Ipswich Town 2 Nottingham Forest 4

March 16, 2025March 17, 2025 / martinpbrooks / 2 Comments

One of the many awful things about the awful English Premier League is that it is possible to go weeks on end without a home game. It is three weeks since Ipswich played at Portman Road, and in that time the cost of the rail fare to Ipswich has increased by about four per cent. It feels so long since I last went to a match that I would believe it if someone told me that not only have the fares gone up, but electric trains have replaced steam ones too. It is with a sense of dim resignation therefore that I set out for the railway station beneath a blue, but cloud strewn sky.

Gary joins me at the first station stop after I send him instructions by text that I am sat at the back of the second, forward facing, pointy-ended carriage. The train does not seem as busy as usual as if everyone is losing interest. Descending into Ipswich through Wherstead, we spot one polar bear having a swim and another languidly strolling along like polar bears do. Arriving in Ipswich we head for ‘the Arb’ via Portman Road, where Gary is handed a Panini sticker, which bizarrely features the gormless, messy-haired portrait of local ginger celebrity Ed Sheeran. I tell him he should hand it back. We pause to buy programmes (£3.50 each) at one of the booths that look as if they should also sell ice creams. Today’s programme has a boring picture of a footballer on the front cover, I think it’s Luke Woolfenden, but am struck by the thought that it looks a bit like Kurtan Mucklowe from TV’s This Country. Either way, the world would be a better place if the ‘poster’ design on the inside of the back page featuring the Cobbold Stand was the front cover of the programme. I am sure that if the poster designs had continued to be used as front covers as originally intended, Town would not be in the relegation zone. Damn you Umbro.

At ‘the Arb’, Gary buys the drinks (Lager 43 for him, Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me), and then Mick appears, and Gary buys him a drink too (Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride), and at Mick’s request, a packet of potato crisps (Fairfeld’s Cheese and Onion flavour). We repair to the beer garden where unusually there are plenty of vacant seats and tables, further evidence perhaps that the supposed excitement of Premier League football is wearing thin, or that it’s been so long since we had a match people thought, or hoped, the season was over. We talk of firing squads, lethal injections, the full moon over Felixstowe, Allan Hunter, kitchen tidiness and wedding anniversaries. We laugh a lot, Gary gives Mick his sticker of Ed Sheeran, Mick buys more drinks (Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride, Lager 43 and a Penderyn Welsh whisky) and we predict a 2-1 win to the Town on the understanding that we actually expect them to lose, again. Proudly, we claim the distinction of being the last Portman Road-bound drinkers to leave the pub.

In Portman Road we part ways near Sir Alf Ramsey’s statue and wonder on what far off date we will meet again for the next home match, which we think is against the Wanderers of Wolverhampton. I sense that we don’t care too much about what match it will be, but are already mostly looking forward to the hour to be spent in the pub beforehand. At the back of the Alf Ramsey Stand the queues are modest in length, but I join those being ushered through the side entrance, which makes me feels like I’m entering Studio 54 or some after hours boozer. After venting excess Suffolk Pride I am soon with Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood. I must be early again today because I’m here in time to witness the attempt to barbecue any stray pigeons and seagulls in front of the Cobbold Stand, and to shout out the surnames of Town players in the style of the ‘Magic Fans’ of St Etienne or ‘Les Dodgers’ of Lens as the overly enthusiastic young stadium announcer reads out the team before he finally, embarrassingly, bellows ‘Blue Army’ into his microphone.

Today’s visitors and therefore inevitable winners are Nottingham Forest, who also get first go with the ball, which they initially send only in the general direction of the goal in front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand. Sensibly, Nottingham wear all red, having only swapped their usual white shorts to avoid any hint of a colour clash, rather than donning some weird all-black or gaudily-coloured away kit which will sell well in replica versions in Myanmar, Papua New Guinea and South Korea, but is not necessary.

In the upper tier of the Cobbold stand the Nottingham fans sing incomprehensibly about their team, who hold on to possession for almost two minutes before Town get to have a go with it too, courtesy of a throw-in. “England’s, England’s, number ten” continue the Nottinghamians mysteriously, about a player who, unless it’s Nigel Clough, I have probably never heard of. It’s the fourth minute and Town have a free-kick in the sort of location from which Colin Viljoen or Arnold Muhren might have easily scored in happier days, but today’s effort only strikes the defensive wall.

“Down with the Leicester, you’re going down with the Leicester” chant the Nottingham lot as I fantasize about a big wheel of red cheese, whilst the words “Home of the XL vent shipping container” scroll their way along the front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand before disappearing into the side wall of the Planet Blue shop. Not much is happening on the pitch, but with a seemingly limitless but mostly unimaginative back catalogue of songs and chants, the Nottingham fans proceed to resurrect Tony Christie’s cheesy ‘Road to Amarillo’ before hitting on the old classic “Football in a library, do-do-do”. The Nottingham Forest team seems fashionably short-haired, looking as if National Service didn’t end in the East Midlands in 1960, like it did in the rest of Britain, but the exception is number thirty-four who resembles side-show Bob from The Simpsons, and probably has more hair on his head than all of his team mates put together; if he went to head the ball with any part of his skull but his forehead, there’s a risk the ball would disappear.

Ipswich win a corner and I bawl “Come On you Blues” with minimal accompaniment before Omari Hutchinson shoots over the cross bar. Pat is working hard taking photographs this afternoon and seems particularly interested in snapping the Nottingham number five. “Murillo” she says. “What like the cherry?” I ask. Pat tells me she follows him on some social media platform or other. “Oooh, he’s gorgeous” she says. “Take a look, you might even fancy him yourself”. “If you hear something that doesn’t seem right” read the advertising screens between the tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson stand. I think of Gary’s Panini sticker, which he gave to Mick.

