Ipswich Town 2 Millwall 2

April 4, 2018April 6, 2022 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It is Easter, a time for miracles, but on this bank holiday Monday it feels like it will be a miracle if there is any sunshine. Biblical stories have somehow collided this weekend and Noah and his Ark and possibly St Swithin have muscled in on the crucifixion with a deluge of rain. Perhaps however, it will result in a bumper bank holiday crowd at Portman Road as famished fans of local non-league football splurge the money saved on half a dozen recent postponements on one game of league football.
Nevertheless, it’s dry and almost warm today as I walk past queuing cars to the railway station; the road side ditches are full of water and the floating detritus of modern living, presumably flung from the windows of passing traffic. At the railway station the hedgerows are in bloom, suggesting that Spring is here in spite of the grey sky. Signs of re-birth abound, but outside the station a dead rook is propped against the fence as if it had suicidally nose-dived into the pavement.
The train is on time and I sit on the opposite side of the carriage to a man and a woman in their thirties, she appears to be staring into her handbag, but I discern she has a kindle inside it, whilst he peers relentlessly at his phone. They don’t speak. As arrival at Colchester is announced she looks up somewhat scarily at her partner, lifting her eyebrows high above her staring eyes and grinning, showing off her uneven teeth. They collect their belongings and alight. Behind me I hear munching and the brittle rustle of a crisp bag as a balding man in an Ipswich Town shirt devours a packet of crisps.
At Ipswich there is a heavier than usual police presence, with police vans lined up on the station forecourt and police in baseball hats stood about in pairs. Town are playing Millwall. Outside the Station Hotel, which is reserved for away supporters, there are blokes in dark flat caps and black jackets and dark blue jeans; this must be “the look” for your fashionable dockland geezer this year. They somehow make me think of Dick Van Dyke and his band of cheery chimney sweeps in Disney’s Mary Poppins. No one wears club colours. The

Station Hotel is making the most of its boozy south London visitors and has provided a gazebo in the pub car park, possibly just to stop them from coming indoors. Across the bridge and over the river the car park behind the old maltings appears to have been taken over by ‘travellers’. I do not know if this is related to the arrival of Millwall supporters or is just another Bank Holiday tradition; I just hope they’ve paid and displayed.
As I turn the corner into Portman Road the Millwall team bus arrives, to no particular excitement; unlike with other clubs, no fawning supporters gather at the gates to welcome their heroes, I am guessing they have sussed that they won’t get even a glimpse of them, the blacked out windows of the bus making it more like an out-sized black maria. I walk on to St Jude’s Tavern, collecting a programme (£3) on the way; the vendor entreats me to enjoy the match; which is nice, and admirably optimistic.
At St Jude’s the regular pre-match drinkers are present; I get a pint of a dark ale, which I don’t remember the name of (£3.40) and take a seat at a table next to a group of blokes in their sixties. Talk is almost exclusively of football, Mick McCarthy’s departure, who might replace him and the ten percent cut in season ticket prices. One of the sextagenarians admits to me that he only bothers to come because of his discounted ticket and the promise of a pre-match beer. As a second pint I have the Match Day Special (£2.50) and then as a Bank Holiday treat a half of the Stour Strong Ale (£1.90). An hour passes quickly

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and it’s time to roll down Portman Road. The floodlights are on and seem to shine more brightly than the pale sun which struggles to make its presence felt through the grey cloud. Portman Road itself is busy with people in hi-vis coats, Zero the sniffer dog and fanzine sellers; I see three within a distance of about 15 metres all selling Turnstile Blue issue 17; I buy a copy (£1). A youth lolls against Sir Bobby’s plinth. There is a queue at the turnstiles into the Sir Alf Ramsey stand, but that’s because not all the turnstiles are open and the ticket of the person in front of me won’t scan correctly in the bar code reader.

Inside the enclosure of the ground there appears to be a sale in the

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stall selling Matchday Essentials. I meet Dave the steward with whom I used to work at Royal Mail; he left Royal Mail last year and now has a nice little admin job calculating pay rises for NHS staff. The undercroft of the stand is clearing rapidly as strains of ‘My Way’ drift beneath the seating, a song made more poignant by Mick McCarthy’s confirmed forthcoming departure. I need a wee.
Relieved, I take a seat in the same row as Phil the ever-present supporter who never misses a game and the teams break free from their enforced hand-shaking to skip about and then form separate ‘group’ huddles; football managers don’t talk about the team any more they talk about ‘the group’. I wish one week someone would join the wrong huddle. Sadly, although they seem to like ‘banter’ I don’t think any footballers are that subversive.
Before the match begins there is a minute’s applause for former Town manager Bobby Ferguson and former player Colin Harper. I always felt sorry for Ferguson being the manager to follow Bobby Robson and having to preside over the break- up of the team as it was sold off to pay for the Pioneer Stand. As if that was not enough it was the grim early 1980’s, a time of Reaganomics, Thatcherism, Monetarism , general neo-liberal nastiness, big hair and shoulder-pads.
There are plenty of Millwall supporters here today and they are in predictably good voice. Their team has won something like seven consecutive away games and are after a record eighth, whilst Ipswich have not scored at home for five games and have scored just one goal at home all year. I can’t recall going to a game where the odds are so heavily stacked in Ipswich’s favour. The Millwall fans sing about somewhere, possibly South London, being wonderful on account of it being full of “tits, fanny and Millwall”, which is an interesting combination and not the sort of thing you’re likely to find mentioned on TripAdvisor when you’re looking for an Indian takeaway in Deptford.
The game begins with Ipswich kicking towards me, Phil and the other occupants of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand. Millwall are in a change kit of all black with gold trim, a colour scheme which probably matches their bathrooms. Ipswich start well and get in some crosses from the right, but there is no one to direct them at the goal because Town sportingly play without a centre forward. Muscular Martyn Waghorn (Waggy) wears the number nine shirt for Town but he’s not really a centre forward like Rod Belfitt or Paul Mariner or even Mich D’Avray used to be. He plays in a deeper role but succeeds in winning free-kicks and annoying the opposition however, and within a few minutes the satisfyingly foul-mouthed Millwall fans have tunefully announced that “Waghorn is a wanker”. Having sung of lady parts and masturbation their thoughts inevitably turn anal and they become some of the quickest supporters this season to dust off their Welsh hymn books as they notice that “Your support is fucking shit”. The paucity of the Ipswich vocal support is indeed the ‘bread of heaven’ to most away fans. It took them less than seven minutes to notice and I worry that they will use up their canon of abusive songs before half-time.
There is now rain in the air and a few spits find their way beneath the high roof, which I am pleased to see still sports a fine growth of buddleia. The smell of the damp turf rises up with a chill and behind me Crazee the mascot bangs his drum, half-heartedly and unsuccessfully trying to inspire some support for the team. Away in the corner of the North Stand also a drum is briefly drummed and a muffled chant or two is heard; Ipswich win a couple of corners, but the early rush of enthusiasm from Town has abated. Nevertheless, Millwall’s run of seven consecutive away wins is beginning to look like a fluke and then a cross from the left is headed in by someone in a number 35 shirt called Jake Cooper and Millwall are winning, and it’s not half-past three yet. I respond with a few choruses of “Allez les bleus” but only Phil joins in and then it’s half-time and the toilet beckons as I reap the consequences of an hour in St Jude’s Tavern imbibing fine ales.
Under the stand I stare at people staring at the TV screens bringing them the half-time

