotion winning team of 2000.  When the sleeves look all white, I am reminded of our Premier League winning side of 1962.  Bristol Rovers for their part wear black shorts and white socks to cover their loins, buttocks and calves and grey shirts over their torsos.  I do not know if the Rovers shirts are imbued with meaning or not, but I like to think they are inspired by a foggy day in the Bristol Channel or specks of ghostly coal dust blown across from the South Wales pits or Cardiff docks.  Gary and I speculate as to whether we have already seen this season’s dullest kit worn by an away team at Portman Road and recall how Manchester United once wore a grey and black kit at Southampton and changed at half-time when already three or four goals down, supposedly because the players couldn’t see each other against the background of the crowd.  It seems probable from the half-time score that they couldn’t see the Southampton players either.

Town dominate possession and after just twelve minutes take the lead. A passing move down the right ends with Jack Taylor passing a ball from Kayden Jackson into the Bristol goal net.  That was easy.  I haven’t really tuned myself into the game yet however, and rather than leaping up and punching the air in a display of forgotten youthful exuberance like I would normally, I just slowly raise my bottom off my seat and applaud politely in a semi-stooped position.  Gary’s reaction is similarly sluggish. For these supporters it still feels like pre-season, the overture, or to employ a war-themed comparison popular with football pundits, like 1939, the phoney war.  Elsewhere in the stadium people are more attuned to the programme as they beat drums and chant “Blue and White Army.”

Town continue to dominate possession and occasionally come close to scoring a goal, but not close enough.  I haven’t seen Gary since July 1st, so we talk as much as we concentrate on the game.   Gary asks me what is the worst football ground I’ve ever been to. I tell him I think it was Oxford United’s Manor Ground.  He asks what the best ground was. I tell him possibly The Velodrome in Marseille, although the Allianz Riviera in Nice is pretty good when full.  Having been unexpectedly put on the spot I forget to mention the Stade Felix Boleart in Lens and the Stade Geoffrey Guichard in St Etienne.

Bristol Rovers only occasionally approach the Town goal and their first shot just creeps and bobs and bounces its way across the turf into the arms of the Town goalkeeper, the interestingly monikered Cieran Slicker. It takes a good twenty minutes or more for Rovers to have another shot and this time Grant Ward’s much more powerful shot is parried away by Slicker for what amounts to a pretty good save. It’s a moment which results in my hearing the faint call of “Come On Rovers” carried over the pitch on the warm evening air from the one hundred and twenty-three Bristolians in  the far corner of the stadium.  Otherwise, the first half of the game leaves no lasting impression on me and after a minute of time added on it’s time for Gary to nip to use the facilities whilst I stand up and try to manipulate my neck, which has grown achy and stiff from having my head turned towards the Sir Alf Ramsey stand for most of the previous forty-six minutes.

 Once Gary has returned, the ‘new’ stadium announcer Mark Murphy appears on the pitch wearing what looks like the same suit that replaced announcer Stephen Foster used to wear.  Murphy tells us he is going to talk to a Town legend and with the artificially excited intonation and words-all-rolled-into-one pronunciation of a former local radio DJ, he announces “Johnny Warks here” and Gary and I look at each other wondering who the hell Johnny Warksear is.  Johnny Wark appears on the big screen and all that’s missing are the subtitles when he speaks.

The game resumes at ten minutes to nine and my hopes of spending the second half just looking straight ahead take a dive as Bristol start quite well.  “Wo-o-o-oh, That’s the way we like it” or something like that sing the Sir Bobby Robson Stand to the tune of what seems to be an original composition or a song I don’t know.  Rovers are gifted a corner as Lee Evans passes the ball back to a place where Cieran Slicker isn’t standing.  But then Ipswich win a couple of corners of their own to redress the balance, before on-loan Omari Hutchinson is the first player to be booked after not so much a bad tackle as an inept one.  “Ole, Ole, Ole” sing the Sir Bobby Robson stand and the drums up in the corner of the stand by the club shop beat; inside the shop stuff must be bouncing off the shelves.  In the seat in front of me a bloke with not much hair has a pair of sunglasses perched on top of his head.    There’s a holiday feel to the crowd tonight with adults and children wearing T-shirts and shorts, looking as if they’ve been at the beach all day.  I half expect to see someome eating candy floss or wearing a ‘kiss me quick’ hat. On the pitch, the second half is reflecting the cheery mood with carefree attacking football and as result Cieran Slicker makes a spectacular save with his feet.

