Ipswich Town 1 Fortuna Dusseldorf 2

July 28, 2024August 1, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s late July already, summer has almost arrived, and so has the new football season. In the Eastern Counties Premier League, the likes of Brantham Athletic and Walsham le Willows are starting their league fixtures today, but I have decided to prolong the sense of anticipation for the ‘real’ stuff and am returning early to Portman Road to witness the friendly between the mighty Blues and Fortuna Dusseldorf, or “Our friends from Germany” as they have become known. I am looking forward to an afternoon of Kraftwerk and altbier.

Pre-season friendlies are strange beasts, and I don’t usually bother with them. Back in the 1970’s my youthful exuberance meant I was as eager to see a Will-hire Cup match against Cambridge United as I was to see any game, but I’m mostly out of exuberance nowadays and I begrudge paying the money just to watch the team train. I last saw Town play a pre-season friendly eight years ago when they met Union St Gilloise from Brussels, a club then in the Belgian second division but now regular Pro-League title challengers, although sadly they never quite manage to win it. The fact that St Gilloise are from Belgium and Fortuna from Germany is significant; I can’t resist seeing teams from abroad, even in friendlies. Maybe I’m pining wistfully for those happy days before that stupid referendum (emphasis on the ‘dum’) cut Britain adrift, or maybe I’m pining wistfully for those happy days when competitive European games were regular entries on Town’s fixture list, or maybe I’m just hoping to catch the lingering scent of strong beer, trams, fine wine, fast trains, chocolate and haute cuisine clinging to the replica shirts of visiting supporters.

As befits late July, it’s a fine, warm day with fluffy clouds heaped up under azure skies. My train (return ticket £9.60 with senior railcard) is on time, and as I step on board the chill of the air-conditioned carriage comes as a bit of a shock, as does the smell of the toilet. Reassuringly, the eletronic sign above the gangway tells me that this service for Ipswich will call at Ipswich. On the opposite side of the gangway to my seat a man with two young boys has a voice that sounds like a very sleepy version of the now deceased comic and Eastenders actor Mike Reid; “…know what I mean?” he says to the boys after he explains that he doesn’t think any football ticket should cost more than £50.00. I see all four polar bears at Jimmy’s farm as the train eases down the hill into Ipswich.

I am meeting Mick today, but by way of a change our rendezvous is at the Station Hotel, where Mick is already eating the sightly odd combination of a toasted cheese sandwich and chips with his friend Chris, whom he previously met off the train from Felixstowe. I join them with a pint of something called Platform Number 9 (£3.90) and we talk of summer signings, locally listed buildings, prostates, American politics, how some of the cheese in Chris’s toasted sandwich hasn’t melted and how I have had an air source heat pump installed this week and thanks to various pipes and ducts the back of my house now looks like the Pompidou Centre. Conversation continues with a further pint of Platform Number 9 for me and a Jameson whisky for Mick (£7.85 for the two), before Chris suggests we make a move for Portman Road, which is exactly what we do.

In Portman Road there are queues for the Cobbold Stand where our seats are sat waiting for our bottoms, but first I stop to acquire a programme (£2.50) from one of the blue booths that look as if they should also sell ice creams. The front cover of the programme gives Mick and I something to talk about in the snaking queue to the turnstile as we comment on the casual, hands in pockets stance of Ali Al-Hamadi, Conor Chaplin and Harry Clarke, and the somewhat macho “You looking at me?” expressions on their faces. Mick doesn’t recognise Ali Al-Hamadi or Harry Clarke and I can’t remember Clarke’s name at first either. “That full-back” I tell him, “you know, Colin Harper”.

After venting excess “Platform Number 9” we find our seats and almost immediately the game begins, as if they’d just been waiting for us to arrive. Fortuna get first go with the ball , or it could have been Town, I wasn’t really paying attention. Fortuna, in all red, are kicking the ball mostly in the direction of the telephone exchange, Barrack Corner and what used to be Anglesea Road hospital beyond, where in June of 1976 my father had a hernia operation. A couple of months later he and I would see Town beat Go Ahead Eagles Deventer one-nil in a pre-season friendly. Barely four minutes pass and Fortuna score, Schmidt. It’s an overly simple goal with a cross that reveals an absence of marking and ends with an unchallenged header. Oh well, it’s only a friendly.