Over twenty minutes have gone forever, and Town aren’t losing. Cruel hope and foolish optimism begin to insinuate their way into my mind. Nottingham take a corner and still it’s goalless. “Come of You Reds” sing the occupants of one end of the Cobbold Stand. “Ole. Ole. Ole” sing the occupants of the other. The game is a third of the way to finishing goalless. “Blue and White Army” chant the Sir Bobby Robson standers a good two or three times and the words “Hot Sausage Company” appear above them in bold red letters moving from left to right.

The thirty fourth minute and Nottingham earn a corner as Alex Palmer’s hacked clearance cannons off Jens Cajuste. The corner is cleared but then crossed in again, knocked down and a big bloke called Milenkovic scores. Bugger. Two minutes later Town lose possession, have no left back and Elanga sprints away with the ball down the Town left and scores. “We’re gonna win 3-2” says Fiona. “Yes, we’re going to win 3-2” I reply as convincingly as I can. Five minutes later, the ball bounces and Elanga scores again.

Pat from Clacton is going to Great Yarmouth this week for her twice-yearly week of playing whist. She’s hoping to win lots of money and is looking forward to seeing the sun rise over the sea from her bedroom at the Palm Court hotel. “Down with the Leicester, you’re going down with the Leicester” chant the Nottingham fans, but Pat won’t mind. The half ends with Kalvin Phillips shooting over the bar, two minutes of added on time and an obese woman walks up the steps from the front of the stand carrying a bottle of Coke and bag of crisps.

With the half-time break, I take a short walk to the front of the stand to speak with Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison. In front of us are three ‘trainee’ guide dogs. “What do you call a group of dogs?” asks Ray. “A pack” I tell him “So this is a pack of guide dogs”. We go on to talk about the popular image of packs of dogs tearing other animals or even people apart, and contrast this to a pack of guide dogs who we imagine compete with one another to help people.

It’s three minutes past four when the match resumes. Town soon win a corner and Omari Hutchinson has a shot, then win another and O’Shea heads over the goal. As the man from Stowmarket remarked before the game, it’s very cold today, possibly the coldest it’s been at Portman Road all season. Kalvin Phillips is the first player to be booked because fifty-four minutes have departed and it’s about time for a booking. Pat reveals that she’s already started looking forward to eating the baked potato she’s having for her tea. There is a half an hour left and whilst Town are having most of the possession there’s not much going on.

The best bit of the game so far arrives when Nottingham’s Nicolas Dominguez rolls around on the ground having committed a foul, gets up, gets booked and then hobbles about pathetically. “There’s nothing wrong with you” chant the Sir Bobby Robson standers to the tune of Verdi’s “La Donna e mobile”, which the Argentinian Dominguez will no doubt appreciate if he’s ever been to the Teatro Colon opera house in Bueno Aires.

“It’s not worth getting monkey out, is it?” asks Pat, raising the possibility of employing her masturbating monkey good luck charm to influence the result. “Probably not”, agree Fiona and I. “He can’t perform miracles” says Fiona, and I suggest that we’d have the RSPCA round, especially on a day as cold as this.

Town win yet another corner, but nothing comes of it and the bloke behind me comments that “You can make all these passes around the penalty area look good, but it don’t do anything does it, fart-arsing around with it?”. As I digest the truth of this, the excitable young stadium announcer tells us that we are 29,878 and 3,000 of us are mainly here to watch Nottingham, not Ipswich; meanwhile the Nottingham fans sing something which sounds like “We’re eating porridge”, but they could be singing about Norwich. I resign myself to neither knowing nor caring, but instead enjoy the mass substitutions from both teams that greet the 80^th minute. What game-changing substitutions these prove to be as within two minutes Town are on their way to winning the second half. Presumably elated at having for once not been substituted, Jens Cajuste superbly turns and scores into the top corner of the Nottingham goal. Admittedly, just four minutes later a typical breakaway at pace allows Silva to restore the three goal lead for Nottingham, but then in one of the four minutes of added on time, substitute George Hirst rises to head into the other top corner of the Nottingham goal to win the second half for Town. Most of the home crowd have left by now, which in itself is quite satisfying because people who leave early don’t deserve to experience the joy that late consolation goals bring to proper fans.

The final whistle sounds, and with my train home still twenty-five minutes away, I stay to applaud what people not prepared to wilfully disregard all that happened before four o’clock will fail to realise is a victorious Town team as they traipse off the pitch. There are now just four home games left, we’re out of the FA Cup, in the relegation zone, effectively nine points behind the team above us in the league, and Spring is in the air. Today, it still feels like Winter and I suspect it will continue to do so for another four games, whatever the weather does. Up The Town!

Ipswich Town 1 OGC Nice 0

August 14, 2024 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

As far as I can recall, the last time Ipswich Town played French opposition was forty-three years ago when ‘Les Verts’ of St Etienne visited Portman Road in the second leg of a Uefa Cup quarter final tie. For me, as someone who feels certain the world would be a better place if only Napoleon had won the battle of Waterloo, this is nothing short of a personal tragedy, but one I’ve tried to make up for by watching French football whenever possible. I can now boast (and I do) having been to every stadium in Ligue 1 except Stade Meinau in Strasbourg and Stade Raymond Kopa in Angers, having seen more than half of the teams in Ligue 2 and scores of those in Ligue National and the regional leagues below, and I’ve been to the final of the Coupe de France at the Stade de France. When I heard therefore that Ipswich would be playing Olimpique Gymnast Club Nice (known as Le Gym or Les Aiglons – The Eaglets) in a pre-season friendly I was as happy as a Frenchman with a fresh baguette and a 2 litre bottle of Pastis. But, as someone who thinks access to pre-season friendlies should ideally be free, I also immediately regretted having already forked out a stonking twenty quid for a ticket for the pre-season friendly versus German second division club Fortuna Dusseldorf, and with good cause as it turned out, because that match was a stinker.

