sports

Ipswich Town 1 AFC Bournemouth 2

/ martinpbrooks / 1 Comment

In spite of age and experience, I still can’t quite get to grips with AFC Bournemouth being in the First Division.  Forty-five years ago, in October of 1981 when Ipswich Town were the current UEFA Cup holders, I saw Bournemouth play out a one-all draw with Northampton Town at Dean Court in a fourth division fixture, although I’m not entirely sure how I came to be there.  But despite subsequently seeing Bournemouth play Ipswich in the second division and then two years ago in the top division, I somehow can only ever think of Bournemouth as belonging in the lower leagues along with the likes of Colchester United, Walsall and Exeter City.  Perhaps it’s because as an Ipswich Town supporter things have never again lived up to that UEFA Cup winning season, and a bit like Oskar Matzerath in Gunther Grass’s novel The Tin Drum I have decided never to grow any older and therefore remain forever stuck in 1981.

Today however, I am confronted with the unpleasantness of reality as Ipswich meet Bournemouth in what to me is still the First Division but to nearly everyone else is something called the Premier League.  It began as a bright morning but has quickly clouded over and after a breakfast of bacon, tomato and scrambled egg on toast, a couple of Welsh cakes, tea and an espresso coffee I find myself talking to Gareth on the railway station platform as we await the 12:04 to Ipswich.  Gary joins us at the next station stop and we talk of our hopes and expectations for the day but not very optimistically.  To make matters worse we’re sat on the wrong side of the train for a decent view of any polar bears, although Gary makes a spectacle of himself by standing up to get a better look as we sail through Wherstead.  Gareth looks a bit bewildered and perhaps doesn’t appreciate the wonder of having polar bears as part of the pre-match ritual; but it’s not like we support Svarlbard Swifts is it?

Ipswich is looking gloriously grey as we alight from the train, as it should in November, and we head for the ‘Arb’, first enjoying the absence of traffic on the Princes Street bridge, which is temporarily closed to vehicles whilst a pedestrian ramp down to the riverbank is built. The Arb is busy, but Gary joins the queue for the bar whilst I make for the beer garden, where I encounter Mick who goes inside to tell Gary what he’s drinking as I nab a table in the shelter that backs onto High Street. Mick returns and soon Gary is with us carrying a tray of two pints of Mauldon’s Silver Adder and one of Estrella Galicia. We talk of Russell Brand, American mid-term elections and the much hoped-for demise of Donald J Trump and his acolytes, the attitudes and nature of ‘Generation Z’, and our dystopian future of cyber-attacks, power outages, owning a torch and the stockpiling of dried and tinned food and bottles of water.  We decide that tinned peas are okay, but tinned potatoes probably aren’t.  At some point I buy another round of drinks (Estrella Galicia, Earl Soham Brewery Sir Roger’s Porter and a Jameson’s whisky – £15 something with Camra discount) before we realise that as usual everyone else has already left for Portman Road.  When we decide it’s decent to do so, we do too.

Portman Road is oddly clear of queues today, although these seem to have been replaced with metal barriers and would-be lollipop ladies whose lollipops announce the numbers of seating blocks and turnstiles in the Cobbold Stand.  There are still queues for the Sir Alf Ramsey, but I carefully select the fastest moving one and being found innocent of concealing explosives, scrap metal and weapons I’m on my way through turnstile 61 because the queue was moving faster than the queue for turnstile 62. Relieved of spent Silver Adder I find myself observing the now customary pre-match minute’s silence for nearly being Remembrance Day stood on the steps up into the stand.  With the silence over, I suffer an impatient member of Gen Z tugging at me to get up the steps. I tell her as patronisingly and as nicely as I can to “Just hold on and calm down”.

The game begins and Bournemouth get first go with the ball, which they are mostly kicking in the direction of the Sir Bobby Robson stand and Broomhill Park far beyond, just along from Brook’s Hall where Ipswich Town played back in the 1880’s.  Sartorially, Bournemouth are looking like West Germany (it’s still 1981 remember), clad in white shirts and black shorts, which is another pointless change of kit given that their signature colours are red and black.  More happily, Town quickly win the ball and are immediately surging forward as Daizen Maeda pushes and runs past some Bournemouth bod but has his cross cleared.  Up in the Cobbold Stand the Bournemouth followers chant indecipherably but Julio Enciso is in hectares of space in the middle of the pitch and a low cross from Maeda somehow evades the attempted back heel of Emmerson and passes all the way across the face of the Bournemouth goal, and we’ve barely had four minutes yet.

Then the roof falls in, and Christian Walton seemingly thinking we can see out the match with only him ever touching the ball, fails to evade the on-rushing Francisco Evanilson de Lima Barbosa who nicks the ball off his boot and rolls it into an empty goal.  You might have thought Walton would have spotted a bloke with a name that long coming at him, but no.  Town’s lively beginning and hopes of a storming home win have lasted less than five minutes, and another bright start has turned suddenly grey and cloudy.  On the bright side however, Walton atones as much as he can two minutes later after the usual dodgy defending down the left allows a low cross and what looks like a certain goal.  Also, weak sunlight is now dancing softly across the Cobbold Stand, which as a thing of beauty is apparently a joy forever.

Eleven minutes have departed and Jaden Philogene has a low shot easily saved and the Bournemouth fans are singing “Is this a library?”  to which the pithy reply from the bloke behind me, who is clearly familiar with the toy-sized collection of stands AFC Bournemouth call home is “No it’s a Subbuteo stadium”.  “No noise from the Tractor Boys” continue the gloating Bournemouth fans causing me to reflect on there having been a crowd of just 5,241 at Dean Court when I visited in October 1981 and given that a fair number of those are probably dead by now, where the heck have this gobby lot sprung from?

Eighteen minutes are up and Bournemouth claim the game’s first corner kick. Ripples of blue sky appear in the cloud above the Sir Bobby Robson Stand but chants of “Come on Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” betray a sense of growing frustration that Town are not getting anywhere very quickly against unspectacular but quietly capable opponents.  Half-time is less than ten minutes away, Bournemouth have a second corner and Pat from Clacton has time to tell me she’s remembered to wear both her blue and white earrings and her blue pants today. Not to be outdone, I reveal that I am wearing ITFC socks, one pair from a pack of three my work colleagues gave me when I retired.  Meanwhile Fiona’s young niece Maisie is attending her first match today and she is brandishing what I at first thought might be an Ipswich Town branded ferret, but it turns out it is a meerkat. Faced with this cornucopia of Ipswich favours I am finding it hard to believe we’re still losing.

