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Ipswich Town 1 Wolverhampton Wanderers 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

This week has felt somewhat depressing, probably because I have been reading ‘The Kevin Beattie Story’ as told to Rob Finch (Cult Figure Publishing 2007).  It’s a sorry tale of lost innocence and cruel fate and its sadness was not helped by the fact that my copy of the book had belonged to a close, longstanding friend who sadly died; his wife kindly asked me if I’d like any of his collection of ITFC related stuff, and the Beattie book was the one thing I didn’t have in my own museum.

Wednesday’s win for the Town in Bournemouth perked me up a bit, although I hadn’t bothered to find it on the telly, preferring to watch the second semi-final of the Coupe de France between AS Cannes and Stade de Reims.  But now, as I step out into a bright blue Saturday afternoon, my mood has performed a summersault, and I can only think of a Town home win, a series of further improbable wins and the greatest escape from relegation ever seen.  The season starts now and given that today’s game is only the second match at Portman Road in almost six weeks, it genuinely feels like it.

Unhappily, my journey to the match begins with a rail replacement bus service, but on the plus side I sit across the gangway from a woman of retirement age brandishing an ‘Extinction Rebellion’ placard.  I think to myself how I might like to go on some demos in my retirement.  As a baby-boomer, moulded by the 1960’s I think I owe it to future generations to stoke up a bit of revolution before I shuffle off this mortal coil.  The diesel engine powered bus ride is mercifully brief and I’m soon with Gary on an electric train to Ipswich looking out for polar bears.  We sit at a table and a man about the same age as me, possibly a little younger, sits down opposite us, first asking if we don’t mind if he sits there. “As long as you don’t disturb us” I tell him, by which I really mean “As long as you don’t join in with our conversation”, and that of course is exactly what he does.  I’m not sure why I feel averse to social interaction today, perhaps it’s because with no match for three weeks I ‘ve become overly introverted.

Our arrival in wonderful down-town Ipswich is heralded by loud chanting from the car park of the Station Hotel where Wolverhampton supporters are singing “We are Wolves, We Are Wolves, We Are Wolves”.  Such loud, pre-match singing has been unusual from visiting supporters this season and Gary and I speculate as we head for the Arb, that either the beer here in Ipswich is stronger than they’re used to in Wolverhampton, or they’ve all arrived early and been here for several hours.  Gary asks if I’m going to get an ice cream; I tell him I am, but as usual I come away from the blue booth with just a match programme (£3.50).

At the Arb, there is no queue for the bar and I am soon stood in the beer garden holding my pint of  Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride and one of something called Rosa Blanca belonging to Gary (the Lager 43 is ‘off’), as I wait for him to emerge from the toilet.  He takes an age, so regrettably I can’t help surmising that he must ‘doing a number two’.   Mick does not join us today because he is watching his paramour’s granddaughter play for Ipswich Town Under-16 girls against Leeds United at Needham Market (kick off 12:30).  I assume that the Leeds team is also made up of under 16 girls. After another pint of Suffolk Pride for me and an Estrella Damme for Gary, (he didn’t like the Rosa Blanca) it’s gone twenty to three and is time to leave for Portman Road and the main event of the day.

The back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand is thick with queues when I arrive and as I stand in line I pass the time by looking up at the dark metal fascia of top of the stand, which is impressively streaked with guano, although there is not a seabird to be seen, as if when asked they will say “it was like that when we got here” .  The queue to turnstile 62 is as ever the slowest, so I switch to the seemingly better lubricated turnstile 61, but I’m still syphoning off excess Suffolk Pride as the team is read out and 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 young son Elwood, all trace of the excitable, young and somewhat lanky stadium announcer, and his sidekick Boo Boo, has gone.

It’s the Town that get first go with the ball this afternoon and naturally sporting the famous blue and white they are soon getting the ball to travel in the direction of the goal just in front of me and my fellow fifty plus (with the exception of Elwood) Ultras.  Wolverhampton are almost in their signature gold and black kit, but disappointingly their black shorts seem to be in the wash and their ‘gold’ shirts and substitute shorts aren’t that golden, more of a dark yellow, so anyone who is a bit short-sighted, or just contrary like me, might think they’re a poor man’s Cambridge United.

Pat is soon asking me if I’m well and we exchange complaints about aching knees and joints, it’s been that kind of a week.  “Oh when the Town go marching in” chant the north standers miserably as if we’ll be doing it under duress, and the Wolverhampton number twenty-seven shoots over the Town cross bar.  “Ed Sheeran, what a wanker, what a wanker” sing the Wulfrunians, as well they might, given that they share their love for their team with the likes of Robert Plant and Noddy Holder.

The Wolverhampton number nine shoots and Palmer saves as the prequel to repetitive chants of “Come on Wolvers” which are the soundtrack to three consecutive corners before Town earn a couple of corners of our own and I get to bellow “Come On You Blues”,  which always seems to amuse Pat from Clacton,   Then the ball is crossed in again.  Dara O’Shea heads the ball back across goal and Liam Delap slides in to score, and Town lead one-nil. “Liam Delap, Ole,” chant the multilingual home supporters and Pat from Clacton snaps pictures of our hysterical faces.    This is what being in the First Division is supposed to be like, but then reality bites as we have to wait for VAR to confirm that what we think we saw, we really saw.  “VAR don’t work in football” says the bloke behind me bitterly as we grow cold and old waiting for the decision, which presumably takes so long because there is controversy over whether the blade of grass on the toe of Liam Delap’s boot is a part of his boot, in which case he’d be offside, or part of the pitch, in which case he isn’t.  Surprisingly perhaps, the goal stands, and feeling even more excited than I did when we actually scored, I celebrate all over again.

High on the goal and VAR decision I am  more convinced than ever that the Town will escape relegation, and decide that the Wolverhampton number seven, who mysteriously is just called ‘Andre’ , looks a bit like Freddie Mercury.  Naturally intrigued, Pat from Clacton zooms in on him with her camera and disappointingly concludes that he looks nothing like him.  It must have been the spring sunlight playing across his dark moustache.  “Balustrades” reads the electronic advert between the tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson Strand, and then “Hot Sausage Company”, before then trying to convince us  it is the ideal place to get one’s pre-match meal, making me wonder in the interests of a balanced diet what vegetables they serve to accompany the hot sausage.

Life winds down towards half-time with an indirect free-kick on the edge of the Town six yard box after Alex Palmer misjudges a back pass and has to make a diving save to prevent the ball from going into the goal.   Another lengthy delay ensues as the referee struggles to employ the ten-yard rule within a space of only six yards, and predictably perhaps Wolverhampton miss anyway.  Alex Palmer is booked for encroachment, probably because he felt responsible.   Incredibly, but thankfully, only three minutes of added on time are added on and the first half ends with the home crowd feeling quite content with our lot.

Half-time is a blur of talking to Ray and his grandson Harrison, feeling a spot of water on my hand from the  sprinklers on the pitch, syphoning off more Suffolk Pride and eating an oddly named ‘Alibi’ chocolate bar,  which I found in the World Food aisle at Sainsbury’s and which comes from Poland and is a bit like a plain chocolate Toffee Crisp, but bigger; rather nice.