After ten days or more of mounting anticipation, today is the day of the match. Resisting all temptations to have croissants and champagne for breakfast, it’s not long before I’m on the train to Ipswich with my wife Paulene and friend Gary looking out for polar bears as we descend past Wherstead, the A1214 and into town; we see three, two of whom are stretched out on the ground like a big game hunter’s fireside rug. Arriving at Ipswich station there are the inevitable queues at the gates as two trains disgorge in quick succession and people struggle with QR codes on phones before eventually, a wise ticket collector simply opens the ‘sluice’ gates to prevent the human tide backing up into Greggs, a brand which I imagine any French person on the station concourse would instinctively keep a safe distance from.

Gary and I cross the road to the Station Hotel whilst Paulene makes straight for Portman Road because she wants to watch the players of OGC Nice warm up before the game; she has a particular interest in the forty-year old Brazilian colossus Dante, former Olympique Marseille players Morgan Sanson and Jonathan Clauss and the attractively monikered Gaetan Laborde. Unfortunately for Paulene, Nigerian forward Terem Moffi isn’t in the squad today because of a cruciate ligament injury. Meanwhile, back in the Station Hotel, Gary buys me a pint of Abbot Ale and some heavily advertised lager or other for himself. As we sit down, Mick arrives , and once he has a pint of Abbot Ale too, we talk of the Olympic games, the complicated cycling events such as the Madison and Omnium, how Gary might buy programmes for the home matches this season and the local Nicois or Nicard language or dialext of Nice as we struggle to hear ourselves talk above the noisy family who are enjoying a pre-match drink on the other side of the room. They annoy me a bit, but Mick thinks it’s good to see families out enjoying time together. Mick is very resaonable man. Mick also has plans to be in Nice (Nissa in Nicois) for a jazz festival a fortnight today and I quickly interrogate the interweb to discover that OGC Nice will be at home to Toulouse that weekend too. I advise him that the Ligne 3 tram will take him to the magnificent Stade de Nice or Allianz Riviera as it is also known.

Resisting temptation for a second time today, I don’t have another pint of Abbot Ale; the first one wasn’t that great, and it also seems that today in the Station Hotel is a dress rehearsal for hosting the supporters of Liverpool next week because we are having to drink from plastic glasses. Liverpudlians are also only allowed to use scissors if supervised by a responsible adult. Mick and I briefly discuss oxymorons before heading off for Portman Road; Gary has left already because he is making a visit to the club shop to collect one of the bright pink third choice shirts which went on sale recently and when worn will cause many a Town supporter to look like a raspberry blancmange. Weirdly, the club has allowed Ed Sheeran to advertise one of his many bland tunes on the shirt by scrawling an impression of Framlingham Castle across the front. It would make sense on a Framlingham Town shirt, but with its high-Victorian Town Hall, Italianate Customs House, brutalist St Francis Tower, Orwell bridge, Meccano-like dockside cranes and a Corn Exchange which wouldn’t look out of place in any French city, Ipswich has more than enough interesting architecture to conjure up a skyline of its own for a Town shirt.

Mick and I don’t quite get as far as Portman Road itself because we end up approaching the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand across the site of the former Staples store in Ruseell Road and I remark that the wide tarmac approach to the stand would be a tree-lined avenue in France; both Mick and I buy programmes (£2.50) from the ice cream booth which is situated where the first London Plane would be.

Once onto the lower tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand it seems odd not to be greeted by Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket and most strangely of all ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood. I’m not sure if ever-present Phil counts pre-season friendlies in his long back catalogue of games he has not missed, but if he’s not here today I for one think he risks losing his epithet, and no one wants to see that. I am however re-united with Paulene and together we ‘go down the front’ to talk with Ray and his grandson Harrison. Paulene asks Ray about his solar panels, and he tells us that they are very successful although British Gas don’t seem to be paying him the money for the electricity his system puts into the grid. We tell him to dump British Gas and sign up with Octopus.

Back in our seats, the Town line-up is announced, I think, but I’m not sure because the public address system is completely unintelligible, which is shame on today of all days when I imagine everyone will want to pretend to be French and call out the surnames of the players after the announcer reads out their first names. The stadium announcer seems not to read out the names of the Nice team at all, perhaps for fear of embarrassing himself with poor pronunciation, not that it would matter when no one can understand a word he says anyway. Eventually, the teams appear and I recall how for home games in Nice, the pre-match ritual includes ‘Mefi’ the eagle flying around the stadium; perhaps Town should have a Suffolk Punch rolling the pitch. When the game begins it is Town that get first go with the ball and aim it mostly in the direction of the goal almost in front of me, Paulene, Mick and Gary in the Sir Alf Ramsey stand. Town wear their signature blue and white kit today, whilst Nice wear an unnecessary away kit of all-white, which is huge shame because their red and black home shirts and black shorts are a visual treat.