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scores; I eat a stick of Panda liquorice hoping to tap into the curative and mystical powers alluded to on the Panda website. I look at the prices of snacks and beverages and at my match day programme. The cover of the programme sports a picture of Town number 25, Stephen Gleeson, a sullen, unhappy- looking man with scruffy, greasy hair and a patchy attempt at a beard and moustache. The words next to his head reveal that he has a debt to Mick McCarthy and that he nearly quit the English game. I hope he feels better now, because he’s played quite well so far today.
Back in the stand I say hello to Ray, who is here with his son and grandson and tells me to carry-on with the singing, even though nobody understands it. The teams re-emerge on to the pitch to be applauded by Crazee the mascot; Ipswich have made a change, with number 34 Ben Folami, who isn’t even listed on the programme, replacing Myles Kenlock. Folami sports a tuft of bleached hair which makes him instantly recognisable from afar, which is what is needed on a grey afternoon like this. He has only ever played once before for the Town, in one of those Cup games, which we like to lose in order to concentrate on the league.
Folami looks keen and runs with the ball in the direction of the Millwall goal. This is a good thing and it’s not even a quarter past four before Folami, or possibly Waggy scores a scrappy equalising goal and then Waggy takes advantage of a generous back pass to give Town the lead. The Sir Bobby Robson (North) Stand find a voice and the Millwall supporters reveal through their own song that “we forgot you were here”; what cards! The Portman Road crowd hasn’t seen anything like this in years, well, certainly not in 2018 and only an innate fear of being accused of sarcasm stops many from bursting spontaneously into a warm chorus of “Mick McCarthy’s blue and white army”. Talk now is of how many we will score. Certified dead on Easter Saturday afternoon, having lost 1-0 at Birmingham and put in a tomb by Michael Joseph of Arimethea McCarthy, Town have miraculously been resurrected on Easter Monday.
No matter that just six minutes later a bloke called George Saville, an anachronistic sort of a name which sounds to me like he could have been a great train robber, equalises for Millwall and then he and his team mates miss a procession of chances to win the match. Town’s Cole Skuse is injured and emerges from a clutch of concerned players with his head bandaged to add some further drama before being substituted, and four Town players are cautioned by referee Steve Martin, who is definitely not ‘The man with two brains’. But it is an exciting afternoon of football at Portman Road and lately that has been a rare thing, even if the excitement by the end is mostly fuelled by Schadenfreude and willing Ipswich to just hold on to deny Millwall that record away win.
Such is the relief when ‘The Jerk’ blows the final whistle that I stay on to applaud the players from the field and perhaps say a final farewell to Mick McCarthy. Whatever people say about Mick, he was definitely better than Roy Keane and Town supporters will miss him because he was their excuse not to sing and shout in support of their team like proper football supporters do.