Substitutions arrive on sixty-six minutes with Cameron Humphryes and Sone Aluko taking a bow. Shots rain in on the Bristol goal and a corner is won.  “Oooh Sone Aluko” sing the Sir Bobby Robson Stand to the tune of the White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army.  Marcus Harness half-volleys the ball from close range, but too weakly to bother the Rovers’ goalkeeper.  As more substitutes warm up on the touchline in front of us I say the name of George Hirst to Gary.  “I know what you’re going to say” says Gary “He has a haircut that looks like his mum cut it using a pudding bowl”.  Gary knows me too well and is almost exactly right, but I’d say she used a side plate or small frying pan giving his hair the appearance of a little hat or beret.  I struggle so much to accept George’s haircut that if it had been up to me I wouldn’t have signed him, so it’s probably as well that it wasn’t.

In the seventy-third minute George and Conor Chaplin and Harry Clarke get to make the transition from bench to pitch, but the only immediate result is that Javani Brown shoots wide of the Town goal for Bristol. Within a minute of that however, a sweet passing move down the left sees the ball relayed across the penalty area for Sone Aluko, who seems to be existing in his own isolated moment of time and space, which allows him to then pass the ball into the far corner of the Bristol goal, and Town lead 2-0. Gary tells me how his mother recently received a new copy of the local telephone directory and that there were three people in it with his surname; they were Gary, his mother and his uncle who died several years ago, but it wouldn’t surprise me if BT was a hotbed of spiritualists.

All that remains is for Murphy to announce the crowd as being 15,047 with 123 of that number being from Bristol, and for people to applaud themselves, each other, and more acceptably the travelling Bristolians.  Bristol is a long way from Ipswich on a Wednesday night, although logically no further than at any other time of day or week.  Five minutes of time are added on to ensure we get our money’s worth and when that expires we rise as one to applaud and then seep out into the night.  It’s been a decent little game, a bit low key like a pre-season match, but it’s good to see a match where none of the players appear to think winning matters more than life itself.  Bristol Rovers played their part and should have scored at least once, but on the plus side they will now have time on their hands in the middle of the week to think about what their away kit should look like next season.   As for Ipswich,  we are on our way to Wembley, my stepson and his family live in the RG24 postcode area so if I get the urge I might march on to Basingstoke, or Reading.

Ipswich Town 0 Burnley 0

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You have to go back thirteen years to 2010, when Britain had a Labour government and ‘Hot Tub Time Machine’ was on at the cinema to find an FA Cup run for Ipswich Town that wasn’t more than just an initial tie and defeat in a replay.  Admittedly, first round ties were won last year and two years before that, but the fourth round is unchartered territory for many a millennial.  Back when I was a lad, when things were still fab, groovy and magic, in the time before the world seemed to go completely and utterly insane, three consecutive FA Cup victories for Town would have seen us into the quarter finals.  But fate has been a cruel mistress to Ipswich since then and now our FA Cup begins in November and any story of success is by its very nature an epic tale.

Today’s FA Cup opponents are Burnley, the club against whom Ipswich Town recorded their first ever victory in what is now laughably known as the Premier League.  That victory, on a Tuesday night in August 1961, was just sixteen months after Burnley had become  League Champions, but Town won 6-2 and the less than snappy sports headline in the Ipswich Evening Star read “Six goal Ipswich rock mighty Burnley in great game”.  Ipswich and Burnley are the smallest two Towns in England to have ever been home to the football League Champions and when Town were Champions in 1962 Burnley were runners-up, so if you’re feeling sentimental think of us as sort of footballing twins separated at birth; luckily for Town we’re the one that didn’t get taken to live ‘up North’.

