suffolk

Ipswich Town 3 Sheffield Wednesday 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

The words Sheffield and Wednesday when added together conjure several associations in my mind, from the betting scandal of the early 1960’s when three Wednesday players apparently ‘threw’ the game in a 2-0 defeat to Ipswich at Portman Road, to speeding through the streets of Sheffield on a double-decker bus with police outriders after a match during the miners’ strike in 1984 , to dislike because from May 1986 to May 1995 Town never managed to beat them, to a Sheffield Wednesday supporter I met on a course when I worked for Royal Mail, whose idea of conversation was to speculate on whether the barmaid in the pub we were in at the time was wearing a suspender belt and stockings; for the record, he was convinced she was, but this was never confirmed.

Today, Ipswich Town will play Sheffield Wednesday, and I am cautiously optimistic that some degree of Karma will apply, to balance out all those bad associations from the past. After a dull start to the day, it has brightened up and as I wait for the train to Ipswich, I find myself in one of those clear, cold days that characterise winter in Suffolk.  The station platform is well populated and tell-tale club crests on articles of clothing suggest many people are heading for the match just like me.  The train is on time and Gary joins me at the first station stop. We talk of the African Cup of Nations and Gary tells me that he was once at a barbecue with a player who is in the Tanzanian squad and who has two aunts with exactly the same names.  As ever, our journey is crowned by the sighting of a polar bear as the train descends Wherstead into Ipswich; it’s the slightly grubby looking one and for a few moments we wonder if it’s possible to wash and clean a polar bear

Ipswich is busy with football fans and there’s entertainment too as everyone stops to watch a drunken Sheffield Wednesday fan outside the Station Hotel.  Sadly, he’s not a cheery drunk but a stroppy one.  When the traffic lights change Gary and I cross the junction outside the station diagonally, pretending we are in Tokyo where such pedestrian crossings are, I believe common.  I ask Gary if he’s ever thought of going on holiday to Japan; he has but understands it’s expensive and of course air travel for mere pleasure is to be discouraged because of its impact on the environment.   A man walking alongside us asks what we think the score will be today.  With reprehensible pessimism Gary predicts a “boring one-all draw” or worse still a “frustrating one-nil defeat”.  I have no idea what the score will be but retain my optimism by not giving it any thought.   We speed past the programme sellers whose booths look like they might also stock ice creams, and I wonder if the programme price increase to £4 this season has led to much of a reduction in sales. I hope it has because they’re overly glossy and mostly very uninteresting.

I get to the door of ‘the Arb’ first and burst in, eager for a drink.  There are people stood two-deep at the bar but one of them is Mick, who says it’s his turn to buy the round, but then he always does.  He either has a bad memory or is just naturally generous.  But today I convince Mick it’s my turn to buy, although I leave him to order his own felafel Scotch egg.  With a pint each of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride and a pint of Lager 43 for Gary (£14 something with Camra discount) we retire to the beer garden and find seats in the shelter that backs onto High Street.  Unexpectedly, Mick gives me a Christmas card but explains that he had effectively inherited some, so thought he’d use them.  Along with the card Mick gives me a ‘present’ (unwrapped), which is a programme from Ray Crawford’s testimonial featuring games between Ipswich Town ‘past’ and ‘future’ and the then current Ipswich team and Wolverhampton Wanderers. The programme is a reminder of how plain and straightforward, or perhaps boring things used to be, even as recently as 1969.

Gary buys another round of drinks, which this time comprises just a half a pint of Suffolk Pride for Mick, and by way of a change a pint of Mighty Oak Solstice Porter for me, because tomorrow is the Winter Solstice and being a sucker for megaliths and the like  I like to remember the true meaning of Christmas.  The porter is very tasty indeed but does nothing to take my mind off the rapid emptying out of the beer garden and it’s not yet half past two.   It’s gone twenty to three when we leave for Portman Road and after a downhill stroll, we eventually part ways within earshot of Sir Alf Ramsey’s statue, if only its ears worked. We are agreed that the next game is at home to Oxford United on New Year’s Day, and that I shall try and acquire three tickets together for the FA Cup tie versus Blackpool.

As has been the case for the past few games there are no queues at the turnstile to the Sir Alf Ramsey stand and after quick scan for weaponry by a smiling, bearded man of probable south Asian heritage I step through turnstile 61; I would have used the noted turnstile 62 but there was a bunch of late middle-aged blokes milling around it who didn’t  seem to know what they were doing and I couldn’t be bothered to say “excuse me”.  Moments later, standing in front of the stainless steel urinals decanting  spent Suffolk Pride ( I don’t think the Solstice Porter can have made its way through yet) I hear the excitable young stadium announcer announcing the teams and by the time I’m shuffling past Pat from Clacton and Fiona to my seat I only get to shout  “O’Shea” in the manner of a Frenchman at the Stade des Alpes in Grenoble or Stade Saint-Symphorien in Metz.   Ever-present Phil who never misses a game is of course here too but not his son Elwood or the man from Stowmarket (Paul).   The excitable young stadium announcer is today wearing a Santa hat as he presumably gets even more excited at the prospect of Christmas.

When the game begins, it is Sheffield Wednesday who get first go with the ball which they boot in the general direction of St Matthew’s Baths and the Broomhill Lido whilst sporting a necessary change kit of all-white, which presumably to the chagrin of Wednesday supporters makes them look like a bit like Leeds United.  It’s no wonder their team is bottom of the league table with minus nine points, although the travelling supporters are making the best of a bad job and chant “Wednesday ‘til I die” impressively, even though these lyrics might tragically imply to some that they haven’t got long left and are going to miss Christmas.    Ipswich are naturally wearing our signature blue shirts and white shorts.

Early exchanges are dominated by Fiona’s observation that the Wednesday goalie is very small. “He looks about ten” she says, a little unkindly but it is true he is not the usual giant you expect to see in goal and Wikipedia tells us he is a mere 1.86 metres tall, which is shorter than me. In passing I mention Laurie Sivell, who was probably smaller than most modern 14-year-olds.  Ipswich win an early corner, and I notice that the Wednesday shirts carry the words “Mr Vegas” on the front and I assume this is not some sort of self-promotion by comic actor and professional ‘funny person’ Johnny Vegas, but rather an attempt to part people from their money by gambling with it.  “Football in a library” chant the Wednesday fans to show that they’re no more original than the fans of all other clubs.