Only five minutes to half time now and there are more pleading chants of “Come On Ipswich, Come On Ipswich”. Bournemouth however earn another corner before an out break of silliness in the middle of the pitch end with the short, bald referee Mr Simon Hooper showing off his yellow card to both Town’s Julio Enciso and the eighteenth-century economist and philosopher Adam Smith, who had overzealously expounded his theory of rational self-interest and kicked Julio, who didn’t like it. The free-kick is to Ipswich but as ever comes to nothing and neither does one in the final minute of the half after Emmerson is given a bang on the head by some clumsy Bournemouthian defender or other.  A minute of added on time does nothing to improve matters either.

Half-time is an opportunity to share thoughts on the game so far with the man from Stowmarket (Paul), reflect on how the bloke on the AFC Bournemouth club badge looks oddly like Brian Eno did in the 1970’s, and drain off more spent Silver Adder and Sir Roger’s Porter.  The football resumes at two minutes past three after the excitable young stadium announcer has announced with almost a note of surprise, “It’s I-i-i-pswi-i-ch T-o-o-w-w-n!” as if he had been half-expecting a different team to emerge from the tunnel for the second half.  By three minutes past three we wish there had been as Town are trailing 2-0 with Leif Davis inexplicably backing towards goal in mid-air and deflecting a cross-cum-shot into the net.  All around there is a palpable feeling that we have been transported back in time to Town’s last brief, miserable visit to the Premier League. The ripples of blue sky are gone, replaced by grey mist and gloom.

Bournemouth soon claim another corner kick, and it sounds as if their supporters are chanting “Cloudy, cloudy, what’s the score?” before Emmerson is replaced by Zian Flemming and Jaden Philogene makes way for the man the excitable young stadium announcer calls “Jack! Clarke!”.  Bournemouth have another corner and with about a half an hour left to play Pat from Clacton reveals that she has already started to think about the baked potato she is going to eat when she gets home.  The sixty-third minute brings muted joy as Town at last win their first corner of the match, for what it’s worth, and ever-present Phil who never misses a game turns around to tell me I’ve been very quiet today.  I tell him it’s a hangover from the minute’s silence, but also Town haven’t had enough corners.

Sixty-four minutes are up and one short, stocky winger, Maeda, is replaced by a slightly stockier one, Fatawu. Meanwhile, continuing to test out their latest comedy material the Bournemouth supporters carry on asking “Is this a library?” and everyone very quietly ignores them. But then, with a bit less than twenty minutes of normal time remaining Abdoul Outtara gets kicked in the penalty area (Ooer missus) and after the usual delaying tactics from the opposition, Town have a penalty kick.  Jack! Clarke! is as reliable as ever and kicks the ball to the right as the goalkeeper helpfully dives to the left and the deficit is reduced to a single goal. Everyone who had been concentrating on reading now clears their throat and shouts whilst carefully inserting their bookmarks so as not to lose their place.

The remaining fifteen minutes of original allotted time are joined by another nine that are added on and Town spend most of them in the Bournemouth half, with ‘The Cherries’ as they are known colloquially, adding only one more to their tally of corner kicks and mostly employing the dubious defensive tactic of bumping into Ipswich players and then lying down on the ground.  Julio Enciso takes a couple of the resulting free kicks, the first of which is athletically tipped over the cross bar by the goalkeeper, whilst the second bends around the defensive wall but the wrong side of the goalpost.  Almost finally, the excitable young stadium announcer very soberly tells us that today we number 29,396; thanking us “so much” for our support but sensibly today not using the word “incredible”.

Sadly, the final whistle comes all too soon and the score remains unaltered.  Defeats are of course inevitable, but this one is galling because the goals were of our own making, not so much goals as hapless blunders, like spilling your beer down your front or walking into a lamp post.  But then, perhaps it was the only way  a fourth division team was going to beat the UEFA Cup holders.

Ipswich Town 1 Nottingham Forest 1

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At the risk of sounding like Michael Parkinson, I think I read somewhere that the city of Nottingham was originally named after a Viking or an Anglo-Saxon called Snot and was known as Snotingaham, which was Old Norse or Old English for Snot’s gaff.   But when the Normans arrived, they had difficulty pronouncing “Sn” and so Snotingaham became Nottingham.  This was possibly also the inspiration for the 1980’s tv advert for Tunes menthol sweets in which a man with a head cold or undisclosed nasal/sinus problem initially fails to make himself understood when asking for a second class return to Nottingham.   I don’t suppose there is anyway of knowing if this is true, but what is certain is that tonight Gippeswic Town are playing Snotingaham Forest and I shall be at Portman Road to see it.

It’s been a nasty, intermittently wet, blustery late October afternoon and according to the message I received on my mobile phone from Greater Anglia, my train to Ipswich is going to be a minute late. But I am not unduly concerned because I am dressed for the weather, as we must in England, with my warm, water-repellent coat, ITFC beanie hat, blue and white bar scarf and home knitted fingerless gloves. My one worry is that I have lost my usual air of mystery and have made it too obvious that I am a football fan heading for a football match.  By contrast, when Gary joins me at the next station stop, he is wearing an orange coat and orange woolly hat emblazoned with a logo that announces hashtag 8 Super-Dry, whatever that means, and there is no way of knowing if Gary is a football supporter, an off-duty vicar or just someone modelling trendy ‘streetwear’.

It’s been a fortnight since Gary and I last spoke and we now talk of what we have done in the intervening period.  I tell Gary I have been in France and witnessed the manifestations (demos in English) by the school students and people wearing yellow vests (gillets jaune).  I ask him if he knows anyone who wants a Dior handbag and then we see one very grubby looking polar bear appearing to stare at a patch of grass as the train descends through Wherstead.

Arriving in Ipswich, the busy station plaza is gently illuminated by a haunting, fading light as the sun sets behind clouds the colour of bruises. We wait to cross into Princes Street to a soundtrack of swishing tyres on the wet road surface.   The aural and visual treats continue as we walk up Princes Steet, Museum Street and High Street to the Arb where, although I am first through the door, Gary gets the drinks, a pint of Lager 43 for him and pints of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me and Mick, who isn’t here yet but is on his way.  We retire to the beer garden to sit with just two other drinkers in the shelter that backs on to High Street where it is wet and miserable.  Occasionally, a strong gust of wind threatens to blow the large garden umbrella opposite us up and away into the evening sky, but fortunately it never does.  Mick, who has been in Felixstowe and got stuck in traffic on his way back, arrives, buys more drinks and a serving of cheesy chips.  We talk of people not having funerals, Mick’s recent visit to Stirling and Mick’s conversation with a Reform councillor who when asked why he stood for selection as a candidate said something along the lines of  “You should’ve seen the others”.  Gary says he feels as cold as he has ever done and we move inside, where I buy a further pint of Suffolk Pride for me and a Jameson’s whisky for Mick whilst Gary doesn’t have another drink at all, realising perhaps that drinking more chilled lager will not help make him feel any warmer.

