travel

Stanway Pegasus 0 Haringey Borough 2

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Pegasus, Wikipedia tells us was a Greek mythological winged stallion, the offspring of Poseidon and Medusa who sprang from the Medusa’s blood when in an everyday incident for the characters of Greek mythology she had her head chopped off by Perseus.  After time spent carrying lightning bolts for Zeus, being ridden about by Bellophron and then as a constellation of stars, having been killed by Zeus who presumably then had to carry his own lightning bolts, between 1948 and 1963 Pegasus more prosaically became the name of an amateur football team made up of Oxford and Cambridge graduates obviously keen to mix football with their classical education.   Even more prosaically, the name of Pegasus then became that of a youth and then Sunday football team in Colchester and most recently that club has aspired to men’s senior football and for reasons unknown has attached the name Pegasus to Stanway, a suburb of Colchester that some of its residents still think is a village and which already had one senior football team in the shape of Stanway Rovers.

Today, Stanway Pegasus who are now in the snappily titled Thurlow Nunn Eastern Counties League South play Haringey Borough of the only slightly less snappily titled Spartan South Midlands Football League in the first qualifying round of the FA Vase, a competition which, to my shame, I have not witnessed a game in for over ten years.  It is for this reason, and it being the closest game to where I live, that today I choose to ignore the ’Town’ -centric draw of Braintree Town v Yeovil Town in the National League and the charming alliteration of Chelmsford v Chippenham in the National League South, and make my way to ‘The Crops’ in West Street Coggeshall home of Coggeshall Town but where Stanway Pegasus currently play their home games too.

After a morning breathing in noxious fumes from the white gloss paint I am applying to the banisters, skirting boards and miscellaneous surrounding woodwork of a domestic staircase, standing at a bus stop on the A120 under a grey late August sky feels like suddenly being on holiday.  The X20 bus to Stansted Airport via Coggeshall, Braintree and Great Dunmow turns up more or less on time and I cheerily tender the correct fare (£3) in coins to the driver, who wears a peaked cap in the style of the late Sir Francis Chichester.  The driver, who does not speak looks at me inscrutably from beneath the peak of his hat as if weighing up this passenger’s likely back story.  I look back at him in the same way, imagining I too am wearing a hat, before climbing the stairs to the top deck where I sit behind a man sporting short hair and an earring.  Behind us, a girl evidently lacking all sense of self-awareness talks loudly on her mobile phone, broadcasting the other half of the conversation on speaker phone.   Leaving the A120, the bus (fleet number 34423) wends its way through Coggeshall’s narrow medieval streets before I alight at the stop called ‘Nursery’ just a couple of hundred yards away from ‘The Crops’.

Arriving at the turnstile I’m not surprised to find there is no queue but am delighted to see a small pile of glossy programmes, which I had not expected.   I ask if I should pay by cash or card. “Cash if you’ve got it, please” says the turnstile operator “I’ve started to run out”.  This is the first time I have paid on the turnstile at a match since I turned sixty-five, and paying in cash adds something to this auspicious occasion as I tender a five pound note for my concessionary entry fee and a two pound coin for the programme.

Once through the turnstile I head for the bar at the far end of the ground; it is virtually empty,  and not liking the look of the fizzy draught beer on offer I warily request a bottle of Adnams Southwold Bitter (£6) from the fridge. Much to my surprise the beer is merely cool not chilled and therefore very drinkable.  I step outside to await kick-off amongst a good following of Haringey supporters identifiable from their club colours but also as the only people obviously in the throes of enjoying a day out.  Two of them wear pork pie hats and I wonder if they play the saxophone.  Except for an old couple sat in foldable chairs the home supporters are rather anonymous.  In the corner of the pitch by what passes as the players’ tunnel but looks a bit like a stockade stands a plinth on top of which sits the match ball.  The Haringey fans eye the plinth both jealously and with a degree of amusement discussing what design of plinth they might have if they were to have one of their own, they seem keen on something more sculptural. 

“Sing if you’re Haringey, Sing if your happy that way” chant the Haringey fans imaginatively to the tune of the Tom Robinson Band’s 1978 hit “Glad to be gay” as the team emerge from the stockade and the plinth fulfils its job of relieving the referee of having to remember to bring the ball with him from the dressing room.   The match kicks off at five minutes to three with Stanway Pegasus getting first go with the ball and sending it in the direction of the bus stop from whence I arrived and Coggeshall beyond. “You on a promise Ref?” bawls a Haringey supporter “It’s only five to three”.  “That’s close to being abusive, that is” says another Haringeyite.  “No it’s not, it’s just a question” continues the first supporter.  “A very personal one” is the response. “Alright, do you have something nice waiting for you when you get home, Ref?” Comes the re-phrased enquiry.

Pegasus are wearing a kit of yellow shirts with black trim and black shorts, which weirdly are also the colours of Stanway Rovers.  Haringey meanwhile sport a change kit of all over green as their supporters expand on their theme of chants based on ‘new wave’ hits of the late 1970’s and sing the praises of their team’s Matty Young to the tune of “To much too young” by The Specials and then sample the  oeuvre of Sham69 with chants of “Come On, Come On, Come on Haringey Come On, We’re going down the pub”.