Five minutes wither away and George Hirst heads a Jaden Philogene cross over the top of the Wednesday goal, and I realise that Pat from Clacton is wearing a set of festive antlers whilst Fiona has donned a blue and white Santa hat, as has ever-present Phil. Meanwhile the Wednesday fans sing “I love you Wednesday” to the tune of “Can’t take my eyes off you”, which was originally recorded 1967 by Frankie Valli.  Nine minutes have left us forever and George Hirst retires early for Christmas due to a mystery injury, to be replaced by Ivan Azon and that’s as exciting as the first fifteen minutes get.  The home crowd is characteristically quiet, taciturn even, waiting to be entertained before deigning to offer vocal encouragement.   Wednesday win a corner which is headed very wide.  “Dogshit innit?” says the bloke next to me using the kind of symbolism which in the circumstances Charles Beaudelaire himself might have failed not to use.   Then Dara O’Shea carelessly loses the ball to the Wednesday number nine who is identified on the scoreboard as J Lowe and therefore not to be confused with either J Lo or as Fiona says, John Lowe the darts player.  Lowe’s shot goes past Christian Walton but is spectacularly cleared by a tumbling, falling, reversing Cedric Kipre.

“Shall we sing a song for you?” enquire the Wednesday fans clearly feeling uneasy about the awkward silences but then Ivan Azon stoops to head wide, almost reminding us of what could be before a rare cogent moment has Jens Cajuste breaking forward into the penalty area, shooting at tiny Pierce Charles and Nunez heading unnecessarily wide. A third of the match is consigned to mostly forgettable history but suddenly a less forgettable moment has Philogene kicking overhead against a goal post and Town winning a corner from which Kipre heads against the underside of the cross bar and into the net.

Town lead 1-0 and I’m feeling grateful as Wednesday win a corner and at the front of the stand an obese woman makes her way back to her seat with a bottle of Coke, a packet of crisps and a bar of chocolate.  It’s not quite twenty to four in the afternoon.  Three minutes of added on time are added on and then it’s time to dispose of the remaining spent Suffolk Pride and the first of the spent Solstice Porter. Relieved, I head to the front of the stand to speak with Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison and also Dave the steward, who I used to work with at Royal Mail, but who was not on the course with me and the Sheffield Wednesday supporter with the interest in barmaids’ hosiery.

The football resumes at five minutes past four and Pat from Clacton is soon telling me about her new rimless glasses before referee Mr Webb (‘Spider’ to his mates) unveils his yellow card for the first time when Wednesday’s Liam Cooper fouls Ivan Azon.   A minute’s applause follows seven minutes into the half in memory of supporter who died this week and two minutes later Cedric Kipre slashes a shot wide when given his earlier success he might have considered a header, even though the ball was on the ground. The sun has now long set and darkness looms behind each stand.

Town look a bit better this half, which shouldn’t be too difficult, and a sweeping move from defence into attack with a striding run from Cajuste and a perfect pass from Nunez allows Philogene to belt the ball past little Pierce Charles who as well as being small for a goalkeeper sounds like his name is back to front.   Town lead 2-0 and there are still thirty minutes left to play. “No points today, Ole, Ole, Ole” I think I hear the Wednesday fans sing and a couple of substitutions for Wednesday result in the appearance of one George Brown, a player who I can only hope joins Fulham to play alongside Harry Wilson in a tribute to the Labour governments of the 1960’s.

Today’s attendance is announced as 28,860 and the excitable young stadium announcer thanks us for “our incredible support” and I wonder if he’s being sarcastic; personally, I’ve just hollered “Come on you Blues” a few times before two first half corners.  A minute later and from a Wednesday corner the ball fortuitously drops to the ground right in front of Cooper, who only has to swing his leg at it to send it low into the far corner of the Town goal and Wednesday have an unexpected goal.  Hope appears for Wednesday who chuck in a few awkward crosses and George Brown waves his arms about to encourage the away supporters. 

But with fifteen minutes left of normal time Town make three substitutions, replacing Cajuste with Taylor, and Eggy and Philogene with McAteer and Clarke, and Town look likely to score again, which with four minutes left they do as Clarke runs at goal, nips around a bumbling defender and flicks and rolls the ball past little Pierce Charles. 

The game looks won and Town nearly score two more but leave them in the pump for when they might really need them.  The Wednesday supporters, as supportive as they have been have seemingly run out of tunes and have even bored themselves with talk of football in libraries.   A staggering nine minutes of added on time are added on for assorted injuries, and stoppages to give remedial coaching.  At last, with the five o’clock chimes of an imaginary clock ringing in my ears the final whistle is blown, and Town are up to third in the league table.  There is applause, probably partly out of relief, and much of the crowd quickly melts away into the night exchanging seasonal good wishes as they go and talk of seeing everyone again in the new year.  The bloke next to me and the bloke next to him shake my hand; the bloke behind me says he reads this blog and my future memories of Sheffield Wednesday take a turn for the better.

Ipswich Town 1 West Bromwich Albion 0

/ martinpbrooks / 2 Comments

Another Saturday, another kick-off time, this time 12:30 when most civilized people are at least beginning to think about a pre-lunch drink or perhaps even lunch itself.  But it’s not lunchtime yet and I’m struggling to make breakfast as the seven-month-old induction hob in my kitchen refuses to turn on, simply announcing ‘error’ every time I press the on button, and refusing to give me any of the error numbers listed in the instruction manual.  Frustrated but not beaten I resort to an earlier technology using the grill to cook the bacon and microwave for the scrambled eggs.