We leave the Arb at twenty to eight, and I’m surprised to find on arrival in Portman Road that there are few queues for the Cobbold Stand.  This is a first since technology took over from tickets. The queues to be checked for weapons, explosives and scrap metal behind the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand are also shorter than usual, but those for the turnstiles are a bit longer.  The normally illustrious turnstile 62 helps delay mine and everyone else’s entry when it refuses to acknowledge my possession of a season ticket when I hold up my mobile phone to the screen.   A helpful steward takes me to one side and explores the settings on my phone discovering that something called the ‘NFC’ was turned off.   I have no idea what this means and can only tell him I didn’t have problem getting in to see Angers versus Olympique Marseille last Sunday.  I suspect meddling by the Russians as part of their plan to so enrage everyone that they lose all powers of reasoning and so vote for Reform UK Ltd.

After venting spent Suffolk Pride I get to my seat to find I have missed the first one minute and seven seconds of the match, but Fiona confirms that I haven’t missed anything important.  I will later deduce that Nottingham Forest must have had first go with ball, but it is self-evident that they are aiming it towards the goal just in front of me and my fellow ultras, who this this evening only consist of ever-present Phil who never misses a game and Fiona.  Apparently, Pat from Clacton has high blood pressure and feels ‘under the weather’ but Fiona has had a message from her to let me know she has remembered to wear her blue pants this evening, which I find strangely reassuring.

On the pitch, Julio Enciso claims the honour of first shot at goal, after five minutes, but two minutes later Christian Walton is making a necessary save before Abdoul Outtara also has a shot at goal for Town.  But overall, Nottingham Forest in their signature red shirts and white shorts, are looking much the better of the two teams and there is little consolation in the spectacle of the red and blue-shirted players looking like a real-life version of the Subbuteo Continental Club Edition from my childhood.  There is no consolation at all when in the thirteenth minute Nottingham stretch the Town defence for Neco Williams to score a goal, which from my seat I get an excruciatingly good view of.  The only positive is that the goalscorer makes me think of the alluring Christa Paffgen and the Velvet Underground’s weird and wonderful 1967 debut album “The Velvet Underground and Nico”.

The goal inspires Town to play better and they begin to not let Nottingham have the ball so much. Enciso hits a free-kick high over the cross bar, but with the exception of a decent shot straight at the goalkeeper Philogene is giving the sort of performance that in the hey-day of Brian Clough would have had him being labelled ‘a big fairy’. The first half of the first half drifts out of view and both Florentino and Enciso shoot at the economically named goalkeeper Matz Sels, before Nottingham have the only two corners of the half in quick succession and the second one is headed wide.  “Come on Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” entreat the home crowd somewhat desperately. “Fuck off Ipswich, Fuck Off Ipswich” comes the unwarranted reply from the Nottinghamians in the Cobbold Stand as they collectively imagine themselves as modern day Arthur Seatons.

Ipswich are awarded a free-kick.  “You don’t know what you’re doing” chant the Forest fans and a third of the match is only available as replays on Sky tv.  Ten or so minutes later however it is Forest’s Nikola Milenkovic who doesn’t know what he’s doing as Julio Enciso nicks the ball off him and embarks on an unhindered run at goal before shooting simply past Sels at his near post and the score is one all.  “Oh when the Town, go marching in” drone the home crowd as if in mourning. There’s time for Nottingham to almost take the lead again as Leif Davis clears off the goal line before two minutes of added on time are added on and half-time arrives with the promise of a trip downstairs to the gents.

The football resumes at four minutes past nine and after just six minutes the spectre of VAR appears as Issa Diop slides across the pitch on the wet grass and a Nottingham player sprawls headfirst.  Referee Mr Thomas Bramall plays on initially but then VAR announces a review for a possible red card and having seen the tv camera’s view Mr Bramall shows Diop his yellow card and gives Forest a free kick.  The Forest fans can’t see the wood for the trees and predictably bleat on about Mr Bramall not knowing what he is doing again.  Three-minutes later the bookings are evened up as Town’s Emmerson is fouled by Murillo, a player who interestingly has a haircut that looks like Davey Crocket’s hat.

Nearly an hour has been added to history as Nottingham earn another corner and Walton needs to make another couple of saves before the first substitutions are made and the excitable young announcer introduces “Jack! Clarke!”  and Zian Flemming as Philogene and Emmerson take their rightful places on the bench.

Nottingham are dominating again, but more so.  “Come on Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” we plead en masse, and I give some encouragement to time itself to hurry up a bit.  Maeda replaces the ineffective Fatawu and Rory Delap misses two opportunities for Forest in quick succession as he heads over the cross bar from close in and then shoots past a post. “Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottingham” chant the Nottingham supporters imaginatively but more or less to the tune of John Philip Sousa’s “The Stars & Stripes Forever”.

The final ten minutes of normal time are with us at last and again we plead “Come on Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” and Town grimly hang on as they struggle to get any touches on the ball, which they never manage to retain when they do get it.  Desperate for something to change Matusiwa and Akpom replace Florentino and Enciso but it’s a change that seems unlikely to make a positive difference in terms of ability.  Today’s attendance is announced excitably as 29,198 and we are thanked for out “incredible support” even though it’s a few hundred less incredible than it was for the last match, but perhaps we’ve been noisier per head; it’s the sort of thing they never tell us.

The final minute turns up seemingly on time but is apparently eight minutes early, giving the opportunity for Forest’s Hudson-Odoi to shoot narrowly wide and then, more importantly, Jack! Clarke! to run across the edge of the penalty area and also shoot narrowly wide, although this late in the game he usually scores. Just four added on minutes remain to be added on as Nottingham substitute Rory Delap for Chris Wood, a footballer whose surname hopefully determined that he should play for Nottingham Forest rather than his ability.  Fiona and I agree, now that he has left the pitch, that Delap was rubbish and we’re glad Town sold him.

The final whistle brings relief and with reports of trains being delayed due to the weather, Fiona and I both clear off sharpish, although I needn’t have bothered because there will be no trains south tonight thanks to a tricky tree that has fallen on the line between Ipswich and Manningtree.  As I make arrangements to get home,  I reflect that Town may have been the poorer team tonight but happily they were probably the luckier one, a bit like how Gippa, the bloke after whom Ipswich was named was luckier than the bloke called Snot.