After almost eighteen minutes I glance up at the scoreboard and say “Is that all? It feels like we’ve been here far longer.” The game has so far displayed a dullness to rival the thoughts of Michael Owen or that of the Dusseldorf game. But after an impromptu drinks break, when a Nice player receives treatment for acute boredom, the game miraculously perks up and both teams venture forward by means of neat passing and winning corners. “Allez les Bleus, Allez les Bleus” I chant at an appropriate moment, and Paulene tells me later that people gave me funny looks as a result. Liam Delap runs through on goal for Town and has a shot saved by the Nice goalkeeper and everyone starts to think that may be the new season might be ok after all, except for Paulene who supports Portsmouth and so doesn’t really care. Then, with half-time approaching like a motorway service station on a not overly long journey but one where it’s probably as well to stop, it looks like George Edmundson and Axel Tuanzebe both make a bit of a lunge on Evan Guessand, a player with whom incidentally, Debbie Harry, Alan Sunderland and I share a birthday, albeit not in the same year. Presumably unaware of Guessand’s star sign, not that it makes any difference, referee Mr James Bell awards Nice a penalty. Mohamed-Ali Cho takes the penalty kick for Nice, but unusually the laws of physics are defied in Town’s favour for once and the ball strikes the inside of Muric’s right-hand post and deflects out of rather than into the Town goal. It’s a lucky escape for Town and after only literally seconds of added-on time Mr Bell says it’s time for a cuppa and the opportunity to reflect.

Half-time permits a thorough read of the match programme, because we don’t get much for £2.50, and for some unfathomable reason the text incorrectly, but consistently, refers to OGC Nice as OGM Nice. I wonder what the half a dozen Nice supporters up in the Cobbold stand think of this poor journalism, particularly given that they are used to match programmes being free.

Beneath oppressive grey skies the second half begins and carries on where the first half left off. Both teams pass the ball tidily, but Nice possibly have a bit more flair, and in keeping with both teams’ respective country’s geographies, Nice’s passing is more expansive whilst Town’s is tighter; l’hexagone against Little England. Napoleon would have understood.

Early second half action sees George Edmundson clear a shot from Jonathan Clauss off the Town goal line, but then the thirteenth minute of the half proves unlucky for Nice as a goalmouth melee is abruptly ended by Axel Tuanzebe lashing the by now disorientated ball into the net from inside the six-yard box. Town lead, but less pleasantly four minutes later Omari Hutchinson suffers the ignominy of being booked for a foul in a friendly match, although to his credit he does look sorry. A minute later and mass substitutions are made, and the hopeless PA system sounds off to full effect, like a malfunctioning foghorn. The Town players who are replaced gather in the corner by the Cobbold and Sir Alf stands presumably to warm down, causing us to speculate on whether the gym is full of building materials or whether this is just a PR exercise and the players are merely getting close to their public. I suggest that they are going to form a cheerleading troop, but no one is overly surprised although they may be disappointed when events prove me wrong.

The highlight of the final seventeen minutes is a low shot from substitute Freddie Ladapo which strikes the inside of the far post and predictably deflects out of the goal, not into it, and Marcus Harness is arguably a little too careful with his follow up shot, which consequently is booted clear by a retreating defender. When the time comes, the final whistle is blown promptly by Mr Bell (Monsieur Cloche in French) with no un-necessary added-on time, and we all agree that it has been an enjoyable game full of free-flowing football. Paulene and I bid farewell to Gary and Mick at the railway station as Gary catches an earlier train and Mick collects his bicycle. We look forward to seeing the Polar bears again on our journey home and I reflect on how if only Town were in Ligue 1 we might be playing Olympique Marseille next week, not Liverpool.

Ipswich Town 2 Sunderland 1

January 14, 2024January 14, 2024 / martinpbrooks / 2 Comments

I don’t know much about Slumberland mattresses and it’s surprisingly difficult to find much out about them on the interweb, there isn’t even anything about them on the fount of all knowledge that is Wikipedia. What I do know however, is that Slumberland sounds a lot like Sunderland, the town (probably now a city) at the mouth of the River Wear whose football team won the FA Cup in 1937 and 1973, lost a Milk Cup final to Norwich City in 1985 and are forever sleeping giants, having seemingly worn themselves out by winning what people now call the Premier League, six times between 1892 and 1936. Today, Ipswich Town play slumbering Sunderland in the Second Division and I will be at Portman Road to witness this fixture for the 19^th time since 1976.

When I woke up this morning and drew back the curtains on another day, my wife suggested I close them again because outside was grey and miserable. I didn’t however, but instead put my mind to how I was going to fill the additional two and a half hours before kick-off this evening, the match having been chosen for broadcast by loathsome Sky TV with a ridiculous kick-off time of 5.30pm. If the modern football-watching equivalent of the proletariat could be bothered to draw up a Charter for the running of football, it would surely demand that all games only kick-off at 3pm on Saturdays or between 7.30 and 8pm on weekdays. Come the revolution.

I spend a morning replacing an outside light, failing to find a bulb that fits an indoor light and filling-in a hole in my garden that looks like it was dug by a rat. Fortunately, I am pretty sure a combination of some peppermint oil and the local cats has now sent the rat packing, or to an early grave. After a lunch of baked Coley and chips and an espresso coffee I set off for the match. Engineering works on the railway mean that trains have been replaced by buses today, and refusing to pay a train fare to travel by bus (why are they allowed to charge the same?) I take the wheel of my planet-saving Citroen e-C4 and agree to give Gary a lift too, in order to keep his petrol-burning, carbon monoxide emitting Suzuki Swift off the road. Our journey is a smooth one, punctuated on arrival in the outskirts of Ipswich by a stop to lend two season tickets to Aimee, an attractive mother of two whose daughter is in a girl’s football team, which has won its way through to a national competition. The promise is that the team will get to wave to the crowd from the pitch at half-time, but Aimee now tells me that because the game is on Sky TV this may not happen, which seems like a good reason to smash-up your satellite dish, or perhaps your neighbours’, and post it back to Rupert Murdoch with no postage.

