Southampton

Ipswich Town 1 Birmingham City 0

/ martinpbrooks / 1 Comment

I didn’t think I would be, but I am a bit excited at the prospect of Ipswich Town’s first game of the season. It’s the 47th first day of the season since I started watching Town in 1971, so I should be getting over it by now, but it seems I’m not; despite the misery of last season, despite the fact that I despise the players because they are ridiculously over-paid and choose to spend that money on ostentatious Range Rovers, tattoos and dodgy haircuts; despite the fact that Ipswich Town is a miserable club which has forbidden me to even bang a tambourine in support of the team; despite the fact that the atmosphere in Portman Road is funereal most of the time and despite the fact that my season ticket costs over £400. What the heck’s the matter with me?
So, it is in a confused state of mind that I board the 12:57 train for Ipswich. But that’s the human condition. Across the carriage a tanned man with piercing blue eyes, dressed from head to toe in hi-vis clothing shouts into his mobile phone “Hello….. hello?….can you hear me?” Pause. “I’m now on it now”. I and I imagine everyone else in the carriage assumes he means he is on the train, rather than on a rocking horse or night boat to Cairo; he doesn’t sound like he’s lying, but you never know. Directly opposite me sits a younger man with a beard, he’s wearing a back to front baseball hat, sunglasses, deck shoes and shorts which show off his pale, hairless, skinny legs. He is listening to his phone through earphones. I wouldn’t want to sit on a train looking like that, so I don’t; I am a free man.
It was a sunny day when I left home, but a tumble of dark clouds are rolling across the sky and now, emerging from the railway tunnel into Ipswich station the sky is battleship grey and about to open fire. I hurry towards the St Jude’s pub with my umbrella at the ready, not pausing to admire the banners

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on the lamp posts proclaiming the partnership of Ipswich Borough Council and Ipswich Town Football Club, which make a grand addition to the streetscape. What better way to promote the town than through pride in its football club. I walk up Portman Road which the police appear to have blockaded at one end with a big white truck, probably because they can.
In the pub, the usual crowd of pre-match drinkers is there and I drink a pint of Springhead Brewery’s ‘A touch o’ the black stuff’ (£3.40) and a pint of ‘Old Growler’ (£3.60). I meet a couple there who aren’t going to the game however; he has better things to do and she loathes football, which two reasons are probably why most people don’t go. We discuss plum trees, retirement and living in France. By the time we are finished drinking and talking it is now raining heavily, so on the walk back to the ground, despite employing my umbrella, I get wet trousers. It crosses my mind that this grim, grey, soggy and oppressive afternoon might be a portent of the season to come for Ipswich Town. One has such irrational thoughts on the opening day of the season.
Inside the ground with a drained bladder I take my seat and the game begins.

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Welcome to Portman Road

There are some 2,000 Birmingham City supporters here today which is appropriate because it is Birmingham City who are the visiting team.

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Birmingham City supporters queueing in the rain

Inevitably it is they who are providing that ‘atmosphere’ supposedly redolent of British football grounds. They sing that they have Harry Redknapp, which doesn’t seem like much to be proud of given that he managed Portsmouth to virtual extinction and both Southampton and Bournemouth went bust after he left. At Portsmouth it is reported he received 10% of transfer fees and when this dropped to 5%, money amounting to hundreds of thousands of pounds was deposited in a bank account in Monaco in the name of his pet dog. Redknapp was found not guilty of tax evasion. Tellingly perhaps, Redknapp is quoted in the programme as saying that if he gets the tools he will do a good job;

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by tools it seems likely he means cash for transfers. He doesn’t sound like he’d want to manage Ipswich and I’m not sorry. Having celebrated their team’s manager, to the tune of ‘Roll out the barrel’ the Brummies regale us with a heartfelt rendition of another of their own compositions, ‘Shit on The Villa’; which unfortunately for me conjures a picture in my mind of blokes squatting beneath the street lamps of the Aston Expressway with their trousers round their ankles, Andrex at the ready.
Five minutes into the match and the rain stops, the clouds clear and the sun is now shining, the pitch glows an unnatural, almost luminous green. Some football breaks out. Town have a shot on goal and the locals applaud. “We forgot, We forgot, We forgot the you were here” chants the Brummies’ male voice choir, which suggests a worrying level of short term memory loss, although that might be explained by excessive pre-match alcohol intake in the Station Hotel where notices in the windows announce “Away Fans Only”.
A bit before 3.30 pm there is a break in play as a recumbent Jordan Spence receives succour from the physio. It’s time for drinks all round on the pitch whilst the ever vocal visitors from Birmingham break into a turgid rendition of “Keep right on to the end of the road” showing their continued love for music hall in this worrying age of drum n bass and Ed Sheeran. Happily Mr Spence recovers, although he continues to wear a pair of sickly green boots. The programme today contains an article about Town’s Jordan Spence entitled “Spence Force”;