SCO Angers 2 Olympique de Marseille 5

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Angers is an historic city in the valley of the River Loire in western France famed for its massive castle, partly built by the early Plantagenet kings of England, which is home to the remarkable fourteenth century Tapestry of the Apocalypse.  Visiting the castle to see the tapestry is one of the reasons why my wife Paulene and I have made the eight hour, seven-hundred- and twenty-three-kilometre drive in our planet saving Citroen e-C4 to be here, but another is that today SCO Angers are playing Olympique Marseille (OM) at the Stade Raymond Kopa in a Ligue 1 fixture.  We have seen Angers play OM before, back in 2015 at the Stade Velodrome in Marseille (Angers won 2-1), but being the type of people who feel strangely compelled to watch football in as many French towns and cities as possible, this is an opportunity not to be missed.  Also, it’s easier to get tickets for Angers v OM than it is get them for Ipswich Town away games, which I have therefore given up on.  Meanwhile, Paulene is the only person in the world to be a fan of both OM and Paris St Germain!

From our hotel near the St Serge University, it’s a two-minute walk to the tram stop where a Ligne A tram takes us to Foch Haras from where we change to an articulated number one bus that makes its way up rue Paul Bert and rue Volney towards Saumuroise, where we alight (fare 1.70 euros) and then take a short walk down rue du Colombier to the Stade Raymond Kopa.  The Stade Raymond Kopa was until 2017 called the Stade Jean Bouin, but since 2019 it has been undergoing its latest upgrade with two new stands being built.  From rue du Colombier Stade Raymond Kopa now looks less like a football stadium and more like a large, perforated, grey metal box, largely because it is. The dark grey reflects the monochrome club colours of SCO Angers but could probably do with a few splashes of white or some groovy signage to jazz it up a little, especially on a grey, cloudy autumn day like today.

It’s about twenty past one and crowds are gathering in the street at the back of the Tribune Saint-Leonard awaiting the arrival of the Angers team who soon step out of a compact black and white coach and skulk into the stadium through an anonymous opening in its grey metal walls.  A crowd of mostly children cheer and wave black and white flags whilst cheerless looking security guards look out from beneath frighteningly short haircuts.  The players are greeted and ushered beyond the grey wall by people in shiny suits wearing huge white plimsolls, which make them resemble the children on the Magic Roundabout.

With the Angers players safely inside the stadium, an air of expectancy still lingers in the street outside and perhaps even increases because the OM team bus is now on its way.  OM are without doubt the biggest club in France but they have no dodgy middle eastern state to bank-roll them and are instead mis-managed by a succession of incompetent owners who ride the football gravy train, sell any decent players, buy in those the top clubs don’t want and build up debts before moving on, leaving in their wake a sort of underfunded, Mediterranean version of Tottenham Hotspur.  But OM supporters are all over France and are faithful to their club, they are also probably masochists.

At last, the blue lights of the police motorcycle escort appear and following behind the OM team bus, which parks up behind the lines of comically grumpy security staff and disgorges its cargo of shifty looking athletes into the grey metal box. We stand next to a man who shouts insults at the players and doesn’t seem to notice the scary looks he receives from a huge security guard standing just a metre away.  With the excitement over, Paulene and I head round the corner to the fanzone, where there is a bouncy castle, a bar, tables and chairs and a trestle table from which an attractive young couple are flogging a limited range of club ‘merch’.  Also here is a collection of balloons arranged in the shape of a heart to promote ‘October Rose’, an annual event in French football to raise awareness of and money for research into breast cancer.  Most clubs produce a special shirt and associated merchandise and have a fixture dedicated to it.  Today, Angers will be wearing their special shirt.  Paulene shows solidarity by buying a pink scarf and we are both given pink ribbons to wear on our coats.  With an hour still until kick off I make a trip to the bar for a 50 cl ‘glass’ of Affligem beer (9 euros for the beer and 1 euro for the re-usable ‘October Rose’ branded cup).  It might be expensive and a bit too cold, but Affligem is a decent enough beer (even if it is now owned by Heineken) which at 6.7% alcohol by volume offers a strength and flavour no one would dare allow football fans in England to enjoy.

Having supped the Affligem, we head into the grey box.  There are no turnstiles, just people with scanners to check your ticket or the QR code on the screen of your mobile phone.  Everyone, everywhere, as at all French football game wishes you “bon match” and everyone is given a polythene flag displaying the SCO Angers club badge.  Inside the grey box it is as grey as it is outside, with the steel frame of the stand painted grey or coated with what looks like a hard, grey pulp or even icing.  The perforated metal walls let in a lot of light however and the concourse is spacious, although the toilets aren’t and streams of people made anxious by full bladders snake out of them.

There are two flights of stairs up to our seats in the lower tier of the Tribune Colombier but conveniently our seats are at the end of the row.  Three unaccompanied youths, who look no more than twelve years old sit in front of us but then move to the seats next to me, and a nervous looking man with dark receding hair and a young boy sit in front of us instead; he gives the three boys a slightly quizzical and disapproving look as if to ask, “Vos meres savent-elles que vous etes ici?” (Do your mothers know you are here?)

When the game begins it is OM who get first go with the ball, which they are aiming at the goal in front of the Tribune Colombier, which is the fullest of the four stands and is where Paulene and I are sitting.  Somewhere far behind us is the suburb of Trelaze where the number one bus that we caught was heading.  Today, OM are wearing a change kit of all navy blue whilst Angers are not in their usual black and white stripes that make them look like a classy, Gallic Harwich & Parkeston FC but instead wear their special, all-white with a pink splodge on the front, ‘October Rose’ kit.

The ball is quickly booted into touch from kick off as if OM never really wanted first go with it anyway.  Over to our left in the end of the otherwise mostly empty Tribune Jean Bouin the OM ultras are in full voice, waving banners and jumping about, as they have been since we arrived. “Marseille! Tum de tum, Te dum dum! Marseille!” they chant, according to the scribble in my notebook.   It is OM who have the first shot on goal when after nine minutes Igor Paixo strikes the ball wide of an Angers post at the end of a coherent passing move.  Two minutes later, and as I am afflicted by wafts of body spray from the nervous looking man with a receding hairline sat in front of me, Anthony Lopes the Angers goalkeeper gesticulates unhappily at the players in front of him.  A pattern begins to emerge as another good passing move from OM in the twelfth minute ends with Tochukwu Nnadi also shooting wide.

Angers haven’t featured much so far but this of course means that in the fourteenth minute a cross from the left sails over the head of Angers’ Lilian Raolisoa only for it to strike an OM defender deflect back onto Raolisoa and into the goal knocking Raolisoa over in the process.  It’s a comedy goal as many that OM concede are, but it gives Angers a surprise one-nil lead, nevertheless.  “Allez Angervins” chant the home crowd and the nervous looking man in front stands up to wave his polythene flag and jump up and down, and he encourages the boy to do so too. Perhaps he’s not so nervous after all.