Barely ten minutes after finishing breakfast I’m off down the road to the railway station as rooks circle above as if about to re-enact a scene from ‘The Birds’.   Arriving at the railway station I am conscious that for the first time this season my hands feel cold, and putting on my woolly gloves I  witness a man who had been standing about 50m away from all the other passengers on the London bound platform having to walk back down the platform when the train pulls in because it is half the length he evidently expected to be.  I am still feeling sympathy for him when the Ipswich train arrives, probably because there’s been nothing else to make me forget him and probably because it’s the sort of thing I can envisage happening to me.

Not much more than five minutes later Gary is sitting opposite me and we’re talking about how there will be forty-eight teams at the next World Cup finals and how games will take place thousands of miles apart in America, Canada and Mexico, which won’t help save the planet so there can be future World Cup finals with even more teams. 

Arriving in Ipswich,  Gary remarks on how well located the Station Hotel is for away fans and I add that Ipswich Town generally has one of the best locations of any football ground anywhere, being close to both the town centre and the main railway station. Why everywhere is not like Ipswich I cannot imagine, all we’re missing are some trams. It’s still about two hours until kick-off, so the streets are relatively quiet, but there are still eager, expectant people seemingly with nowhere better to go, hanging round the turnstiles of Portman Road.  At the Arb,’ our path to the bar is unhindered by other drinkers and although I order a pint of Estrella Galicia for Gary and a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for myself Gary offers to pay for them, and I let him.  We repair to the beer garden to sit in the cold because that’s what we’ll be doing at Portman Road.  We’re talking of someone Gary knew who died in tragic circumstances when Mick arrives and when Mick returns from the bar our grim conversation continues with talk of wills and probate and then the worryingly large number of despotic political figures around the world and how it can only end in war; it must be our age. Mick buys another round of drinks and with the clock ticking past noon I ponder whether there is time for another pint, or perhaps a half before we leave.  I almost reluctantly decide against it and Mick says, “You could have an orange juice”.  “Why on earth would I want to do that?” I ask as incredulously as I possibly can.

As ever, we revel in being the last to leave for Portman Road, scoffing at the ‘lightweights’ who have gone before us.  We part near Sir Alf Ramsey’s statue and bid each other ‘adieu’ until Tuesday week when we will meet again for the match versus Watford. I march onto Chancery Road to make my approach to the Sir Alf Ramsey stand where there no queues at all for the turnstiles, my way being only interrupted by a pretty, Muslim lady with a magic wand looking for weapons. She asks me what I have in pockets and I show her my pair of woolly gloves.  I enter the stadium through the hallowed turnstile 62 and with no one else about it feels like Portman Road belongs to me.

After siphoning off excess Suffolk Pride I arrive at my seat as flames erupt into the air in front of Cobbold Stand and pigeons take evasive action.  Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood are all here of course, but Pat from Clacton has failed a late fitness test, and she remains in Clacton with the remains of her Covid infection.  On the pitch-side, the excitable young stadium announcer and his sidekick are sporting shiny new sports coats over their shiny suits and look like two grey, striped sausage rolls on legs.  Oddly, my mind is elsewhere as the Town team is announced and I forget to bellow out the players’ names in the style of a Frenchman at the Stade Marcel-Picot or Stade Oceane, only emerging from my reverie in time to shout “O’Shea!”.  I think I must have been thinking of Pat from Clacton.

Before kick-off this lunchtime there is a minute’s applause for recently deceased Town player Mick McNeil, although he deservedly gets a cite more than a minute’s applause because the crowd begins to clap as soon as his picture appears on the big screen in the corner or the referee blows his whistle. It might seem a bit shambolic but it’s also fitting that the fans do their own thing on these occasions because spontaneity is what football crowds are all about. With the applause finally over, it is Town’s opponents West Brom’ that get first go with the ball, which they attempt to launch at the goal at the end of the ground closest to the chip shop on the corner of London Road and Handford Road and the old waterworks on Whitton Church Lane, which is much further away and I don’t know why I thought of it. West Brom’ are ill-advisedly wearing yellow and green striped shirts and green shorts.  Ipswich of course wear classic blue and white and kick towards me and my fellow ultras.  Within a couple of minutes, the game surprisingly develops into an extended bout of head tennis, possibly the longest bout of head tennis I’ve ever seen in a football match. Inevitably however, like everything including life itself the head tennis ends eventually, although I’d hoped it might continue for longer, and I’m struck by the thought that West Brom and Ipswich are quite alike in being failed Premier League teams desperate to return.

After five minutes, Jaden Philogene runs and shoots for the far corner of the goal and the West Brom’ goalkeeper Griffiths dives athletically to push the ball away for a corner.  It’s all very dramatic and spectacular and has me thinking “Wow!”, which is not something I do often.  Like most Ipswich corners and probably every other team’s corners the resultant corner comes to nothing, and I’m left to notice how swirly the wind is as it ruffles the players shirts and makes the three flags on the Cobbold stand flutter wildly.

The ninth minute is here and so is Jaden Philogene again, crossing the ball low for Sam Szmodics to not quite reach and divert into the West Brom’ goal.  Szmodics has stretched himself a bit too much and receives treatment from the physio as a result, revealing a flash of tattooed torso in the process, making me think of Rod Steiger in the film The Illustrated Man.  Five minutes later and Jack Taylor breaks forward through the centre of the West Brom’ defence, which parts like the Red Sea before he unfortunately shoots wide of Griffiths’ right-hand post.  I think to myself that I hope this game doesn’t turn out like the one last Tuesday as the electronic advertisement hoardings seemingly incite revolution, reading “Change the way the world works”.

Meanwhile, from up in the Cobbold Stand it sounds like the visiting fans are singing “We’re the Albion we’ll sit on our own”, although I’ll later work out that they’re not feeling anti-social, but want to “…sing on their own”, which is a jibe at the home fans not singing.  But the fact is, Suffolk is probably just less musical than Warwickshire and the West Midlands, and the tally of Nik Kershaw, The Darkness, Brian Eno and Ed Sheeran versus Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Roy Wood, Slade, Nick Drake and The Specials rather proves it. 