With thoughts of football history and past glories illuminating the manuscript of my mind, I park up my smoothly silent Citroen e-C4 and step out across Gippeswyk Park towards Portman Road and the Arb beyond.  It’s a cold, dull day like all the others lately,  but the exercise of the walk warms me up. In Sir Alf Ramsey Way I pause to buy a programme (£2) in the modern cashless manner and from inside his moulded booth the programme seller tells me to enjoy the match. I thank him and realise that there’s something about the little programme sellers’ booths that makes me think they should also sell ice creams.

At the ‘The Arb’, I buy a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.90) and the landlord explains that he is doing his best to keep the price down below £4.00, which is good of him.  I retire to the beer garden where an electrician is fitting new heaters to the shelter.  I sit at a table beneath an umbrella, I am alone, but not for long as Mick soon appears apologising for being late before disappearing again only to reappear with his own pint of Suffolk Pride.  We talk of my electric car and trip to Oxford last Saturday, of newspapers and the France 24 news channel and app, doctor’s surgeries and how I find the appearance of a man in a cowboy hat who has come outside  for a smoke a little weird; i expect he’s smoking Marlboros.

Time passes and before long we have to leave for Portman Road, or otherwise we’d miss the kick-off.  In Sir Alf Ramsey Way we enter by the turnstiles where there is no queue.  A steward with a loud hailer announces the existence of these magical turnstiles and encourages their use, but to little avail. As usual for cup ties, our seats are the ‘posh’ padded ones in Block Y, seemingly designed for people short in leg and tender in buttock.  The teams are already on the pitch as we edge our way to our seats past a homely looking, grey-haired woman and her slightly chubby, bearded male accomplice, perhaps a husband or paramour. We catch the tail end of the “Na-na-nas” from the Beatles “Hey Jude” and the game begins. Town have first go with the ball and kick from left to right towards the stand of Sir Alf Ramsey, architect of that 6-2 win in the late summer of 1961, when supporters still travelled to the match by trolleybus.

Within a minute or so Kayden Jackson is sprinting away down the  right, ball at his feet, he crosses the ball low and hard and George Hirst hits it past the near post from somewhere near the middle of the penalty area, just like he did at Oxford last week.  It’s a very exciting start to the game and helps to temper my disappointment that Burnley are not wearing their traditional claret shirts, but are instead decked out in what has become the ubiquitous and profoundly boring all-black away kit, which every club seems to have.  Burnley’s kit features red trim, as if that could make any difference whatsoever.

Burnley’s Scott Twine stoops to tie a boot lace.  “Come on referee!”  bawls a whiny man behind me. “Why are we stopped to let him tie his laces” he continues, “ I’ve never seen a game stopped for a player to tie his laces, I’ve never seen it before”. The whiney man is absolutely apoplectic and wants everyone to know he’s never seen such a thing before. I can honestly say I’ve never heard anyone so angry, so early in a game about a player tying his boot lace, but I decide not to shout it out.  I did see the game delayed whilst Sam Morsy put on a pair of new boots last week at Oxford, I don’t shout that out either.

“I didn’t get a programme” says the chubby bearded man beside me to the homely, grey-haired woman, “Because of the high demand”.  Something in his voice tells me he was too mean.  Marcus Harness hits the cross bar with a right-footed shot from the centre of the penalty box.  With the ball returned to goalkeeper Vaclav Hladky, Town pass the ball out from the back and Burnley players are quick to close down the Town defenders, causing a ripple of unease amongst some supporters. “Playing from the back, it’s what modern teams do” calls out the whiny bloke again to ensure we all know that he understands ‘modern football’.  I can’t help but chuckle.

Eleven minute have gone and Burnley win the first corner. “Come on Burnli, Come On Burnli” chant the Lancastrians in their deep accent full of short vowels, rolled ‘r’s and lolling ‘l’s.   Jordan Beyer tugs at Sone Aluko’s shirt as Sone tries to break forward, and is booked by referee Tom Nield. “Dirty northern bastard” I say to Mick, because it amuses me to do so.  The noise inside the ground is stirring as both home and away fans get into the spirit of what the FA Cup used to be all about. It feels like 1974.  As Burnley’s Scott Twine writhes on the ground and then gets up and plays on when he doesn’t get a free-kick, the chubby man next to me mansplains to the homely woman that he wasn’t really hurt.  It’s twenty past three and Burnley’s Jay Rodriguez shoots high over the Town cross bar, spurning Burnley’s first chance of a goal.