Back on the pitch, one of the linesmen is attracting a lot of attention to himself both with his offside decisions and his insistence on explaining them to the players.  As if that isn’t enough, he is very bouncy on his feet and, because he sports a poorly shaped goatee beard and has grey highlights in his swept back hair I am reminded of the match between Arsenal and Liverpool in September1972 when one of the linesmen was injured and Jimmy Hill emerged from the stands to run the line.

At three minutes past three Haringey Borough take the lead with a neat shot into the corner of the goal from somewhere near the edge of the penalty area.  The goal scorer, I think, is the aforementioned Matty Young  who evidently continues to strive to allow people to look back and say he did a lot in his youth.   “We’re the Borough, The Mighty Borough, We always sing away, We sing away, we sing away, we sing away, we sing away” chant the Haringey fans in response to the goal, channelling Tight Fit’s  cheesy cover version of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” from 1982.

The Jimmy Hill lookalike linesman continues to grab attention as he rules a Haringey player onside and then proceeds to explain that the Pegasus number five had played him onside. “Don’t tell them lino, they can learn for themselves” shouts an exasperated Haringey fan. The Haringey support delve into their ‘new wave’ singles collection once more, impressively getting “We’re Haringey, We’re Haringey” into The Jam’s “Going Underground”.

Haringey are clearly the stronger team, as their higher league status implied before kick-off and the majority of play is at the club house end of the ground, although in a rare breakaway the Pegasus number four , Harry Morton is free in the centre of penalty area, has the ball pulled back to him perfectly, but then contrives to hit a truly, spectacularly terrible shot as high and as wide as anyone not under the influence of mind expanding drugs could imagine; in some circles it might be called ‘a worldy’.   Morton might be excused however for blaming the pitch, very little of which is any shade of green except in a few ‘fairy circles’, and when more than a handful of players are in the penalty area a cloud of dust is kicked up which lingers momentarily over the pitch like a swarm of tiny insects.

I am stood to one side of the suitably bucolic looking main stand and every now and then I receive a whiff of pungent and rather cloying body spray or scent.  At first, I think it must be from the occupants of the stand, but to be honest they don’t look the sort to be familiar with anything more than an occasional dab of Old Spice or bit of talc.  I eventually realise, when he bouncily stops near me to signal another offside, that the culprit is Jimmy Hill, the unique styling of whose hair is challenged, but not matched only by the Pegasus number sixteen, Tom Lewis who has a neat blond bob.

The game is being played in a good spirit with unusually little, if any audible swearing from the players, or the management on the benches.  Pegasus’s number nine Callum Griffith is booked however, just as the first third of the game rolls into the second third when twice in quick succession he fails to give space for a free-kick to be taken.  As thoughts of half-time refreshment begin to form Pegasus win a couple of corners and then almost unexpectedly there is a second goal as a poorly cleared low cross reaches Haringey’s number fourteen who firmly and concisely despatches it into the opposite bottom corner to the first goal, and Haringey lead 2-0.

Due to judicious manoeuvring in the approach to half-time, I am first in the queue at the refreshment hatch where I invest in £1.50’s worth of tea in large paper cup.  I read the half-time ‘results’ as I wait for my tea to cool and then for the teams to re-emerge.  My mood is barely affected by the news that Ipswich are losing at Preston; it’s not a place we often do well at; “a difficult place to go” is probably the accepted wisdom, despite the M6.   At four minutes to four the football resumes and I move to the other end of the main stand expecting most of the action to again take place in the half of the pitch that Haringey are attacking.

The first half was adequately entertaining if not exactly a pulsating cup-tie.  Sadly, the second half does not live up to what we didn’t know at the time was the comparatively high standard of its predecessor.  The Haringey supporters nevertheless continue to enjoy themselves as they repeatedly dip into the back catalogues of Sham69, The Jam and with somewhat less ‘street credibility’, but plenty of irony, Tight Fit.  My highlight of the half is when I realise that Derek Asamoah is playing as number forty-four for Haringey.  He is a player who I probably last saw playing on the telly for Ghana in the African Cup of Nations. I should have really worked out he was playing when the Haringey fans chanted his name in the first half, but I was probably too busy wondering which Buzzcocks, The Clash or The Damned single it was they were singing to.

With the final whistle there is justified applause for everyone’s efforts and I leave The Crops to the sound of the Haringey fans singing “Bus stop in Tottenham, we’re just a bus stop in Tottenham” because wonderfully, as anyone who has travelled the W3 through north London will know, they really are and as far as I’m concerned that’s just as interesting as Greek mythology.

Ipswich Town 1 West Ham United 3

/ martinpbrooks / 2 Comments

It’s a blustery, disturbed, impatient day as befits my mood.  At last, Ipswich Town’s long, drawn out season in the Premier League is drawing to its long, drawn-out conclusion, having all been a bit pointless since as far back as February.   After the first match of the season against Liverpool, as I walked up Princes Street to the railway station and my train home, a visiting supporter said to me “You’re going down, aren’t you?”  With the benefit of hindsight, I almost a feel a bit embarrassed that I replied that I thought it was a bit early to say.   Now I just can’t wait to get this season over and done with.  But typically for the Premier League, the pain has been extended just a little bit longer still, with the game not being on the traditional Saturday at three o’clock, but a day and an hour later and whole week after the FA Cup final, the mark of the end of the season in civilised countries, has already been played.  Like Donald Trump, it seems the only thing the people who run football care about and know anything of is money.