Time has progressed to a point almost half-way through the first half and Sam Szmodics slopes off to be replaced by Chuba Akpom who soon wins Town another corner  with a deflected shot, and I’m struck by the uncanny similarity, particularly of haircuts, between George Hirst and a pair of twins I recall from primary school who were called Nigel and Neville.  Twenty-nine minutes have left us, and Town win another corner. “Come On You Blues” I shout repeatedly, but no one much seems to get that they’re meant to join in and produce a crescendo of noise which will frighten the ball into the West Brom’ net.

Town have been dominant again, but with about ten minutes to go until half-time they seem to be generously letting West Brom’ have a go with the ball, and ‘the visitors’ as radio commentators like to call them bag a couple of corners of their own, but naturally do nothing of interest with them.  Indeed, West Brom’s spell of possession, is just that and nothing more, although for a short while the lack of action causes Portman Road to fall completely silent.  “I thought I’d gone deaf for a moment” says the bloke behind me.  Two minutes of added time are added on to give us our money’s worth, but the first half ends without a goal being scored.

Having cheered the referee off the pitch, I vent more spent Suffolk Pride and then visit Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison at the front of the stand.  Pessimistically, Ray and I air concerns about the match so far being like Tuesday night’s, and Ray delivers his well-rehearsed joke that “It feels like deja vu all over again” before we talk about travelling around Europe and Ray reminisces about a trip to the Netherlands in his youth, before he met the woman he refers to as “the present Mrs Kemp.”

The football resumes at thirty-three minutes past one and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) gives me his assessment that the game doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, and unfortunately the absence of decent goal attempts continues.  “We’re the Albion” chant the West Brom’ fans seemingly trying to stave off some sort of identity crisis and then Chuba Akpom starts to limp, takes off his left boot and with sixty minutes played is substituted with Nunez.  The match however has become dull, “Football in a library” chant the West Brom’ fans consulting the well-thumbed pages of the English football supporters’ book of quick wit and ready repartee for something appropriate. On the touchline, Keiran McKenna acknowledges the chill in the air today having donned a short, dark grey puffa jacket, although he probably needs something more like the sports coats that stadium announcer Yogi and his sidekick Boo-Boo are wearing, but more colourful.

Twenty-five minutes of normal time remain and Town’s Sindre Egeli shoots wide to momentarily excite the home crowd and inspire the “witty” West Bromwichians to chant “We forgot, we forgot, we forgot that you were here” to the Welsh hymn tune Cwm Rhondda.  Two minutes later and Egeli is at it again but shooting embarrassingly high and wide, which people find less exciting.   With only seventeen ‘normal’ minutes remaining West Brom’ win another corner to keep the Town goal safe, and two minutes later George Hirst shows how he really is the new Rory Delap by becoming the first player to be booked.  Hirst keeps in the limelight by being substituted a minute later along with Philogene and Jack Taylor, who are replaced by Ivan Arzon, Jack Clarke and Jens Cajuste before today’s attendance is announced as 28,447.  In a busy couple of minutes, which almost pass for entertainment referee Mr Smith then books West Brom’ number two Chris Mepham, who coincidentally has the same surname as a girl I liked at primary school, although in truth I liked her friend Elaine a lot more.

With the end of the match in sight, either the substitutions are tactically astute or the players realise that they’d better do something quickly if they’re going to bank a win bonus this week and there is a noticeable increase in attacking intent with Nunez and Jack Clarke looking unexpectedly capable of penetrating the West Brom’ defence.   The decisive play however comes from West Brom’ themselves who, keen to emulate Paris St Germain and Real Madrid by religiously “playing out from the back” conspire to lose the ball to Jens Cajuste no more than 15 metres from goal. Cajuste passes to Nunez or may be Azon ( i couldnt really tell from over 100 metres away) whose shot is parried by goalkeeper Griffiths but Jack Clarke strides forward to sweep the ball high into the goal net with the kind of stylish aplomb only accessible to a player wearing an alice band.

The remaining minutes, of which five are ones that have been dangerously ‘added on’ pass with a degree of anxiety but surprisingly without much fuss or any sharp intakes of breath.    Fiona and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) make a swift exit at the final whistle, but  today I am pleased to have the time before my train home to wait behind and applaud the team for forgoing lunch to deliver this unusually welcome victory.  Now, I wonder what time our next match kicks off at?

Ipswich Town 1 Fortuna Dusseldorf 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ipswich Town 3 Southampton 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

I woke up this morning and without moving my leaden carcass squinted at the bedside clock. It was nine minutes past seven. I rolled over and soon descended back into a drowsy, drifting sleep.  After what I thought was about twenty minutes I awoke and looked at the clock again. It was seven minutes past eight and l lay there thinking I should get up, whilst also  becoming depressed at the thought that this is Easter Monday and I will have to go back to work tomorrow.  I guess that with still a whole day of the four-day Easter break in front of me and a trip to Portman Road too, such thoughts must mark me down as a pessimist.  I don’t think so though, I think I just don’t like having to work for a living.

Outside it is sunny, but it’s also breezy, so everything in the garden is moving and jiggling about, like I’m watching a Roobarb and Custard cartoon.  My internal dialogue adopts the breathless voice of the late Richard Briers and I think of a young Felicity Kendal before wondering what people from the time before television thought of in idle moments.  I get up, shower, eat breakfast, drink coffee and probably make my wife Paulene suspicious by performing a range of domestic tasks including ‘hoovering’ and ironing, before we enjoy a comforting late lunch of bangers and mash.

As a I step outside to walk to the railway station, it is spitting with rain; Paulene was watching  men in lycra cycling around San Sebastien on the telly as I bade her farewell, and she gave me strict instructions that Ipswich Town must win today because they are playing Southampton and Paulene is a Pompey person, a former joint owner no less, before the rest of them sold out to Walt Disney.  The train is on time but it’s an uneventful train journey, there aren’t many other passengers on board, although a young blonde woman asks me to look after her bag when she goes to the loo.  I tell her “Don’t be long, I’m getting off in Ipswich.”  But she’s back in her seat even before we glide on past one of the Wherstead Polar Bears, who appears to be hiding from the small handful of people who have paid to see him, or her.