Having parked up the trusty, clean-air loving Citroen, Gary and I wander across Gippeswyk Park towards Portman Road and ‘the Arb’ beyond, pausing only for Gary to kindly buy me a programme by way of ‘payment in kind’ for his lift. Uniquely, the front cover of the programme looks like an advert for hair shampoo featuring Nathan Broadhead. At ‘the Arb’ I order a pint of Lager 43 for Gary and a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for myself, whilst a loud man sat at a table with other drinkers complains at length that Gary has not closed the door, although oddly, at no time does he say “Please would you close the door”. Gary has a hearing aid, doesn’t hear the man and didn’t realise the door hadn’t shut.

In the beer garden, we join Mick who is already half-way through a pint of Suffolk Pride. We talk of the African Cup of Nations, how Gary knows someone whose nephew plays for Tanzania (and Wealdstone), and how it is a busy time of year for undertakers. Mick gives me a belated Christmas present, an Ipswich Town hat bearing the logo of TXU Energy, the club sponsors during the glorious relegation season of 2001-2002. It’s not even two o’clock and many drinkers are already leaving for Portman Road. We collectively scoff at such behaviour and Gary boldly buys another round of drinks, the same as before, but Mick has a Jameson’s whisky. We discuss how my pint of Suffolk Pride is a bit of a short measure, but like people not prepared to stand up to the way televised football invariably inconveniences the people who actually go to football matches, we decide to let it pass this time.

At around 5:15 we leave for Portman Road, we are the last football supporters to leave the pub and can’t stop being surprised at how the throng of people treading the well worn path is much reduced today. Perhaps supporters have had enough having spent all afternoon in the pub, or maybe they are in the thrall of Sky TV and the leaping flames that will greet the players as they parade onto the pitch. We part ways near the statue of Sir Alf; at the back of his stand there are no queues and as I enter the meaning-laden turnstile 62 I ask the steward “Have you been waiting for me?”, I’m not sure why.

Up in the stand, Pat from Clacton, Fiona and ever-present Phil who never misses a game and his son Elwood are all here, but the man from Stowmarket (Paul) is missing; I’m surprised (again). I have missed the leaping flames that now seem to be de rigeur before televised games, but I’m in time for Murphy the stadium announcer’s reading out of the teams. Wondrously, his performance is much better today and he gets through the first seven or eight names pretty much in sync with the names appearing on the scoreboard, but he can’t help gabbling Conor Chaplin far too quickly and all is suddenly lost and my bawling of players names as if I’m French becomes a hopeless, pointless struggle like trying to look cool in a Norwich City shirt.

Before kick-off there is a minutes applause for all the Ipswich Town supporters and a former player who have died in the last year, because apparently this fixture is the club’s dedicated ‘Memorial Match Day’ for the season. It’s an odd idea and I don’t like it very much; it strikes me as mawkish. Sadly, people die but life, and that includes football, is for the living. Also, if people didn’t die we would need much bigger football stadiums, but I suppose they could always watch on Sky TV.

At last, after a decent burst of The Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude’, the game begins, and Sunderland get first go with the ball, aiming it more or less in the direction of the hospice on Anglesea Road. Pleasingly, Sunderland are sporting their handsome signature kit of red and white striped shirts with black shorts, and look like Exeter City, which I‘m hoping is a portent for another six-nil home victory; we haven’t had one for a while now. Town are also in their natural habitat of blue shirts and white shorts. Portman Road is full of noise today and I suspect an afternoon in the pub is something to do with it. “Addy, Addy, Addy-O” sing the Town fans in the Sir Bobby Robson stand. Sunderland win the games’ first free-kick to groans from the home crowd and their number 21, Alex Pritchard, who is allegedly 3cm taller than Conor Chaplin, but doesn’t look it, has the first shot on goal; it goes over the cross-bar. I’m finding it difficult to read the black squad numbers of the Sunderland players against the red and white stripes of their shirts. Harry Clarke loses the ball by the corner flag and some Sunderland player or other advances towards the goal unopposed. “Firkin ‘ell” I mutter to myself under my breath so that Pat from Clacton won’t hear, but fortunately the ball is soon cleared.

Only seven minutes have passed and the Sunderland fans sing “Doo Doo Doo, football in a library”. A low Wes Burns cross skids across the face of the goal but Kayden Jackson cannot quite get to it to apply the merest ⁹⁸touch needed to direct it into the goal. Eleven minutes have gone and the Sunderland fans sing “Doo doo doo, Football in a library” and then “Shall we sing, shall we sing , shall we sing a song for you”. Nobody responds, but I am tempted to ask if they know ‘I had too much to dream last night’ by the Electric Prunes, but I’m not sure that vocally they could re-create the reverb on the electric guitars which is an essential part of the record. The seat on my left is vacant and so is the one next to that.

Darkness encloses the ground like a shroud. Pat from Clacton asks the bloke behind her not to swear. “Your support, your support, your support is fucking shit” sing the Sunderland fans, perhaps because it doesn’t contain enough swear words. “Football in a library, doo- doo-doo” continue the Sunderlandites, clearly now attempting a world record for the number of times they can diss another club’s support in the first half of a televised match. It’s the nineteenth minute and a succession of short passes finally play Kayden Jackson into a position where he rolls the ball past a post. The Sunderland number five Dan Ballard falls extravagantly under a challenge from Kayden Jackson. Ballard is an outside toilet of a man, Jackson a waif by comparison. Referee Mr Allison awards a free-kick to Sunderland. “Weed” I bawl at Ballard, “Pathetic man”. He scuffs the ball into touch, no doubt unsettled by my calling him out. Five minutes later and Harry Clarke is the first player to see Mr Allsion’s yellow card; the match is pretty good, but home fans agree that the refereeing isn’t. A minute passes and Vaclav Hladky makes a fine save at the expense of a corner to Sunderland and then they score as a large gap appears to one side of the goal and Jack Clark has too much to aim at to miss. “Clarke, Clarke will tear you apart again” Sing the Sunderland fans to the dreary, similarly titled 1980 tune by the ironically named Joy Division.