Felixstowe & Walton v Haverhill Borough Needham Market 0 Dulwich Hamlet 3

March 26, 2018March 26, 2018 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It had been a damp morning, I had walked to the village post office in a light drizzle and then driven back to collect a prescription for my wife from the pharmacist opposite the post office because I had forgotten it first time around. I now leave the house for the third time in an hour to walk to the railway station. The day is dull and grey, but as I turn the corner into the station forecourt there is a single bloom on a hawthorn bush. It seems Rachel Carson’s silent spring is delayed for another year, but it’s surely coming.
Putting aside thoughts of doomsday I board the train and text a man called Gary to let him know I am in the third car of the train. The smell of cheap perfume, so cheap it could just be the smell of washing powder, permeates the warm air of the carriage; behind me a couple speak to one another in a foreign language. Gary is accompanying me today and will join me on the train at Colchester and in due course he does so, but not before I anticipate his boarding of the train by the door nearest me only to see a man who looks like Iggy Pop’s heavier brother board in his place, which I find a little disconcerting. Gary has read previous entries on this blog and this has inspired him to want to join me, because it sounds such fun.
Gary and I catch up on events since we last met and soon arrive at Ipswich where there is another half an hour to wait for the train to Felixstowe, we therefore adjourn to the Station Hotel opposite where Gary drinks a pint of a strategically branded ‘American’ lager called Samuel Adams, served in a strangely shaped glass and I drink a pint of a fashionably hoppy ‘craft ale’ that I have never heard of, which is probably brewed furtively by the Greene King brewery. The Station Hotel is pleasant enough but reeks of the latest corporate house style of a national brewing chain.
At about ten to two we drain our glasses and cross the road back to the railway station to discover that due to a passenger being taken ill, the 13.58 to Felixstowe has been cancelled. The Ipswich to Felixstowe passenger rail service has to be one of the least reliable anywhere on Earth and suffers regular cancellations for a variety of reasons, sometimes for days at a time. This may be because it is just a one track, one carriage shuttle service, but this being so there should be a contingency plan to maintain a service. If this were mainland Europe there would probably be a regular tram or light rail service between Ipswich and Felixstowe, but sadly this is brexiting Britain.
The cancellation provokes a quick assessment of where else there is an accessible game this afternoon and it’s a choice between Needham Market, Whitton United or Ipswich Wanderers. Seeing as we are at the railway station from where trains run directly to Needham, but buses do not run directly to Whitton or Humber Doucy Lane it is easiest to go to Needham. A convoluted ticket refund and new ticket purchase procedure later (£3.05 for a day return with a Gold Card), we are ready to catch the 14.20 to Cambridge calling at Needham Market.
The hourly train journey to Needham is short and sweet, taking just ten minutes to sneak out of Ipswich’s back door past the ever more dilapidated, former Fison’s factory at Bramford and along the wide valley of the River Gipping. Needham Market station is a thing of beauty, a red brick building in the Jacobean style and dating from 1846, it is Grade 2 listed. Happily, although it was closed in 1967 it re-opened just four years later. Tearing myself away from the loveliness of the railway station, it is a numbingly simple and direct walk to Bloomfields, the home of Needham Market Town Football Club. Across, the station forecourt, sadly dominated by parked cars, past the wonderfully named Rampant Horse pub where Calvors beer and lager brewed locally in Coddenham is served, across the main road, down the side of the Swan Hotel and on up the side of the valley, leaving the timber framed buildings of central Needham and reaching the football ground through an estate of 1960’s bungalows. The route is so simple and direct it is as if the railway station and the football ground are the two most important things in Needham Market and as Gary remarks, the path between is akin to Wembley Way.
At Bloomfields we walk through the busy car park and are both £11 lighter having passed through the turnstile, on the other side of which a programme costs a further £2. It’s not twenty to three yet so we take a detour into the clubhouse and there being no real beer on offer we imbibe something called East Coast IPA (£3.00 a pint). The pump label shows the east coast of America for some reason, although the beer is manufactured by Greene King in Bury St Edmunds and my view is that they are hustling in on the good name of the ‘other’ Suffolk brewer Adnams, which uses the slogan ’beer from the coast’. Gary likes the beer, but then he likes Carlsberg; I find it much too cold, bland and fizzy and I’m glad when it’s over. That’s ‘the thing’ about drinking alcohol, it has to be pretty disgusting not to finish it.

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Outside, the sizeable crowd of 495 mill about and lean over the pitchside rail, whilst the two teams appear to be caged up inside the tunnel from the dressing rooms. Eventually the teams process onto the field side by side and go through all that hand shaking malarkey. The stadium announcer speaks with a mild Suffolk accent which sounds clipped as if he doesn’t read very well, but in fact that is just the nature of reading out loud with a Suffolk accent. Gary and I remark on the name of the Dulwich number eleven, Sanchez Ming, the sort of name to strike fear into the heart of Donald Trump, if he has one. Today’s match is sponsored by John and Sue. Gary and I elect to stand with the Dulwich supporters in the barn like structure behind the near goal at the Ipswich end of the ground. If Needham ever had to make this stand all-seater they could do so with the addition of just a few straw bales.

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The match begins with Dulwich Hamlet, all in pink, kicking towards Ipswich whilst Needham, who are disguised as Melchester Rovers play in the direction of Stowmarket. Dulwich start well and have an early shot blocked. A Dulwich supporter sounds a doom-laden warning to the Needham goalkeeper, Danny Gay, that he is on borrowed time. When he does it again someone responds that we all are. It’s marvellous how Step 3 non-league football gets you in touch with a sense of your own mortality. The goalkeeper smiles kindly, but it’s not even ten past three when following a turn and through ball from Dipo Akenyemi, Dulwich’s nippy number seven Nyren Clunis appears in front of goal with the ball at his feet and just the large frame of Danny Gay between him and glory. Nyren and glory are united as the ball is at first blocked by big Danny, but Clunis rolls in the rebound and the Dulwich supporters cheer gleefully. A man in a dark raincoat and trilby hat dances around holding a banner that says ‘Goal’ in case anyone was in any doubt that Dulwich had scored. A woman swings a small pink and navy blue football rattle, but it doesn’t.