I walk to the railway station beneath skies so blue and bright I decide to wear sunglasses.   The railway station platform is surprisingly thinly populated, but I discern one Ipswich supporter, who is unhelpfully stood at the foot of the bridge over the tracks, and what I deduce from his colour scheme to be a West Ham United fan, although he could be a disorientated Burnley fan who doesn’t have Google maps on his i-phone. The train arrives a minute late, in keeping with the prevailing theme of the afternoon, and is predictably half full of blokes talking about jellied eels and their love of Mary Poppins.  Gary joins me at the first station stop and I share with him my sneering pleasure that this Premier League season is at last going to finish.  Gary shares with me some statistics on which players have been responsible for most opposing teams’ goals.  Ipswich’s Aro Muric is apparently top of the list with five goals to his ‘credit’, although he has actually conceded fewer goals per game than Alex Palmer. The highlight of our journey, as ever, is spotting a polar bear as the train descends through Wherstead.  It seems to be other people’s highlight too.

Arriving in Ipswich we stride out for ‘the Arb’, pausing only for an imaginary ice cream and a match programme (£3.50) at one of the blue booths that look like they should sell ice creams but don’t.  I was hoping that as a thank you for our ‘incredible support’ the club might share some of the Premier League largesse and perhaps dole out free programmes today, but I realise I am a hopeless dreamer.  As we continue along Portman Road I reminisce to Gary about the last match of the 1974-75 season when Town beat West Ham 4-1 and Kevin Beattie ran from the half-way line through what seemed like the whole West Ham team to score.  Two girls walking along in front of us turn around to see what someone who can remember 1975 looks like.  At ‘the Arb’ Mick is turning away from the bar, brimming pint glass in hand, as we walk through the door.  Gary buys me a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride and a pint of Lager 43 for himself and we head for the beer garden, where Mick has found a Yogi bear-style picnic table beneath a large umbrella and is sat at it with a schoolteacher he knows called Steve, who commutes from Swilland to Holbrook every day on an electric bicycle.

We talk of the artwork that should have been on the front cover of the match programme today, but which has been relegated to inside the back page because of the philistines who run Umbro and want to see blokes wearing their shirts on the cover instead.  Today’s design is reminiscent of the work of Jackson Pollock and its ‘splatter’ and ‘drip’ effect and defiant scrawled message to “Follow the Town up or down” seems to sum up Town’s season.  Mick speculates as to how many Town fans would know who Jackson Pollock was and Gary accuses him of being ‘a bit snobby’.  Mick accepts that he probably is, although there is no ‘probably’ about it.   Steve leaves early because he’s meeting someone at Portman Road and Mick buys another round of drinks, because it’s his turn.  By twenty to three we are the last people left in the beer garden, which we accept as a badge of honour before making our relaxed, not very bothered way to Portman Road.

Somewhere near Alf Ramsey’s statue we bid one another ‘adieu’, perhaps until next season, and I make my way to Alf’s stand, where the queues are reassuringly short.  I join the queue for turnstile number 62 and am scanned by a steward as I do so, but at the front of the queue the bloke now there inevitably fails to work the bar code on his season ticket, so impatiently I switch to turnstile number 60 which now has no queue at all.  Panic stricken that I appear to have dodged the security cordon for turnstile 60 another steward scans me retrospectively from behind for firearms and explosives as I pass through the turnstile.

I get to my seat next to Fiona, next door but one to both Pat from Clacton and the man from Stowmarket (Paul), and two rows behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game,  and his son Elwood as the players stream on to the pitch and balls of flame burst into the air to incinerate the more nonchalant amongst passing seagulls and pigeons.  The excitable young stadium announcer, sporting a jewelled earring and slightly crumpled blue suit announces the Town team and I attempt to bawl out the players surnames in the style of a Frenchman at the Stade de la Liberation, Boulogne or Stade du Roudourou, Guingamp, but the young announcer is too excitable and is not in sync’ with the names on the screen.   The knee is taken by the players to muffled boos from some of the more cliched, Reform voting members of the visiting support and the game begins with the Town getting first go with the ball, which they are aiming at the goal just in front of me and my fellow Ultras.

The noise in the ground today is cacophonous with both sets of supports merrily chanting and singing at the thought of the Premier League season finally ending after ten months of ceaseless, hyperbole, VAR and added on time. “We are staying up” chant the Hammers fans, and then “ You are going down” as if they’ve waited to fulfil a season-long desire to make public information announcements which states the bleeding obvious.   Ten minutes pass and Jacob Greaves flashes a header comfortably wide of the West Ham goal from a free-kick.

I have noticed that the West Ham goalkeeper is called Fabianski, a name which sounds like he might have played electronic dance music in the 1990’s.  Omari Hutchinson has a shot at goal when he might have had done better to cross it.  He’s not playing well, as the bloke behind me says, he’s playing like he’s got someone else’s size 11 boots on. “De-de, De-de-de, De-de, Nathan Broadhead” sing the Sir Bobby Robson standers to the tune of Depeche Mode’s top ten single from 1981, “I just can’t get enough”.  Then Fiona tells me that Crazee the Town mascot is retiring, and we discuss whether the mascot is retiring, or just the person inside the costume.  We speculate as to whether there will be a position available at Portman Road, and I tell Fiona I might be interested, and that I have previous experience.