The football resumes at five minutes past four under the same clear blue sky that’s been here all day.  “Come On Wolvers, Come On Wolvers” is quaintly reprised up in the Cobbold Stand, Wolverhampton win a corner and Ipswich win two, but it is the team from the Black Country who are mostly running at the Town defence with the ball and looking quite good, much better than they did in the first half, unfortunately.  Silky Nathan Broadhead is replaced by the more combative Jack Taylor for Town.   There are only twenty minutes left and Town still lead but it doesn’t feel like it. “Come on Wolvers” continue the Wulfrunians and a SWAT team snatches away one of their number who has presumably been being doing something good football spectators shouldn’t. I beginning to think that the Wolverhampton team is a bit whingy, whiny and rough and a bad influence on their supporters.   “Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, the Norwich ran away” chant the Sir Bobby Robson standers referencing football hooliganism of yore in solidarity with the naughty boys of Wolverhampton.

After the seventy first minute, the seventy-second minute turns up as we expected it would, but with unexpected consequences as Wolverhampton’s Pablo Sarabia turns on the edge of the penalty area and shoots with no particular power at the Town goal.  From where I am sitting I am fully expecting Alex Palmer to dive across to his left and palm the ball away, but instead the ball unsportingly evades him and carries on onto the corner of the net.  Town are no longer winning and life is suddenly not as sweet as it was a few moments ago.  Of course, VAR has to give us false hope that a loose thread from a gold shirt was in an offside position and might have distracted Palmer,  but it is not to be and our pain is doubled with the seemingly inevitable confirmation that the goal was indeed a goal.

“We are Wolves, We are Wolves” chant the visiting Wulfrunians, at last feeling bold enough to identify themselves in public, and by way of confirmation we are told that there are 2,955 of them  amongst a total crowd of 29,549 and we are all thanked for our “incredible support,” which I can’t help thinking  gets a little less incredible and a little more ordinary every time we are told that it’s incredible.   Meanwhile, back in the Cobbold stand the Wulfrunians have broken free of their shackles and launched into a chorus of the socialist anthem the Red Flag, although despite the lyrics of the song expressly forbidding it, they have changed the colour of the flag from red to gold. Flippin’ revisionists.

Ten minutes of normal time remain as hopelessly inaccurate shots rain in on the Town goal and the Wolverhampton fans gain in confidence to the extent that they tell us we’re “Going down with the Albion”, by which I assume they must mean Burton Albion because both West Bromwich and Brighton & Hove are both securely mid-table.  Either their barbed taunts provoke a reaction, or Keiran McKenna looks at his watch and realises it’s nearly tea-time as he makes a sudden rash of substitutions with Delap, Townsend and Cajuste replacing Philogene, Davis and Hirst on the bench.  The changes unfortunately bring disaster for Town as within three minutes a run into the box and a low cross allows a large Norwegian by the name of Strand Larsen to score a close-range goal similar to that which Delap scored in the first half.  “Like a a bag of cement” says the bloke behind me about some Town defender or other. “Piss poor” he concludes.  VAR twists the knife by again making us wait for confirmation that the goal was a goal, as all hope at first slowly but then more quickly bleeds out of us.

Seven minutes of added time are of no help; we lose and are well beaten by a more skilful, more exciting, more proficient team, interestingly made up entirely of players from Portugal, Brazil, France, Spain and other countries that aren’t England.   But the league table still says that they are the next worst team after us.

Not to worry, this sorry tale of a season of lost innocence and cruel fate will soon be over.

Ipswich Town 1 Manchester United 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

When I was young, so much younger than today I would often travel to Layer Road, Colchester on a Friday night to see the U’s engage with the likes of Torquay United, Darlington or Aldershot, and then on Saturday afternoon I would watch Ipswich Town in the First Division.  The days of ‘Col U’ playing on a Friday evening are sadly gone, as is Layer Road, but this weekend I had the opportunity to see two games in two days once again, taking my pick from an extensive menu of local non-league matches on Saturday afternoon and then catching the Town on Sunday afternoon with a wholly unwelcome four-thirty kick-off.  As it turned out, I didn’t bother,  but stayed indoors and courtesy of a ‘Firestick’ watched Paris FC play Annecy in French Ligue 2, and then Ligue 1 RC Lens play Marseille on the telly. I sometimes think I have lost my joie de vivre.

Today is Sunday and it is blowing a gale as I waste away a whole morning and much of an afternoon waiting to go to Portman Road. I tried drilling some holes in a wall to put up some shelves, but I think the party wall in my house must be made of granite and all the time I’ve been wondering if the trains are going to be disrupted, some have been cancelled already.  Mick has been in touch to see what time I might be at the Arb’ but the Sunday train times either get me there earlier than I’d like or with not enough time for a couple of drinks.  I should be able to sue Sky TV and the Premier League for the inconvenience.  The pre-match tension is palpable.

In time, I decide that it would be best for everyone if I simply spent a bit longer at the pub before the game and so after a train journey on which Manchester United supporters sing ‘Eric Cantona’  endlessly to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas and on which I don’t see a single polar bear, I buy a programme in Portman Road and finally arrive at the Arb’ to purchase a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£4.14 with CAMRA discount).  Mick has already texted me to say he is ‘on the bench in the beer garden’ and that is where I join him to discuss Gary’s absence, houses of multiple occupation, local non-league football, how Mick has been seeing ‘someone’ (a woman), newspapers,  religion, today’s Town team and what time we go to bed; Mick is a bit of ‘night owl’ it seems, and if I didn’t get up at twenty past six each morning I think I’d quite like to be able to watch Newsnight too.

A good hour and twenty minutes drift by in a sea of words and more Suffolk Pride, and we realise that everyone else in the pub beer garden seems to have left, so we do too not wishing to miss the kick-off, although happy to forego the leaping flames and tiresome, over-excited young stadium announcer with his elongated vowels and slightly cheap-looking suit.   There are no queues to get into what used to be Churchman’s and I arrive at my seat as ever to find ever-present Phil who never misses a game, his son Elwood, Pat from Clacton, Fiona and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) already here.  There’s a lot of noise as the two teams process onto the pitch and I don’t know why, but I can’t help feeling rather bemused, so much so that I suddenly notice Pat from Clacton looking at me a bit quizzically because the over-excited young stadium announcer is reading out the Town team and I’m not bawling out the players’ surnames in the manner of a Frenchman.  It’s been so long since Town were last at home that I’ve forgotten what to do and I’m lost in idle reverie. Returning to Earth, I try to make amends but find that the over-excited young stadium announcer is not in -sync with the score board and I therefore have no idea which surname comes next; it’s like a bad dream in which Murphy has returned but years younger and taller, and in a shiny suit

Kick-off comes as a relief with Town getting first go with the ball and aiming it in the direction of me and my fellow ultras. Town are of course in blue and white whilst Manchester United are in red shirts and black shorts, a bit like Stade Rennais,  but messily the shirts are two shades of red and the shorts have red flashes on them.  The relief is short-lived as within eighty seconds Manchester’s number 16 skips past a Town player, puts in a somewhat limp looking low cross and their number ten nips in to tap the ball past Aro Muric, who looks as if he was expecting to simply casually pick the ball up.   My hopes that VAR will have spotted some invisible infringement in the run up to the goal are dashed, largely because there simply wasn’t enough time for anything to have happened. 

The game resumes over a minute after the goal was scored and we all feel a bit shocked. The current Manchester United team is widely believed to be pretty useless I believe and here we are losing already. I thought we were going to win two-nil and had told Mick as much.  Five minutes are almost gone however, as Town win a corner.  Eleven minutes disappear and Sam Szmodics has a decent shot that the goalkeeper saves and in terms of attacking intent at least, Town have drawn level.