A goal down, some of the OM players begin to roll around on the floor when the opportunity arises but the referee Monsieur Jeremie Pignard ignores them quite brilliantly and as the first half of the first half fades into the past OM shoot wide again and then do nothing memorable with the game’s first corner before Angers make an inevitable quick break away, only for Amine El Ouazzani to shoot spectacularly high and wide of the OM goal.

The first third of the match is over and to mark the occasion Raolisoa slices a clearance to give OM a second corner, but OM only proceed to miss a couple more chances and Paixao has a header easily saved by Lopes when he probably should have scored. Another OM corner is then easily cleared before finally, with seven minutes left until half time, a cross from Timothy Weah is headed firmly but simply into the Angers net from close range by bearded OM captain Himad Abdelli.  “Ole, Ole, Ole” chant the OM fans to the tune of the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine”. In all the stands OM fans stand up to cheer and unlike in England where people are outraged when an “away” supporter sits in the “home” end, no one seems that bothered, but then unlike the English, the French like to save their anger for the things that matter, like liberty and equality.

Three minutes remain until half time and OM up the corner count again when Lopes saves another shot, this time from Amine Gouiri. From the resultant corner, despite being 1.83m in height Nouhoum Kamissoko seems to go un-noticed by the Angers players and he heads firmly into the middle of the goal and OM lead 2-1.  A minute of added on time is added on but nothing changes except for a lot of cheering from pre-pubescent voices; Paulene suggests that someone has just found a stash of sugar.

Half-time is a time to vent some spent Affligem, buy a bottle of water (3 euros) and see the Angers mascot, Scoty the Panda swagger onto the pitch in a somewhat surly manner with feet at ‘ten to two’, perform some perfunctory task and then frighten a couple of children and swagger back into the stand.  My father, a naval man, would have said he walks like a “dockyard matey”.  We had hoped to meet Scoty in the fanzone but we’re not so disappointed that we didn’t now, he just looks like a fat middle-aged bloke in tracky bottoms with a panda head on; added to which the pink splodge on the front of his October Rose shirt makes him look like he’s been stabbed or is coughing up blood.

It is a minute past four when the football resumes, and OM are now sending the ball towards the cathedral and castle in the city centre and the Angers ultras in the Tribune Coubertin. OM quickly win another corner and Lopes saves from Nnadi, before with the new half twelve minutes old Angers make a first substitution, swapping the wonderfully named Louis Mouton (it means Louis Sheep but sounds like Louis Vuitton) for the equally wonderfully named Prosper Peter (just nice alliteration).   The impact is immediate as Amine Gouiri runs at the Angers defence and into the penalty area and has his ankle tapped by Yassin Belkhdim and Monsieur Pignard awards a penalty.  Gouiri’s penalty is saved but Lopes can only parry the shot and Gouiri scores from the re-bound. It’s 3-1 to OM.

The game moves into its final third and Paulene and I resign ourselves to the nervous looking man with the receding hair and child not returning, he left at the end of half-time and hasn’t been seen since. I didn’t like the smell of his body spray anyway, so am quite pleased.  Prosper Peter is looking alert for Angers as his name suggests to me he should be, and as the game moves on through the sixty-fifth and sixty-sixth minutes he heads wide and then delicately flicks a cross onto the OM cross bar.  Angers’ Emmanuel Biumla then fouls Gouiri and consequently sees Mr Pignard’s yellow card before the OM ultras embark on a chorus of “Aux Armes, Nous Sommes les marseillais, Et nous allons gagner, Allez l’OM!” (To arms, We are the Marseillais, And we are going to win, Go OM!) and the OM fans scattered throughout the rest of the stadium attempt to echo the chant.

More substitutions are made by Angers and this time the effect is positive as three minutes later they win a corner and in defending it Nnadi wrestles Carlens Arcus to the ground and Mr Pignard awards a penalty to Angers, which Amine El Ouazzani quickly and confidently despatches past Jeffrey de Lange, who effectively steps out of the way of the kick, and the score is 3-2. Nnadi is booked.  “Lo lo lo, Allez les SCO’s” sing the home supporters optimistically, and then sing it again  and again, and again. “Faites du bruit” (Make some noise) announces the scoreboard simultaneously advertising a barbers’ shop called ‘Point-Cut’, and they do.

The final ten minutes approach and there is hope for an unlikely Angers comeback as OM make a couple of substitutions. “Allez les SCO’s” continue the home supporters but once again the substitutions seemingly have instant results and a square ball across the edge of the penalty area from Nnadi is soon expertly stroked into the Angers goal beyond Lopes by Amine Harit to make the score 4-2 to OM. A minute later and the score is 5-2 as a lobbed ball forward from Egan-Riley is headed back by Weah and drops to Paixao who strokes the ball into the net in a similar manner to Amine Harit but from about five metres nearer to the goal.

It doesn’t seem likely that Angers will make any sort of comeback now although OM have often shown themselves to be more than capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in the past.  Both teams eke out the remaining five or six minutes or normal time with more substitutions and another six minutes of added-on time are added on too, but with a steady rain now falling the score remains unaltered.

With the final whistle the OM players go over to their ecstatic ultras to share a rare success and milk the moment in the likely knowledge that disappointment and frustration are never far away.  It’s been an entertaining game in terms of the number of goal scored and OM games are always fun if only for the presence of their fans who Paulene as a Pompey fan considers she has a strong affinity with.  Happy therefore, Paulene and I steal away into the deepening gloom of the damp October evening and walk back up rue Volney and rue Paul Bert to the tram stop and the ride back to our hotel.  Tomorrow we return home.

Stade Lavallois 3 Clermont Foot 3

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The French town of Laval is home to about 50,000 people, about 300 kilometres west of Paris and is the capital of the Mayenne departement, roughly in the bit of France where Normandy, Brittany and what was the historic County and later Duchy of Anjou all meet.  Back in the Middle Ages it became rich on textiles and linen but nowadays is big in dairy products. The medieval dukes of Anjou made the city of Angers their capital and conveniently for me and my wife Paulene we are staying most of this week there, and it is only seventy odd kilometres south of Laval, which means that with Stade Lavallois taking on Clermont Foot 63 tonight it shouldn’t be too taxing a drive up the D775 and D962 to experience some Friday night football in the French second division, more properly known as Ligue 2.

It’s been a bright, unseasonably warm and sunny morning beneath a pale blue autumn sky.  But cloud has begun to roll in and having re-charged the battery of our planet saving Citroen e-C4 at a handily located Carrefour supermarket, it’s looking distinctly grey by the time we set off for Laval around four o’clock and once on our way there are soon raindrops streaking the Citroen’s windscreen.  By the time we reach Laval, after a somewhat tortuous journey along two lane roads and across numerous roundabouts, the rain is easing off but the rush hour traffic is building up.  We make it to the Stade Francis le Basser before the Avenue Pierre de Coubertain in which it is situated is closed to traffic for the match, and park up just long enough for me to run to the guichets to discover what tickets are available.  There are places in the small Popular Stand for 9 euros, places in the Tribune Presidentielle for 25 euros, or places in the Tribune Credit Mutuelle for 18 euros.  Believing in moderation in all things I buy two of the 18-euro seats and ask the woman in the booth where is good to park. She shrugs her shoulders and says “Anywhere”.