Back on the pitch, as the first sixth of the game fades into history, Conor Chaplin receives treatment and everyone else has a drink and gets remedial coaching on the touchline. The result is a period in which there are a lot of passes, but not much else, and I feel like I’m just sat here waiting for something to happen.  In time it does and unusually in a good way as ten minutes later Town are enjoying a period of sustained pressure on the West Ham goal, the like of which we haven’t seen in over a year.  Nathan Broadhead has a shot saved and Sam Morsy shoots wide before the first player to be booked is West Ham’s Maximilian Kilman, and I can’t help wondering if the referee didn’t just want to hear him say his name because it sort of rhymes.

The descent to half time sees Christian Walton have to make a save as Town’s period of dominance recedes like an ebbing tide, but the prospects look good for the game being goalless at half-time and West Ham couldn’t really complain if Town scored.  It’s unfamiliar territory for Town and as if to prove the point Sam Morsy passes the ball to a West Ham player near the edge of the Town penalty area and a square pass and a shot later Town are losing.  “We’re winning away, we’re winning away, how shit must you be, we’re winning away” sing the West Ham fans to the tune of ‘Sloop John-B’ but two minutes of added on time don’t produce an answer.

Half-time couldn’t and didn’t come soon enough for Town, or me as I now enjoy a Slovakian Horalky wafer courtesy of the World Foods aisle in Sainsbury’s.  Having drained off some spent Suffolk Pride, I briefly speak to Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison before ever-present Phil tries to convince me that a decrepit looking old bloke a couple of rows behind me is my dopple-ganger.  I take no notice, but begin to wonder if I might have offended ever-present Phil in some way.

The second half begins as it inevitably does most weeks and as Crazee the mascot wanders by in front of us, a spontaneous round of applause breaks out amongst a few people.  I’m not sure if this is a response to his apparent forthcoming retirement or whether people just think he’s had a good season.  I prepare myself to never know, but soon all thoughts of Crazee are forgotten as the West Ham defence parts like the Red Sea supposedly did and Nathan Broadhead moves into the gap before shooting cleanly beyond Fabianski and his array of keyboards to put Town level.   “The goal scorer, OUR No 33, Nathan Broadhead” announces the excitable young announcer to make it clear to the hard of thinking and those who haven’t heard of Jackson Pollock that it wasn’t the West Ham No33 who just scored for Town.

This is more like it we all think, and visions of greater glory and a second home win of the season hove into view for about three minutes until Jarod Bowen decides to run more quickly than the Town defenders near him,  which allows him to execute a swift  “one-two” with some team-mate or other before hitting a stonking shot past Christian Walton from the edge of the penalty area.   Out of the blue,Town are losing again and it all feels horribly familiar, even though overall West Ham are not discernibly any better than the Town.

Town continue to play reasonably well, winning a corner of two but not ever tearing the  West Ham defence to pieces as they did back in April 1975. Substitutions follow substitutions, the attendance is announced as 29,771 with 2,991 being of a ‘Gor Blimey, apples and pears, love a duck’ persuasion, and then with everyone still hoping for an equaliser, West Ham break forward not particularly quickly, too much space is given to a little fella called Mohammed Kudus and he scores a third goal.  “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose” we all think, unless we’re the sort of people who haven’t heard of Jackson Pollock, and the last three minutes of normal time and seven minutes of added on time turn in to a love-in of fond farewells to Town’s Massimo Luongo, who replaces Sam Morsy for a final ten minutes, and West Ham’s Aaron Creswell who is appreciated by home fans too recalling his one-hundred and thirty-two  games and three goals for the Town between 2011 and 2014.

With the full-time whistle, the majority of people seem to be staying for the usual end of season parade around the pitch by the players and increasingly their families, because we all like to cheer the players’ wives and girlfriends and assorted toddlers and babies.  But I’ve had enough for this season and am soon heading for the railway station just as I did after that first home defeat back in August.  As good as promotion felt at the end of last season,  the reward has for the most part felt like a complete waste of time . 

Stade Malherbe Caen 1 AC Ajaccio 0

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When travelling, in no real hurry, the 670 kilometres from Calais to Carnac in Brittany, the fine city of Caen is the perfect place to break the journey in two, particularly if SM Caen are playing at home.  So it is that I find myself with my wife Paulene on a Friday evening stood at the Bellivet bus stop in the centre of Caen, waiting for the free shuttle bus (navette) out to the Stade Michel d’Ornano in the suburbs of the city.  The bus is due at seven o’clock, but it’s barely six forty-five yet; we weren’t sure how long it would take to walk from our hotel on the Quai de Plaisance, not long it turns out.

We stand on the pavement outside the bus shelter, which is well populated with people who don’t look like they’re going to a football match, but then, the stop is served by several other bus routes. A man in his early thirties turns to us and asks if this is the stop for the navette (I think he must have deduced from the Ipswich Town badge on my T-shirt that we are football fans).  We tell him that’s what it says on the football club website, and we believe it.   The man is from Caen but has never used the navette before; he is going to the match with a friend who is also Caennais, but has lived in Paris and has never even been to any game before; they are taking the bus so they can have a drink before and after the game., which seems to be the main point of the exercise. The man who has lived in Paris reveals that when he was a teenager, he stayed in Ipswich on a student exchange scheme; they were good times he says, even though he never made it to Portman Road.