“United, United, United, United” chant the Mancunians and their friends from London and the Home Counties up in the Cobbold Stand, separating each ‘United’ with three quick claps.   A little slow to catch on, the Blue Action group belatedly shout “Shit, just like people did in the 1970’s, but usually before the visitors had stopped shouting ‘United’.  The football is quite good though. Lots of passing is going on and Ipswich are probably doing more of it than Manchester.  The half is half over and finding himself next to Sam Morsy, the Manchester number seventeen falls to the ground and rolls over and over and over and over to both the anger and amusement of the home crowd.  “Get up, ya great pussy” I tell him loudly.  “That’s Garnacho” says the bloke in front of me. “Yer what?” I ask him. “That’s Garnacho” he says again.  A bit confused being unfamiliar with the names of any footballers unless they play for Ipswich Town I say “So it’s not Pussy then.”  “He’s a funny looking bleeder” says the bloke behind me of the aforementioned Garnacho and the bloke next to me momentarily reflects on how children don’t get called ‘little bleeders’ nowadays, and sadly I think he’s right.  Amusingly, to me anyway,  ‘ya little bleeder’ was probably the polite version of ‘ya little bugger’ which is how my grandfather affectionately knew me.

Another Town corner unexpectedly inspires a warm booming chant of “Come On You Blues” and Liam Delap earns a free-kick on the edge of the penalty area as United’s captain Jonny Evans looks bothered; having only this week watched a version on the telly, I think of Evans The Death, the undertaker in   Dylan Thomas’s  ‘Under Milk Wood’.  The free-kick is neatly taken, but goes straight to the goalkeeper Andre Onana for whom I am amazed the United supporters do not sing KC and the Sunshine Band’s ‘Baby Give It Up’. Sensing my disappointment when Town don’t score, Pat from Clacton tells me that she’s already had her dinner today – a Marks & Spencer roast turkey ready meal.  “It’s not even Christmas yet” I tell her and Town win another corner from which a shot is blocked after the ball had been headed back across goal.  United breakaway up field,  but Sam Morsy slides across to sweep the ball out for a throw with the sort of tackle that takes the Manchester player as ‘collateral damage’ and which the home crowd loves, especially against a rather ‘poncey’ team like this one seems  to be.

With five minutes until half-time,Town produce the move of the match, tearing the Manchester defence apart as Leif Davis chases a raking long pass, checks inside and plays in Liam Delap who has a whole goal to aim at , but somehow Onana gets a hand or an arm or a shoulder in the way of the goal bound ball.  Within sixty seconds, another move opens up a view of goal for Jens Cajuste, but he shoots over.  The momentum is with Ipswich however and Omari Hutchinson claims the equaliser very soon afterwards with a shooting star of a shot from outside the penalty area which loops gently off a Manchester head on its rapid journey into the top right hand corner of the goal net, at last beyond the reach of Onana.  Three minutes of added on time follow without incident and we are relieved not to be losing anymore, but also feeling like we could be winning.

With half-time I dispose of excess Suffolk Pride and then speak with Ray, to whom it seems I haven’t spoken in months.  We speak of car parks and Kemi Badenoch, whose surname Ray pronounces as Bad Enoch, which for those like us who remember Mr Powell seems worryingly appropriate.  On the way back to my seat I congratulate ever-present Phil who never misses a game on having recently completed his quest to see a game at every one of the ninety-two League grounds in England and Wales.  I tell him I got to around seventy-eight grounds about fifteen years ago but have never managed to get any further.  I don’t tell him it’s a metaphor for my entire life.

The football resumes at twenty-four minutes to six when people without a subscription to Sky Sports TV are watching Countryfile and eating buttered teacakes. I notice the moving advertisement for Aspall cider which reads “made in Suffolk since 1728” , words that fosters images in my romantic mind of misty orchards, wooden vats and apple presses, horses, carts and crusted rustic characters, and then the illuminated display says “now available in a can”.

“Come On Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” we chant a good three or four times because Manchester are keeping the ball more than we’d like.  The encouragement works and Town get the ball,  Wes Burns whips in a low cross and Onana saves brilliantly again from Liam Delap and Town have another corner.  Manchester break again and Jens Cajuste chases back to make a perfect tackle inside the Town penalty area and now Manchester have a corner.   Not an hour has been played and Manchester are making substitutions as Evans the Death and some bloke who is so good he only has one name goes off and some other blokes I’ve not heard of come on.  Up in the Cobbold Stand the away supporters sing songs about Roy Keane and Eric Cantona, perhaps because like me they don’t know who their current players are either.

Then Ipswich make substitutions; Sam Szmodics and Jens Cajuste departing and Jack Taylor and Jack Clarke arriving. “For me, Burns ain’t done nothing” says the bloke behind me clearly thinking he should have been substituted but perhaps not having noticed his pass to Omari Hutchinson for the goal, that cross for Liam Delap, or his defensive play.  Twenty-three minutes are left and Manchester have another corner before a couple more substitutions; a bloke called Zirkzee comes on. “Sounds like a cleaning product” say the bloke behind me.  This early afternoon and early evening’s attendance is announced by the over-excitable young stadium announcer in the shiny suit as being 30,017 with a very nicely rounded 3,000 of that number being here to sing about Eric Cantona.

Manchester United are mostly the team with the ball in the second half, but despite some grace and speed and long accurate passes they aren’t threatening the Town goal much, they just look like they could if they thought about it a bit more.  Perhaps they just have too much confidence and and self-love for their own good.  The good thing is it means Town look more likely to score,  but as Pat from Clacton says to Fiona “You can feel the tension” .  Eventually, the bloke behind me gets his wish as Wes Burns is replaced by Conor Chaplin, and the match rolls on into the final ten minutes of normal time. Ali Al-Hamadi shoots and Onana saves, again. Conor Chaplin shoots, but pretty much straight at Onana.

Only four minutes of added on time are added on and I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Do we need more time to score or less time so we don’t concede?  “Oh when the Town go marching in, Oh when the Town go marching in“ drone the home crowd mournfully as if they’ll be following a coffin when it happens. Manchester United win a corner and the ball is booted clear to create maximum distance between it and the Town goal and then the match ends.  Fiona and Pat from Clacton are quickly away, but not before Fiona says “See you next Tuesday”- it’s when Town play Crystal Palace.

It’s been another fine game, perhaps not as exciting as some of the others this season, but despite not dictating enough of the play in the second half there is no doubt Town can claim they deserved to win more than Manchester did, and Onana is clearly Manchester’s ‘Man of the Match’, although they probably won’t admit it.   Leaving Portman Road for the railway station I think back to the first time I ever saw Town play Manchester United, in December 1971.  That game ended in a draw too, a goalless one, and Best, Law and Charlton were all rubbish.

Ipswich Town 1 Leicester City 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Suddenly it’s November and my back garden is strewn with yellow fig leaves, which might be odd if it wasn’t for the presence of the increasingly naked fig tree just beyond the back of my house.  The fig leaves are a reliable indicator of what time of year it is and usually, so is a list of the number of football matches I’ve seen since the start of the football season. By November of last season, I had seen Ipswich Town play six games at Portman Road, and I’d missed two because I was away in France watching Lorient and Stade Brestois instead.  By November of the 2022-23 season, I’d seen Town play eight matches at Portman Road and that was without seeing any Town games at all during the whole of September because I away again.   This season I’ve missed just one home match, but I’ve only seen Town three times. I’m beginning to think I’m not getting value for money from this Premier League malarkey. 