There are still almost three hours until kick-off, so we head in hope for the centre of town but get stuck in traffic.  Eventually, parking up in a bijou multi-storey car park near the river we search out the sights of Laval on foot and foolishly follow signs for the tourist information office, which turns out to be away down several grey streets completely in the opposite direction to the castle and Hotel de Ville, which seem likely to be the main attractions. To add to our misery, by the time we reach it, the tourist information office is shut.  Gloomily, we find our way back to the car park and cursing Laval a little head back out to the Avenue Pierre de Coubertin where our luck changes and we find a free parking space just down the road from the stadium.  The gates are not yet open but a good size crowd of people of all ages mixes with passing pedestrians and a few policemen and queues at two food stalls to buy and munch on combinations of French sticks, sausages and chips.  Not wanting to feel left out I buy a Merguez sausage sandwich too, the chewing of which successfully fills me and the time until the gates open.

Once through the security checks and virtual turnstile, where everyone wishes us “bon match”, we are soon at the hatch in the side of a small hut that is the club boutique, inside which are a couple who are probably older than me. She stands behind a table on which various items of football club ‘merch’ are displayed; he wears a cardigan and takes the money. Behind her, amongst the replica shirts hangs a tiger suit.  I select a petit fanion (pennant) for my pointless collection of the same whilst Paulene chooses between a lion in a t-shirt and a bright orange tiger for her collection of club mascots; she picks the tiger because the lion looks a bit dowdy.  Clutching our purchases we make for our seats only to meet the real-life mascot who is extremely tall and thin and is possibly a lion but is the blinding, almost day-glo tango colour of the tiger minus his stripes.  Significantly, Stade Laval’s club colours are orange and black and Paulene poses for a photo with the mascot who I will later discover is called Tangoal.  Post-impressionist painter Henri Rousseau was born in Laval, and I take comfort and amusement from the possibility that the lions and tigers in some of his paintings are the inspiration for Tangoal, or may be even the other way round.

Upon arrival at our seats half-way up Block C of the Tribune Credit Mutuelle, we find that they are wet.  There doesn’t appear to be a hole in the roof of the stand, and we guess the rain must have just blown in quite a long way.  We wipe the seats with a linen shopping bag Paulene happens to have about her and sit down to absorb the view of the stadium with its two small stands flanking a big one opposite, and no stands at either end, just a large white hospitality tent to our right and a fierce orange sunset taking place behind it, although it’s not quite as shockingly colourful as Tangoal the mascot.  The PA system meanwhile belts out a club song which sounds like it’s travelled here from the 1970’s and contains the words “Allez Laval” and “Prenez la balle, gardez la balle”; it is accompanied by the stamping of feet from the crowd whilst the bloke in the seat in front of me seems to be exuding a pungent body spray.  Thankfully, the song finishes and the teams are announced by a typically enthusiastic announcer and whilst the crowd are almost as enthusiastic as he is when shouting out the surname of the goalkeeper Maxime Hautbois, they quickly seem to lose that enthusiasm as the remainder of the team is introduced, to the point that I begin to wonder if the supporters even know who some of the players are.

Eventually the teams process onto the pitch and echoed by a chorus of childish voices, the neon scoreboard and the stadium announcer count down, “three-two-one” like some sort of Gallic Ted Rogers and the game begins.  Clermont Foot get first go with the ball, which they boot in the general direction of the big white tent and the burning sunset beyond.  The supporters in the Tribune Credit Mutuelle stamp their feet wildly on the pre-fabricated floor of the stand making an impressively intimidating sound, well it made me feel uneasy anyway. “Whoa-oh-oh, La La, La, La La, La-La” chant the youths in the Popular stand behind the banner that reads ‘Laval Crew’. 

Although Laval win three corners in the first twenty minutes, Clermont perhaps have more possession.  Overall, however, the standard of play is poor as befits a fixture between the two teams that are bottom and second from bottom of the league.  Most passes tend to end up with opposition players.  Paulene asks me if this match might lead me to re-consider my verdict that our seven-year-old grandson is unlikely to have a future as a professional footballer; but no, as a footballer he really does stink.  Twenty-three minutes pass and Clermont win a corner. An occasional drummer strikes up somewhere in front of us and off to our left but then seems to realise the corner is to the opposition and he/she suddenly stops.

Just as my interest is waning and I begin counting the Clermont fans in the dimly lit left-hand stand opposite (I think there are ten), a measured cross from the right from Clermont’s number seventy-seven Enzo Cantero is met by the huge, almost horizontal, flying figure of the towering centre-forward wearing the number ninety shirt, the improbably named Christ Okou, who heads the ball past the startled Maxime Hautbois from about 5 metres out. Clermont lead 1-0.

Unfortunately, the goal doesn’t inspire either team to play any better and Paulene and I are soon discussing the colour of Clermont’s kit; I can’t decide if it’s black or very dark grey.  Paulene thinks it’s green, but the Clermont Foot website reveals that their third kit is dark grey, a colour, apparently inspired by that of the dark Volvic volcanic rock that defines the Auvergne region and much of Clermont-Ferrand’s historic architecture.  The game is a third over and Clermont’s number twenty-eight, Ivan M’Bahia becomes the first player this evening to be booked; a small man, he turns and struts away with his head held high as if he had perhaps read and been oddly inspired by the promotional guff about the third kit on the club website.

Seven minutes remain until half-time and another attempted Laval attack sees Clermont’s number seven Florian Bianchini breaking away at speed from within his own half towards the Laval goal; he checks, lays the ball off to Christ Okou, who bundles it back to him and he then proceeds to curl it at pace into the far corner of the goal from about a metre outside the penalty area.  Clermont’s lead is thereby doubled.  It’s a cracking goal, which even a few home supporters seem to appreciate, although for many more it’s a reason to boo their own team.   A minute of added-on time is played during which Clermont win another corner and then the half-time whistle is met with more booing from the Laval supporters who seem to have higher expectations of the team that is bottom of the league, but then Clermont have so far not won a match all season.