Dulwich continue to provide all the attempts on goal and a selection of corner kicks and shortly after twenty past three Clunis scores again, in similar circumstances to the first goal, but due to a defensive mistake and Danny Gay makes no initial save. This time the man in the dark raincoat and hat toots a pink plastic horn to celebrate. The Needham locals look on silently, inscrutably, like Ipswich Town fans do. They may have been expecting defeat, Dulwich, after all, are striking out at top of the twenty-four team Bostik Premier Division, whilst Needham are meandering around the wilderness of mid-table anonymity where existence has no meaning; they are 14th . A twenty-four team league is much too large.
As half-time approaches Gary asks if I fancy a cup of tea, coffee or hot chocolate and from his short menu I choose tea (£1). Gary has a tea too. Over tea Gary talks fondly about his grandfather who was a Communist and stood as such in a council election in the London Borough of Brent in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s. He was a well-known character on the west London estate where he lived, but he didn’t get elected. It was because of his grandad that Gary read Robert Tressell’s book “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist”. We both agree that with today’s ‘gig economy’ the working life of many people is much the same in relative terms to what it would have been a hundred years ago.
We put the revolution on hold as the teams return to the field and we move to the other end of the ground to the side of the all-seated Les Ward stand, which is a small, prefabricated, metal structure. The Marketmen show glimpses of recovery as the new half begins but at seven minutes past four Dulwich score a third goal when Nyren Clunis passes to Nathan Ferguson who shoots accurately between the goalpost and the clawing, despairing, outstretched glove of Danny Gay.
Despite Needham showing a bit more attacking intent in the second half Dulwich are too good for them. Danny Gay has a chat with the Dulwich fans behind the goal; he seems to be counselling one supporter telling him that he is sure he could get a wife, because he has one. Later there is outrage amongst the Dulwich fans as The Marketmen’s Sam Nunn hacks down Clunis in full flight and is merely booked by referee Mr Paul Burnham who has blatantly ignored the supporters chants of “Off! Off! Off!”. Danny Gay then makes a fine save, diving to his left to tip away a shot that would otherwise have given Clunis his hat-trick.
The floodlights have now come on as the greyness of the day deepens and low cloud descends over the gaunt trees and power lines that provide a distant backdrop. A chill bites at my bare hands, which I push deep into my coat pockets. The game is drawing to a close and the result is already known. It is a somewhat pernickety and mean-spirited therefore when Mr Burnham penalises Dulwich goalkeeper Corey Addai for holding onto the ball too long, invoking a rarely enforced rule that results in an indirect free-kick to Needham and a harsh booking for Addai. Mr Burnham is a short, stocky, completely bald man whilst Addai is just 20 years old, 6 foot 7 inches tall and with an enormous head of hair. I suspect a barely hidden agenda provoked by jealousy.
Needham’s free-kick inevitably comes to nought and after four minutes of added time the game ends. The Needham number ten, Jamie Griffiths, who has worn a large head bandage throughout the afternoon is elected Man of the Match and receives a bottle of Champagne from John and Sue the match sponsors, whilst standing in front of a board plastered with company logos and being photographed.
Gary and I reflect on what has been an entertaining match as we head back down into Needham village. The next train is not until ten to six and therefore we have a good forty minutes or more to end the afternoon by enjoying a pint of ultra-locally brewed beer in the conveniently located and fabulously named Rampant Horse public house.

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Finally, Dulwich Hamlet are currently going through a torrid time due to the development company Meadow Partners who own their Champion Hill ground having undertaken a number of immoral and twisted actions such a trying to seize the rights to the club name and trademarks, loading debt onto the club and preventing it from taking profits form match day bars. Presumably Meadow Partners want rid of the club so that they can make profit from developing the site for housing.
Go to https://savedulwichhamlet.org.uk for more information and details of the Fans United day on Good Friday when Dulwich invite fans from all clubs to attend their match versus Dorking at Tooting & Mitcham’s ground where they are now forced to finish their season.

Ipswich Town 0 Wolverhampton Wanderers 1

January 29, 2018April 17, 2022 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

The relief brought on through the carefree joy of watching non-league football at Coggeshall last night was brief and within twenty-four hours I am back to watching “Championship” football, by which I mean Football League Division Two football at the theatre of the un-dead that is Portman Road.
But today’s game is against top of the league Wolverhampton Wanderers, a club that as much as Leeds United reeks of 1974, smells of the 1950’s and the scent of the Beverley sister who married Billy Wright. The Wolves have done very little of note in the last sixty years, but for a couple of League Cup wins in the 1970’s, and even Norwich have won the League Cup; but they still have a certain je ne sais quoi, as well as old gold shirts and black shorts.
It is a dull, grey January day as I walk to the railway station; there are spits of moisture in the air, the portents of more to come. I arrive at the station about a minute before the

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train, which is on time, I board a freshly refurbished carriage which has a faint smell of new car given off by its grey upholstery; the theme is grey, with a white ceiling; it’s bright but dull, but heck, it’s not my living room, just a train. On the opposite side of the carriage sits a man with a beer belly, he is slumped with his head resting against the window, a blue cable leads from his trouser pocket to the electrical socket beneath the window; it’s as if his loins are on a life support machine. He has hair like the late Reg Varney. Opposite him an unnaturally blond woman of a similar age is engrossed with a mobile phone. They both cough and get off the train together at Colchester. As the train pulls into a Manningtree a man is sat on a bench on the platform for London, he is wearing a large set of earphones and is eating a sandwich from a tin foil package spread open on his lap. Five people get onto the train, one is a man with a bald head and three rings through his left ear lobe that look like he could hang a curtain from them.

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In Ipswich the weather is the same. As I cross the road a group of blokes smoke cigarettes outside the front door of the Station Hotel, which is where Wolves supporters and only Wolves supporters have been directed to drink. On the back of a traffic light there is reminder of Town’s last home fixture against Leeds, a sticker that says

“McCallister,Strachan, Batty, Speed, Last Proper Champions”. It is a view I subscribe to because the Premier League is an abomination, but I worry about the omission of the other seven players in the Leeds team of 1992, particularly Lee Chapman.