Town win their first corner. “Come On You Blues” chant several people, even in the west stand.   The booking count is levelled up when inexplicably Marcus Harness fails to stop when running and collides with Ameen Al-Dakhil’s ankles. Town win another corner as something of a hit and hope cross from Kayden Jackson looks like it might dip under the Burnley cross-bar, forcing their extensively named goalkeeper Bailey Peacock-Farrell to tip the ball over.  Another corner follows  and the chubby man next to me tells the homely looking woman that it’s a very exciting game; it’s nice of him because she might not have realised if she was busy knitting or making a shopping list perhaps.  

Only ten minutes until half-time now, and in an outbreak of astounding cheek or wilful absence of self-awareness, Town fans chant “Your support is fucking shit” presumably to the Burnley fans, although singing it to one another would be understandable in the context of many previous matches.  Shocked, I inexplicably imagine that Vaclav Hladky reminds me a bit of Laurie Sivell, probably because he looks quite a bit shorter than all his defenders.  A beautifully flowing Town moves produces another corner to Town and the whiny bloke behind me gets all self-righteous again loudly expounding “We don’t play that way anymore, lumping it forward” as if no one else can possibly have noticed.

It’s been a fine half of football despite the whiny man and by way of celebration the Sir Bobby Robson stand are singing “ Oh when the Town go marching in” at the proper speed, although possibly without quite the  joy of genuine evangelists.  Finally, the fact that no more than a minute of added-on time is to be played seems to confirm that for forty-five minutes at least all has been right with the world – except that we haven’t scored.

With half-time Mick and I use the facilities to disperse excess Suffolk Pride, but the queues for the toilets are so long it’s impossible to find where they end in the cramped confines of the upper stair cases and bars of the west stand. We return to ground level where there is more space and more square footage of urinal. Returning to our seats in time for the re-start, we ease past the homely looking woman and the chubby man and I pause to take a look at who might be the whiny man behind me, I think he is wearing tinted glasses and has a very pink face beneath a hat.

The game resumes at six minutes past four and  Burnley up their game a bit, being a tiny but significant bit quicker and pressing more than in the first half. As a result Vaclav Hladky has to make two excellent saves, but make them he does, and with aplomb, reminding us of why we have a goalkeeper.  But it’s not all Burnley and Town soon win a corner.  “ There are people say we can’t defend…” expounds the whiny bloke, but I’m fed up with him and tune out before he concludes his latest treatise. In the Cobbold Stand the Lancashire hordes start to sing “The Irish Rover”, which seems a little odd, although there were a lot of Irish immigrants to Lancashire in the nineteenth century, but they’d be getting on a bit now. More odd is that the chubby bloke beside me joins in.

Mick asks me what substitutions I think Kieran Mc Kenna will make and I tell him that George Hirst  and Marcus Harness and possibly Sone Aluko are most likely to go off first , and so it proves,  as with an hour gone Freddie Ladapo,  Nathan Broadhead and Conor Chaplin replace them.  Burnley make three substitutions too, although I’m disappointed that neither of their other two players with double-barrelled surnames are in today’s squad. Who’d have thought Burnley would have so many players with double-barrelled surnames?

Ten minutes later and Sam Morsy is shown his usual yellow card for a pretty unexceptional foul, “He collects them doesn’t he?” says Mick. I can’t disagree.  Stadium announcer Stephen Foster announces that today’s attendance is 25,420 of which 1,581 are from Burnley;  he thanks everyone for their ‘tremendous’ support. “You’re not sitting where I am Stephen” I think to myself.  Six minutes after his booking Sam Morsy is replaced by new signing Massimo Luongo, who like Morsy joined Town from Middlesbrough.  With his beard, dark hair and large frame, Luongo even looks a bit like Morsy from up here, and I ponder for a moment on the possible advantages and desirability of bringing on substitutes who look like the player they replace.