Leaden skies and spits of rain accompany me on my walk to the railway station where I stand far up the platform away from the hoi polloi, in a spot where I know the second carriage with a pointy front end will stop.  Another man with grey hair has been pacing up and down the platform and gets into the same carriage once the doors eventually open, which they don’t for a good thirty seconds.  He looks a bit nerdy, like a possible contestant on Only Connect.  Gary joins me at the next station stop and we talk of someone he knows who is over seventy and still works in order to pay off his mortgage.  Sliding down the hill into Ipswich we see two of the four polar bears and Gary muses on how many other football supporters travelling to games this weekend across Europe have seen polar bears on their journey to the match.  I tell him how an article in the Guardian referred to the ‘Polar Express’.

The ‘plaza’ in front of Ipswich station doesn’t seem quite as busy as usual, but the Leicester supporters in the car park-cum-beer garden of the Station Hotel are plentiful. We stop and buy from a pretty, smiling young programme seller who is working the blue, mobile, metal desk at the end of Portman Road this week.  The turnstiles aren’t yet open, and we have to weave between static Leicester supporters.  A bunch of people surround a large white banner that reads “Premier League stop exploiting our loyalty” and pose for photos.  “They’re Leicester fans” says Gary. “Well, they won’t be Ipswich” I reply cynically, obliquely expressing my belief that the revolution will not begin in Ipswich or be televised on Look East or About Anglia.

Reaching ‘the Arb’, we order a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride and a pint of Lager 43, for which Gary kindly pays. In the beer garden we find Mick half-way through a pint of Suffolk Pride already because he’s been here since a quarter past one having forgotten what time we agreed to meet up.   I tell him he’s getting old and Mick soon remarks upon the gaberdine raincoat I am wearing, which I tell him my father wore when he was in the Royal Navy, and it is older than I am.  This provokes Mick into telling us how as a child he grew up wearing the cast-off gaberdine raincoats of Ken Bruce, the radio broadcaster.  Mick’s aunt, who lived in Scotland, was friends with the mother of the juvenile Ken and she would send the coats that Ken had grown out of down for little Mick to wear.  This in turn leads to mention of former Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s Gannex raincoats and Keir Starmer’s tickets to see Taylor Swift, before Mick stuns us both with his surprising admission that although he despises the woman, he really fancies Kemi Badenoch.

After Mick’s confession I need a drink and head inside to buy another round, but am disappointed to find that the Suffolk Pride is now ‘off’ and I have to have Mauldon’s Special Bitter instead.  Time moves on as it always seems to and not much after twenty-five to three after Gary has suggested we just stay at the pub all afternoon, we depart for Portman Road, Mick locking his bicycle to one of the stands close to where the olde West Gate to the town once stood.  We go our separate ways near Sir Alf’s statue, and I walk down Portman Road alongside a small man with long hair wearing a replica home shirt, who introduces himself as Matt and predicts a 3-2 win for Town.  I tell him I think we’ll win 2-0.  The queues at the back of ‘Churchmans’ are quite long again and that at turnstile 62 seems the longest, but I can’t not join it and by the time I get to my seat everyone is stood silently, hopefully contemplating the futility and stupidity of war, even though it is a full nine days before ‘Armistice Day’.  Even the seagulls atop the cross bar of the Sir Bobby Robson stand appear to be standing to attention. As usual however, I find it slightly weird how professional football now attaches itself to Remembrance, it never used to.  Is it just what is now called ‘virtue signalling’?   I’ve come to watch a football match, and I only really wanted to remember the fabulous Trevor Whymark today.  I will remember those killed by wars on 11th November.

The game soon kicks off, Leicester getting first go with the ball, aiming in the direction of Alderman Road and the canal and wearing all white, although just ‘white’ isn’t good enough for football kits anymore and the programme tells us on page 31 that the colour of the kit is actually ‘light ice blue’.  Town are thankfully in the usual plain old blue and white.   A little surprisingly, at the referee’s whistle Leicester play the ball back from the centre spot and hoof it forward like in days of yore.  Then, to home fans amusement an early back pass goes beyond the Leicester goalkeeper towards his own goal, but unfortunately it is easily recovered.  “We’ve only just got in the ground too” says Pat from Clacton “they were searching everyone’s bags”.

The afternoon is wonderfully grey, with the floodlights and illuminated adverts somehow making it look even greyer because of the contrast. “Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, The Norwich ran away” chant the Sir Bobby Robson standers getting prematurely excited with the season of Advent just 30 days away.  Leicester create a couple of early chances attacking Town from wide positions. Eight minutes are lost, and Muric makes a flying save at the expense of the game’s first corner kick. “Come On Leicester” chant people who might once have parked their cars over the grave of King Richard III or bought a swede from Gary Lineker’s father.

It’s the fifteenth minute and Aro Muric makes another necessary save at the expense of a corner, this time keeping out a shot from Facundo Buonanotte, whose first name is derived from the Latin word for ‘eloquent’, which is unusual for a footballer.  So far, but for Sam Szmodics heading an Omari Hutchinson cross over the goal and Conor Chaplin shooting past a post, Leicester have been the better team, without being very good; it’s a bit like a Second Division match as if both teams are re-living old times.   Leicester’s Wout Faes clashes with Leif Davis which displeases the home crowd. “Fuck off, you fluffy-haired cunt” shouts someone from behind, and I think of Alan Brazil, probably Town’s only fluffy-haired player as long as I continue  to forget about Kevin Beattie’s and Trevor Whymark’s perms.

An eighteenth minute shot from Conor Chaplin earns Town a corner and at last I get the opportunity to bellow “Come On You Blues” repeatedly until the kick is taken.  “Do-do-do, football in a library” chant the Leicesterites revealing either that they rarely visit libraries, which is believable, or that the libraries of Leicester are quite unlike those in other places.  The game is changing and Town win two corners in quick succession and again I bellow “Come On You Blues”, possibly until I’m blue in the face.  The eloquent Facundo Buonanotte is booked by referee Tim Robinson, inevitably for dissent, although in this case by kicking the ball away his action has spoken louder than any words.

With the game a third over, Town win more corners and Dara O’Shea heads wide.” On a plate that” says the bloke behind me.  Conor Chaplin shoots wide again and then spectacularly past the top corner after a run across the edge of the penalty area.  “I-pswich Town, I-pswich Town FC, They’re by far the greatest team the world has ever seen” chant the Sir Bobby standers to the tune of the Irish Rover, and if Ipswich and Leicester City were the only two teams in the world it would currently be true.  The last notable action before two minutes of added on time sees Ben Johnson hit a rasping shot towards the top corner of the goal, but the Leicester goalkeeper was perfectly situated to simply and rather nonchalantly pluck it from the air.

The Town are worth the applause they receive as they trot off for their half-time tea, or oranges, or whatever it is they consume and the man from Stowmarket (Paul) and I agree that once the Town got going, they were much the better team; we just need to score. Ray is not here today, so instead of talking to him I eat a Nature Valley cereal bar and consider the design of the Premier League football which, with its oddly molded surfaces looks like something that if somewhat smaller I imagine might be sold in an Ann Summers store, but wouldn’t appear in the window display.