Portman Road is being blocked off whilst supporters stand about waiting for the turnstiles to open. I follow a man up Portman Road who is wearing a grey tracksuit with a hood, he looks like an enormous toddler in a romper suit, the seat of his tracky bottoms is baggy like he’s forgotten to put on his nappy. I open the door to St Jude’s Tavern; bloody hell, the place is heaving. Most of the clientele are Wolves fans with a love of real ale. Having worked my way to the bar I order a pint of St Jude’s St Mary Stout (£3.60) and then work my way back to sit at a table where three blokes in their sixties are sat; they seem to be together but they’re not talking and even seem to be avoiding eye contact. I turn to one and say “Are you all Wolves fans then, or are you just here for a quiet drink?” . They’re Wolves fans and they’re up from London, they go to every game. They tell me that there are branches of Wolves fans from London, Daventry and Cheltenham in the pub. I remark that they are all men of a ‘certain age’ and they laugh agreeing that if you haven’t got a bus pass you probably don’t follow Wolves.
A friend of mine, Mick, soon arrives and we talk of blood pressure, the Hairy Bikers, tielles, sciatica, this blog, holidaying in Corsica and Marseille and the difficulty of choosing where to visit from so many wonderful places across Europe. I drink a pint of Irvin Ruby (£3.60) and we both have a half of St Jude’s Darkest Blessings (£3.80 a pint), which is very strong (9.5%) but smooth and delicious with a hint of hazelnuts and vanilla.
All the Wolves fans have already left when we leave the pub at about a quarter to three, Mick heads home and I head for the match. It’s raining properly now. Whilst I may tire of the present incarnation of Football League Division Two, I never tire of the sight of

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Portman Road with its proper floodlights at each corner and all the activity outside on match day as kick-off approaches, it’s what being is all about, especially when it’s raining. Martin Heidegger would have understood, although by all accounts he was a bit of a knob.
I pass through the turnstile and am approached by a steward who asks me about the photos I have taken out in Portman Road, I explain that they are for a blog and flick through a few of them for him. He seems happy with that, but I can’t imagine he knows what to say; what did he expect to see other than photos of Portman Road? I suppose my camera might have really been a water pistol, not a camera, I had one like that when I was about eight years old.
The teams are walking on to the pitch and in the stand I am surprised to find a man and a woman occupying my seat and the one next to it. They’re not doing anything rude, just sitting. I go and sit in the next seat along, I don’t care. One of them says something about not being able to see from their allocated seats and a steward had told them to sit anywhere where there was a space.
The game begins and it’s okay, a fairly even contest to start with and Town’s Callum Connolly has a shot after about 11 minutes. It only takes the Wolves fans eight minutes however to announce that “You’re support is fucking shit” and no one is arguing; no one even cares except perhaps for John Hughes who wrote the tune Cwm Rhondda; but that was in 1907, so he must be past caring by now. In the fifteenth minute it’s not only the support that is so scatalogically poor, as the Town defence dissolves into the rain, the ball is crossed and a bloke called Matt Doherty heads it unchallenged into the Town net; Wolverhampton Wanderers have, it turns out, won the match…and it had all started so well.
The Ipswich crowd do not react at all and make no effort to help raise their team’s game through vocal encouragement; I do though and throw myself into a few rounds of “Lo, lololo lolo, Allez les bleus” as Town win a couple of corners. There is not the slightest hint that anyone wants to join in with my efforts on behalf of the team and in a fit of pique I get up and leave my seat. I go to sit with Phil the ever-present supporter at the other end of the stand, who at least understands and will sometimes even join in with me, a bit.
The game carries on and Town play reasonably well in an unspectacular sort of a way, but Wolverhampton are good, they’re several points clear at the top of the league table and we are seeing why. A little short of 1,900 Wulfrunians are following their team today, but I’m a little disappointed by them. For a team who wear such a distinctive kit there is very little of the lovely old gold and black on display and they’re singing is mostly of a negative nature. But when I think I hear them sing “Wanky wanky, wanky wanky Southerners” to the tune of Chicory Tip’s ‘Son of my father’ it raises a smile, even though Ipswich is not in the South, it’s in the East. Bloody Brummies.
At half-time I stay where I am and enjoy the occasional drip of rain through the leaking roof on which I can see buddleia growing; I’m not sure that makes it a ‘green’ roof, but it’s a start. I have no half-time snack and don’t visit the toilet, but Phil does and I guard his bag whilst he’s gone. Town stalwart Tommy Smith appears on the pitch in a smart overcoat to say farewell to the crowd before he heads off to play for Colorado Rapids in Denver; he waves, I wave back.

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I then muse upon the names of the Wolverhampton team and feel strongly that Ivan Cavaleiro should be wearing a wide brimmed hat and a cape, or he should at least walk out onto the pitch in such attire, even if he doesn’t play in it. Wolverhampton Wanderers are owned by Guo Guangchang, one of China’s wealthiest people and in Helder Costa and Ruben Neves have the two most expensive players in League Division Two; midfielder Neves cost a colossal £15.8m and both players are clients of football agent Jorge Mendes who is an advisor to the club. Read more about Wolves’ attempt to buy success in the editorial to the February edition of the always excellent When Saturday Comes magazine.
The teams return, Phil returns and play resumes. Ipswich aren’t so good this half, I reckon Wolves have sussed us out and they control the game completely, because they have much better players, some of whom, as you now know have cost obscene amounts of money. They also have a manager called Nuno Espirito Santo who, with a name like that, you would always back against plain old Mick McCarthy. I have a theory that people voted to leave the EU mainly because they feel inferior to all these clever, stylish Europeans, and they are. Town have two new players in their team today, a free transfer called Gleeson and a thick-set monster of a man on-loan from Tottenham Hotspur, who rejoices under the seven syllables of the name Cameron Carter-Vickers. They do okay, but Bartosz Bialkowski is the star for Town as he makes a succession of essential saves to stop Wolverhampton scoring more goals. The Wulfrunians in the Cobbold Stand again sing coarsely of the execrable Ipswich support and look for the geography section of the library. Meanwhile, I continue to sing ‘Allez les Bleus’ very loudly and have a most enjoyable time. Singing is proven to be good for you and even though Town lose I am as happy as I can be given the pointlessness of it all. Watching Ipswich Town is what you make it.
The three minutes of added on time offer hope, but that’s all and soon the final chirrups sound from beneath the shiny and completely naked pate of referee Mr Simon Hooper. Unusually, I stand and applaud the teams today; all my singing has made me high as a kite.