“Come On Ipswich, Come On Ipswich” chant the crowd in all parts of the ground as full-time begins to draw ever closer. Kyle Edwards replaces Kayden Jackson who trots off the pitch to a loud ovation; he has been truly excellent today.  “ I know why you play” calls the whiny bloke loudly as if no one else does and everyone sat around him is one of the people who criticises Jackson on social media.  Time is running out,  Town win a corner  but Luke Woolfenden can only head the ball wide. Massimo Luongo is even playing like Sam Morsy, but hasn’t been booked, and indeed he gets fouled by the economically-named Jack Cork, provoking frantic flagging from the linesman and a final yellow card of the afternoon from Mr Nield.  Four minutes of added on time are announced, five are played and the game ends.

It’s been yet another excellent afternoon of football at Portman Road, even though not winning can rarely be anything but a little disappointing.  Best of all however, this felt like a proper FA Cup tie, played in front of a big crowd who have turned up with hope and may be expectation and possibly because it’s the FA Cup.  It’s been a very long time since that happened, not thirteen years, more like thirty.

Ipswich Town 3 Oxford United 0

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‘Boxing Day’, the first track on the second side of Elvis Costello’s 1984 album “Goodbye Cruel World”, albeit in brackets and with the letters TKO in front of it, but also the day after Christmas Day when it seems as if nearly everyone goes to football.  As I’ve got older, I’ve enjoyed Boxing Day football less and less.  There was a time when it would have been the opportunity to give a first airing to a new ITFC branded woolly hat or pair of gloves received as a gift the day before, but those days are gone and now I’d often rather sit at home and carry on revelling in my own Christmas crapulence.  It feels too much like hard work to brave an outside world devoid of public transport but clogged with Sunday drivers out visiting aunties and uncles or indulging in mass consumerism at the Boxing Day sales.

This year however, I don’t feel quite so miserable and lazy or drunk, perhaps because the football at Portman Road is likely to be more joyful, perhaps because today the sky is clear and blue.  It is with a spring in my step therefore that I leave my house, fire up the trusty Citroen C3 and head blithely into the two, or three-mile long tail-back on the A12.  Happily, the traffic does move, but only very slowly and not quickly enough for me to get to The Arbor House (aka The Arb’) to meet Mick at a quarter to two. “Such is life” I think to myself, which is pretty much what Mick says in reply to my text to give the bad news that I won’t make it for our Boxing Day pre-match pint, although his actual words are “…it goes like that sometimes”.  Mick is nothing if not philosophical, which I suspect is why we get on.  Having parked up the trusty Citroen, it’s a pleasant walk through Gippeswyk Park, beneath Ancaster Road bridge, along Ranelagh Road and over the Sir Bobby Robson bridge to the ground.  Although I don’t have time to get to the Arb, enjoy a leisurely drink with Mick, and walk back to Portman Road, I have nevertheless arrived long enough before kick-off to have time to kill, so I mooch about a bit taking in the big-match atmosphere of the Boxing Day game, watching people wearing novelty Christmas hats queue for burgers and then eat them perched on car park railings.  I buy a programme (£3.50) using coins of the realm.

Exhausted by my social anthropological research I head back into Constantine Road and turnstile 60, the portal to a world of football-based fun.  I thank the grimly smiling turnstile operator and head for the toilet, I might not have had that pre-match pint, but it’s a cold day.  Relieved, and with clean but still slightly wet hands because life is too short to wait for hand dryers to work fully, I hang about in the concourse beneath the stand.  Ever-present Phil who never misses a game finds me leant against a concrete stanchion, he says hello and asks if the pub wasn’t open.  I repeat some of the story in the above paragraphs, leaving out the bit about Elvis Costello.  Eventually, pining for sunlight I take the steps up onto the lower tier of the stand where to my displeasure I find I have arrived before Pat from Clacton, Fiona and the man from Stowmarket.  This arriving in the ground more than ten minutes before kick-off is very disconcerting and ever-present Phil detects as much in my uneasy demeanour. 