In Ipswich, I exit the train and cross the railway tracks by the old footbridge because it has fewer steps than the new one.  The streets are busy with policemen in baseball hats and day-glo gilets standing in pairs and watching.  As ever, I stop in Portman Road to buy a programme (£3.50) from one of the ice cream booths, the vendor looks very young and is possibly very careless too as the screens on both her mobile phone and card reader terminal thing are cracked. “Did you drop them both?” I ask her, but don’t catch the reply; I’m beginning to worry about my hearing.

Approaching ‘the Arb’ however, I can hear the distinctive burble of pub conversation and the chink of glasses. Inside, ‘the Arb’ is heaving with people gathered around the bar, although most of them aren’t buying the drinks, but just waiting for them as if worried that theirs will be forgotten or slyly stolen.  Next time I buy three drinks or more at once, I’m going to ask for a tray and reduce congestion at the bar; I urge everyone to do the same.  But today it is academic as I am on my own; Mick still convalesces from the operation on his foot, whilst Gary has travelled by car with his brother.  After acquiring a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.78 with Camra discount) I retire to the beer garden where there are no unoccupied tables except for one which would seem to be designed for standing at, so that’s what I do as I flick through my programme.   Nearby, at a metal table a Mick Channon era Southampton shirt stretches across a beer belly and has me thinking about the first time I saw Ipswich play Southampton.   It was during the three-day week, on a Saturday evening in February 1974 and Ipswich won 7-0.  Southampton would go on to be relegated from what people now call the Premier League, along with Manchester United, and Norwich. The Seventies weren’t all bad.

Not getting a seat and having to queue at the bar felt like conceding early goals, but I’m back in the game with a second pint of Suffolk Pride, for which I don’t have to queue, and a seat at a Yogi-Bear style picnic table as the Johnny-Come Lately’s to Portman Road, who possibly weren’t alive in 1974, leave early for kick-off and a chance to be on the telly.  By ten past five I’m on my own as a Town fan in the pub garden, or in the pub itself for that matter, so feeling lonely I drain my glass and head for Portman Road too.

I arrive at turnstile 62 early and have to queue, but I’m seemingly in the company of people who are unusually proficient in the wielding of bar codes and after a succession of green lights I’m soon bidding good evening to Pat from Clacton, Fiona and the man from Stowmarket (Paul),  as I settle in a couple of rows behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game and his son Elwood. The teams parade onto the pitch and I feel the warmth of the pyrotechnics on my face, a mildly spectacular if not poetic expression of professional football’s double-standards.  Murphy the stadium announcer does his stuff and for a second game in succession reads out the Town players’ names as they appear on the scoreboard, and we all pretend to be in France as we bawl out their surnames together. By ‘all’ I mean ever-present Phil and me.  It’s taken him a while, (eighteen matches excluding the one he missed) but to mis-quote Rex Harrison (Henry Higgins) in the film My Fair Lady, like Eliza Doolittle “By George he’s got it!” I should really write to congratulate him.

At twenty-eight minutes to six the match begins very noisily.  It’s Southampton that get first go with the ball, aiming it roughly in the direction of the telephone exchange and London Road Baptist church whilst wearing an un-Southampton-like kit of what looks like red and pink halved shirts with black shorts, “Are they in red and pink?” says a text from my wife, who I am guessing is no longer watching blokes in lycra on bicycles.   In fact, the pink turns out to be an optical illusion created by very thin red and white stripes.  Town of course are in their signature blue and white.

The visiting supporters are in good voice, probably as loud as any away fans this season as they launch into “When the Saints go marching in”, although I still prefer Louis Armstrong’s version from 1938.  “E-I, E-I, E-I, O, Up the Football League we go” sing supporters of both teams being equally optimistic, but with eight minutes gone  Southampton are selfishly keeping the ball to themselves to the extent that I momentarily lose interest and count the number of seagulls on the girder that holds up the roof of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand; there are eight of them.  A minute later and the Southampton fans start to sing “Your support is fucking shit” but strangely their chant gets drowned out by the noise as Leif Davis sweeps the ball wide of the goal for the game’s first missed chance.

Four minutes later and the ball is briefly becalmed in midfield before Sam Morsy plays it wide to Leif Davis, who takes one touch before it hits the back of the Southampton goal net. From my seat, almost directly in line with Davis’s shot, I feel as though I must have momentarily blinked; one second the ball was at his feet, then it hit the net.  I guess the Southampton goalkeeper feels much the same way, but just a little less cheerfully so, although he had an even better view than I did; except for the hitting the net bit, that is.

I will admit the early goal was unexpected; I had been prepared to wait a while against one of the teams capable of packing out their goal mouth with parachutes stuffed full of cash.  I sit back to enjoy the spectacle and unfortunately so do the Town players as a low cross from in front of the Cobbold Stand is tapped home from close range and Southampton equalise with what can only be described as indecent haste.  There seems to be some debate as to the validity of the goal in the Sir Bobby Robson Stand, where the conclusion is quickly reached through the medium of song that “Linesman, linesman, you’re a cunt”.  The miracle of television however, will later confirm that it was a valid goal, although it won’t mention the status of the linesman. 

Things soon get worse as a Southampton player falls over and the referee Mr Michael Salisbury heaps the blame on Sam Morsy, whom he books.  “Sing when you’re winning” chant the Southampton fans, which is a bit odd given that Town were barely winning for long enough for anyone to clear their throats, let alone start singing.  They proceed to follow it up by letting Conor Chaplin know that like the linesman earlier,  they think his GP is actually a gynaecologist, and all because long ago he played for Pompey.

The first half is now half over as one bloke in pink passes to another, who runs half the length of the pitch and passes to another who strokes the ball beyond Vaclav Hladky and Town are losing. “Top o’ the league, you’re avin’ a laugh” sing the Southampton fans to the tune of Tom Hark before turning the knife with chants of “Football in a library, doo, doo, doo”.  We are no match for their untamed wit, but I gain some solace from a Southampton free-kick hopelessly launched into touch as the occupants of the Cobbold stand shield their eyes from the slowly setting sun.

