tigers

Ipswich Town 1 Hull City 0

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

When did football matches become like buses? None for a month and then three all at once.  Although in rural Suffolk the pattern is slightly different being one of no buses since 1985 except for the occasional rail replacement that takes a wrong turn off the A140.  But if it’s Tuesday it must be Hull City and after a day’s quiet toil in front of a couple of computer screens, and then a late afternoon plate of left over and re-heated cottage pie, I find my self once again walking along my local railway station platform to catch the train to Ipswich.

Evening sunlight abounds, illuminating faces and fascias. A boy with big ears looks up from his phone and smiles and a man in his thirties who is showing early signs of balding carries his grandmother’s handbag, although I suppose she could be his aunt, or even his wife or lover, I don’t ask.  The train arrives and I sit opposite a woman who easily looks sixty and whose blond hair simply has to be dyed, like the grandmother’s was, although she had chosen an improbable ginger  or auburn with grey streaks.  Gary joins me at the first station stop and has been thinking, seemingly at length, about when Ipswich Town’s twice postponed game at Portsmouth will eventually be played.  I tell him I had heard someone say that there is a scenario where it would be on Good Friday although we’re already scheduled to play at Southampton that day.  I guess the idea is that the EFL will say “well, whilst you’re in area, you know, two birds with one stone and all that”.  Gary favours Portsmouth having to waive the fixture and Ipswich being awarded a 6-0 win. Gary, sixty-seven and still a dreamer.

Ipswich is busy with buses and cars filled with people going home from work as we head up Princes Street, Museum Street and High Street to the Arb. As ever, I’m first through the door and soon invest in a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for me and a pint of Estrella Galicia for Gary (£10 something with Camra discount) before we repair to the beer garden, where we sit in the dimly lit and echoey shelter backing onto High Street.  Mick soon arrives, goes to fetch a pint of Suffolk Pride for himself and returns before being served “mini fish and chips”, which we know he ordered when buying his beer.   I ask if it’s the fish that is mini, a Stickleback perhaps, or the portion.  Strangely, the mini fish and chips is served in a ceramic cup of chips with the piece of fish balanced on top, which Mick then has to tip out onto the plate to eat.  Mick explains that this sort of presentation is ‘a thing’ with chefs; “de-constructed” is the word apparently. “Daft” and “poncey” are other words that spring to mind.  I laughingly tell him he should have said “what am I supposed to do with this, drink it?” to the unfortunate fellow who brought it from the kitchen.

Gary reprises his concerns about the re-scheduling of the Portsmouth match, presumably just for Mick’s benefit, before we look at the changes to tonight’s team compared to Saturday’s, and I point out that tonight is our second in three consecutive games against teams from cities which were home to notable British literary figures,  namely Dylan Thomas, Philip Larkin and Joe Orton.  We go on to think of people with the first name Winston but can only come up with author Winston Graham and the fictional Winston Smith, although much later at home I will recall Winston White who played for Colchester United. Gary and Mick both return to the bar for more beer and whisky and once everyone else has left for Portman Road, we do too.

On arrival at Portman Road, I am disappointed to find queues at the back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand as everyone is checked for weaponry and scrap metal.  When I get to the front of the queue I am asked by the man wielding the scanner if I have something in my pocket, I reply that I don’t know and I don’t, because I don’t know which pocket he means; I have several in my large black coat.  I am let through without further questions and proceed to the famous turnstile 62.  By the time I’ve vented some spent Suffolk Pride and arrived at my seat the excitable young stadium announcer has already read out the team names, un-necessarily bellowed ‘Blue Army’ a couple of times and weirdly asked us all to be loud and proud.  Naturally, ever-present Phil who never misses a game is here along with Pat from Clacton and Fiona but tonight we are missing ever-present Phil’s son Elwood and the man from Stowmarket (Paul), who has had an operation on his left eye.