“Come on Ipswich” shouts a shrill child behind us and Mick and I piece together the line-up of the Town team. The shirts show squad numbers, but the programme doesn’t provide the key to these and the Town players’ names are not on their shirts either. From what’s on the back of their shirts, all the Fortuna players appear to be called Dusseldorf. Not being ones to memorise the Town squad numbers, Mick and I are at a loss to identify Town’s number 14, but the bloke sat next to Mick that isn’t me helps us out, revealing that it is Jack Taylor; it threw us seeing him start a match. We eventually also manage to deduce that the new signings are number 22 Jacob Greaves, number 8 Liam Delap, number 2 Ben Johnson, and the goalkeeper is Arijanet Muric. After eight minutes Town fashion a first shot on goal, a weak effort by Delap.

Twenty minutes pass and my interest has mostly only been piqued by the building work on the West Stand, where swathes of seats are missing and it’s possible to see the decorative brickwork of the Corporation bus depot through the gap where there will eventually be more hospitality boxes. I note that our goalkeeper wears pink and that Jacob Greaves wears his hair in a small bun, a bit like former Pompey player Christian Burgess who coincidentally now plays for Union St Gilloise. I do like a centre-half with longer hair, it suggests to me a welcome element of flair in a position not usually known for it.

Liam Delap receives a strangely generous smattering of applause when caught offside and after twenty-five minutes Town win a corner, but then Fortuna are awarded a free-kick by referee Mr Smith and the man next to Mick that isn’t me starts waving his left arm about in anguish. “English, and he’s against us!” he shouts weirdly, as if its 1944 not 2024 and the referee is Lord Haw-Haw. I turn to Mick to tell him how surprised I am at how much some people seem to care so much about a friendly; but soon I’m thinking to myself that I’ve not sat in the Cobbold Stand since the Blue Action group has moved in and at half-way through the half the drums are beginning to get on my nerves. Perhaps with the players feeling the same as me, the twenty ninth minute is an unexpected drinks-break, and Mick checks his phone to see what the temperature is. Twenty-five degrees is evidently warm enough to crack open the Lucozade, or whatever isotonic elixir the modern Premier League player and his coach prefer.

Drinks supped and play resumed, Marcus Harness replaces Wes Burns and I admit to Mick that I hadn’t realised Wes was even playing. Harness’s introduction is an immediate success as his first cross is headed goalwards by Jack Taylor and Town have another corner, which George Edmundson heads at the Fortuna goalkeeper Florian Kastenmeier who interestingly shares his first name with Florian Schneider, one of the two founder members of 1970’s Dusseldorf-based ‘Krautrock’ band Kraftwerk. “Use your height Conor” shouts a man behind us before he laughs at his own ’joke’, hopefully out of embarrassment. Not totally absorbed by the match, I’ve noticed that a lot of surfaces around the ground are now painted matt black, including all the vomitoriums (vomitoria?) and I wonder if this is something required by the Premier League along with canapes and a shrubbery for Sky Sports presenters and a toilet reserved for Alan Shearer.

Three minutes of added on time are announced and I realise that from beneath the roof of the Cobbold Stand I cannot see the sky, it’s like looking out through a letterbox. When half-time arrives, I stay where I am for the duration unable to face the confined spaces beneath the venerable Cobbold Stand, although Mick bravely heads off to the lav.

Predictably, the re-start after half-time brings multiple personnel changes on the field of play and Delap, Edmundson, Greaves and Muric can catch the early bus home as they are replaced by Hirst, Burgess, Woolfenden and Walton. Fortuna win an early corner after a mistake by Woolfenden, who Mick remarks will need to improve to retain his place this season, and I agree with him. Then Marcus Harness equalises with a goal not dissimilar to Fortuna’s in that he is left alone on the right-hand side of the penalty area, but it’s a shot, not a header, at the end of a pass from Conor Chaplin.

After a rather dull first half, Town seem for a short while to have re-discovered themselves, and George Hirst breaks forward and plays in Jack Taylor to shoot high towards goal but have his shot saved. The thrills around the Fortuna goal don’t last however and soon it is the German Bundesliga team that are breaking forward with Ao Tanaka who, running on his toes and with a floppy mop of hair looks a bit like an oriental Trevor Putney. Tanaka misses, but within minutes Tim Rossmann is left with almost a quarter of the pitch to himself and he runs on to shoot past Walton with aplomb, and Fortuna lead 2-1. It’s nearly 3- 1 soon afterwards, again thanks to Tim Rossmann, but this time he misses the goal.