The football resumes at five past four and happily in the same vein as before the players went away and then came back again. For a while it even sounds as if the Leicester fans are singing “I’m Ipswich ‘til I die” before they start on about Jamie Vardy. “Jamie Vardy has won more than you” they chant to the tune of Sloop John B, but they can’t possibly know what I’ve won and to be honest I neither know nor care what Jamie Vardy has won, except perhaps Rebecca Vardy’s hand in marriage, and to be honest that doesn’t seem like something to boast about.  “Small town in Norwich, you’re just a small town in Norwich” they continue, revealing that they will probably get lost on the way home.

Moments later and a diagonal cross field ball from Sam Morsy is volleyed beautifully, sumptuously, gloriously, magnificently and above all successfully into the Leicester goal by Leif Davis to give Town the lead they so richly deserve.  After Wes Burns’ goal versus Coventry last season, this could well be one of the best goals seen at Portman Road this century.  I text my wife to get her to put a bottle of Cremant in the fridge.  It feels like we can only go on to score more goals and win because it’s plain to see Town are better than Leicester.  But then referee Tim Robinson books Aro Muric for time wasting as he kicks the ball back to Cameron Burgess after it has gone out for a goal-kick and it’s time for Conor Chaplin to go down to receive treatment and everyone else to get some remedial coaching on the touchline. I think people call it “game management”, but there’s still half an hour to go.

“Champions of Europe, you weren’t even born” chant the geographically ignorant and ill-read Leicester fans jealously, realising that three League Cups do not equal a European trophy. Furthermore, Fiona, Pat from Clacton, the man from Stowmarket and I were all born when Town won the UEFA Cup, and three of us were there to see it.  Such is the Leicester fans’ brazen lack of familiarity with facts that I’m beginning to wonder if Donald Trump isn’t a Leicester fan.

In the seats around me there’s a debate about who has played well.  “To be fair” says the bloke behind me “they‘ve all played well” and he’s  right, as he often is. Leicester blink first and make substitutions and four minutes later Jack Clarke and George Hirst replace Sam Szmodics and the glorious Liam Delap, possibly Town’s best centre forward since Paul Mariner.  Then suddenly everything goes wrong, as if touched by the hand of some malevolent, unseen force, or the referee.  Conor Chaplin is blatantly pole-axed by a Leicester player in the Leicester penalty area and no penalty is given, a clear and obvious error that VAR fails to point out, raising the possibility that we now need a VAR to assist the VAR.  Moments later Kalvin Phillips catches a Leicester player with a dangling foot as he checks his run and referee Robinson books him for a second time, and he’s off.

Hereafter the Town are just hanging on.  It doesn’t matter about the ‘incredible support’ of 29.874 (2,991 with little experience or knowledge of libraries and the geography of East Anglia).  It seems too late for Pat to bring on the masturbating monkey charm from the depths of her handbag. All around is cursing and swearing about VAR and the referee. “Blue Army, Blue Army” chant the crowd, ready to storm FA Headquarters and string up the Premier League ‘grandees’, perhaps.  Trying to reduce the tension I confirm that Pat from Clacton is looking forward to her usual, baked potato for her tea when she gets in. Leicester win two corners, Cameron Burgess clears a goal bound shot from substitute Jordan Ayew with an outstretched leg.  There will be eight minutes of added on time, more than was added to all the matches played at Portman Road throughout the whole of the 1970’s. Half-way through the added epoch Leicester score through substitute Jordan Ayew and that’s it. Town haven’t won.  I guess we now know how Southampton fans felt back in September when Sam Morsy scored.  But who wants to feel like a Southampton fan?  My wife texts me to say the Crémant is on the top shelf and she can’t reach it, I tell her not to worry.

With the final whistle I applaud the Town team but can’t be bothered to boo the referee Tim Robinson, an aloof and arrogant looking man whose hair is too short and who suspiciously has the same surname as a garrulous,  overweight  boy I remember from primary school, who was a Leicester City fan and was always getting into fights. 

Feeling like I’ve been in a fight myself I head home and on the train, reflecting on how VAR seems to create the conditions for a belief in an unseen, but all-seeing big brother which promises on-field justice, but because it doesn’t share and explain all that it sees gives the impression rightly or wrongly that it sees what it wants to see, a possibility made more real by the corporate, heavily branded, money-loving nature of the Premier League with its need to suckle the big clubs and their global reach, whilst the smaller clubs are all just interchangeable parts. From such fertile soil conspiracy theories sprout.

The Premier League continues to short change me but I’m no doubt in the wrong demographic so no one cares. Tomorrow I shall wear my black T-shirt that bears the slogan “FC IT… where’s the pub”.

Ipswich Town 4 Rotherham United 3

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

In the interests of helping to save the planet by reducing the number of journeys I make, all be they mostly by electric train or electric car, I have once again synchronised my one day a week in the office with a mid-week football fixture at Portman Road, this time against bottom of the league Rotherham United.  Eight hours of toil and sweat and sometimes blood and tears is more than enough for anyone I reckon, and so at about ten past four I down tools, pack up my bag and head off into town to enjoy dusk and the gradual, gentle illumination of Ipswich’s ancient streets.  It feels almost like it did back when I was still at school, and I’d have a free lesson at the end of the day so I’d nip off and with time to kill before catching the bus home I’d may be trawl the likes of Parrot Records, or Discus on St Helen’s Street or the Record Shop opposite the Old Cattle Market bus station.  By way of a hollow tribute to my past I visit the HMV store and see if they have anything by Greek prog rockers Aphrodite’s Child, they haven’t.  But as Laurence told us in Abigail’s Party, “We don’t want to listen to that fat Greek caterwauling all night.”

Often recently, when I have walked through Ipswich of an evening it has felt a little down at heel, but not this evening, perhaps the soft lights and the shadows are hiding things, but there are people about, teenagers queue outside the Corn Exchange for an evening of Drum & Bass and the soul of the town is shining through with the streetlights and glowing shop signs.  The recently restored pargetting of Sparrowe’s (aka The Ancient House) looks magnificent as does Cornhill, but I live in hope of one day meeting someone else who appreciates the 1950’s splendour of the old Co-op lighting department, the colourful, blocky repetition of the frontage of what once was Woolworth’s, and the little glimpse of 1960’s Brutalism left behind by the Carr Street precinct; when I was eight or nine these buildings were new and exciting, and I think they still are.

Time moves on and as six o’clock draws near I head for ‘the Arb’.  An empty tin can rattles down Black Horse Lane, blown by the breeze.  A woman and I catch each other’s eye and smile as crossing the road in opposite directions we both look the same way at the same time to check we’re not about to be run over.  In the Arb I have to wait for my pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.60 with Camra discount) as the barrel has to be changed, and I use the time selecting from the menu a tea time bowl of ‘Very French’ chunky chips (£8), which come with bacon, brie and onion marmalade.  Eventually, pint in hand, I repair to the beer garden to wait for my chips and delve into the match day programme (£3.50) which I purchased earlier in the club shop, before strolling around town.  Keiffer Moore adorns the front cover, caught in a pose with a ball on his head, which resembles the AFC Bournemouth club badge.  Inside, there is an interview with Keiffer, which at five pages in length and with small print seems like a start has been made on his biography.