It’s not much past nine o’clock when the second half begins with Laval making a substitution and then booting the ball directly into touch, as if they were playing rugby.    Two minutes later Laval trail 3-0 as Christ Okou latches onto a poor back-header from Laval’s Jules Gaudin, breaks through the middle of the Laval defence, swivels clumsily and sends a shot heading beyond the far goal post, only for the Gaudin to hopelessly finish the move he began by slamming the ball high into the roof of his own goal net from close range.  The goal is met with outrage by many Laval ‘supporters’ some of whom rise from their seats and storm for the exits as if the goal was a terrible affront to them and they deserve better, or they had heard a fire alarm.  I think I hear some of them snort with indignation.

It feels like the game is already over, despite a fifty-second minute shot at goal for Laval and a corner eleven minutes later; but then Laval make three substitutions, at least one of which is booed by the home crowd, who clearly have favourites amongst the squad, but not many.  One of these substitutions will prove significant, although within a minute a Clermont shot on the break earns the away team another corner.  In the seats immediately in front of me sit two rows of probable grandfathers; there has to be over four-hundred years of footballing spectating here; they likely remember back when Laval were in Ligue 1 and knocked Dynamo Kiev out of the UEFA cup.

It’s the seventy-second minute and suddenly a cross from the right is met by the head of Laval substitute Aboubakary Kante and the score is 1-3.  The home crowd cheers and rattles the floor of the Tribune Credit Mutuelle again.  Stade Lavallois have started to play and perhaps in response Clermont make two changes, one of which is to take off Christ Okou who, as a man trying to live up to that first name needs to, has been involved in all three Clermont goals.  Ten minutes later, another right wing cross and Kante heads towards goal again, but this time the goal will need to be about four metres high for the header to bother the scoreline. In a quieter moment I count the Clermont fans again and now think there might be twelve of them that have made the five hundred and twenty kilometre trip up from Clermont-Ferrand.

Eighty-four minutes have departed and for what it’s worth Laval have yet another corner.  Another three minutes clear off into history taking another Laval substitution with them and it’s Kante who again has an attempt on goal, a shot which is well saved by Theo Guivarch in the Clermont goal. Full-time is fast approaching and Clermont, perhaps ill-advisedly make another two substitutions, one of which causes confusion as the referee Monsieur Soulimane Chamel seems to only allow one of the substitutes onto the pitch.  With Clermont temporarily down to ten men Laval take a free kick, Kante heads towards goal, Guivarch saves but the ball hits his right hand goal post, bounces across the goal and Side Bane knocks it over the goal line from no distance at all.  All of a sudden, the score is 2-3 and we are being told that there will five minutes of added on time.

As it turns out, Laval only need another minute to equalise as number seven Chafik Gourichy twists and turns his way into the penalty area, shoots, and the ball is deflected up into the air to become an angled cross which Kante once again heads into the goal from close range to conclude an unexpected and remarkable comeback to the din of more stamping feet rattling the fabric of the stand. “Allez Laval!  Allez Laval!” chant the somewhat fickle crowd. With the final whistle we make our way out into the chilly night and back to our planet saving Citroen and the drive back to Angers where we will reflect upon a Clermont performance which began like a volcano but then solidified.

Ipswich Town 2 Fulham 1

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It seems hard to believe that despite it now being a third of the way through October, and with the football season having started in August, Ipswich Town have so far only played two league games at home. But that’s modern football and the Premier League for you, just another part of the mad scramble to concentrate as much money as possible into the hands of as few people as possible before the apocalypse, which will probably be streamed live on tv.  Today, as the season begins for a second time, Ipswich will play funny old Fulham, the jokey little London club loved by Tommy Trinder, Wolfie Smith and Terry McCann.

It had been quite a good week, I had returned home from my personal pilgrimage to Haverfordwest and spent a day with my brother-in-law, which was entertaining.  Yesterday however, I received the sad news that my dear friend Ray had died that afternoon.  As everyone I know who knew him agrees, he was such a lovely bloke; thoughtful, funny and kind, he was so good at being those things he didn’t need to be anything else.  Ray didn’t believe in God and given that he is now dead, but Donald Trump still lives, I think he was probably right.  The existence of Satan might be a different matter, however.  On a happier note, this morning I have been vaccinated against influenza, so that’s good.

The train to Ipswich is late but only by a minute or two and when Gary boards at the next station stop it’s not a topic of conversation, instead we talk of my trip to Wales and of the contrasting customer service of Greene King and Royal Mail. In my recent experience Greene King dispense beer vouchers and complimentary cases of beer whilst Royal Mail witter on in lengthy AI generated e-mails and pay no attention to what you tell them; as Royal Mail pensioners, Gary and I both agree it wasn’t like that in our day.

Arriving in Ipswich, the sky is overcast and the station forecourt and Princes Street are busy with folk. We make our way through the town past the ‘new’ (it was the original town museum) ‘Museum of the Environment’ on aptly named Museum Street to the Arb, where I join a queue for the bar whilst Gary heads for the beer garden to look for a vacant table.  Mick soon appears and he buys the drinks, a pint of Estrella Galicia for Gary and pints (one each) of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for Mick and me.  As we emerge into the light of the beer garden Gary simultaneously nabs a table as other lunchtime drinkers leave.  Our conversation rambles, I buy another round of drinks (Suffolk Pride, half of Estrella and a Jameson’s whisky for £12 something with Camra discount) and we express surprise and amusement at how by half past two we seem to be the only people left in the beer garden.  Mick attributes this to a modern epidemic of anxiety. I worry he might be right.

At twenty to three we drain our glasses and set off for Portman Road.  As ever, there are queues for the Cobbold Stand in Portman Road and at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand.  Making a quick assessment of the relative length and speed of each queue I join the shortest, fastest moving one where I stand behind two men discussing their holidays. “Yes” says one “We went on a cruise down the Rhine” and then as if it was the most natural thing in the World “It was drink all you want”.  I’ve stopped smirking by the time I reach the front of the queue where I congratulate and name as ‘employee of the month’ the young, handsome man of Asian origin who is so quickly scanning us for weapons and scrap metal and letting us go onto the second challenge of the afternoon, the turnstiles.  The queue for illustrious turnstile 62 looks a bit sluggish so I go for the next best thing, turnstile 61, which turns out fine once a steward explains to the bloke in front how to present his mobile phone, and I’m soon shuffling past Pat from Clacton and Fiona to my seat where I say hello to the bloke next to me and to the man from Stowmarket (Paul), and see the backs of the heads of ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood.