With the German lead restored, the game reverts to how it was in the first half and the Fortuna goalkeeper Kastenmeier has the time to stand and watch a seagull soar and swoop above the pitch and I wonder if he doesn’t get to see many seagulls at the Merkur-Spiel Arena in Dusseldorf. Dusseldorf is some way in land, but it is on the Rhine which I imagine seagulls follow up-stream. Annoyingly, I don’t remember if there were seagulls or not when I saw Town play at the Paul Janes Stadion in Dusseldorf back in pre-season,2015. Whatever the ornithological ins and outs of the Rhineland, nine years on and Fortuna are the better team today. On the touchline, Kieran McKenna retreats to the dugout to peer thoughtfully at a his lap top and rest his head on his chin in contemplation.

More substitutions ensue, but I‘ve lost interest to a large degree and the adverts announcing “University of Suffolk – apply now through clearing” and the sight of OGC Nice club crest catch my eye almost as much as the balding pate of Fortuna’s number 27, the obviously bleached blond hair of their number 18 and the enormity of their number 43 who, for a short while until Mr Smith tells him his fortune seems to ‘want a piece’ of Sam Morsy.

“Mwa mwa mwa mwa mwa, Sam Morsy mwa mwa mwa” says the stadium announcer incomprehensibly as the match draws to a close, and we guess Sam Morsy is man of the match, for what it’s worth. Mick and I share our mild disappointment at having forked out £35.00 between us to watch two teams train, and then our equally mild confusion that there is to be a penalty shoot-out despite the game not having ended in a draw. With Fortuna having lost the play-off match for promotion to Bundesliga 1 on penalties at the end of last season, it almost seems like mental cruelty to remind them of the experience so soon afterwards. On the other hand, there is every chance it will be more exciting than this afternoon’s match was, or at least it would be if anyone cared.

Both teams miss their first penalty and score their next four, and the next one , (or is it two?) after that. When Luke Woolfenden steps up to take the next penalty, I tell Mick that he will miss. Whilst Woolfy’s shot is on target it is nevertheless saved quite comfortably and if these are “sudden-death” penalties Fortuna have won for the second time this afternoon. But then Christian Walton gets to take a penalty, which he scores, and I have no idea what is going on, although looking at my watch I realise I’m going to miss my train, and I do.

Unbowed, or just stupid and somewhat mystified, as we head away from Portman Road Mick and I agree to speak soon to arrange buying tickets for the final friendly of pre-season versus OGC Nice (Olympic Gymnaste Club de Nice) of French Ligue 1. A pre-season friendly against French opposition ? We wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Coggeshall Town 0 Great Wakering Rovers 3

April 28, 2024April 28, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

The 22^nd April 2019 was the last time I visited ‘The Crops’, or ‘West Street’ as it is now more prosaically known, to watch Coggeshall Town play. ‘Coggy’ were then enjoying the end of a successful first season in the Isthmian League after successive promotions from the Eastern Counties Leagues. The pages of this very blog recorded that the day was unseasonably warm, and on the day before “…the mercury hit 23 degrees in my back garden”, with the prospect of it getting even warmer. Five years on, almost to the day, and it’s grey, wet, and cold and Coggeshall Town languish at the foot of the Essex Senior League, about to experience a second successive relegation, creating an unwelcome symmetry with their earlier promotions. Weirdly, this reminds me of a Rorschach test, when it should be the other way round.

Since I first watched Coggeshall Town in late 2016, I have been meaning to travel to a game there by bus, because it seems like the responsible thing to do. Today, with the prospect of raindrops on misted up bus windows, it is the perfect opportunity to make that tick on my non-existent bucket list. To add to the attraction, this will be the first time I have ever seen a match in the Essex Senior League and today’s opponents are Great Wakering Rovers who, in a fortnight’s time, will contest the final of the FA Vase against Romford at Wembley. So, I will get to see a cup final team without having the expense and bother of getting to London. A man needs to know his limitations.