The Sunderland supporters are very loud indeed, perhaps because shipyards of old were noisy places, although I don’t suppose the Datsun car factory and call centres compare. Harry Clarke gets forward and a low hard cross earns a corner. “Come On You Blues” I bellow to a background of abject silence from all around me. The corner comes to nought. A third of the match has gone forever. “Football in a library, doo-doo-doo” sing the Sunderland fans now completely at ease with the complicated lyrics. Two minutes later and more Town passing involving Conor Chaplin peaks with a through ball for Kayden Jackson, which he sweeps past the Sunderland goalkeeper into the corner of the goal net and the score is one -all. “I didn’t even expect that” says the bloke behind me as if at other times he always knows what is about to happen. “When the Blues go marching in” sings the Sir Bobby Robson stand at a funereal pace, perhaps because it’s the Memorial Match Day.

There are five minutes until half-time and more passes culminate in a Kayden Jackson shot wide of the goal. “Football in a library, doo-doo-doo” sing the Sunderland fans showing signs of addiction before the ball bounces about alarmingly in the Town penalty area and Murphy announces two minutes of additional time, which pass without incident. Half-time is spent at the front of the stand with Ray his grandson Harrison and son Michael. We agree it’s been a good half, but we appear to lack the confidence of previous games and Kayden Jackson would have done better in the days of two up front and needs Trevor Whymark to play off.

The football resumes at twenty-three minutes to seven and within a minute a Leif Davis shot forces a not very elegant save from the Sunderland keeper. Sunderland win a free-kick from which they thoughtfully shoot directly over the bar and then Town work the ball from one end to the other with a succession of short passes. “Champagne football” says the bloke behind me, although really it’s Suffolk football. George Edmundson puts his hand on the shoulder of Sunderland’s number seventeen who collapses in a heap and Mr Allison brandishes his yellow card, before celebrating the passing of an hour by doing the same at Wes Burns. “We forgot, we forgot, we forgot that you were here” chant the Sunderland fans, but I’ve forgotten why.

“Handball” calls the home crowd as one at the north end of the ground, making that glorious unified sound of appeal, but of course Mr Allison’s ears are closed to it. On sixty-five minutes Sunderland make a substitution with Adil Aouchiche replacing Abdoullah Ba, I recall seeing Aouchiche playing in French Ligue 1 for both St Etienne, where I thought he was quite good, and Lorient and can’t imagine why a player would leave such lovely places for Sunderland. Within a minute Sunderland force a defensive howler as Town’s neat passing at the back goes awry and Aouchiche is presented with an open goal which thankfully he screws wide of the goal with a shot off the outside edge of his right foot. He follows this up by being nutmegged by George Edmundson .

It’s time for Town to make mass substitutions and Wes Burns, Kayden Jackson and new loan signing Lewis Travis whose name makes me think of Malcolm McDowell in ‘If’, depart to be replaced by Omari Hutchison, Dominic Ball and on-loan Jeremy Sarmiento from Ecuador via Brighton and Hove. Town have started to dominate the game now and we even win a free-kick to ironic cheers from the crowd. “You go to a football match, you gotta expect to hear foul language. It’s fucking ignorant, that’s what it is” blurts the bloke behind me philosophically.

There are less than twenty minutes to play; Town win a corner. It’s too late to get ‘monkey’ out says Pat from Clacton referring to her lucky masturbating monkey charm from Cambodia. “When does he he usually appear” I ask her. “Sixty-nine minutes” she tells me. “He’s obsessed” I tell her. A low cross and a shot for Town follows as pressure builds on Sunderland. Another corner follows for Town and a free- kick. Leif Davis crosses the ball, Conor Chaplin finds space, runs towards more and heads the ball firmly into the Sunderland goal and Town lead two-one before an exultant home crowd. After not scoring against QPR and Stoke some had doubts, but not anymore. “Ralph Woodhouse contact the nearest steward” announces Murphy over the PA system. “Conor Chaplin Baby, Conor Chaplin O-o-oh” sing the Sir Bobby Robson Stand to the tune of the Christmas number one record from 1981. “About fucking time” says the bloke behind me.

Not long to go now. Murphy announces the crowd as 29,291 with 1,965 away supporters. “Thank you for your continued support” says Murphy, perhaps worried that we might all stop coming to games at a moment’s notice. If I do, it’ll be his fault. “One Bobby Robson, there’s only one Bobby Robson” sing some home supporters confusingly, seemingly unaware Bobby died in 2009. Town are still dominating and appear to almost score again, but instead it looks like Luke Woolfenden misses an open goal. “We want a striker” chant the Sunderland fans, when from where I’m sitting a couple defenders and a midfielder wouldn’t go amiss either, although handily they already have a referee.

At last additional time turns up and after five minutes of it the game ends and Town win. It’s been an excellent match with the added joy of coming back from a goal down and returning to second place in the league table having been temporarily usurped before kick-off. With no trains running, a road closure on my usual route out of town and having to drop Gary off, it will be nine o’clock before I get home. I shall sleep well tonight with or without a Slumberland mattress.