My ‘Very French’ chunky chips arrive soon and are very tasty indeed, even if I am struck by the thought that if Mick or my wife were here with me, I would feel guilty at how much fat I am consuming, and if I wasn’t feeling guilty my wife would surely do her best to ensure I did.  I pass my time between eating and taking sips of beer by involuntarily hearing the conversation of the three retired men sat two tables away. The conversation, if it isn’t just a monologue, is dominated by one man who talks about a gay friend whom he describes more than once as a ‘Champagne Socialist’, it’s a silly, annoying phrase with its odd implication that if you’re a Socialist you are not allowed to enjoy Champagne. Typically, people who use the phrase fail to understand that the whole point of Socialism is Champagne for all. When I finish my pint of Suffolk Pride I resist the temptation to share a bottle of Champagne with the blokes on the next table and raise a toast to Socialism, and instead buy another pint of beer, like the prole that I am. With no Mick or Gary to engage in conversation this evening, I leave unusually early for Portman Road.

 After negotiating a delightfully queue-less turnstile 62, I find myself amongst Fiona, Pat from Clacton, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood before the teams are even walking onto the pitch behind the diminutive referee, Mr Keith Stroud, who I am shocked to see hold the match ball up to the sky before kissing it.  Stroud has apparently refereed “Premier League” (First Division) games and I can only think that he learned or dreamt up such poncey, pseudo-religious behaviour there.  If that’s what the First Division is like nowadays, I think I’d rather stay in the second.  To add to the confusion, the man from Stowmarket isn’t wearing his woolly hat tonight, I tell him I think the World must have started spinning in the other direction.  Very soon, Murphy the stadium announcer is reading out the team names seemingly oblivious of them appearing on the scoreboard.  I’ve had it with Murphy, and tonight I ignore him completely and bellow the player’s surnames only as they appear on the screen.  “That will teach the ugly little twerp” I think to myself in a voice like that of Harold Steptoe, although a French accent would have been more appropriate.  “You’re on form tonight” says Fiona, apparently impressed by my bellowing.

The game begins, Town getting first go with the ball and generally sending it in the direction of the goal in front of me and the other aging Ultras.  Town, as ever, are in blue and white whilst Rotherham United, from a town in what was once known as the People’s Republic of South Yorkshire, are sartorially doing a passable impression of Arsenal or Stade de Reims, the club from the city which is considered the gateway to the historic Champagne region of France. Socialism and Champagne together at last.

When asked at work today what I thought the score would be tonight, I predicted three or four -nil to Town, perhaps more. After 83 seconds Town are losing as an awkward looking number 9 called Tom Eaves easily bustles Luke Woolfenden aside and taps the ball past Vaclav Hladky.  Fiona and I look at one another as if to say “what happened there?” and agree that we weren’t really ready .  But we don’t worry too much about it and soon Keiffer Moore is heading high over the Rotherham cross-bar and then just a bit past a post. “We often don’t seem to start well” says Fiona.  “But we are the best in the division for gaining points from losing positions” I tell her, sounding like a boring pundit or football obsessive, “We have to be”.

It only takes a little more than seven minutes for Mr Stroud to show us, or more precisely Rotherham’s Hakeem Odoffin, his yellow card, but it’s Odoffin’s own fault for fouling Jeremy Sarmiento. Two minutes later and Town equalise as Sam Morsy runs into a bit of space, turns and crosses the ball back in front of the goal so that an unmarked Wes Burns can stoop to conquer and head the ball into the net.  People thank the deity of their choice, I choose Wes Burns. Moments later Wes is at it again, but shoots past the far post, although undeterred the Sir Bobby Robson standers are celebrating Christmas all over again with a rendition of “Hark now hear the Ipswich Sing, the Norwich ran away”, and then they sing it again.  A minute later, Keiffer Moore is unwrapping his present from Wes Burns in the form of a side-footed shot from a low cross after Wes has scampered down the wing to chase a Harry Clarke through ball.  It’s a beautiful goal and I can feel myself smiling uncontrollably; this is what I had expected this evening and it’s nice for those expectations to be fulfilled.

It can only be a matter of time, and not much of it before we score again and then again.  But after seven minutes we’re still waiting and Keiffer Moore is rubbing his knee and receiving treatment and it feels like we’ve lost our way a little.  To compound matters Rotherham won’t stop winning corners, although they don’t do much with them, but I’m not getting to bawl ”Come On You Blues” at all.   “We don’t need corners” says Fiona, perhaps trying to reassure me. 

Town flounder for another nine minutes and then all of a sudden click into gear again as Wes Burns bears down on goal and has his shot saved, Leif Davis has his follow-up shot saved and then Mr Burns gets to the ball ahead of two Rotherham defenders and the goalkeeper to roll it into the goal and put Town 3-1 up.  “Excellent” I say in the style of Wes’s evil cartoon namesake.  This is more like what I had predicted, and surely Town will now  go on to win handsomely.

Town sadly never get the chance to gain momentum from the goal as moments after the game re-starts Rotherham’s Femi Seriki dives headlong into the advert hoardings and after a long delay has to be driven away on the back of the club golf buggy/ambulance, which we have now had the pleasure of seeing two matches running. Seriki is replaced by Ollie Rathbone and I start to think of Sherlock Holmes.  The remaining minutes of normal time in the first half have just two highlights, one is Wes Burns narrowly avoiding a hat-tick by heading just as narrowly past a post, and the second is the Rotherham goalkeeper sending a poorly directed clearance even more narrowly above Conor Chaplin’s head; a taller player would probably need to leave the field on the club golf buggy.   Rotherham then win yet another corner before Murphy excitedly announces that there will be a minimum of ten minutes of added on time, which allows Rotherham to win more corners, but not much more.

With the half time whistle the man from Stowmarket stands up and admits to wishing he had padded trousers as he’s finding his plastic seat a little unforgiving.  We discuss cushions and speculate that a patent on padded trousers could be the passport to wealth and a life of leisure.  I then migrate to the front of the stand for my half-time chat with Ray and his grandson Harrison which covers Aphrodite’s Child and what an odd first half it has been.

When the football resumes I’m still expecting more Ipswich goals, but it’s Rotherham who are harrying and pressing Town into making mistakes.  “Blue and White Army” chant the Sir Bobby Robson Stand and ‘Blue Action’ repetitively and then “Addy, Addy, Addy-O, ITFCeeee, We’re the Blue Armeee” and after fifty-seven minutes Town win their first corner of the game.  “Are you happy now?” asks Fiona, and in a way I am, but I don’t chant “Come On You Blues” because , as I explain to Fiona, I don’t suppose the players will hear me up at the far end of the ground.  I don’t think it’s my fault when the corner kick sails far beyond the goal and harmlessly away.  Despite this failure, Boney M’s Christmas number one from 1978 gets a reprise in the Sir Bobby Robson stand.

Town are not playing well and Rotherham are not looking capable of scoring, but then they do. Vaclav Hladky boldly leaves his goal line for a cross which he doesn’t manage to catch and in the ensuing mess the only player to have so far been booked rolls the ball into the unguarded goal; and they say crime doesn’t pay.  This wasn’t what anyone expected and suddenly we’ve been transported from a dull game in which we felt comfortably ahead to one in which we seem to be hanging on for a point.   This is a poor game, it’s almost reminiscent of how we played in the dark days at the end of Mick McCarthy’s reign of terror, but we have been spoilt for two years.