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Ipswich Town 1 Leeds United 0

January 15, 2018 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Today sees the fourth game at Portman Road in 26 days, it’s as if Town don’t play away from home anymore and I’m getting a bit fed up with it to be honest and hanker after a change of scenery. The wide open spaces of non-league football are ever more attractive compared to the claustrophobic pall of gloom that hangs around Portman Road and seemingly seeps from the pores of so many home ‘supporters’.
But what’s this? Today Ipswich are playing Leeds United and I shall transport myself back to the 1970’s with a scarf tied round my wrist, double denim, feather cut and platforms. In my mind Leeds United embody the 1970’s, that awful but grimly fascinating and rather marvellous decade, and I love to see a game against Leeds United because of that, and also Leeds are guaranteed to bring a good number of supporters who are equally guaranteed to make a noise and create that rare thing at Portman Road, a bit of atmosphere and the sensation that there is a football match taking place.
It is a dull, grey January day as I head for the railway station past flat, featureless, cold

fields above which a few seagulls circle. At the station I meet Roly who has travelled from Borley and looks slightly disagreeable as he clutches a paper cup of coffee. He admits to having eaten a bacon butty from the station buffet and says that he only feels marginally happier than if he hadn’t eaten it, which for a greedy man like Roly means it was not a good bacon butty.

The train is three minutes late due to ‘congestion’ attributed to engineering works.
Once on the train we discuss grandmothers sucking eggs and how the use of powdered egg affected this during World War Two; we also discuss the relative merits of the minute’s silence or applause at the start of football matches. I long to be trusted to be respectfully silent in a dead person’s honour as football fans used to be, but Roly points out that there is now an unwritten etiquette of applauses for individuals who have shuffled off the mortal coil naturally, whilst armistice day and terrorist attacks and the like attract a silence. We agree that an applause in the wake of a terrorist attack might be misconstrued, but it nevertheless makes us laugh.

Arriving in Ipswich we are greeted by a posse of police on the station forecourt. The Station Hotel opposite looks packed, there is condensation on the windows, bums on the window sills and a crowd of Leeds fans occupy the car park and garden.

It’s not the prettiest riverside setting, but probably makes these Yorkshiremen feel at home, like they’re down by t’canal. Roly and I stroll on and the Leeds United team bus passes us heading towards Portman Road, which is the scene of a military operation. Police vans partly

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block the road whilst policemen are strung across the road restricting the easy flow of people along the street. The Leeds team bus has disappeared into the yard behind the Sir Alf Ramsey stand and a group of people clamour around the gates, presumably seeking a glimpse of Leeds players, or maybe they’re bus spotters. We walk on, a group of late-middle aged men meet beneath the hollow gaze of Sir Alf Ramsey’s insouciant statue.

In St Jude’s Tavern we each drink a pint of today’s ‘match day special’ (£2 a go) which is Elgood’s Festive Feelgood; we talk football and in particular of the myriad of players who have appeared for Town in the last twenty years or so. We speak of Kevin Ellis, who made one appearance against Arsenal in the Premier League 1995, remained at the club for two more years before going to King’s Lynn and never playing another game for a League club. We both have another pint of the ‘match day special’ and then I have a half of St Jude’s Hazelnut Stout (£1.80), partly because I feel guilty about only drinking the cheap beer. It’s only 2.30pm, but Roly is eager to leave so that he can buy a pie; he is probably not obese, but he could easily become so. We part in Portman Road because Roly’s seat is in the posh seats in the East of England Co-operative Stand, where by rights he should get divvy on his pie.
In Portman Road the police are hard at work controlling the crowd for whatever reason, which means not allowing passage behind the Cobbold Stand for home fans and sending us all around the ground and back up Princes Street to get access to the Sir Alf Ramsey

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stand. I don’t mind; this scenic route, it makes a change. I buy a programme from a girl in a kiosk on the corner of Alderman Road and pass by the main entrance to the club as a massive black Bentley sweeps through the gate.
By the time I’ve enjoyed my walkabout and the street theatre that the Norfolk and Suffolk Constabulary are providing today it’s nearly time for kick –off and the teams are soon on the pitch when I take up my seat. Before the game today there is a minute’s applause for Ted Phillips, one of the greatest players ever to represent Town, who died this week at the age of eighty-four. Ted was in the teams that won the Third Division South, Second Division and First Division championships and in total scored 181 goals in 295 games. We’ll probably not see his like again, definitely not for the twenty-odd quid a week he got paid. I would happily stand and applaud him all afternoon and am very disappointed that his picture is not on the cover of the programme.
The game kicks off and is closely fought, but this is not a Leeds United I recognise, this team is the anti-thesis of the renowned Lilywhites, this team are wearing an all-black kit,