It is Ipswich who get first go with the ball, which they mostly aim in the direction of the goal just in front of me and my fellow ultras, and of course Town are in our signature kit of blue and white.  Hull City meanwhile are appropriately kicking in the direction of Wilberforce Street, named after William Wilberforce, who was born and grew up in Hull, and wear their signature gold shirts and black shorts.  Doubtless because Hull City are known as the Tigers, the sleeves on their shirts rather unpleasantly feature a sort of tiger-skin print of the sort you might normally expect to see on a dress worn by the fictional Bet Lynch of Coronation Street fame, or perhaps Eartha Kitt.

The game starts slowly with Town striving to gain an early advantage but becoming mired in Hull’s dense defensive formation. “Windows”, “Doors”, “Conservatories” announce the illuminated advertisement hoardings on the Sir Bobby Robson stand, and confusing which electronic displays are meant to encourage our support for our team, and which are there to just flog us stuff I get the urge to shout the words out. Fortunately, the urge is resisted.  On the pitch meanwhile, several free kicks have already been awarded causing Fiona to remark in a tone of deep resignation “Seems the referee’s not going to let anything go”.

With the tenth minute Town win a corner to please fans of decimals, and Fiona and I are a little shocked to hear a surging chant of “Come On You Blues” emanating from the far end of the ground.  Naturally, we join in and for a few moments Town lay siege to the Hull penalty area until Marcelino Nunez puts a lid on our excitement as he ill-advisedly shoots high and wide of the Tigers’ goal.  Five minutes elapse and Town win another corner and then another, and a more normal, somewhat weedy chant of “Come On You Blues” comes from the usual half a dozen suspects.  With the eighteenth minute Jack Taylor shoots thunderously but narrowly wide eliciting an “Ooooh!” if not from everyone, then from me at least, before Fiona shudders slightly as if someone had “…walked over her grave”, the scientific explanation for which is apparently that it is a release of adrenaline, which is understandable when watching Ipswich Town.

Twenty minutes have now left us and Hull City manage a shot, but typically for a team who seldom venture outside the safety of the area just in front of their own penalty box, it is from distance.  Normal service is soon resumed however as Town win a fourth corner and once again half a dozen of us do what football supporters are supposed to do on such occasions and shout encouragement to our team.  The visitors in the Cobbold stand have by now noticed the reticence of the home supporters to sing and shout much, and respond with an ironic chant of  “Ipswich, Ipswich, give us a song” which isn’t one I’ve heard for several years and  possibly reveals either  imagination or what an out of the way place Hull really is. But moments  later   the Hullensians are singing about football in a library, which I don’t suppose was something Philip Larkin ever considered.

The first half enters its final third and Hull City have become a fraction sharper it seems, with a few awkward looking breakaways but then Jack Taylor has another shot and quickly George Hirst has a header but they are both straight at the Hull goalkeeper Ivor Pander, whose name sounds like an admission that somewhere he keeps a black and white, bamboo-eating bear . Hull then have the cheek to win a corner before Mr Lewis gets to air his yellow card for the first time this evening when some bloke fouls young Eggy.  As if sulking over mean Mr Lewis’s treatment of his team mate, another Hull player goes down injured and as a result we all lose four minutes of our lives waiting a bit longer for half-time.  Pat from Clacton makes use of the time however by finding her friend John in the west stand using the zoom lens of her camera, and Fiona, Pat and I discover that we all know John and we all get texts from him every morning.  The half almost ends with another corner and renewed chants of “Come On You Blues”, but then it does.

Half-time is a whirlwind of talking to Dave the steward, from whom I learn that another Dave with whom we both once worked has been dead for a couple of years, talking to Ray, bumping fists with Harrison, feeling spots of water on my face from the sprinklers on the pitch, and decanting more spent Suffolk Pride. When the football kicks off again it is ten minutes to nine.

The second half begins with Hull looking like they’ve decided they should occupy a little more of their time with the ball at their feet. Within two minutes Hull have a corner, but when Town get the  ball back, it’s as if the home crowd had felt affronted and they react supportively with repeated surging chants of “Blue Army, Blue Army”, which personally speaking is my least favourite chant of all. With the half now ten minutes old, Dara O’Shea surprises everyone by striding forward and having a shot at goal; it’s much less of a surprise when the ball travels over the cross bar.