Ipswich Town 2 Bristol Rovers 0

August 11, 2023August 13, 2023 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FC Nantes 2 Olimpiakos 1

September 19, 2022September 19, 2022 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

The Stade de la Beaujoire in Nantes is a stadium I have long wanted to visit because on the telly it looks a bit different to your run of the mill English footie ground and certainly a cut above the diet of Portman and Layer Roads I grew up on, as lovely as Portman Road still is and the much-lamented Layer Road was. Having missed out on tickets to see FC Nantes at home to Paris St Germain due to cost and lack of decisiveness, the opportunity to see the Breton club at home in the Europa League to Olimpiakos just five days later was not to be passed up. To add further to the mix, historically FC Nantes is one of France’s most successful football clubs, with eight league titles and four Coupes de France to their name. But until Nantes won the Coupe de France this year (1-0 versus Nice) they hadn’t won either of the major French trophies since 2001, which co-incidentally was the last time I was in Brittany. Nantes’ return to European football and mine to Brittany seems serendipitous therefore.

Tickets for concerts and large sports events across France can usually be bought at the larger supermarkets but having had no luck at a branch of Super U on Monday, that evening my wife Paulene went on-line and acquired a couple of the last few tickets available from the club website. Feeling flush after a recent cash windfall we also booked a hotel for the night, although we are actually staying at a campsite about an hour and a half’s drive north of Nantes. Not surprisingly, being on holiday we don’t have a printer with us, but the hotel has kindly printed our tickets off for us. Our hotel is just a ten or fifteen-minute walk from the Stade de la Beaujoire across a small municipal park. The stadium and hotel are also conveniently situated at the end of Ligne 1 of the city’s tram network and the twenty-minute trip into town is a bargain at one euro seventy.

It’s been a warm but cloudy day with an ever-present threat of heavy showers, but thankfully we’ve avoided those and as had happened a week ago at Rennes, I had been in the club shop adding to my collection of petits fanions (pennants) and fridge magnets when the heavens had opened. Now, at a bit after seven-thirty we queue to be patted down before entering the stadium. I can’t help feeling that the security guy checking me out has decided I don’t look much of a threat and having tapped me about the arms a bit he looks bored and lets me through; it’s either that or my excited smile made him think I might enjoy a more thorough search a bit too much. Either way, he wishes me ‘bon match’ and Paulene and I head for Access 02 of the Tribune Presidentielle, but not before we have met Riri the Nantes club mascot. Nantes play in all yellow and are known as the Canaries, so as an Ipswich Town supporter it requires mental strength to be photographed with their mascot, but overcome with the spirit of liberte, egalite and fraternite I throw myself into the occasion and feel all the better for it. But I am protected by my yellow 1970’s Town away shirt.

Like most of the bigger stadiums in France, Stade Beaujoire is a genuine piece of architecture, not just a feat of engineering, a box or a collection of individual stands clad in sheet metal. Set into a gentle slope, its undulating roof arching above the two-tiered lateral stands and the two single tier ends, Beaujoire is an elegant essay in concrete and steel which seems bigger inside than out. Our seats are at the side of the pitch but behind the goal line, nevertheless the view is excellent, aided by the stadium’s bowl-shaped floor plan.

People get to big matches early in France and make use of the many stalls providing food and drink that surround the stadium. Equally, the stadium is full before the nine o’clock Coupe d’envoi (kick-off) and with good reason because the prelude to the match includes a stirring anthem, which supporters sing whilst twirling their scarves a la Leeds United fans of the 1970’s; I had wondered, given that it is a warm September evening, why the club shop was doing such a roaring trade in scarves. Most impressive however, and possibly the most impressive thing I have ever seen at a football match is the raising of a huge tifo at the Tribune Loire end of the ground depicting Anne the fifteenth century Duchess of Britanny (a local heroine for resisting Brittany’s annexation by France) wearing a Nantes scarf and flanked by a pair of jousting knights. Beneath the tifo in Gothic script and in Latin it reads “It is better to die than to be disgraced”, which seems to be going a bit far, even for a Europa League fixture.

Less than an hour before kick-off the death of Queen Elizabeth II had been announced and most of the ground observes a minutes’ silence, although at the Tribune Loire end of the stadium there was never any likelihood of this happening given the levels of excitement, as witnessed by the ceaseless noise, flag waving and glow of flares. I am sure many would say “Bloody French ‘ooligans”, but I don’t.

As the match begins it is Nantes who get first go with ball, aiming it at the goal through the drifting smoke at the Tribune Loire end of the stadium. Nantes are in all yellow whilst Olimpiakos wear red and white striped shirts with red shorts and socks. “Lo-lo, lo-lo-lo, lo-lo, Allez les Jaunes” (Come On Yellows) sings the crowd and then the Tribune Loire calls out “Allez Nantaises” and the Tribune Erdes at the far end of the ground echoes the shout. Nantes have started at a fast pace and with the first promising looking attack it seems that everyone in the ground but for the couple of hundred Olimpiakos fans, is up on their feet and bawling encouragement. Everywhere is just noise, it is absolutely thrilling. “Allez, Allez, Allez” rings out to the tune of The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine.

On the field, Nantes are in truth struggling to get through the Greek defence. In midfield Pedro Chirivalla is busy, but most attacks go through Ludovic Blas and Evann Guessand on the right, although the tactic of getting crosses into the lone forward Mustapha Mohamed isn’t coming close to creating a goal, only corners. Blas is set up twice, only to blast the ball hopelessly high and wide. Whilst the football isn’t always the best, the spectacle however is; but a little over half-way through the first half even the Tribune Loire has started to quieten down just a little. In front of us, a lone drummer with a massive bass drum tries to raise the crowd in the Tribune Erde and Tribune Presidentielle once more; he is wearing a Nantes kit over the top of what looks like silk pyjama bottoms; his face is smeared with green face paint and on his head he is wearing a lurid, long green wig. Between rhythmic drum beats he claps his hands and sings “Allez Nantes”. A middle-aged man to our right answers the call with a mad passion which belies his age, but mostly people just clap along almost out of politeness.