Time passes.  Seven o’clock passes. Several buses stop, passengers alight and others get on.  A ramp slides out from under one bus and a woman in a powered wheelchair backs along it onto the pavement.  “Oi Ipswich, my friend here is a Norwich fan” says a rich Welsh voice. “No I’m not, I’m from Cardiff” says the tall grey-haired man standing next to me.  “Have you got your match tickets?” asks the first Welshman.  “Yes” I tell him “But I don’t reckon you’ll need them for the bus, the driver isn’t going to want to check everyone has got one.”  The first Welshman asks if we had been to the ground earlier to buy them, but we tell him we bought them on-line.  “See, I told you we could have got them on-line” says Welshman number two to Welshman number one. “Well, I looked” says Welshman number one, “But it was all in French.”

We talk some more and tell the Welshmen how we were in Cardiff last year to see Haverfordwest (Hwlfordd in Welsh) play their two European Conference League qualifiers. They ask why, and I tell them I was born in Haverfordwest. “You’re Welsh then” they say.  Welshman number two then tells us he’s obsessed with going to new football grounds and after asking us to guess how many he’s been to, he reveals that he’s visited over seven-hundred.   It’s about a quarter past seven now, and an articulated single-deck bus hoves into view bearing the destination “Allez le SM Caen”, At last, it’s the navette, and about forty of us pile on before the bus lurches and twists off up the street, past William the Conqueror’s castle and on past the eleventh century l’Abbeye aux hommes, the Hotel de ville, and the palais de justice all of which miraculously survived allied bombing in World War Two.  On the bus ploughs, on a stop start journey past the more recently built palais des sports, and through the heavy traffic heading for the Caen international fair (Foire International de Caen), which begins tonight.

It’s gone twenty to eight by the time the bus disgorges its load at the oddly named  ‘Silicon Valley’ bus stop, directly opposite the Stade d’Onano, and Paulene and I head for the club shop to add to the pointless collections of cuddly club mascots, fridge magnets and T-shirts that clutter up our home back in blighty, although I do wear the T-shirts.   After then joining a queue for Gate 7, six flights of stairs take us to the top of the Tribune Caen from where we have to descend the steep gangway to our seats (24 euros each) in the front row of the top tier of the stand.  Within moments of our sitting down the game begins, tonight’s visiting team AC Ajaccio from Corsica getting first go with the ball, which they succeed in keeping to themselves for much of the first minute of the game. Ajaccio are wearing red and white striped shirts with white shorts, reminiscent of Stoke City and Signal toothpaste.  Caen meanwhile are kitted out in blue shorts and blue and red striped shirts, but the stripes are wavy, reminding me of the sleeve of the Cosmic Roughriders LP ‘Enjoy the Melodic Sunshine’.  Caen are kicking from right to left, back towards the city centre, whilst Ajaccio are aiming more in the direction of the Bayeux tapestry.

Unexpectedly, the ground seems very quiet as the game begins, possibly because in four matches in Ligue 2 so far this season, Caen have not won, only succeeding in losing three times.  Whenever a Caen player crosses into the opposition half however, I think I can hear a muffled murmurs of “Allez, allez, allez” all around me, and when Caen win an early corner rhythmic clapping breaks out.  With not much happening I take the opportunity to visit the buvette back at the top of the stand where I buy a bottle of water (2 euros) and a merguez sandwich (6 euros).  I return to my seat in time to witness a twelfth minute shot from a Caen player strike the Ajaccio cross bar. Before three minutes later a blizzard of paper planes rain down on to the pitch from behind the Ajaccio goal, possibly as part of the ongoing protest against Ligue 2 matches being moved to Friday nights this season at the behest of Bein Sports tv.  Banners behind the goals read “Le foot le Samedi pour des stades en vie” (Football on Saturdays for lively stadiums) and “Boycott Bein”.

To our left, I count thirteen Ajaccio supporters in their enclosure behind the goal and I think of the Last Supper, before noticing that the Ajaccio number twenty Mohamed Youssef is so short that his socks meet his shorts, creating the effect that he is wearing puttees.  The first half is half over as Caen build a move down the left before wasting all the effort with a shot over the crossbar.  Nine minutes later Caen’s number seven flicks the ball up inside the penalty area before crashing a spectacular volley directly at the Ajaccio goalkeeper, who is in two shades of green.

The game is one-sided with Caen monopolising possession and attempts on goal until six minutes before half-time when Ajaccio have their first shot at goal, a curling effort from number 99, which nevertheless curls straight into the arms of the Caen goalkeeper who admittedly is not easy to miss because he is all in orange.  The first booking of the game follows soon afterwards when Ajaccio’s number thirty-one chooses to tug at the Caen number nineteen’s shoulder rather than attempt to tackle him in the conventional manner.  Two minutes of added on time are added on, to little effect, and at half-time the score remains blank. In a sense therefore, Ajaccio are winning.

Paulene and I move seat during the break because I have been having to duck my head whenever the ball has been in the Caen half due to a large, blue, metal safety rail at the foot of the steps, which extends in front of my seat.  The half-time break passes with people trying to kick a ball into a box for money, and two teams of children in red and blue kit taking a shoot-out competition. The red children all seem about twice the size of the blues and predictably they win, although the only girl in the competition is a blue and she scores her goal.