For a moment or two Town are stung into action as they win a corner and Wes Burns is fouled by the French sounding Peltier, who is booked by Mr Stroud after loud baying from the home crowd.  From the corner the Rotherham goalkeeper falls to the ground clutching the ball and some people think it’s crossed the line, there is a roar which isn’t so much half-stifled as three-quarters stifled as Stroud waves play on.

Another ten minutes pass with little to excite, before both teams vainly reach for inspiration in the form of matching double substitutions. For Town Omari Hutchison and Massimo Luongo usurp Conor Chaplin and Lewis Travis.  As if that isn’t exciting enough, Murphy announces the attendance as 28,026 with 145 of those from the former People’s Republic. Applause follows, much of it directed at the 145 intrepid northerners.  Another two minutes pass and another interruption sees Harry Clarke replaced by Axel Tuanzebe due to injury.  Nothing improves and after a run down the Town left and a low cross,  Peter Kioso strikes a Town goal post with a shot and the crowd groans with disapproval.  Ali Al-Hamadi replaces Keiffer Moore before Rotherham make another double substitution and finally Kayden Jackson is the new Wes Burns.  There will be a minimum of eight minutes of time added on says Murphy importantly and Town are hanging on.  Pat from Clacton is glad she hasn’t got a baked potato waiting for her when she gets home, she’ll have a pre bedtime snack of Marks & Spencer Cheesey Combos instead.  Back on the pitch it’s as if Keiran McKenna has said he wants Town to give the ball away every time they win it so we can practice defending a narrow lead. 

Fortunately of course, Rotherham aren’t much good, they’re bottom of the league after all, and they’ve only scored twenty-six goals before tonight.  But they have got Keith Stroud, a man who kisses footballs and raises his eyes to the heavens as he does so, and four minutes into time, added on, and enjoying life without Big Brother VAR watching him, he grants them  a penalty . Cafu scores with a ‘Panenka’ (incidentally the name of a bar in Sheffield), which is why goalkeepers should never try and guess which way a penalty kick will be struck.

A draw snatched from the jaws of victory seems a certainty, except that this is Ipswich where it’s no longer over until it’s over and so it shouldn’t be a surprise when in a final flourish Omari Hutchinson reclaims the win just a minute later with a fierce shot between the goalkeeper and his near post.  Portman Road explodes.   With everything put back together again Mr Stroud keeps on playing for another couple of minutes over the original eight, which is enough time to book Axel Tuanzebe, but Rotherham are finally beaten.

I had thought I had seen it all in fifty plus years of coming to Portman Road, but then I already thought I’d seen it all in 1979.   Tonight’s game was rubbish after what we’ve seen this season, but Town have scored four goals, all pretty good ones, and what a finale; so why does it also even feel a bit like we’ve lost?  Did someone slip something in my ‘Very French’ chunky chips or in my Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride?    I can only try not to get here so early in future.

Ipswich Town 0 Cambridge United 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

When I first started attending Portman Road, almost exactly fifty-two years ago (April 6th1971, a goalless draw versus Everton), Cambridge United were putting the finishing touches to their first ever season in the Football League.  I remember looking out for Cambridge’s results every week and hoping they’d do well; I think I must have been excited by the idea of a new club in the Football League and the fact that they were almost local, being in the next county.  I continued to follow Cambridge’s results throughout the 1970’s and early 1980’s and still recall players with memorable names and haircuts such as Brian Greenhalgh, Steve Spriggs, Steve Fallon, Brendon Batson, Alan Biley and Lindsay Smith.   Twenty years later , I had lost my youthful joie de vivre and when Town met Cambridge for the first time in a League fixture, I was much less enthused by the Cambridge United team under the management of John Beck, a man who looked and sounded uncannily like Trigger in the TV sitcom Only Fools and Horses.  That Cambridge team had some talented players (Dublin, Claridge, Kimble, Fensome, Daish) but was horrible; in November they beat Town 2-1 at Portman Road and the following April held us to a draw at the Abbey Stadium; their main tactic as I recall was to keep the ball as far above the ground as possible at all times.

Today, Ipswich are playing Cambridge United in a Football League fixture at Portman Road for only the second time in fifty-two years. It’s a beautifully sunny, but desperately cold afternoon and cotton wool clouds festoon a pale blue sky, like in an imaginary art deco poster advertising day trips by rail to some chilly east coast resort.  Having been delayed by cones surrounding non-existent roadworks on the A12 at Capel St Mary, I hurry across Gippeswyk Park after parking up my trusty Citroen C3.  Two youths walk towards me across the grass.  “Alright mate?” says one, perhaps trying to impress his much taller accomplice with his cheeky enquiry of a random adult. “Yes, I’m alright mate, are you?” I reply, returning his familiarity right back at him with an enquiring raised eyebrow. 

The sound of football chants carries on the bitter north easterly wind from the beer garden of the Station Hotel where Cambridge United supporters fortify themselves against the cold and their inevitable disappointment. In Portman Road, I attempt to buy a programme (£3.50) in the modern, cashless way, but just like last week the technology is not working. Disappointed, but not entirely surprised, I fish for a five-pound note in my wallet and wait for my change.  Five or so minutes later, as I reach the Arboretum pub (currently known, for reasons unknown, as the Arbor House), a large Honda car draws up and out steps Ray who is being dropped off by his wife Roz. After waving to Roz and having a brief conversation with Ray , which I politely curtail as I am already late, I head into the pub and Ray heads into town to complete undisclosed errands.  Service is slow at the bar where one of the staff seems to struggle to remember which drinks he has poured and which he hasn’t; eventually I take a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.90) out into the beer garden where Mick is already some way through his own pint of something similar.   We talk of solar power, dizzy spells, Mick’s son continuing to work whilst suffering from Covid, cycling and Germany’s admirable, open and honest attitude towards its past.  With a little under half an hour until kick-off we leave for Portman Road after first taking our empty glasses back to the bar.

Bidding Mick farewell by the turnstiles to the Magnus Group West Stand, I walk to the Constantine Road entrance and then past the serried ranks of the players’ cars;  mostly black or grey Mercedes and Audi SUVs; they look like hearses . I enter the ground through turnstile 61, which I choose in preference to turnstiles 59 and 60 because Ipswich were Football League Champions in the 1961-62 season. I hope for the day when they open turnstile 62.  I thank the turnstile operator and he thanks me, but he doesn’t wish me ‘bon match’ or that I have a lovely time, and I can’t deny that I’m slightly disappointed by this. 

My first port of call inside the stand is the lavatory where the sound of Edward Ebenezer Jeremiah Brown is echoing round the tiled walls, I think the two men standing either side of me at the urinal are singing along to it, which strikes me as a little odd, but nevertheless I join in.  It’s only when the song gets to the chorus that I’m not sure if the two blokes actually were singing or if it wasn’t an aural ‘illusion’ created by lavatorial acoustics. With flies zipped up and hands washed, the teams are now on the pitch. With hellos said to Pat from Clacton and Mark, who is again in Fiona’s seat because she is on a cruise, and mental notes taken that ever-present Phil who never misses a game and his young son Elwood are both here, it is almost time for the game to begin.  In the lower tier of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand a banner reads “Something tells me I’m into something good”, revealing an unexpected enthusiasm amongst North Standers for the hits of Peter Noone and Herman’s Hermits.  I like to believe that they perhaps hope Herman of the Hermits and Hermann Hreidarsson are one and the same.