The good thing about time however, is that it moves on and it’s not long before the familiar faces are here and stadium announcer Stephen Foster is reading out the names of the two teams. I shout out the Town players’ surnames in the style of a French football crowd as Stephen announces them, and I hope my odd behaviour catches on; it makes a couple of people smile, possibly with embarrassment.   The ‘improved’ PA system then goes into overdrive with some very loud ‘music’ which I imagine is intended to whisk the crowd up into some sort of anticipatory frenzy but Pat and I just grimace and cover our ears, I think we’re too old for frenzy. “Why can’t we have some nice football music?” shouts Pat when the noise abates a little.  When Stephen Foster returns he tells us that we have again packed out Portman Road and, sounding a bit like Alan Partridge, that Boxing Day “… is always a special day in the football calendar”.

It’s been a long, beer-free wait, but finally the teams appear, and Town kick off in their correct kit of blue shirts and white shorts towards the Sir Bobby Robson Stand, whilst visiting Oxford United wear all white, perhaps in the hope that we’ll think they are Real Madrid rather than Newmarket Town who they might look like if they had worn their ‘proper’ kit of yellow shirts and blue shorts.  The pitch is completely in shadow now, but pale winter sunlight shines as if through a letterbox onto parts of the Cobbold Stand and casts a pinkie-whiteness on the girder over the roof of the Sir Bobby Robson stand.

As the match begins, the crowd is in good voice, so much so that at first I can’t hear if the away fans are singing too. The opening exchanges are indeed exchanges as possession swaps about.  “All the way, all the way” advises a voice from behind as Freddie Ladapo chases a through ball.  “Yellows, Yellows” chant the Newmarket Town supporters up in the Cobbold stand as the Oxford players demonstrate that for the time being at least they are the sharper team, and they even have a shot that misses the goal by not very much.  “All the way, All the way, Well done” I hear again from behind, where it seems that some bloke who can’t help but vocalise his internal dialogue is sitting.   

It’s the ninth minute and after the good start from the Town supporters the Oxford fans at last have the opportunity to sing “No noise from the Tractor Boys”.  Five minutes later and they are in their element singing “Football in a library, dur-dur-dur” which is precisely what you would expect from a team from the world’s foremost university city.  Ipswich win a corner as Oxford’s number five mis-directs a header intended for his goalkeeper and then proceeds to swing his arm and possibly klick his finger and thumb in the manner of a man saying “darn it”.  In the outfall from the corner kick an Oxford player stays down on the ground and the North Stand chant “Boring, Boring, Oxford” having clearly not forgotten the goalless draw that Oxford successfully played for at Portman Road last season.

Twenty minutes go by and then Oxford have the audacity to almost score again as a shot rattles the net from the outside, but making the Oxford supporters think their team has scored.  The usual jeering ensues prompting the Oxford fans to chant “We forgot that you were here”, although the evidence suggests they should be chanting “We forgot what a goal looks like”.  Either way, in the spirit of Christmas TV and Wallace and Gromit, which is appropriate for Boxing Day, it was a close shave.   The warning shot inspires a chant of “Blue and White Army” from the North Stand, but more annoyingly the bloke behind me with the vocalised internal dialogue starts giving tactical advice; “Switch it” he calls loud enough for only me to hear and not the players, and then “Get it down the channels”. He is getting on my nerves and I wonder if he’s trying to convince everyone around him that he is an out of work football coach, or is he just out to impress his son? I hope for the kid’s sake he is adopted and so hasn’t inherited the ‘berk’ gene.

A third of the game is nearly gone and Town have picked up and are dominating possession and winning corners.  “Come On You Blues” I chant and ever-present Phil joins in, so does the bloke in front who I think is called Kevin, and so does the out of work football coach who’s just trying to impress his son.  The stirring effect of our massed choir doesn’t work instantly, but Town soon win another corner and Freddie Ladapo and Leif Davis have headers saved, and Luke Woolfenden has a shot blocked. Town have momentum now and Conor Chaplin has a shot which the very solid and agricultural looking Oxford goalkeeper Ed McGinty cannot hold on to , the ball runs away from him and Freddie Ladapo boots it into the goal from close range. Town lead.