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they could be anyone; a team of referees. Leeds United in all-black, it’s just wrong. But happily the Leeds fans are still the same; loud, raucous, foul-mouthed and very heavily stewarded. There are even police inside the stadium today, although strangely they seem to be watching the home fans. Without the Leeds fans this game would be dull like all the others; they have the whole of the Cobbold Stand today and have displaced Ipswich season ticket holders, but it was the right thing to do, it has made this game special and if Ipswich hasn’t got supporters interested in filling the ground and creating a match atmosphere, then let someone in who has. Nevertheless, there are only 18,638 of us here today and that is despite the addition of visiting supporters of Fortuna Dusseldorf who have adopted Town as their English team; we seem to have lost nearly 20,000 people somewhere since Town met Leeds in the FA Cup sixth round in 1975.
There are a lot of fouls in this game, a nostalgic nod to ‘dirty Leeds’ of the 1970’s perhaps, but the fouls are mostly clumsy rather than cynical, niggly or vicious although both teams’ physios are called upon to treat the wounded. Like most Second Division matches nowadays it’s a bit of a mess, as once again levels of effort and running exceed levels of skill. I nevertheless think I see Town captain Luke Chambers quite artfully control the ball and pass it accurately and then look rather pleased with himself; it may just have been a look of surprise however.
It’s not a bad game, but the presence of the noisy away support is carrying it somewhat. It takes until the 19th minute for the first decent shot on goal and this is followed by the news from the Leeds fans through the medium of “Cwm Rhondda” that “your support is fucking shit”. It’s taken them a while to realise this but they got there in the end. It doesn’t look like either team is particularly likely to score and then in the 37th minute the odds on a goal shift in Town’s favour as Leeds United’s Eunan O’Kane is sent off by referee Robert Jones for an off the ball assault (headbutt)on Town’s Jonas Knudsen.

Everyone loves a sending off, if it’s not one of their own players. Kane must walk the full length of the pitch and a Leeds fan set off a fire cracker, the loud crack and the smoke just add to the drama and excitement.

After four minutes of time added on for injuries and sundry stoppages, during which Town’s on-loan Kosovan Bersant Celina hits a post with a shot, the imposing Mr Roberts, who likes to stand with his hands on his hips, blows his whistle for half-time. I head down to the concourse and devour a piece of left-over Christmas cake that I had brought with me in lieu of thebacon butties or pies that others might eat to see them through the afternoon. I gaze up at the TV set delivering the half-time scores and first half stats, which are clearly wrong. I learn that I could buy a hospitality package for £35 plus VAT. I look at the programme and am impressed by the diversity of the Leeds squad with players from fifteen different countries. Ipswich players come from just seven countries, and one of them is Wales. The Leeds squad also has some fine surnames, my favourites being Roofe and Grot although Borthwick-Jackson and Peacock-Farrell also deserve a mention. Inside the programme there is a tribute to Ted Phillips, but if as the tribute says he is a legend, and he is, it should probably run to several pages, not just two. Also in the programme is the usual piece from club captain Luke Chambers. Luke is in philosophical mood today and amongst other nuggets says “I think football stadiums in general have become places where supporters can vent their frustrations over 90 minutes, sometimes that frustration comes from life as much as football. You see it everywhere now ”. It’s a very funny read.
For the second half I decide to sit with Pat from the Clacton-On-sea branch of the supporters club because the people near where Pat sits seem to have a bit more life in them, although they don’t really sing either, and at least when I do they laugh. The players and officials return to the pitch and Mr Roberts crosses himself, which is pure showmanship and not really becoming of a referee, but hey-ho.
The Leeds fans are still in good voice and treat the home crowd to renditions of “We all love Leeds and Leeds and Leeds” to the tune of ‘The Dambusters’ March’. Soon afterwards the chant of choice switches to “ We are Leeds, We are Leeds, We are Leeds” to no particular tune at all and then “When the Whites (sic) Go Marching In”, forgetting that their team is wearing all black, which may be why they previously had to remind themselves that they are Leeds.
Ipswich’s superiority in numbers isn’t making very much difference, although they are having more possession than usual and Leeds are not looking very likely to score. It will take a moment of very inept play or one of special skill to get a goal from this game and surprisingly it’s the latter that comes to pass in the 67th minute. Bursant Celina receives the ball from a throw-in on the left; he drifts in towards the centre of the field running sideways like a stray dog before suddenly unleashing a beautiful, gently dipping, but powerful shot into the corner of the Leeds goal. It truly is a thing of beauty, mostly because it is scored by someone in an Ipswich shirt.
Ipswich should really press home their advantage even more now, but they don’t, although they are the dominant team.

At the side of the pitch the managers and coaches are animated, the Spanish Leeds manager looking sharp in a smart, tailored coat, Mick McCarthy and Terry Connor looking like a couple of scallies in anoraks and tracky bottoms.

A Leeds substitute comes on with his socks turned up over his knees so that he is in black from neck to toe like a mime artist, but for some reason he also reminds me of Papa Lazarou in League of Gentlemen. The Leeds players become frustrated, particularly their Swedish centre-half Pontus Jansson who deserves an award for succeeding in getting the bulk of the North Stand lower tier to sing loudly in unison; to the tune of Cwm Rhondda, they chant, even if it is just to ask “Who the fuck, Who the fuck, Who the fuckin’ ‘ell are you?” and then, after presumably consulting their programmes to answer their own curiosity “Jansson, Jansson, you’re a cunt”. The upshot is that Jansson is booked by Mr Roberts, possibly for having inspired the putting of rude words to a hymn tune, but more probably for persistent fouling.
There is not long left but Town have to hold out against a late Leeds onslaught in which goalkeeper Dean Gerken saves the day with a fine dive to his right to parry away a shot from Pierre-Michel Lasogga, who is German. Finally however, Mr Roberts calls time; it has been an enjoyable afternoon for several reasons; Ipswich have won, the goal was spectacular and the opposition have had a player sent off, but also because of the presence of the Leeds fans who have created an atmosphere usually so sadly lacking at Portman Road. I am look forward to next season’s game already, if I can survive all the dreary ones in between.