Town are sometimes criticised by their own supporters for a perceived lack of urgency, but giving the lie to that today Keiran McKenna makes his first two substitutions in the fifty-seventh minute, at least three minutes before he usually does; Wes Burns and Leif Davis replace Eggy and Jacob Greaves. By the time the substitutes would normally be coming on, Town have another corner and George Hirst is directing the ball at Ivor Pander again.  A second Hull player, a huge, bearded bloke called Matt Crooks is booked for a foul on Jack Taylor, but Nunez boots the resulting free kick over Ivor Pander’s bar.  Pander is then booked for time wasting and with only five minutes until the witching hour that is the sixty-ninth minute, Pat from Clacton mentions that she might have to get lucky charm ‘Monkey’ out of her handbag despite the chill in the air.  Anis Mehmeti replaces Jack Taylor with twenty-two minutes of normal time remaining.

Twenty minutes now remain, Hull’s Egan fouls George Hirst and is booked, both Egan and Crooks are quickly substituted, presumably so that someone who won’t be sent off for his next bookable offence can come on and commit any ‘necessary’ fouls with impunity, or at least until he gets booked too.  The excitable young stadium announcer now tells us with uncharacteristic calmness that tonight there are 26,103 of us here and he thanks us for our support but for once does not claim that it is incredible, perhaps because it is not.

A minute later no one cares what the crowd is or who’s been booked as the ball is dribbled in from the left, Leif Davis runs across the edge of the penalty area, squares the ball back to Azor Matusiwa and he gives Town the lead by what can only be described as “twatting” the ball into the top right hand corner of the Hull goal from just outside the penalty area. The relief in the home crowd is palpable, and I can only think the funereally paced rendition of “When the Town go marching in” that follows is an attempt to slow down everyone’s heart rates.

Unfortunately, the final nineteen minutes of normal time and five minutes of added on time do not see Town extend their lead to make the game safe, but nor do Hull succeed in seriously threatening to equalize. Hull nevertheless increasingly find their way into the previously mostly unchartered territory of the Town half; the Town defence however stands firm and Hull never quite manage to locate the goal.  Pat from Clacton helps ease the tension by looking in her purse for the piece of paper that records her entry in the ’draw the correct score’ draw on the Clacton supporters’ bus.  Pat has drawn ‘3-2’; it makes us all laugh.

Added on time melts away without much delay and with the final whistle we do the same to catch our buses and trains.  It’s been a game that‘s made a virtue of patience but now somehow, I can’t wait to get home.  After  Ipswich lost heavily at home to Hull City back in March 2018 I concluded in this very blog that I couldn’t begrudge  any city associated with William Wilberforce, Philip Larkin and Mick Ronson the odd three-nil away win. Tonight however Hull City have failed to live up to the qualities of that illustrious threesome. Ipswich Town on  the other hand have comfortably beaten off all comparisons with the work of Brian Cant, June Brown and Nik Kershaw.

Ipswich Town 0 Hull City 3

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A surfeit of snow last Saturday week resulted in a rare postponement at Portman Road and now the joy that emanated from the relief of not having to go out on a grey, cold, icy afternoon is re-doubled as we reap the benefit of the inevitable mid-week match under floodlights.
On the basis that yes, it is possible to go to the pub too soon, I play the unaccustomed role of thrusting career man by working until five o’clock, but then walk directly to St Jude’s Tavern along with my accomplice for the first part of the evening, Roly. It feels odd that it’s still light, but that’s the wonder of the Earth’s rotation on its tilted access around the sun for you. In Sir Alf Ramsey Way a white van disgorges its load of transparent, polythene, East Anglian Daily Times ‘goodie-bags’ onto the pavement behind the North