Hopefully, it will be one of those goals scored just before half time that sports commentators tell us are so important.  Perhaps feeling vindicated by the goal the bloke behind me gives up on tactical advice and switches to matey encouragement, “Come on chaps” he says and “On yer bike, On yer bike , Orrrrr”.  It works, successive corners follow and from the third, Wes Burns appears magically at the corner of the six-yard box and lashes the ball into the Oxford goal from an oblique angle. Town lead 2-0 and after five minutes of added on time that’s the half-time score.  The players leave the field to applause and referee Mr Finnie strides off, flanked by his assistants with the ball tucked neatly under his arm and looking a little bit camp.

I speak with Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison.  Somewhat mysteriously Ray tells me he once went out with a girl who was probably in the same class at school as my sister, this would have been in in the early 1970’s and I can only think that Ray is planning a 50th anniversary celebration. At eight minutes past four the game resumes.

The berk behind me is back to coaching, “Channels, channels” he calls and Town win a couple of quick corners.  Oxford’s James Henry fouls Leif Davis and is booked by Mr Finnie who admirably stands still and beckons Henry towards him from perhaps ten metres away before brandishing his yellow card. Town are on top again and looking to add to their 2-0 lead, and the upbeat ambiance leads the berk behind me to add attempted humour to his arsenal. “Would you like ice cream with that scoop?” calls the berk as McGinty lifts a clearance up and into the stand. I roll my eyes and slap my forehead and hope that this is just this blokes one match of the season; his ticket a present perhaps from a long-suffering partner who is now luxuriating in his being out of the house for a couple of hours.

An hour has passed and Oxford indulge in a double substitution which includes replacement of the prosaically named Matt Taylor with the more exotically monikered Gatlin O’Donkur, if indeed that is his real name.  The crowd has become very quiet, all I can hear are conversations about people’s jobs, their families and what they did on Christmas day.  A song emerges from the silence at the North Stand end of the ground but then trails away as if the lyrics are half-forgotten.  “Second ball!” shouts the berk behind me.  Town are looking comfortable and clearly don’t need our support today, just a bit of coaching, so we just sit and watch and quietly appreciate.  The crowd is announced as 28,072 with 550 being Oxford supporters, but there is no ‘guess the crowd’ competition on the Clacton supporters bus today, because no bus ran and Pat came by car.

Time passes quickly.  Marcus Harness is replaced to much applause by the tricky Sone Aluko who will go on to perform a number of delightful tricks and flicks and turns perfectly gauged for a Boxing Day audience which craves TV Christmas Special-style entertainment.  Fittingly, with about ten minutes of normal time remaining Aluko supplies the pass for a third goal, the one that transforms the result from a win into a modest thrashing. The goal is a typical Conor Chaplin piece, one touch and then fired into the net. Today’s scoreline is now the same as that at my first ever Boxing Day fixture in 1972 when Town modestly thrashed Chelsea courtesy of Kevin Beattie and Trevor Whymark in the first half and a last minute John Hollins own goal.  “I don’t think we can lose now” says an ever-nervous Pat from Clacton, and I agree, although we both remember losing at Oxford  in 1986 when 3-0 up and Fiona chips in with our coming back from 3-0 down at Barnsley in 1996 with just five minutes to go.  Seems Christmas is a time for reminiscing. But today Town are just too good for Oxford.

With five minutes of time added on played, when the final whistle goes it is almost five o’clock. I would stay to applaud the players from the field, but the PA system suddenly fills the cold evening air with the sound of Status Quo “Rocking All Over the World”.  I might be wrong, but I imagine Stephen Foster is to blame.   A man has got to draw the line somewhere and as far as Status Quo are concerned I drew it around Boxing Day 1972,  a short while after the release of their album Piledriver, I therefore hurry back to my trusty Citroen leaving my team to enjoy the applause of others.

Despite its problems,  brought on by traffic delays and a lack of time spent in the pub, today has worked out just fine in the end and I am sure that come May we shall be saying the very same thing with regard to Town’s season. Up The Town!