The game begins beneath grey clouds after the Fulham captain Bassey (Shirley) has got up off his knees and finished praying, to whom or what, or for what it is impossible to say.  It is Ipswich who get first go with the ball though, sending it when they can, mostly in the direction of the goal in front of me and my fellow ultras.  Ipswich are of course in classic blue and while, whilst Fulham look a mess in red and black chequer-board shirts and red shorts, when their traditional white shirts and black shorts would have suited the occasion perfectly well.  We can but hope however, that they will lose as a result.  “Fulham, Fulham” chants the Fulham supporters, supportively, before launching into a rendition of Frankie Valli’s 1967 hit “Can’t take my eyes of you” which sadly sort of peters out after the words “I love you Fulham”, as if nobody was really sure of the words after that.  “MSC, moving the world together” announce the neon advertising boards on the Sir Bobby Robson stand and I feel we should get the United States government to fund a message directly after it reading “Donald Trump, moving the world further apart”.

“Super Fulham, Super Fulham” sing the Fulham fans and after eleven minutes and a spell of pressure Ipswich become the first team to win a corner. “Come On You Blues” everyone chants, more or less.  “Create more space with a mezzanine floor” announces that neon sign, which seems to have taken to providing surreal in-game coaching advice to the team.  Two minutes later and Town have another corner, the game is fast and Portman Road is noisy, a few of us again chant “Come On You Blues!”!  A further three minutes pass and the highlight of the half for Town arrives with a neat move down the right, a touch back and a measured, curling, low shot past the post from Julio Enciso.

The first half is never as good again for Town and Leif Davis is soon booked for a not particularly bad foul. “Sets a precedent” says the bloke beside me suggesting anyone could be booked for anything from now on.  The sky remains cloudy and grey, Fulham win a corner, “Come On Fulham” chant their fans and the neon sign says “Hot Sausage Company” and then “The ideal pre-match meal”, hopefully information that any watching scouts from Town’s next opponents, Manchester City will take to heart and implement. On the touchline, Gary O’Neil strikes a pose which if he was wearing a white suit with wide lapels and flared trousers rather than a zip-up cardigan might make him resemble John Travolta.

Fulham have begun to dominate possession and in one of the growing number of dull moments Pat asks if I’ve seen her new blue and white earrings, which she then displays by turning her left ear towards me. I ask if she’s wearing her blue pants too and a look of horror crosses her face as she realises she has forgotten them, although happily she does have some underwear on, although apparently it is beige.   Fulham’s dominance of possession continues and chants of “Blue Army!” fail to reverse the tide. Fulham win a second corner and hit a shot wide of the Town goal.  “The future of flat roofing today” says the neon signage.  The half concludes with a minute of added on time and an equalising booking for Fulham’s number seven Gonzalo, who tackles Lukic in a different financial year to the current one.

At half-time, the scoreboard wishes happy ninetieth birthday to Sheila who sits across the gangway from Pat from Clacton, and who miraculously doesn’t really look any older than Pat does. I use the remainder of half-time to vent spent Suffolk Pride and then chat briefly with Dave the steward, to whom I proudly reveal that I am now retired and it’s marvellous. Dave won’t retire for another four years, poor devil. The football resumes at two minutes past four and Leif Davis is soon launching a really lousy free-kick high over the Fulham cross bar before at the other end Fulham players come out with some very imaginative appeals for a penalty before hanging about in the Town box winning three corners in quick succession.  The third corner is headed clear by Diop but falls to Fulham’s Ryan Sessegnon, who is lucky enough to see his speculative low shot from 25 yards avoid all of the thirty to forty ankles and boots in between and then nestle in the corner of the Town goal. “Super Fulham, Super Fulham FC, the finest football team the World has ever seen” chant the Fulham fans and then “We are staying up, We are staying up”, which seems an unusually modest ambition for the greatest football team the World has ever seen.

Within five minutes, Ipswich come close to equalising but Emmerson ’s close range header hits a post instead of the net and the Fulham fans begin to get a bit cocky with chants of “No noise from the Tractor Boys” and “How shit must you be we’re winning away”.  Without the gift of foresight they are living in the moment, blissfully unaware of what is to come.

It is the sixty-second minute, and Town bring on Exequiel Palacios and Jack Clarke for Florentino and Philogene, immediately improving the team. “Come on Town!” shouts the bloke beside me with rekindled optimism “These are fucking rubbish”. Palacios soon helps Town to gain and keep more possession whilst Clarke runs at defenders.  Nine minutes later and Akpom and Flemming replace Enciso and Emmerson.  The grey cloud has lifted, the sky is blue and the sun shines into the faces of the Fulham fans in the Cobbold stand.  Fifteen minutes remain and Daizen Maeda prompts VAR into action after he falls to the ground in the penalty area, but predictably no foul is acknowledged. The best substitution of the match follows soon afterwards when Fulham replace Bobb with Kevin, although regrettably the excitable young stadium announcer wastes the opportunity to pronounce Bobb in the way that Rowan Atkinson did in the first episode of Blackadder 2.

The last ten minutes of normal time arrive with a final substitution for Town as Eggy replaces Daizen, which is nice for our Norwegian supporters but less so for our Japanese ones.  Today’s attendance is announced as being 29,445 and we are thanked for our “…incredible support”, and without a hint of sarcasm. Town are dominant but I am far from convinced that we are going to do anything other than lose one-nil. Pat from Clacton debates whether or not to get the masturbating monkey charm out of her handbag but she probably shouldn’t, Fiona’s niece is here with us today and she’s only twelve.  Town are getting plenty of crosses into the Fulham penalty area. Another goes in and is cleared by Shirley (Bassey) but only to Abdoul Outtara who has been brilliant at right-back all afternoon.  Outtara takes a touch, steps forward and unleashes the proverbial ‘rocket of a shot’ from may be 30 metres out; it arrives instantaneously just inside the far post, and the score is one-all. As if being an 88th minute equaliser isn’t enough it’s fantastic, it’s spectacular and makes Sessegnon’s earlier flukey goal look like a tap-in.

There will be five minutes of added time and having scored so late we could be happy with a draw, but the feeling is we can win this, it’s like Escape to Victory all over again.  The match is now into time added on and Chuba Akpom wins a freekick on the left; Jack Clarke takes it, flighting the ball to the near post, and then the ball bulges the net from Dara O’Shea’s imposing header.  Town lead two-one and there are ecstatic arms, legs, bodies and other things joyously jumping, flailing and hugging and being thrown and bounced around all over the place.   There’s still time for Christian Walton to make a match winning save with his left leg from Kevin but in yet another marvellous climax Town emerge victorious and Fulham live up to the comedy billing of their eternal association with Citizen Smith.

Fiona and Pat from Clacton make their customary sharp exits with the final whistle but I hang on to applaud and sing of Edward Ebenezer Jeremiah Brown, who everyone calls Ted.  In truth, Town have only been good in parts, but what parts they were and of course football punditry wisdom tells us that it’s good to play badly and win, even if in fact we didn’t play badly. Whatever, it was a magnificent win and although I’m not a sentimental man it feels to me like a win for Ray.