There is a bus stop just round the corner from my house and whilst the laminated timetable hanging limply from the bus stop pole only tells me what times the buses are from Monday to Friday, the wonder of the interweb has filled in the gaps for me and at 14:18 I hail the pale grey double-decker, which is almost a minute early if the timetable and my phone are to be believed. The fare, which I pay by tapping my bank card in the modern way, is £2.00 for the 8-kilometre journey along the A120 between pale green fields of cereal and bright yellow ones of oil seed rape. As I pay my bus fare and tear off my bus ticket, which is almost a foot long, I muse that the bus driver looks a bit like Danny Cowley, the Colchester United manager. But Col’ U are at home to Crewe Alexandra today, so they’d miss him if he was moonlighting on the buses. The journey takes barely ten minutes and as I alight, I make a point of getting a better look at the driver as I turn to thank him; it’s not Danny Cowley after all. As the bus pulls away, I note that it has fleet number 33713, which seems a very big number when there are so few buses in rural Essex.

It’s a short walk from the “Nursery” bus stop on West Street to the home of Coggeshall Town, although the footpath runs out part way along and I have to cross the road and then cross back again opposite the entrance. Luckily for me, I’m one of the Tufty generation. Nothing much seems to have changed since my last visit here in 2019, although it’s a different bloke on the turnstile and the programme is sadly no longer one you can hold in your hand or stuff in your pocket, being out there somewhere in the ether of ‘on-line’. Entry is by cash only; eight quid.

Once through the turnstile I make my way along the concrete path to the clubhouse, with every intention of buying a glass of beer, taking advantage of the freedom given to me by my ticket to ride on public transport. But disappointingly, it turns out that the only ‘beer’ available are bottles of something called Peroni, a brand name which always makes me think of infections of the stomach lining. As I advise the barman that “I won’t bother”, another club volunteer places three printed team sheets on the bar and says that’s all there is as they’ve run out of paper and the printer needs a new cartridge. I leave the team sheets for the regulars to fight over, and head outside to the tea bar to invest in £1.50 worth of tea to sip and warm my hands on as I await kick-off. There are tea bags a-plenty, and milk and little plastic spoons.

It’s not long before the teams are on the pitch and it’s Great Wakering Rovers who get first go with the ball , hoping to put it in the goal at the clubhouse and Braintree end of the ground. The Rovers wear green and white striped shirts with green shorts, whilst Coggeshall sport red and black striped shirts with black shorts; two fine kits seen from the front, but spoilt by being solid green and solid red from the back; although this does make it easier to read the players numbers, it isn’t as important when, refreshingly, they only number one to eleven and not one to infinity. I stand briefly above the grass bank on the north side of the pitch before going down into the low seated stand where talk seems to be more of cricket rather than football. “Reggie!” shouts the Coggeshall goalkeeper randomly and my attention is drawn further to him because his yellow kit is almost luminous on this grey afternoon and he appears to be wearing huge black gauntlets, a bit like the sort a plumber might wear if sticking his hand down a toilet “Good to see Callum start” says someone in the crowd off to my right.

Behind the Coggeshall goal, a collection of what I can only hope are Great Wakering’s most fanatical supporters are dressed as Superman, a man on a very small inflatable horse, a bottle, ‘Del Boy’ and a girl, and although the girl costume isn’t up to much, I am pretty confident that the girl really is one. They have a drum and chant Ole, Ole Ole, and then Alley, Alley, Alley-O. The Coggeshall goalkeeper bawls “Red, red, red, red!” madly, like someone insane but in possession of some knowledge of public transport who has been asked what colour London buses are. It’s five past three and a Great Wakering shot hits the Coggeshall cross bar. Three minutes later, and suddenly the Great Wakering number ten, Ben Search, a player who had previously been notable for whinging, shoving and annoying Coggeshall players is through on goal and scores.

Given Coggeshall’s situation at the foot of the league table, it’s the sort of start I had expected them to make, but their play when not trying to score a goal is neat enough. Unfortunately, almost every attempt to get the ball into the Great Wakering penalty area is overhit or intercepted. Of note however is the tidy number seven for Coggeshall, Lester Ward, who is the size of Lester Piggott, and looks so young that I expect him to be substituted before the end of the match so he can go and do his paper round. Number nine Nathan Dennis is admirable for his distinctly unathletic build and number four Theo Duffin looks like his socks are too small.