Now, with a clear view of the whole pitch we see the game re-start at nine o’clock and suddenly the stadium is full of enthusiasm and chanting. For no apparent reason the home supporters are singing “Allez, Allez, Allez” to Verdi’s Triumphal March from his opera Aida.  The effect is almost instantaneous as a ball into the box results in claims for a penalty, albeit somewhat specious ones. But a corner satisfies the more realistic supporters, which leads to a shot and another corner and more urging chants of “Allez, Allez, Allez” as the Caen fans loudly live up to what one would expect of their mascot, Vik the Viking.

Only five minutes of the half have gone and now number seventeen Kyheremeh is shooting straight at the Ajaccio goalkeeper before number nineteen heads over the cross bar from a corner.  Sadly however, the score remains blank and for a while the game descends into a Keystone Cops style knockabout with players falling over and colliding with abandon.  Paulene and I begin to notice the advertisements around the ground for the likes of Entreprise Bacon, Calvados the departement or County, as opposed to Calvados the apple brandy, and the interestingly named Twisto, the local transport company who brought us here this evening in one of their articulated buses.  Off to our left, I can only count eleven Ajaccio fans now and wonder if two have had to leave early to catch a ferry, or whether they just gave up hope.

Only twenty-five minutes remain as Caen’s Kyeremeh is through on goal, but he chooses to run wide and cross low to the near post where the ball is saved at the expense of a corner.  “Allez, Allez, Allez” sing the home fans again, but this time to the tune of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, not Verdi.  Thirteen minutes remains and Caen’s number four has come on as a substitute only to quickly get booked as he struggles to influence the game.   Three minutes later however, comes the decisive moment. Caen’s number ten, Bilal Brahimi, who has been neat but nothing more for most of the game, suddenly has space outside the Ajaccio penalty area from where he unexpectedly launches a shot into the top right-hand corner of the Corsican goal; Caen lead one-nil.  “Bilal, Bilal” chant the Caen fans as his picture appears on the scoreboard and the stadium announcer tells us who scored.

Ajaccio have made little effort to score themselves and now they might have left it too late.  Ajaccio substitute number twenty-one Ivane Chegra is brought on to add flair by the look of his Marc Bolan style coiffure, and number twenty-two Moussa Soumano succeeds only in getting booked as the match rolls on into five minutes of added on time.  The added-on time is of no consequence however, and with the final whistle the relief for Caen’s supporters having won their first match of the season is plain to see.

With a bus to catch we don’t linger to join the ensuing love-in, and that bus is almost full and ready to leave as we board it.  Down the streets beyond stadium vivid, sudden flashes of light appear and soon there are spots of rain on the windows of the bus as it weaves its way through the post-match traffic.  By the time we reach the city centre a heavy downpour is drumming against the roof of the bus and the streets are awash.  With the bus windows steamed up and streaked with rain I have to ask a fellow passenger to tell me when we’re back at Bellivet bus stop.  It’s a dramatic end to the evening and an uncomfortably wet walk back to the hotel, but I don’t think we’ll forget our night in Caen.

Ipswich Town 2 Norwich City 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Back in September of 2022 I was in Brittany, and as well as taking in football matches at Rennes, Concarneau and Vannes I drove to the coastal town of Lorient to catch the imaginatively named local team, FC Lorient play in one of their Breton ‘derby’ games  against FC Nantes.  Lorient was flattened by allied bombing in World War Two,  but happily was re-built, and is now an unpretentious workaday port a bit like Ipswich in many ways. Nantes meanwhile has a castle and a cathedral and its football team play in yellow and green and are known as the Canaries.  Based on my experience of our own East Anglian derby against Norwich I had expected an afternoon of passion, vitriol, obscene chanting, threatening behaviour, casual thuggery and a police operation to rival that of May 1968 in Paris.   I was a little surprised therefore that when I spoke to a group of fans to ask the way to the Stade du Moustoir some of them wore the orange of Lorient and some wore the yellow of Nantes.  Inside the stadium, I was further surprised to find Lorient and Nantes supporters sat side by side in every stand and the overall atmosphere was not one of hostility, but more a Breton love-in. I thought to myself why isn’t the East Anglian derby like this?

Today, I am leaving my house at a quarter past ten to catch the train to Ipswich for that very East Anglian derby.  I’ve barely had time to digest my breakfast and kick-back with a coffee; strong evidence that a 12.30 kick-off is just wrong, and if only we weren’t all so stupid, we would rebel and refuse to go to football unless all matches kicked off at 3pm on a Saturday or between 7.30 and 8 o’clock on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday evening.

After texting my wife Paulene to tell her that I had forgotten to put any Champagne or Cremant in the fridge and could she please do it for me, I meet Gary on the train. We exchange Christmas cards and talk of polar bears, going to watch Colchester United play Salford City, how there should be no football on Boxing Day because there is no public transport, ‘half and half’ football scarves and the BBC TV comedy ‘Two Doors Down’.  The train is full, and exiting it at Ipswich is slow, although whilst most people cross the tracks over the high bridge, Gary and I walk a bit further down the platform and save time and effort by using the original lower bridge which has fewer steps.   Outside the railway station it’s as if a state of emergency has been declared, with legions of police in baseball hats and what look like wipe-clean uniforms, all strategically placed around the station plaza and down Princes Street.

