It seems to have been a week of looking back on momentous events, with the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Europe, my own twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and also the forty-seventh anniversary of Ipswich Town winning the FA Cup. Today however, I am returning to the present and am preparing to see Ipswich play Brentford, a club which back in 1978 had just won promotion from the fourth division, which perhaps helps explain why I always think of them as a ’lower division’ team, like Colchester United or Newport County.
For the first time this year It is warm enough not to need a coat, and I walk to the railway station beneath a clear blue sky. It’s a pleasant walk, disturbed only by the loud, wailing sirens of four ambulances and a police car, which careen past me slaloming between lanes of traffic. The train seems on time, but I don’t really know if it is, only that it smells unpleasantly of the on-board toilet. The carriage is mostly empty and surprisingly seems devoid of Brentford fans. Gary joins me at the first station stop and we talk of nothing much in particular, although the polar bears of Wherstead inspire a brief conversation about whatever happened to the soft drink known as ‘Cresta’, a beverage which was possibly at the height of its popularity in1978. The fur of one of the polar bears looks very clean today and we speculate briefly about polar bears and shampoo.
In Ipswich, we head for ‘the Arb’ as quickly as Gary’s dawdling gait will allow, pausing only to buy a programme each (£3.50) at one of the booths that look as though they might also sell ice creams. As ever, I am disappointed that they don’t and that the programme seller doesn’t wish me ‘bon match’. Today’s front cover design, which is not the front cover of the programme thanks to the evil capitalists of the Umbro sportswear company, is an ITFC version of Peter Blake’s sleeve design for The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album. You can’t beat a bit of Pop Art, and for a moment I find myself daydreaming of seeing Ray Crawford, Ted Phillips or Sir Alf Ramsey as they might have been portrayed by Andy Warhol, Pauline Boty or Roy Lichtenstein.
At ‘the Arb’, there is literally a queue at the bar, which I think I succeed in jumping because in my world people don’t queue at pub bars because the bar staff always know who’s next. Happily, it’s not long before Gary and I are soon in the beer garden clutching pints of Lager 43 and Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£9 something for the two with Camra discount) and looking for a place to sit. Mick appears from the back gate and while he is getting himself a pint of Suffolk Pride, Gary and I share a table with a man and a woman and two small dogs who are on a pub crawl of Ipswich’s dog friendly pubs; they’ve already been to the Woolpack and the Greyhound and have five more pubs to visit, when the dogs will qualify for ‘free’ bandanas. I take their photo for them to record the event for their Facebook friends, and reminisce about visiting numerous Tolly Cobbold pubs in the early 1980’s in order to acquire a ‘free’ T-shirt advertising Tolly ‘Original’.
After Gary has bought a further round of drinks and Mick has promised that it will definitely be his round next time, we eventually find ourselves with empty glasses and nothing else to do but head downhill to Portman Road and the afternoon of delights that awaits us. I bid Gary and Mick farewell somewhere near the statue of Sir Alf Ramsey, which isn’t in the Pop Art style, and this is probably a good thing. The queues at the turnstiles to the Sir Alf Ramsey stand are short, but it still takes longer than expected to gain entry because of zealous use of scanners by the security staff, although I get the impression that they are losing heart because no one seems to be trying to smuggle in firearms or explosives; it can’t be good for their morale never discovering anything.
By the time I am reacquainting myself with Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood, the teams are on the pitch, balls of flame have burst into the sky, and a pall of smoke is drifting across the pitch as if all the explosives the security staff had hoped to find, but hadn’t, had been let off at once. The excitable young stadium announcer, whose grey suit looks as if he’s only just got it back from Sketchley’s reads out the teams and I bawl the Town players’ surnames as if I was in the tribunes of the Stade du Moustoir, Lorient or Stade Gabriel-Montpied, Clermont Ferrand.
Ipswich, sporting their usual blue shirts and white shorts get first go with the ball and are mostly trying to kick it towards the goal just in front of me and my fellow ultras. Meanwhile, Brentford sport their traditional red and white striped shirts and black shorts, although closer inspection reveals that the black of the shorts bleeds into the red of the stripes and there are black bits underneath the armpits of the shirts too, as if the players were all using an experimental pitch or creosote-based under arm deodorant.
The game has only just begun, but already I’m thinking that Conor Chaplin is looking different today. At first I think it must be his haircut, but then decide he has a beard, although such thoughts are suddenly swept away as Omari Hutchinson crosses and Liam Delap heads towards the goal, but Mark Flekken the Brentford goalkeeper, who is Dutch but has a French tri-colour against his name on the back of the programme makes a neat but not overly difficult save. ‘Edison House Group’ reads the electronic billboard at the far end of the ground, and although I try not to, I hear ‘Love grows where my Rosemary goes’ playing in my head.