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a title which, being a play on the phrase “Spent Force”, doesn’t seem at all complimentary, as if saying his best days are gone. Someone really needs to tell programme editors that just because something is a pun or play on words doesn’t necessarily make it appropriate as a headline. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to future articles about Luke Chambers, Grant Ward, Cole Skuse and Teddy Bishop entitled “Torture Chambers”, “Ward of Court”, “Poor ex-Skuse” and “Bash the Bishop”.
It’s been a fairly dull first half and the silhouetted girders of the Cobbold stand roof are as beautiful as any football we’ve seen. Ipswich are playing neatly enough but not looking like scoring, despite a corner count of four to nil, and it almost seems sarcastic when a chant of ”Ipswich, Ipswich” emanates from the lower tier of the North Stand. But to their credit the home crowd is showing patience and understanding as they applaud an over-hit pass that Freddie Sears quickly sees he should give up on as soon as he starts to give chase. There is more applause as Grant Ward finishes an embryonic one-two pass and move with Dominic Iorfa by sending the ball into touch. Is this applause support or sympathy? That opening day optimism is a powerful emotion that won’t be put down.
There are only five minutes to go until half-time and following a corner, Town’s England U19 starlet Andre Dozzell slips to the ground as he turns away from the goal. It is immediately apparent he has hurt himself and the Birmingham goalkeeper David Stockdale admirably goes over to ’the boy’ Dozzell to reassure him and calls the referee to stop the game and let the physio on. Quickly the first aid crew attend and Town’s electric buggy

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glides across the turf bearing a stretcher; “What the fucking hell is that” sing those musical Brummies denying any apparent knowledge of the existence of golf carts or milk floats. Feigning ignorance of such things can only serve to reinforce the impression that the West Midlands accent creates for the rest of the population of the UK that Brummies are thick bastards, whether they are or not.
The first aid team give Dozzell oxygen to alleviate shock and pain and he has to be taken from the pitch on the electric cart, but to generous applause from all around the ground, suggesting that not all the Brummies are as thick as they are pretending to be. Half-time arrives and I seek respite under the stand with the latest scores and a Traidcraft chewy cereal bar that I brought with me because Ipswich Town haven’t yet shown any inclination to provide ethically sourced snacks and refreshments. I meet a former work colleague under the stand whose wife is queuing on his behalf for coffee, she’s not a football fan and I get the impression she is here under duress, so she probably hopes she’ll miss that start of the second half.
I have a quick look through the programme hoping for something bold and original for the new season, but the layout and design is boring and offers nothing more than a sort of menu across the top of the page to make it look like it’s on a website. But it’s not on a website, it’s a paper publication. There are thick glossy pages and lots of them, but like at every other professional club it’s full of the usual platitudinous pap; there’s not even a victory for style over content this season it seems.
The second half begins and Ipswich look more positive than they did in the first and so it proves, and with just five minutes gone a low cross from Jonas Knudsen is passed into the Birmingham goal by debutant Joe Garner. Oh how I cheered and clapped and acted like a consummate fool! That misunderstood feeling of excitement, that optimism has been rewarded.
From now on Ipswich are the better team and do not look like they are going to lose. Birmingham win a few corners near the end but they have little composure or control. In the second half I take more interest in the football than I did in the first and don’t look around the ground so much, although there is a small disturbance off to my right and much masturbatory inspired gesticulating from the Brum fans towards persons unknown amongst the Town contingent. The stewards stare into the crowd trying to spot the culprits. At the end of the match this antagonism carries on with some Brummies coming into the Churchman’s stand looking to tolchock some Ipswich droogs. As a result the exit onto Portman Road is closed by police with a steward in enormous earphones