Our walk to the Arb today is a slightly convoluted one because Princes St and Portman Road are partly cordoned off by some of the massed ranks of police officers; I didn’t realise Suffolk and Norfolk had so many of them, but good luck to anyone dialling 999 for police anywhere else in either county today.  I can’t help but think the police use football matches to practice what they will do when ‘the balloon goes up’, the country descends into anarchy and our dystopian future is realised.  Arriving at the Arb, Mick is already in the beer garden, whilst Gary generously buys me a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride, and a pint of Lager 43 for himself.   In the beer garden we talk of how there are a lot of unpleasant and ignorant people about, of the closure of Portman Road, how I will get to the Sir Alf Ramsey stand and how there might not be enough time for a second beer, there isn’t.  Gary tells Mick that at the railway station we had seen Norwich supporters getting off their train and giving each other ‘High sixes’.  We leave by the back gate almost half an hour before kick-off.

At Portman Road, the streets are less busy than usual, with no queues at the turnstiles or even the burger vans, everyone presumably having done as they were told and got here early and brought a packed lunch.  The programmes seem to have sold out too. I leave Gary and Mick to negotiate their respective turnstiles into the ‘posh’ seats of the West Stand and I head down Constantine Road past the corporation tram depot and along Russell Road to my beloved turnstile 62, where I wait behind a man who is waving his ticket about in different directions in front of the automatic turnstile equipment.  A steward is stood by the turnstile gazing up at the grey, cloud-filled sky in apparent wonder.  I tap him on the shoulder to let him know it looks like a ‘customer’ needs his assistance, and he duly helps the man out by demonstrating the effective way to wave his ticket about, which also allows access to the ground.  I follow on after randomly waving my season ticket about too, I still have no idea whether it’s the ‘screen’ on the left or the one on the right that reads my card and lets me in.

I am ridiculously early into the ground today and the teams aren’t even on the pitch yet, but naturally Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses and game and his young son Elwood, who is now not so young (he’s thirteen), are all here already.   Murphy the stadium announcer makes his usual botched job of reading out the Town team, racing through it like he’s commentating on the Epsom Derby and failing utterly to co-ordinate with the players’ names and faces appearing on the big screen in the corner of the ground.  Along with ever-present Phil, I do my best to bawl out the players’ surnames as if I were a Frenchman, but I can never remember the squad numbers of players past eleven, so give up after Conor Chaplin. 

When the players eventually make their procession onto the pitch, flames shoot from black boxes around the edge of the perimeter and I realise I’ve forgotten to bring any marshmallows to toast.  The game begins with Norwich City getting first go with the ball which they attempt to put in the net at the far end of the ground; they wear the usual unpleasant yellow and green creation, but this year the yellow shirt has narrow green hoops around it, which makes the players look a bit dumpier than they probably actually are. Town are of course in blue and white, and the home crowd sings “Blue and White Army” repetitively to make the point. “Fuck off Ipswich” chant the Norwich fans exhausting their supply of wit and ready repartee all in one go.  “Carrow Road is falling down, Wagner is a fucking clown” respond the Town fans and so it goes on.

Seven minutes pass and Town haven’t scored. I’m relaxed but I wish the Town would score a goal, or six.  Pat from Clacton has a headache, she looks worried.  “Where were you when you were shit?” ask the Norwich supporters, not unreasonably.  Pat was here all the time, so was I and ever-present Phil and Fiona and Elwood and the man from Stowmarket, not sure about everyone else though. Gary was definitely somewhere else and admits it. There’s a tackle and the Norwich number seven, who could be an Oompa Loompa, clutches his face.  However, referee Mr Smith, if that is his real name, ignores the crocodile tears and simply tells him to get up, and knowing when he’s beaten, as Norwich players do because it’s a regular occurrence, he does.  Town are showing themselves to be better than Norwich already and like a surge of adrenalin the understanding of this seems to hit the home crowd who burst into a chorus of “We’ve got Super Kieran Mckenna “ . Weirdly, the net effect is that Norwich win the game’s first corner to loud boos from what used to be the North stand and the referee engages in a long lecture to discourage players from mauling one another before the kick is taken.

With the corner kick lost in the past Town continue to dominate possession. Norwich’s number twenty-three sprawls on the ground clutching his face. “Fuck-off you fucking idiot” bawls the bloke behind me, which is conceivably what referee Mr Smith says to him too as he plays on. “On the ball city, blah, blah, blah” is heard for the first time and Wes Burns produces the game’s first decent shot on goal which the Norwich goalkeeper unfortunately saves without too much trouble.  Then Nathan Broadhead beats one defender and then another, and now he has just the goalkeeper to beat; he shoots and I am convinced the ball is about the rattle the goal net, but momentarily the laws of physics take a rest and the ball goes past the far post to leave 27,000 people clutching their heads in despair. Leif Davis shoots, but it’s too weak to beat the goalkeeper. Wes Burns breaks down the right and the ball is played back to Nathan Broadhead who again places the ball the wrong side of the post when science said he would score.  “Morsy being fucking unreal in the middle there” say the bloke behind me, Wes Burns arrives with perfect timing to smack the ball unerringly into the Norwich goal,  but unnatural forces get the better of the ball and it goes over the cross-bar;  Town should be at least three-nil up but aren’t.