Ten minutes pass and Brentford begin to hog the ball, and then they win the game’s first corner. “Football in a library” sing the Brentford fans perhaps expecting us to cheer their corner, and Pat asks who the well-known Brentford players are so she can photograph them. But Fiona and I don’t really think any of them are well-known, although Fiona has heard of Mark Flekken. I tell Pat I expect they’re well-known in Brentford. With fifteen minutes up, the referee Mr Barrott, whose surname pleasingly rhymes with carrot decides it’s time Brentford scored from a corner and keeps giving them corners until they do. Part way through the catalogue of corners the match is paused for VAR to check for a possible penalty due to over-enthusiastic grappling. “Place your bets” I tell Fiona and Pat from Clacton, but surprisingly no penalty is awarded, although Jack Taylor and Christian Norgaard are both booked. From the next corner however, Brentford score as Kevin Schade, who in his spare time also plays for Germany, rises unopposed at the near post and heads just inside the far post.
Ten minutes elapse after we rapidly come to terms with the likelihood of another home defeat, and Town then win a corner of their own. “Come On You Blues” I bellow, hopefully, but the ball doesn’t even get past the first Brentford defender, who is stood at the near post. “Gotta beat the first man” says the bloke behind me censoriously. The familiar sound of ironic cheers follows two minutes later as Omari Hutchinson wins a rare free kick for Town, but two minutes later Brentford have the ball back and Alex Palmer is making a decent save to prevent a goal.
The final seven minutes of the half witness corners to both sides, more chants of “football in a library” from the Brentford supporters, Jack Taylor shooting wide of the goal and Pat from Clacton complains about the bloke behind her constantly talking (and swearing), most weeks as Pat tells us, there’s a “…nice, quiet older man sitting there”.
After two minutes of added on time, half-time arrives as expected and the disappointments of the first half are forgotten as I go to the front of the stand to talk to Ray and his grandson Harrison, applaud the promotion winning women’s team, see Harrison’s 21st birthday announced on the big screen and finally enjoy a Polish Przy Piatczku chocolate wafer bar courtesy of the World Foods aisle in Sainsbury’s. Unfortunately, the chocolate on one side of the wafer has melted in the warmth of the afternoon, and through being in my pocket , so after I’ve eaten it I have to ask Fiona if I’ve got any chocolate around my mouth; I haven’t and I think she’s pleased she’s not going to have to dab anything off with a hanky as if she were my mum.
The second half brings the usual misleading, renewed hope, and after ten minutes Jack Clarke, or “Jack Claaarke” as the excitable young announcer calls him replaces Conor Chaplin. Pat from Clacton shifts her attention away from the constant talking of the bloke behind her to the Brentford manager Thomas Frank, who apparently is “always chewing” and with his mouth open too, yuck. More substitutions follow just five minutes later as Jens Cajuste and George Hirst replace Jack Taylor and Liam Delap. Alarmingly, George Hirst has dyed his hair blond and now looks like a cross between a Midwich cuckoo and Sick Boy in the film of Trainspotting.
The game is a little more than two-thirds over and I’m beginning to feel a bit annoyed like Pat from Clacton, but my irritation isn’t down to talking and chewing, but down to the Brentford players who, when not charging at the Town players ( I think it’s called ‘pressing’), seem a whingy, whiny lot who are constantly running to the referee, ‘pressing’ him to give them free-kicks. I begin to wonder if Brentford aren’t called The Bees because they’re always buzzing around the referee, although having grown up in the country I’d be tempted to liken them more to flies around a cow’s arse.
Another Brentford corner brings another VAR check for a possible penalty, which is again turned down, this time with the explanation that there had been ‘mutual holding’, which in the privacy of one’s own home sounds quite appealing and probably explains why no one was booked this time. Less appealing is a somewhat reckless overhead kick by Yoane Wissa which makes contact not with the ball, but with Jacob Greaves’ face, although fortunately he is not hurt and manfully he carries on despite the taste of dubbing.
The closing fifteen minutes of the match play out in a way that cruelly allows Town fans to retain hope of an equaliser, which of course never comes. Sam Morsy shoots over, George Hirst bursts through and shoots powerfully wide, Omari Hutchinson shoots beyond a far post too and Town win more corners. Today’s attendance is announced by the now unctuous sounding but still excitable young stadium announcer as 29,511, of whom 2,953 are here for ‘the Brentford’ and indeed “You’re only here for the Brentford” is what they touchingly sing to one other. Five minutes of added on time produce another shot on goal for Town which I think is saved, but before it was it had me off my seat almost thinking it was a goal.
The final whistle is greeted with applause for the Town players today and the realisation that with a bit more luck we might have got a draw and we would have deserved it, and so perhaps, like the season as a whole, it hasn’t been a complete waste of time.
trippingovertheball 