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turning people back. There is much muttering and displeasure as everyone has to file through the players’ car park and leave via the practice pitch or the gates in Constantine Road. The one advantage

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of this is that I get to pass the sign in the car park which thanks me for my visit, which is nice. Other exits from the stadium do not offer this courtesy, implying that if you’re one of the few who have driven to the stadium, probably in an unnecessarily large car which the club have let you park on the premises, then you’re much more welcome than if you are just one of the 18,000 who have had to cough up your hard earned cash to come in through the turnstile.
The first match of the season is over and those early clouds have rained pennies from heaven all over town; it’s been a good afternoon; the Town have won and not played too badly at all. It’s just one game admittedly, but it’s an early two fingers to those people who furiously didn’t renew their season tickets because the football was rubbish, but also an endorsement for those people who played nicely and applauded when well–intentioned passes went astray. For proper football supporters it’s not about winning, it’s about being there. Yeah, but we won too!

Portsmouth 0 Crewe Alexandra 1

/ martinpbrooks / 2 Comments
Portsmouth is one of the smaller cities in England (Population 200,000ish) but it is also one of the best, probably the best. What other city has a port, a naval dockyard, an historic seaside resort, two piers, a ferry service, a concrete viewing tower, a hovercraft service, four tides a day and most importantly a supporters owned football club. If you don’t think those are all things worth having then you can only be a hopeless misery or from Southampton.0The upshot of this glowing first paragraph in praise of Portsmouth is to show that for footie fans a fixture at Fratton Park is wonderful thing and far better than any of the traditional long weekend attractions of away games at seaside towns such as Blackpool, Brighton or Torquay. Incidentally, why anyone would want to stay in Blackpool I cannot imagine, what a dump! A sleazy, greasy, grubby, outside toilet of a town.
Back to Portsmouth. My prelude to the match took in a Friday evening in the Meat n Barrel pub in Southsea, a trendy establishment, which felt like a Student Union bar and had a hipster-friendly décor of bare brick walls and girders, metal light shades and school canteen style tables and chairs. It made for harsh acoustics and was reminiscent of a 1980’s New York loft apartment or squat, but the beer was good, although at £3.95 a pint it needed to be. Saturday morning brought breakfast in the shadow of the Spinnaker Tower and then a trip at 4metres per second up said tower to take in the views over Portsmouth, the Solent and the Isle of Wight,which are bloody marvellous. The sun shone, clouds swirled and scudded, rain fell over the English Channel and the water sparkled. It’s only the existence of Manchester United, Chelsea and Robbie Savage that stops me believing in God when confronted with such beauty.
With my soul and spirits still soaring I arrived at Fratton Park, a wonderful football ground which isn’t that much altered from when I first attended a game there in 1979. The ground’s character comes from the two lateral stands which both date from the 1920’s, the North stand is cranked towards the pitch a third of the way along and inside is a warren of steel girders and wooden floorboards perched on an earth bank. There is still an advert for Brickwood’s beers at the back of the stand, ales that haven’t been brewed for the best part of forty years, but a part of Pompey’s heritage.
My seat was in the South Stand, a similar structure in some ways to that opposite, but designed by the illustrious Archibald Leitch, ‘architect’ of football stands all across Britain in the early years of the twentieth century. One of the joys of watching Pompey is Fratton Park itself; it is a museum piece, but that only adds to the atmosphere once the stands are occupied as the noise of the crowd echoes beneath the low roof and bounces off the wooden floorboards and staircases. Not that Pompey needs helpful acoustics, because Portsmouth supporters are arguably the most passionate and loyal of any in England. What other club would get larger gates in the Fourth Division than in the Second Division; only a few thousand down on when they were in the First Division?