With knees taken and applauded it is a minute past three and Town kick off in their traditional blue and white kit, whilst our opponents display a regrettable lack of imagination by wearing all-black in the manner of antipodean rugby teams, old-style referees and the baddies in cowboy films.  A cloud of smoke drifts across the pitch, evidence of some pyrotechnics, the smell of which makes me think of Apocalypse Now, it must be the smell of victory.  “U’s, U’s” chant the Cambridge supporters between bouts of rhythmic clapping; ”Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, The Norwich ran away” sing the Sir Bobby Robson Stand, seemingly confused about the time of year and who we’re playing, although to be fair it is cold enough to be Christmas. 

Two minutes in and Bersant Celina has a shot on goal, but it’s an easy catch for the Cambridge goalkeeper Dimitri Mitov.  “He might of saved it” sniggers the bloke behind me making the all too common grammatical error of using the word ‘of’  instead of ‘have’.   “Blue Army” bawls the bloke next to me, who is slumped back in his seat as if it’s part of a three-piece suite. “Ally, Ally, Ally-O, I-T-F-C, We’re the Blue Arm-y” continues my neighbour. “No Noise from the Ipswich Boys” chant the Cambridge fans re-purposing Village People’s ‘Go West’; they should be sat where I am. Five minutes later and a cross strikes Cambridge’s James Brophy on the arm; VAR might deem it a penalty if we were in the Evil Premier League, but we’re not, so we have the game’s first corner instead.

We’ve seen 14 minutes go by and Town aren’t yet into their stride, and as if to make the point Cambridge succeed in getting the ball into the Ipswich goal net. Mark and I have resolved ourselves to the crushing disappointment of going a goal behind so soon into the match when the linesman comes to our rescue; it was offside. Two minutes later and Tommy Carroll volleys a shot over the crossbar.  Town are still not dominating in the manner which we have quickly come to expect, and Cambridge have the cheek to win a free-kick from which the ball is laid back to Adam May, whose shot is deflected away for a corner and then Christian Walton athletically tips a George Williams header over the crossbar.

It’s getting on for half-past three and James Norwood successfully chases a ball over the top, but his chipped cross is to no one in particular, and then a Town corner eludes the looming head of Cameron Burgess.  As the promise of a goal subsides Pat from Clacton tells me how the Clacton supporters’ bus was pulled over by the police today near the Holiday Inn hotel, only for the policeman to board and say “Oh, you’re Ipswich”.  I like to think that he probably also mistakenly stopped a couple of coach loads of pensioners on an afternoon excursion and several buses from the Copdock Park and Ride.

With time ticking down inexorably towards half-time, Conor Chaplin’s cross is headed firmly into the arms of Mitov by Bersant Celina and a Dominic Thompson cross is hit low towards the Cambridge goal by Sam Morsy, but not hard enough to get past the goalkeeper.  At the other end of the pitch Luke Woolfenden saves possible embarrassment with a superbly timed tackle on Cambridge’s Joe Ironside as he threatens to break through on goal.  Embarrassment soon follows however as Dominic Thompson is victim of some dubious play acting by George Williams, and inexplicably James Norwood steps into the fray like some sort of deranged avenging angel and along with Sam Smith gets a personal viewing of referee Mr Craig Hicks’ yellow card.

Symptomatic of it having been a frustrating half, Town have another penalty appeal for handball rejected and a woman with a voice like a wailing banshee a couple of rows behind me launches a blistering high pitched verbal assault on the linesman.  It would be amusing if only it didn’t hurt my ears so much.  Her justification for her outburst is apparently that when someone is paid to do a job she hates to see them not do it.  Town are awarded a corner however, which is scant consolation to me, and a Conor Chaplin shot then squirms into Mitov’s arms before another Cambridge corner and three minutes of additional time.

Mark and I hope that half-time will elicit words of wisdom from Town manager Kieron McKenna, and the avalanche of goals into the Cambridge net that we were hoping for will eventually come to pass.  In the stand half-time brings a Nature Valley peanut and chocolate protein bar for me along with a chat with Ray who says he can’t see the point of peanuts if not they’re not roasted and salted; I tell him that the magic ingredient is chocolate, but he doesn’t seem convinced.

The match resumes at eight minutes past four and Christian Walton is soon diving low to his right to stop a header from Joe Ironside.  Conor Chaplin then shoots wide and this afternoon’s attendance is announced as 26,515 with 2,009 from Cambridge; the referee Mr Hicks then makes a decent attempt at tackling Sam Morsy, although Sam seems far from impressed.  Town win a corner and Wes Burns shoots wide of the right hand post and then Conor Chaplin shoots wide of the left.  Two minutes later and Ironside is awarded a free-kick for a somewhat pointless and innocuous foul by Luke Woolfenden.  The subsequent free-kick is whipped across the penalty area and rebounds off Dominic Thompson at the far post and into the goal. 

Ten minutes later and things aren’t looking up until Pat from Clacton gets out her bag of sweets. They’ve been sitting around for a week or two she tells us. Mine is one of those chewy ones that look like an extruded strip of sugar cut into bits; I’m not good at identifying flavours, but I think it’s probably raspberry, and it cheers me up as much as much as anything else other than an Ipswich goal probably could right now.  Tommy Carroll and Conor Chaplin are replaced by Sone Aluko and the oddly-named Macauley Bonne.

It’s gone half-past four and James Norwood gets Mitov to make a save and then the oddly named Macauley Bonne drops a header onto the roof of the Cambridge goal.  Matt Penney replaces Dominic Thompson to whom fate has been rather mean today.  Cambridge United win a free-kick with fifteen minutes of normal time remaining and their supporters chant “Cry in a minute, you’re gonna cry in a minute”, which may be a chant unique to them, although I think I might have heard it when a team is about to be relegated or lose a play-off tie.   The free-kick is a waste of time and no one gets tearful as predicted, although ironically the only person who might have done so was the Cambridge number 26, the cutely named Harvey Knibbs ,  who rolled around like a big baby to win the free-kick.  Janoi Doncaien is booked.  Twelve minutes remain and Sam Morsy has a shot saved by Mitov but then a major diplomatic incident breaks out all around me as Pat from Clacton complains to the bloke behind me about his and his associates relentless swearing.  Mark backs her up. The bloke behind me opines that this is an important end of season match and he’s just showing some emotion, but he doesn’t agree to stop swearing, believing it seems that the purchase of his ticket gives him certain rights to express himself by ‘effing and jeffing’ , as Pat calls it.  The screechy woman a couple of rows behind then also becomes involved before stewards are called and the bloke behind me is accused by the man who is with the screechy woman of threatening to strangle him with his own scarf.  Eventually the sweary blokes leave and peace is restored, although rather impressively I think, the bloke behind me later returns with a steward to apologise to Pat.

“Is there a fire drill, Is there a fire drill?” sing the Cambridge fans resorting to opera to serenade the departing Town supporters who have either given up on a Town goal or whose modes of transport will turn back into pumpkins if they’re not home on time.  The game peters out over the five minutes of added on time and almost inevitably Town lose, perpetuating our record of never having beaten Cambridge United in a league match, something also true of mighty Cheltenham Town.   I had expected a Town victory today, but it would not have been deserved; the team performed as if the players had all been given some disturbing news just before kick-off, as if someone had told them perhaps that large German SUVs aren’t cool and are much less environmentally friendly than smaller cars.