(Sir Bobby Robson) Stand and a few stewards stand about and chat before entering the ground. I wave to a moustachioed man called Michael who is hanging about in a blue Ipswich Town jacket by one of the burger vans on the Portman Road car park.
At St Jude’s Roly and I quickly decide to enjoy a pint on its own before moving onto a pie and a pint. We each choose the Match Day Special (£2.50) and before we have finished our pints Phil the ever present fan who never misses a game walks in carrying a bag of chips. Phil asks me to hold his chips while he asks at the bar if they feel comfortable with him consuming food purchased off the premises; they do and thanks to this grown-up, relaxed and progressive attitude he is able to join us with a half a pint of something about which I don’t know the detail. We talk football but also, in an homage to ‘What’s My Line’, of our respective employment and Phil reveals that he once worked at a music venue where he ‘roadied’ for Iggy Pop. He did the same for other recording artists apparently but having heard him mention Iggy Pop, I wasn’t paying attention after that. I soon return to the bar to arrange pies and pints (£5 for one of each); the last Steak & Kidney pie in the fridge for Roly and Chicken and Mushroom for me. I choose Elgood’s Cambridge for my pint whilst Roly remains faithful to the Match Day Special.
St Jude’s is filling up with bands of middle aged blokes heading for the match, but determined to at least get some enjoyment from the evening by drinking some good beer first. Chips, pies and pints savoured, Phil and Roly then each imbibe a half of Nethergate Priory Mild whilst I enjoy a full pint (£3.20) because I am going home by public transport and can drink as much beer as I like. Phil leaves for the game before Roly and I and before we in turn leave I speak to a cap-wearing, bearded man called Kevin, who I know from our shared experience of Wivenhoe Town. Kevin has come to St Jude’s after reading about it in this blog. Roly and I are leaving earlier than I would wish because he wants a ‘goodie bag’, or at least the packet of crisps it contains.
The walk to the match is as ever brisk and full of anticipation as the glow of the floodlights draws us down Portman Road like moths to a flame. As we pass the end of Great Gipping street I catch a glimpse of an upright lady gliding past on her black, Dutch, Azor bicycle, her dark curls buffeted by the breeze. “Gail!” I call and she stops. It’s my friend and former colleague who I have correctly identified as Gail, riding home from work. She’s late because her train was. I admire her red leather gloves and am impressed that she has negotiated the Portman Road crowds on her splendid black bicycle. We kiss one another on the cheek like the sophisticated Europeans that we are, no Brexit for us, and exchange all too brief words before carrying on our respective ways. Under the far-off gaze of Sir Alf Ramsey’s statue Roly and I part company as he heads for the East of England Co-operative stand to take up his ‘posh’ seat, which is more suited to Waitrose than the Co-op.


I breathe in the smells of bacon, chips and onions and move on down gently-lit Portman Road to the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand, which is forever Churchmans. It seems the club has not opened all the turnstiles tonight and so I join a queue and remember what it was to go to a ’big match’ in the days of terraces. Inside the ground the strains of ‘My Way’ are reaching their conclusion; played in honour of Sir Bobby Robson whose favourite song it was, but poignantly and probably unknowingly tonight in honour of the man who wrote it. Cabaret singer Claude Francois or ‘Clo-Clo’ as he was popularly known in his native France, died forty years ago this weekend just gone. A nasty little man by many accounts, but beloved by thousands of middle-aged French women, he died in mysterious circumstances when he stood up in a hotel bath to correct a flickering light bulb. In France the fortieth anniversary of his death is front page news.
The game begins with tonight’s opponents Hull City, in their customary tiger suits of amber and black striped shirts with black shorts kicking towards the Sir Bobby Robson (North) Stand, but Ipswich get first go with the ball and start the game quite well. Within the first ten minutes Town win a corner and a header from Jordan Spence strikes a post. But Hull respond with shots at goal of their own and Bartosz Bialkowski makes a couple of neat saves. A drum is drummed in the North Stand and a chant chanted. Hull supporters make equivalent sounds. The man in the aged couple behind me says “That’s three shots their had”. “Yes” says his partner. “We never have one do we”. His partner doesn’t respond, hopefully she remembers the header against the post, although strictly speaking I suppose that wasn’t a shot.
I dare to think things aren’t that bad, but then a free-kick is passed to a Norwegian man called Markus Henriksen, who like the villain in some Scandi-noir stabs Town fans’ hearts with a right footed shot past big Bart’. I look to the bench expecting to see Mick McCarthy holding his head like the isolated figure in Edvard Munch’s The Scream. I’d been hoping for a third consecutive goalless draw, and now this. I rally and chant on my own whilst every other Town fan recedes into their customary introspective gloom. Twenty-three minutes have passed and the visiting supporters, of whom there are 290, advise the home supporters that “Your support is fucking shit” as the familiar Welsh hymn goes. They are of course right and I imagine Mick McCarthy would respect their bluntness; no pussyfooting about asking if this is a library. But they know all about libraries in Hull, or Philip Larkin did.
Freddie Sears and Grant Ward dash down the right and cross the ball to an invisible force, which fails to score. Meanwhile down the left not so much happens; Town’s nicely named left-back Jonas Knudsen may be in the Danish international squad, but I can’t be optimistic about a player nicknamed ‘Mad Dog’; less marauding Viking and more appreciation of Soren Kierkegaard and hygge is what’s needed.
Forty minutes pass; referee Mr Jeremy Simpson, the least amusing of Matt Groening’s characters, fails to spot the ball ricochet off a Hull player for a corner to Ipswich and instead play heads north at the feet of the Tigers and a low cross is turned into Ipswich goal net by a young lad by the name of Harry Wilson. Wilson is a player crying out to be managed by the late, great Brian Clough who would doubtless have referred to him as Harold Wilson. The 0-2 score line is enough for some in the North Stand to brush off their copies of The Beachboys’ Pet Sounds and sing along to Track 7 letting Mick McCarthy know that his “…football is shit”. Half-time comes and the expected booing ensues.
In common with the theme for the whole evening, there is no entertainment at half-time. I flick through the glossy but dull programme. Scanning club captain Luke Chamber’s column I see a headline “There is not enough communication and people approaching you to discuss your options. There is no help with planning going forward”. That’s an unusually frank and honest assessment I think, imagining he’s talking about playing for Town; it turns out however that he’s writing about the lack of help and advice the Professional Footballers Association gives to players towards the ends of their careers. Or so he says.