Southampton are keeping the ball to themselves still, and they’re still winning, and a Conor Chaplin shot goes straight to the visiting goalkeeper before the clock turns six and it’s time for a drinks break as Keiffer Moore is attended to for what looks like a bad back.  Within five minutes Ali Al-Hamadi has replaced him.  Kayden Jackson gets to chase a ball into the penalty area, but stupidly opts to fall over and look around expectantly for a penalty, when if he’d carried on somebody might really have kicked him.  “We need to start waking up” says the bloke behind me as a low cross travels the full width of the Town goalmouth.

After seven minutes of added on time, a Southampton corner and fulsome roars of “Come On You Reds” . It’s half-time and, as I tell Dave the steward , we can but hope for a better second half.  I predict we will win 5-2 because that’s what we did in February of 1982, and when it’s not doing something different, history repeats itself.  I speak to Ray, his son Michael and his grandson Harrison and offer them Marks & Spencer mint choccy speckled eggs because it’s Easter.  Ray doesn’t seem as cheerful as usual and bemoans that Axel Tuanzebe is really a centre-half playing at full-back,  and although he can be a bit unreliable at times he’d rather see Harry Clarke.

Back in my seat, I share some speckled eggs with Fiona and Pat from Clacton and at twenty to seven the football resumes. “Shit referee, shit referee, shit referee” sing the Sir Bobby Standers to no particular tune that I know of, as Mr Salisbury picks up where he left off and doesn’t award Town a free-kick. Southampton win a corner.  “Come on You Reds” we hear. Southampton win a free-kick.  Vaclav Hladky makes a fine flying save.  Southampton win a corner. “Come On You Reds” again.  Not fifteen minutes of the half have gone and I look up at the scoreboard, it still reads 2-1 to Southampton, but it feels like we’re losing by more. Southampton win another corner.

The game is two-thirds over and it’s the traditional time for mass substitutions.  Kayden Jackson, Axel Tuanzebe and Massimo Luongo are replaced by Nathan Broadhead, Harry Clarke and Jack Taylor.  Murphy announces this evening’s attendance as 29,393 with 1,969 from the place my wife calls Scumton. “Here for the Scummers, You’re only here for the Scummers” chant the Scummers to the traditional Hampshire tune of Guantanamera, and some people applaud. I can’t work out if they’re applauding themselves, each other, Murphy, the singing or just life itself.

Six minutes later and it looks like Ali Al-Hamadi must score, but his shot strikes a goal post, although from where I’m sitting it looks like he’s shot horribly wide as the ball rebounds back at an angle.  “Blue and White Army, Blue and White Army, Blue and White Army, Blue and White Army” chant the Sir Bobby Robson Standers, and then possibly again, but I’m not counting.   The substitutions have made a difference and just to prove it Jack Taylor plays a first time pass to Nathan Broadhead who from just inside the Southampton penalty area turns and scores, shooting beyond goalkeeper Bazunu, who interestingly also used to  play for Pompey,  just like Conor Chaplin, who Fiona and I both decide must, for the sake of the Southampton fans, now score the winning goal.

Southampton are no longer dominating possession, and Town only have to win a throw-in for the home crowd to roar them on. “Come On Ipswich! Come On Ipswich!”.  The stands are moving with waving, punching arms and fists and wide-open, shouting mouths, and probably some spittle too.  Pat from Clacton tells Fiona and me she’s been ill during the week; I ask her if she brought the lurgi back from Norfolk where she was playing whist in Great Yarmouth the week before. She won £95.00, she tells us.

“Oh when the Town go marching in” bawl the far end of the ground gloatingly, as if only the supporters of the team in the ascendency are allowed to sing black spirituals.  Ali Al-Hamadi runs at goal and Conor Chaplin shoots wide with fifteen minutes left of normal time before Southampton substitute Che Adams, whose parents I like to think were, and hopefully still are, both Marxists, with Sam Edozie.  Five minutes later and Southampton make a double substitution bringing on the lanky and totally bald Will Smallbone, who sounds like a character from a novel by Charles Dickens (born in Pompey) and looks like the popular perception of what an alien looks like, which is a remarkable coincidence because the other Southampton substitute is called Rothwell, which is how people who lisp pronounce Roswell.

Five minutes of normal time remain and as ever Leif Davis runs down the left, but this time he  will be through on goal if defender James Bree doesn’t foul him and get sent off.  Bree makes the long walk of shame to the dressing room last as long as he can, doing his best not to look ashamed or remorseful and as Nathan Broadhead lines up to eventually shoot the ‘Bree-kick’ into the defensive wall,  I count fifteen seagulls on the roof of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand; squawks have spread .

After Conor Chaplin is substituted for Jeremy Sarmiento, who of course is on loan from Brighton (the Seagulls), in the final minute of normal time I put my notepad and pencil away in my coat pocket knowing that if Town score now I might throw them up in the air and never find them again.  Seven minutes of added time is more than enough for Town to score again and somehow I think they will, perhaps because it seems they always do, and it seems like everyone else feels the same.

The final minute of added on time inevitably arrives on time and equally inevitably Sam Morsy finds Leif Davis on the left. Davis plays the ball into Jeremy Sarmiento, who ‘skilfully’ meets it with his left foot as he stumbles forward, falls, and stabs it with his right into the corner of the goal as he gets up again. The roar from the crowd is the biggest I’ve heard at Portman Road since Jim Magilton slalomed through the Bolton defence to score in the play-off semi-final twenty-four years ago.  Men, women, children are hugging each other in scenes of reckless abandon, not the sort of thing that happens in puritan Suffolk at all.  Like in a dream there’s barely time for the game to re-start before it ends, and yet again Town have won.

One day I might wake up and not find myself in another dream, but I hope not.

Ipswich Town 1 Fleetwood Town 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Back in the late 1960’s when Ipswich were climbing out of the second division and I was at primary school, I would walk home for lunch most days except on a Friday when, having checked with the head cook, who conveniently was my mother’s cousin, that fish and chips was on the menu, I would stay for a ‘school dinner’.  Like a lot of people of I’ve always liked fish and chips and for lunch today I had a polystyrene box of cod and chips with mushy peas at the Suffolk County Council canteen.  As much as I like fish and chips however, and savour those first few delicious mouths full, by the time I get to the end the batter on the fish and the oil on the chips is beginning to get the better of me; I feel a bit bloated and in a couple of hours it’s going to repeat on me.