Norwich somehow win a corner and then another. “You’re shagging your sister” chant the Sir Bobby Robson stand at the corner taker.  Norwich’s first shot on goal flies over the bar to jeers. A third of the match is over.  “Football in a library” chant the Norwich fans and the lack of a goal despite almost total dominance has left the crowd perplexed. Town win a corner.  “Come On You Blues” I shout, along with Phil and may be four other people. The ball is crossed, it hits some heads, George Hirst heads it down and Nathan Broadhead smites it into the net from close range.  Town lead one-nil and surely victory will be ours.

The bloke next to me disappears somewhere,  strangely taking the long route to the gangway.  “I expect they’ll go up the other end and score now” says the man from Stowmarket with uncharacteristic pessimism. But he’s right, Town’s lead lasts six minutes before the ball develops a mind of its own and gives itself up to a short stocky bloke in a number twenty-seven shirt and out of the blue he scores.  “Who are ya? ” chant the yellow and green horde in the corner mysteriously, as if troubled by a vision of someone they don’t know.  “You’re not singing anymore” they continue, providing an unnecessary commentary.  The bloke next to me returns as if he had known Norwich would score and hadn’t wanted to be here to witness it.  Conor Chaplin shoots wide and weakly before Murphy announces three minutes of added-on time in which Nathan Broadhead shoots wide again. Town win another corner and Pat says “Ooh, I hate that song” as we hear another rendition of “On the Ball city”, a ditty so awful it makes the Baby Shark song sound like Dvorak’s New World symphony.

With the half-time whistle I walk to the front of the stand to speak to Ray and his grandson Harrison. We bemoan our luck and talk of our wives’ birthdays, although Harrison doesn’t because he’s only nineteen and not married,  before Ray leaves to use the facilities and I return to my seat to eat a Nature Valley Crunchy Peanut Butter bar.  In the seats next to Ray a couple break open the Tupperware and tin foil to enjoy a packed lunch of ham rolls. “Do you know ‘Son of My Father’ the No 1 single for Chicory Tip in 1972” I ask him. “No” says Phil.  I sing it for him anyway. “Son of your sister, Norwich City, Norwich City, Norwich Scum, you’re all no better looking than a baboon’s bum”. Phil looks at me as if to say “We’ll let you now”, although he liked the tune.

The football resumes at twenty-four minutes to one.  “Stand-up if you ‘ate the scum” chant the home crowd. Frankly, I can’t be bothered. As shows of solidarity go, it’s a pretty lame and pointless one. The second half proves not to be quite as good as the first and pretty much immediately proves the point but somehow letting Norwich score again as the ball drops to the chunky number twenty-seven whose bobbling, not particularly well hit shot squirms beneath Vaclav Hladky and spins insultingly into the Town goal net.  I can’t begin to imagine what the twenty-seven must have sold to the devil to buy such luck, twice. “Two-one on your big day out” chant the Norwich fans, stretching their wit to its absolute limit and forgetting that it’s actually their big day out, not ours, we’re at home.  But then, in Norfolk going down the garden to the bumby is a big day out.

Conor Chaplin shoots wide. Town win a corner. Cameron Burgess heads over the cross bar.  “Oh for fuck’s sake” says the bloke behind me, I’m not sure why.  An hour of anxiety has thankfully receded into the past, just a half an hour to go. Town take the ball down the left and then across into the middle in stages before it arrives with Wes Burns who takes a touch and then strikes the ball cleanly, just inside the left hand goal post and it’s two-all on our big day out. I suddenly feel much better.

The game carries on, and Town are still much the better team. George Hirst heads over. The Norwich goalkeeper fumbles the ball a couple of times to gift Town corners, Norwich make a double substitution. Murphy announces today’s attendance as 29,611 with 2,004 of that number being from a single family.  Murphy thanks us for our “continued support”, perhaps because no one is leaving early, yet.  The Norwich number seven waves his arms up and down to encourage the visiting fans to sing, but they mostly ignore him and there are moments of almost reflective quiet. Massimo Luongo shoots very wide of the goal indeed. Conor Chaplin curls the ball over the cross bar from a free-kick.  Another fumble, another Town corner. Wes Burns is booked.

Not much more than ten minutes of normal time left and I still don’t think Town will not win, after all, we always do, and today we are more superior to the opposition than usual.  But Norwich are the new Cheltenham Town, not particularly good but with windows covered in guano, boots made from rabbit’s feet, pitches full of four leaved clover and a horseshoe nailed above the door of the team bus.  Pat from Clacton has been lucky too today, she has drawn 2-2 in the ‘predict the score’ lucky dip on the Clacton supporters’ bus, but she doesn’t want to win it.

With time running down, final mass substitutions are made and Norwich take a long time over their goal kicks. There will be six minutes of added on time.  Nathan Broadhead is announced by Murphy as the man of the match as selected by some sponsor or another, there is a ripple of applause,  but hopefully most people see the stupidity of having a man of the match in a game which more than ever is about the effectiveness of the team. With the final whistle the Norwich supporters are beside themselves with joy at their team having drawn; they must have been so convinced they would lose, and heavily, I know I was.

Pat and Fiona are quickly away and after a bout of applause I don’t linger long either, I want to get to the club shop to see if they’ve got any of those half and half scarves.