The game begins again and within two minutes Hull City are winning 3-0 as someone called Jarrod Bowen kicks the ball between Bialkowski and his near post. Once again the North Stand let Mick McCarthy know about his stinky football, which seems a bit harsh because I doubt he told the players to just let anyone in a stripey shirt run past them and score, which is what they actually did. But at least the Hull supporters are happy and they ask if they can play us every week; which is nice.
The game is effectively over now and Hull are happy to allow Ipswich to endlessly pass the ball about between themselves, as long as they don’t kick it at their goal, and that is largely what happens. As the ball nears the Hull penalty area someone shouts “Shoot”. The old boy behind me responds “They don’t know the meanin’ of the word” whilst his partner reflects “I reckon that’s all they do up Humber Doucy Lane, keep passing the ball to one another”. Some spectators make their own entertainment, cheering sarcastically with each pass but largely the atmosphere is morose. The chill night air further deadens all feeling and for a few moments I lose myself in the heady smell of the damp turf. Two of the Hull players sport pony tails, which is a bit dated, another is balding and with his bushy beard looks like a member of the Russian royal family or King George V. The Buddleia still grows in the roof of the stand. The attendance is announced as a palindromic 13,031. Just after a quarter past nine Freddie Sears manages a shot, which isn’t very far wide of the goal and draws some applause. When Hull’s Will Keane runs largely unopposed through the defence and forces Bialkowski into a save a ripple of unrest passes through the East of England Co-op stand like a shiver. The old folks behind me leave and there are still eight minutes left of normal time; he says something about watching paint dry.
The final minutes have a slightly new soundtrack as the North Stand sing “Get out of our club, Get out of club, Mick McCarthy, Get out of our club” naturally to that tune for all occasions, Sloop John B. I don’t fully understand why, but in my head I’m singing “If you want a lot of chocolate on your biscuit join our Club”.
Jeremy Simpson is a kind man, irrespective of his poor eyesight and only three minutes of added time are joined on to the usual ninety; once these have expired I am quick to turn and leave, closing my ears to the boos and the wailing and gnashing of teeth. It’s only a game after all and I’m pleased for Hull; any city that can boast an association with William Wilberforce, Phillip Larkin and Mick Ronson deserves the odd 3-0 away win.