With almost twenty minutes gone Coggeshall’s number ten Reggie Gregory at last forces a decent save from the Great Wakering goal keeper to earn a corner and then another before a run of offside decisions at the other end of the pitch provides some entertainment of a different kind. The assorted coaches who populate the Great Wakering bench and technical area evidently know that their view from five or ten yards forward of the Coggeshall back line is the best place from which to judge offside decisions and the linesman on the far side would be better off sat with them. “Get back in your dugout” shouts a Coggeshall supporter struggling in vain for a witty put down to answer the Great Wakering crew’s protests.

As the game settles back into mediocrity I admire the view beyond the dugouts, the trees and the valley of the River Blackwater, which could have been the subject of a landscape by Monet if only he’d been a follower of the Essex Senior league. My reverie is broken by the shouts of the Coggeshall ‘keeper. “Reggie, more, Reggie more” he calls obscurely, followed by “Work Reggie” and then “Finn, Finn, Get In”, which I like best because it rhymes. Not to be outdone, although in truth he is, the Great Wakering ‘keeper then chips in with shouts of “Up, Up!”

As the half rolls on towards the inevitable cups of tea, the linesman receives more advice from supporters behind him before Coggeshall somehow fashion what is the easiest opportunity to score of the whole match, and then miss it as the ball is hit over an open goal from close range. It was “easier to score” says a bloke a few seats along from me incredulously, although the meagre evidence we have suggests that in fact it wasn’t .

Before half-time finally arrives, the Rovers supporters sing one of those electro-pop songs of the early 1980’s in which the lyrics are mostly “De, de, de-de-de, de de” followed by somebody’s name, which today sounds like Harry Palmer, but is probably Harry Talbot because he’s the only bloke called Harry in the Rovers’ team. Talbot acknowledges this accolade by getting booked and then in a more positive way by having a shot saved to earn a corner, which is the final act of the half.

In the break I invest in yet another £1.50’s worth of tea and for a change (no pun intended) pay for it using coins of the realm, which until this afternoon had sat for many months at home on my bedside table. The match resumes at almost exactly one minute past four and I soon notice that there are some substitutes now on the pitch, with Great Wakering having introduced a balding number sixteen, who is soon side footing a shot directly at the Coggeshall goalkeeper after a low cross. A minute later the name of Coggeshall’s number five, Demi Nicolauo joins that of Harry Talbot in the referee’s note book and a few minutes after that another substitute, number fifteen for Great Wakering, breaks forward unopposed down the right before carefully placing his shot hopelessly wide of the far post from a good 20 metres out.

The second half is mostly being dominated by Great Wakering, but amongst some crowd members the suggestion is that it’s not always by fair means. “Ref, watch that number four for Christ’s sake – Every time” advises one home fan near to me. Just before half-past four the score becomes 2-0 to Great Wakering as their Harry Talbot scores from close range and inspires Superman, the man on the inflatable horse, the girl and friends to launch into a rendition of Depeche Mode’s “I just can’t get enough”. My hands are feeling cold now and I don the fingerless gloves that my wife knitted me the winter before last and which I keep in the pockets of my coat.

“Stay solid, Compact” is the counsel of the Great Wakering goalkeeper as his team seek to see out the final fifteen minutes of the league season, but in time Coggeshall breakaway with number nine Nathan Dennis, although unfortunately, despite a decent run he can only shoot wide, possibly because his shorts are too tight. “We go again” calls the Coggeshall goalkeeper encouragingly before having to make a couple of decent saves to keep his teams deficit down to two goals. At just gone twenty-five to five however, the score becomes nil-three as a low cross from Harry Talbot reaches the far side of the goal where number 14 Jack Nolde is stood all alone, and barring calamities cannot miss, he doesn’t.

The game is now won, and lost, but the visiting team’s goalkeeper is taking no chances and advises “Don’t take your foot off, don’t take your foot off” before saying the same thing again for a third time, just in case. It’s hard to tell whether feet are taken off or whether fate just plays out that way, but Coggeshall win a corner and well into injury time substitute Arthur Massingham shoots over the cross bar. Either way, it’s all to no avail, and after five minutes of additional time the game ends, Great Wakering have won comfortably, and it seems that Coggeshall have ended their season in much the same way as they played the rest of it.

There is applause for both teams as Coggeshall Town leave the pitch and Great Wakering Rovers form a huddle before going to commune behind the goal with the man on the inflatable horse, Superman and the girl. I have only been to a couple of non-league matches this season, but they are still life affirming despite occasional stupidity on the pitch, and as I walk back to the bus stop I hope I shall get to a few more next season, it only remains to hope that there will be beer.