Tonight, in a second bout of Friday night football at Portman Road in the space of six weeks, Ipswich Town are playing Fleetwood Town, from the Lancashire fishing port probably once responsible for most of the cod dished up on Fridays in East Suffolk primary schools.  The game has been moved to Friday because there is little hope that most people will be boycotting the Qatar World Cup, and had England qualified for the last sixteen by finishing second in their group, they would have been playing on Saturday afternoon.  Football at three o’clock on a grey winter’s afternoon is great, but an evening match under the bright white glow of the floodlights is always a beautiful thing; it seems to heighten and enhance the usual match day sensations, a bit like listening to The Beatles’ best album Revolver whilst sucking on a sherbet fountain or having smoked something illicit.  A night game also provides the opportunity to go straight from work to the pub, which is really living.

I cross the Cornhill as the town hall clock strikes six o’clock and hit “The Arb” as I have decided to call the Arbor House (formerly The Arboretum), no more than ten minutes later, seconds after Mick has phoned me to tell me he is already there, and is thinking that sitting out in the beer garden on what is a cold and intermittently drizzly and blowy December evening might be an overly hardy thing to do.  I point out that we are going to be sitting outside watching football for the best part of two hours anyway. Mick concedes that this is a fair point.  Ultimately, fate dictates that there is nowhere left to sit inside the building and so, having ordered a pint of Lacon’s Encore and a mushroom and chestnut burger with sweet potato fries for Mick and a pint of Tindall’s Ditchingham Dam (£4.10) and  a scotch egg (£4.00) for me, we step outside again into the beer garden,  where we are warded off sitting at one table by an elderly man who says he has reserved it for his family. When the man’s family do arrive, they all sit at the table he’s sat at.  The man then causes confusion by trying to accept an order for a full-stack burger and a half-stack burger with fries which aren’t his.  He manages to eat a chip before his family arrives from the bar and points out that they have only just ordered the food so it is unlikely to be here already; the food is quickly whisked away to the rightful diners.

As usual, our conversation is diverse and as usual includes death, as we speak of the demise a day or two ago of his former partner’s 20-year-old cat Archie, and how long ago it was that I had my dog Alfie put down.  Lightening up matters, I tell Mick that yesterday I had an electric charging point installed at my house and Mick tells me that his now deceased father once had an affair with the village post mistress.  Time passes quickly as we eat our food and then I buy a Dalwhinnie single malt whisky for Mick and a pint of Woodforde’s Norfolk Nog for me (£8.90).  Unhappily the Nog is on the turn, so I swap it for a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride.

By the time we come to leave, we are the only people left in the beer garden, but we carry on our conversation as we head purposefully and full of expectation to the ground.  Crossing the Portman Road car park, I tell Mick of Decimus Burton the nineteenth century architect who planned the centre of Fleetwood and built the North Euston Hotel as a staging post for rail travellers on the way from London to Scotland, expecting that railway lines would not be able to cross the Lake District and that journeys would continue by steam ship. 

Mick and I part in what was Portman Walk where he enters the Magnus west stand and  I proceed to turnstile 61, the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand and the delights within.   Kick-off is imminent as I take my seat in the company of ever-present Phil who never misses a game, Fiona, and the man from Stowmarket. But Pat from Clacton is still wheezing having had covid and is staying home to watch the game on the interweb; Elwood is not here either.  Stadium announcer Stephen Foster reads out the teams, introducing Fleetwood as the Cod Army and the game begins with Ipswich getting first go with the ball and unusually for the first half, they are aiming at the goal at the Bobby Robson Stand end of the ground.   Town are rightly in our traditional blue and white whilst Fleetwood are impersonating Arsenal, or Stade de Reims if you are in France and Rotherham United if in South Yorkshire.  Quickly Town are on the attack, win a corner, have a Conor Chaplin shot blocked, have a Freddie Ladapo shot saved and then score from very close range as Luke Woolfenden appears heroically at the far post; the game is less than two minutes old.  As Fiona says,  almost complaining, we haven’t really got ourselves settled in yet, and in all the unexpectedly early excitement we forget to take a photo of ever-present Phil celebrating the goal to send to Pat from Clacton.

In the row behind me someone has missed the kick-off. “Did you see the goal?” he asks. “Some of us got here on time” is the answer, “I’ve been here since the Buxton game”.   For the benefit of someone who missed the goal it is described as an eighteen-yard pile-driver.  A goal up, Town continue to be the better team.  Fleetwood briefly break away in a moment of confusion and the ball drifts past Christian Walton’s far post before Conor Chaplin and Freddie Ladapo hit shots straight at the Fleetwood goalkeeper whose first name is the same as Homer Simpson’s middle name, which I’d like to say is appropriate because they’re both big and yellow, but sadly it’s not true as the goalkeeper is wearing green.   Drizzle sweeps across the pitch and into the front of the stand and people sat at the front are offered transparent ponchos, which could be quite alluring on the right people in the right circumstances.

Freddie Ladapo forces a fine save from the goalkeeper and Fiona says “Quick, you can get your photo taken with Bluey” as the Town mascot moves amongst his people behind us.  Only 20 minutes have gone and Fleetwood substitute Penny’s brother Paddy Lane with Nora’s brother Dan Batty before referee Mr Sam Purkiss, who sounds a bit like he could be a character from a Charles Dickens’ novel, makes an appalling decision.   Wes Burns and Fleetwood’s Josh Earl both slide in on the wet turf to claim a loose ball, Burns gets to it first and races away, but Earl stays down on the ground and Burns is booked.  At this moment I take a strong dislike towards Purkiss and it’s not long before I’m turning to Fiona and asking if she would agree that he looks a bit like Matt Hancock MP.