It was visiting Crewe Alexandra in their boring all-black away kit who started the game brightest as they strove to quell the atmosphere that had built with the approach of kick-off. But Pompey very quickly began to behave as the home team should and soon the ball stayed mostly at the Fratton end of the ground where the Crewe goalkeeper stood. But despite there being 16,810 people in the ground, the majority wearing blue, they weren’t getting behind the team like they normally do. Expectation was high, a win for Pompey and defeat for Carlisle United would see Pompey climb into 3rd place in the league table, an automatic promotion position. But that rain I’d seen over the English Channel in the morning was now over Fratton Park and seemed to dampen spirits and the supporters weren’t their usual noisy, committed selves. There was a chill breeze too which blew away the warmth of the morning’s sun. Not good. On the pitch Pompey were like a superior life form from another planet, probing and prodding the Crewe defence as if they were hicks abducted by UFO from mid-west America, but they got nowhere; the Crewe defence was unfathomable, like why those Americans chose Donald Trump as their leader.
Despite being ‘on top,’ Pompey were not really performing. Gary Roberts, the slow-paced former Ipswich Town winger was running the midfield, but up front Kyle Bennett, whose parents may be watched South Park, skipped around a lot but was ineffective showing no inclination to kick the ball at the goal. Crewe’s defenders were big blokes and Kyle has the frame of a pasty-faced teenager and a haircut which looks like he has a small fish on top of his head; he was no match for them. Meanwhile, Pompey’s former Ipswich defender Matt Clarke could only lump the ball forward aimlessly; I can’t imagine where he learned to do that. Shocking.
In the stand I was growing frustrated like my fellow spectators, but mainly because of a teenage girl and boy who kept wanting me to stand up so they could pass by and go down onto the concourse to buy coke or burgers or some such crap. The lack of space is the drawback of a 1920’s football stand; it wasn’t built for well-fed, strapping 6ft 2 inch smart arses such as me; it was built for weedy, flat capped, malnourished tuberculosis sufferers, traumatised by their experiences in the First World War . I felt conflicted. When those youths asked me to let them by I wanted to say “ No, it’s not half-time yet” but I wasn’t going to do that. I felt guilty for having such curmudgeonly thoughts, but also for not actually telling them to go back , sit down and watch the match; added to which I was an Ipswich Town season ticket holder watching Portsmouth and secretly wondering how the Towen were doing at home to Brentford. I was a seething mass of internal conflict, but fortunately it was half-time before I knew it, although there were plenty of clues with loads of other people now going downstairs to the concourse to beat the queue for the khasi, beers, teas and burgers, which are what people really go to football for after all.
Despite the relative disappointment of the first half there was still a tangible air of optimism for the second half. Pompey had had more possession and more clearly wanted to win, rather than not lose like their opponents, so surely that would count for something. Well, it didn’t. Crewe Alexandra, if anything, played a bit better and although they won a few corners and somebody fell over in the penalty area Pompey were probably less threatening towards the Crewe goal than they were in the first half. Such was their ineffectiveness, that my thoughts turned to how much Pompey centre- half Christian Burgess, with his pony tail, looked like an 18th century sailor; all he really needed was a ribbon and perhaps a tricorn hat. He could have “Mr Christian” printed on the back of his shirt like those Brazilians do who don’t play under their real names. I also mused on whether Crewe’s curly blonde-haired striker Alex Kiwomya was a relative of former Ipswich Town waif Chris Kiwomya; Wikipaedia tells us he is his nephew.
Crewe were now so much improved on their first half showing that they had the cheek to score a goal; a bout of pinball ending with a header in to a far corner of the Pompey goal which they seemed to have forgotten about. Although there was in theory plenty of time for an equaliser, the goal caused of mass exodus of Pomponians who deserted ship as if they’d got wind of an imminent torpedo attack. As large numbers made for the lifeboats Pompey continued to flounder and despite desperate substitutions their play deteriorated to the point that they could barely string two passes together. The now predictable outcome was that Crewe Alexandra emerged victorious, but I was still a trifle disturbed to hear a chorus of “What the fucking hell was that? “ from a phalanx of disgruntled Pompey fans as they headed for the exits after the final whistle.
The Pompey team had disappointed this afternoon, but unusually so had the Pompey supporters who had failed to get behind their team when they most needed it. I left Fratton Park somewhat disillusioned. Pompey is normally the antidote to miserable, moany Ipswich for me, but something had gone wrong today; I think it was perhaps that there was expectation. As a football supporter you can only ever have hope, expectation is a step too far and you will be punished for having it. Oh, but if you support Manchester United or Chelsea that is a good thing.