The flame of really noisy support is rekindled however, just before the half-hour Nantes win a free-kick on the right. “Lo-lo, lo-lo-lo, lo-lo, Allez les Jaunes” is the theme once more and although the free-kick comes to nought the momentum is retained and four minutes later Blas’s through ball confounds the Greek defence and Mustapha Mohamed runs on to place the ball coolly and firmly into the far corner of the goal beyond the Olimpiakos goalkeeper Tomas Vaclik. The roar from the crowd is immense and Nantes lead 1-0.

Only a second Nantes goal can feed the desire of the home crowd, but it is Olimpiakos who now get to have their first shot on goal as a neat passing move ends with an overlap on the right and a shot that goes both high and wide of the Nantes goal from only about 10 metres out. The be-wigged drummer makes a second tour of the area at the front of the stand, but the first half soon ends, unusually with no additional time being played.

Over half-time Paulene and I stay in our seats whilst many in the crowd drift out to the buvettes for food and drink. We reflect on the first half and agree that this is possibly the most fantastic atmosphere we have ever experienced at a football match and that on tonight’s showing the Nantes supporters are probably even more passionate than those of Marseille or St Etienne.

The game resumes at a minute past ten as the moon rises above the Tribune Oceane opposite. “Na-Na-Na, Na-Na-Nantaises” sings the crowd to the tune of The Beatles’ Hey Jude. Olimpiakos appear either to have been given a stiff talking to at half-time or they have simply decided to attack rather than just defend. Five minutes in and the Greeks win their first corner of the match. The ball arcs across to the far post and Nantes ‘keeper Alban Lafont moves to punch the ball away but completely misses it, instead the ball strikes defender Samuel Moutassamy and drops feebly and apologetically into the goal net. It is such a poor goal no one seems to believe it, not even the Olimpiakos players who can barely bring themselves to celebrate, making do with a few mutual pats on the back. Over in the corner of the stadium between the Erdre and Oceane Tribunes the travelling supporters are doing more than enough cheering and dancing for everyone.

The Olimpiakos goal gives them a lift and the balance of play evens out in the second half, but Olimpiakos are also much more combative and to prove the point Panagiotis Retsos is the first player to be booked, for a foul on Nantes’ Ignatius Ganago. From the resultant free-kick on the right, Ludovic Blas is set up for a third time, but he boots his shot hopelessly high and wide again. With a third of the match gone Nantes win a corner from which Andrei Girotto flashes a header just wide of the goal. Minutes later Olimpiakos win a corner, but Alban Lafont succeeds this time in punching the ball away.

With twenty minutes left, Nantes make a couple of substitutions and quickly win a corner after a cross from Moses Simon, who has replaced Ganago, is met with a header from the other substitute Moussa Sissoko which Vaclik tips over the cross bar. “Nantes Allez, Nantes Allez, Nantes Allez” sing the crowd to the Triumphal March form Verdi’s Aida as they hold their scarves aloft all around the ground, a spectacle sadly no longer seen in England. The sense of the crowd willing the team to score is palpable, but Nantes are not significantly threatening the Olimpiakos goal. When Nicolas Pallois strides forward in the eightieth minute to launch a shot from at least 30 metres, which travels a respectably small distance over the bar, it is as if he had simply got fed up with his team-mates’ patient passing and had decided to take matters into his own hands.

A minute after Pallois’ effort, Nantes at last break speedily down their right and the ball is crossed low before being laid back to the incoming Guessand who strikes a spectacular rising shot into the roof of the goal net. It looks the perfect goal, the sort worthy of winning any match. The Nantes players celebrate wildly as does the whole stadium, with the exception of one tiny quadrant in the corner where the Greek fans sit. The scoreboard registers the second Nantes goal, and the players walk back to kick-off again, but the Olimpiakos players are whinging to the referee who has a hand to his ear. We wait. The referee then draws a square in the air and points to patch of grass level with the Olimpiakos penalty box and the scoreboard confirms that VAR says the goal is annulled for an earlier hors-jeu (offside).

The feeling of disappointment subsides surprisingly quickly and soon we are distracted by some pushing and shoving on the touchline. The ball has gone out of play and runs to the Olimpiakos coach who seems to hold it out for Nicolas Pallois to take, but then turns away; Pallois gives him a little shove for his trouble and then anyone nearby joins in with the melee and those further away catch a tram to come and join in. The referee possibly cautions Pallois and the Olimpiakos coach, but it’s hard to say for sure. Sadly, it’s the last real action of the half and all hope is to be squashed into four minutes of time added on or the more poetic sounding time additionelle.

Additional time begins, two minutes in and Blas and Oleg Reabciuk are both booked after the former fouls the latter and the latter gets upset. A minute remains of added time; Nantes again attack down the right, Ludovic Blas crosses the ball and the sizeable figure of Evann Guessand hurls himself at the ball. Spectacularly, Guessand scores with what is arguably the best type of goal, a diving header. The rest is near mayhem, with Stade de La Beaujoire erupting into scenes of unbridled joy and pride in the team and being Nantoises. All around me people are just deliriously happy, whilst some have a look on their faces of vindication, as if to say it’s taken nearly twenty years, but Nantes are back like they knew they would be.

With the final whistle no one wants to leave. I don’t think I have ever been to a game where so few people, if any, have left before the end. The Nantes players gather in front of the Tribune Loire to salute and commune with the Ultras groups who have ceaselessly chanted, sung, shouted and waved their banners and flags throughout the match. Riri the canary mascot runs across the pitch arms outstretched as if trying to take off and joins in with the players’ celebrations. We, along with everyone else, wait for the players to break away from their love-in with the ultras and do a lap of honour to the rest of the stadium. As the players head back towards the tunnel we leave, joining the flood tide of happy, smiling people. This has been a truly fantastic night.