The crowd had been in good voice when Town dominated and looked likely to batter the ‘Cod Army’, but they quieten down as Fleetwood have a spell of possession before the zeitgeist amongst the home crowd switches again to positivity and the occupants of the Sir Bobby Robson stand chant “Blue and White Amy, Blue and White Army”, at least three times.   Town are worth another goal, but Fleetwood are taking an increasingly physical approach to play and the worst example is when Kyle Edwards is scythed down, but the Hancock lookalike referee doesn’t even give a foul, when a caution for the Edwards’ assailant looked the only possible outcome. 

Four minutes of time added on are announced by Stephen Foster and when Conor Chaplin is given a free-kick after being fouled, the decision is met with ironic cheers from the stands.   Town win a final corner of the half, but it comes to nought and at twenty-five to nine the first forty-five minutes of the game finish.  “You don’t know what you’re doing” chants the young bloke in front of me at Hancock’s double as he passes by and a bloke a few rows behind rants furiously and possibly in a foreign language whilst I boo enthusiastically. I love a good boo at the referee, especially when he looks like a former member of the Cabinet, and even more when he seems bent enough to be one.

After a short pause to calm myself down after all that booing, I take a trip to the front of the stand to speak with Harrison and his dad Michael.  Michael’s dad Ray is away on holiday, cruising somewhere in the Azores.  Harrison tells me he has now heard Robyn Hitchcock’s new album ‘Shufflemania’ on Spotify and his review is positive; I’m not sure I could have spoken with him again if it hadn’t been.  We speak of the World Cup, although I haven’t been watching it, and Michael makes the very good point that this World Cup doesn’t seem like a World Cup because it’s not summertime, and so there is still real Ipswich Town-based football to occupy our minds and to leave the house for.

At seven minutes to nine the game resumes and it’s Fleetwood who are the team who mostly have the ball at their feet, which isn’t what we’ve come to expect at all.  Faintly heard chants carry on the wind from the upper tier of the Cobbold Stand where the small, loyal band of Fleetwood fans are sat, no doubt sucking on Fisherman Friends lozenges to lubricate their vocal chords.  The easterly breeze that buffets the flags on the roof of the stand whispers something about a red and white army. 

“Filthy fucker” bawls a bloke from somewhere behind me as Josh Earl floors Conor Chaplin at thigh height and inevitably Mr Purkiss doesn’t think the foul worthy of a booking. “Shit referee, shit referee” is the verdict of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand before they simultaneously clear their minds of such negativity and worries about cultural appropriation with a burst of “I-pswi-ch To-wn, Ipswich To-wn FC, They’re by far the greatest team the world has ever seen” to the tune of the Irish Rover.   They must be in the mood for traditional music tonight as a short while later they’re trudging their way through the dirge version of “When the Town go marching in”, sounding like they’ve learnt it by listening to a 45 rpm record being played at 33 rpm.

Fleetwood are the better team this half without ever having a decent attempt on goal, a bit like they’re being managed by Paul Lambert.  Kyle Edwards is replaced by Kayden Jackson, and Fleetwood’s Dan Batty vainly dives in the penalty area, perhaps to test out just how bad a referee Mr Purkiss is; bad, but thankfully not that bad.  For his trouble Batty is serenaded with a chorus of “Who the fuck, Who the fuck, Who the fuckin’ ‘ell are you?” by the Sir Bobby Robson stand.

Despite not playing very well at all in the second half, Ipswich nevertheless retain the ability to make one match-winning opportunity and with thirteen minutes of normal time remaining Sam Morsy moves forward and passes wide to Wes Burns who releases an overlapping Janoi Donacien and his low cross from the goal line is met by Cameron Humphreys, who bounces the ball wide of the goal.  I clutch the sides of my head like the bloke in Edvard Munch’s painting ‘The Scream’.  John Wark would have scored, Tommy Miller would have scored, Matt Holland would have scored; but that was then and this is now, I don’t know why I mentioned it.

Smothering our regrets, Stephen Foster delivers tonight’s attendance figure which is 22,801, of whom a stonking 66 are from Fleetwood, although the bloke behind me doesn’t think there are that many and I will admit to having tried to count them and I came up with barely fifty. It seems that about sixteen ‘Codheads’, for that is what natives of Fleetwood  are known as, have gone AWOL, caught in a net somewhere perhaps, or victims of diminishing fish stocks.

Ten minutes to go and Freddie Ladapo makes way for the rangy Gassan Ahadme.  “This is fucking embarrassing  ,I tell ya” says the bloke behind me as Mr Purkiss makes another characteristic non-decision when Conor Chaplin is pushed over from behind.  But at least Fleetwood don’t look like scoring, even though they are still the ones with the ball at their feet most of the time.  They can pass, but they don’t create any chances, although one goal line clearance has been needed.

Town make their final substitutions and for Fleetwood Dan Batty suffers the ignominy of being a substitute who is substituted. There will be six minutes of added on time and for five of them the same pattern continues. It’s a bit frustrating that Town don’t seem able to keep the ball themselves, when we’re usually so good at it, but it seems pretty safe letting Fleetwood have it because if they don’t shoot they wont score and if we don’t have the ball Fleetwood can’t attempt limb threatening tackles that they won’t get punished for.   Then Cian Hayes seems to realise there is no time left to do anything but shoot, so he strides forward a couple of paces and does so, it’s not a great shot, it shouldn’t be a worry, but it hits someone and arcs up and over Christian Walton onto the far post, off which it deflects into the goal in exactly the way that Town shots that hit posts never seem to.  Fleetwood have equalised.

It’s not much of a consolation, but as the Fleetwood players celebrate wildly there’s one who goes too far, and it happens to be Josh Earl who is sent off by the hopeless Mr Purkiss, perhaps in a mis-guided attempt to atone for his earlier leniency.  Enough time remains for Purkiss to wave away appeals for what seems from the nearby Sir Alf Ramsey Stand like a clear penalty as Kayden Jackson looks to be barged over, but that’s all the time there is, and the appeals are still being heard as Purkiss blows the final whistle.

As I leave the ground I see the disappointment etched on supporters faces.  What had started out like cod and chips with that delicious first mouthful of an early goal has ended like cod and chips, feeling a bit bloated and uncomfortable and knowing it’s going to repeat on me.