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Ipswich Town 1 Derby County 2

January 1, 2018 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Today is the 30th December, the last Saturday of 2017 and I am travelling to Portman Road to witness the third game of the ‘Hectic Christmas Schedule’. It being Christmas week it doesn’t feel like a Saturday, but it definitely is and will no doubt bring the joy or despair to prove it.
The train is on time and peopled with passengers clearly going home after Christmas. A woman opposite me wears a woolly hat with a disproportionately large fluffy bobble; her jeans hug her calves but her knees are exposed through fashionable rips. Further down the carriage a woman bawls at her young daughter, ironically telling her to be quiet. It’s an average train journey.
It is a mild, bright and blustery day and on Princes Street in Ipswich the wind has torn some banners promoting the annual pantomime from their fixings on the lamp posts. Portman Road is its usual Saturday afternoon self as I walk along it. The turnstiles are not yet open and people who must have very little else to do indeed, queue by them. Burgers and buns are eaten, programmes are bought, blokes with strange ‘North meets the Midlands’ accents talk of the “Station Hotel or summat” where, as visitors to Ipswich they might be allowed to buy a drink.
In St Jude’s Tavern the usual collection of blokes is present, enjoying their pre-match beer. Today’s Match Day Special is Mauldon’s Silver Adder (£2) and that‘s what I drink before I am joined by my friend Mick; we talk of Christmas, travelling to Lille, Brussels and Paris by car or train and ‘top’ Parisian football clubs (PSG, Red Star, Paris FC, and Creteil; Entente SSG get forgotten). Mick admits that his one great regret is that he was born English or at least never went to live abroad. Mick makes a very good point about how people like to moan about their lot but never do anything about it. I am deeply unhappy about being an Ipswich Town supporter, but I write it down.
After another pint of Match Day Special (which has been changed to Crouch Vale Brewers Gold) and a half of Nethergate Old Growler (£1.80) later, I am descending Portman Road without any sense of anticipation or excitement. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and I was only here on Tuesday. It’s a bit annoying to have to come back again so soon when what I saw on Tuesday was so awful.
Inside the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand (Churchman’s) is a pair of signs pointing the way for blood donors. Season ticket prices won’t be going up this year, but supporters will be required to donate a pint of blood each. I need to urinate and so visit the toilets. I wash my hands and use the blow dryer, which breathes warmly across my wet hands with the force of a chronic asthmatic. I take my seat and to the strains of Frank Sinatra singing ‘My Way’ the teams take to the field. ‘My Way’ was apparently Bobby Robson’s favourite song, but amusingly it could equally be the theme tune of current manager Mick McCarthy or the elusive and seemingly parsimonious club owner Marcus Evans. Is the club having a laugh at our expense?
Derby County begin the game, kicking towards the Sir Bobby Robson stand and wearing vile, day-glo yellow shirts and navy blue shorts. Quite why Derby feel the need to wear a change kit when their club colours of white shirts and navy blue shorts would not remotely clash with Ipswich’s blue shirts and white shorts is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, which probably has something to do with selling replica shirts. As the Town players shield their eyes, Derby dominate possession and their supporters are soon singing Verdi and enquiring in which part of the stadium they will find nineteenth century romantic novels.
The home crowd is of course quiet and become even quieter when Derby score a goal in the 13th minute, a header from a corner by a stocky bloke called Sam Winnall. Ipswich win three corners in the first half and a few free-kicks within sight of the Derby goal, but the home crowd offer nothing in the way of support for their team and it makes me feel quite angry. Ipswich are being outplayed, which isn’t what I want to see, but I can’t help thinking these people get the team they deserve. I shout and I chant, on my own.
At half-time I move seats to sit near Phil the ever-present fan and his son Elwood, but not before I eat a piece of Christmas cake that I had brought along to keep my spirits up. There are scores of empty seats and this is the cheap part of the ground, maybe it’s not cheap enough. Crazee the edgy, urban Suffolk Punch mascot struts his stuff in front us; if he’s trying to rally the supporters he’s almost literally flogging a dead horse. I think of a disturbing scene in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment in which a peasant flogs his feeble old horse to death in the street and onlookers join in. Crazee can add masochism to his list of edgy behaviours, which really only amount to wearing sunglasses and a hat which is on back to front.
A new half like a new year brings new hope, but that is soon dashed as Sam Winnall hits a long distance swerving shot into the top left hand corner of the goal that Ipswich are defending. I am virtually in perfect line with the shot and get a spectacular view of it as it hits the goal net. How lovely for me. A man behind me can’t contain himself and goes into raptures. But the goal doesn’t ‘do for’ Ipswich and the second half is a more even contest with Ipswich even pressing at times. A string of corners sees the electronic scoreboard flash “Come On You Blues”, but it must be tempting for the operator to type in “Go on, Sing you Bastards!” and I live for the day. Eventually, and in spite of the indifference of the crowd, Joe Garner heads the final corner into the net and Ipswich now only trail 2-1; a draw is a possibility. The silence in the stands is broken by cheers of joy; people stand and wave their arms about in happy abandon. At times thereafter there is some rhythmic clapping around the ground and some drumming in the Sir Bobby Robson stand, and the last twenty minutes are more enjoyable. The Derby supporters are quieter now as they worry whether their team will hang on, but they do.
Five minutes of added on time pass quickly by and referee Mr Oliver Langford, who awarded far too many free-kicks to Derby, calls time on another disappointing afternoon at Portman Road, which will doubtless fuel much rage, fury, wailing and gnashing of teeth on social media; if only people could channel their over-excitement about disappointing results into backing their team when they are actually playing.
Up The Town!