Cardiff Met’ 1 Haverfordwest County 0

October 7, 2026October 8, 2026 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

(Met Caerdydd 1 Hwlffordd 0)

I cannot help but think that I have been waiting all my working life just to retire. Despite a university education, I have never been ambitious or really interested enough to ‘progress’ or have a career. I’ve earned enough to buy a house and sufficient beer, football tickets, books and long-playing records to keep myself amused, but sadly I have had to wait until the state is prepared to pay me a pension before I can afford to retire. Finally, however, after forty-four years of unbroken public service my time has arrived, and I feel reborn. Symbolically perhaps therefore, today I am on a pilgrimage in my planet saving electric Citroen e-C4 to the place of my original birth, Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, and whilst there I will fulfil a typically modest ambition to visit the Bridge Meadow and see Haverfordwest County play at home in the Cymru Premier League.

It is a discouraging 500 km journey from our house to Haverfordwest, but with no restraints on time, except the ultimate one, my wife Paulene and I have broken the journey up into manageable pieces, staying last night with my stepson and his family in Basingstoke, before today driving on to Cardiff . Conveniently tonight, as a sort of hors d’oeuvre to seeing them playing at home this coming Saturday, Haverfordwest County have a Cymru Premier match in Cardiff versus Cardiff Metropolitan, a university team.

After an early dinner of grilled salmon and steamed vegetables, washed down with a pint of S A Brain’s Barry Island IPA (strapline: ‘Fresh, Hoppy, Tidy!’) in the Cardiff Novotel ‘Customs Shed’ restaurant, where waitress Evie looks after us brilliantly, we allow time for digestion before setting out for the Cyncoed campus of Cardiff Metropolitan University. The Citroen’s Satnav leads us on a complicated, five-and-a-half-kilometre path through the Cardiff suburbs of Roath and Pen-Y-Lan down both narrow, terraced streets of parked cars and along more opulent tree lined avenues. The 52 bus runs from the city centre to the campus but heaven knows how long that would take or when the last bus leaves, and bizarrely in the United Kingdom our English bus passes aren’t valid in Wales. On arrival, the Cyncoed campus reveals itself as a campus as dull as the word campus suggests it might be, but we are able to park up in the first car park we come to and then look to the now darkened skies for the glow of floodlights.

I always enjoy the walk to the match, even when only from a nearby car park; I think it’s the anticipation. This evening is warm and finding our way between what might be student residences, we embark on a walk of discovery. “Do you know where it is?” asks a man on his own who has the air of an anxious groundhopper about him. He hurries off towards a second glow in the sky before we get much of a chance to reply. The glow in the sky that we have just arrived at has proved to be an athletics track, but beyond that and something that looks like a massive white tent is another rectangle of not quite heavenly light; this we will discover is the 3G pitch that passes as the home ‘stadium’ of Cardiff Met.

It was possible to pay for our admission online but logging in and typing out personal and account details is a ridiculous faff when all we want to do is watch a football match which will attract a crowd of less than three hundred. A well-built bloke directs us to the gate where a middle-aged woman in a red and white jumper says: “Ten pounds please”. “Two over-65’s please” I reply. “Oh, twelve pounds then please” smiles the woman, and I dare to think that she probably doesn’t think I look old enough. I hand over a ten-pound note and two one-pound coins, which seems to please her because she won’t have to mess about giving me change. Disappointingly however, Cardiff Met’ FC do not produce a programme, which is surprising because I would have thought it could have been a module in some sort of media studies degree. Just as surprisingly, Cardiff Met does not seem to have a bar or even a hut or hatch from which burgers, chips and bacon rolls are dispensed. The only catering facility seemingly being the serving of coffee from the back of a muddy-coloured Bedford Rascal van, which if the sign writing on the side is accurate belongs to a smug looking bloke with glasses called Donald. I speculate that Donald is studying for a master’s degree which combines catering, graphic design, sports management and vehicle maintenance. To his credit, Donald charges a very competitive 30 pence less for a double espresso than Marks & Spencer do for a single at the Leigh Delamere services on the M4.

With nothing else to entertain us, Paulene and I take a stroll around the ‘stadium’ to the strains of various 1980’s disco ‘hits’ including “Oops upside your head” by the Gap band. I take in the architecture, which amounts to two low stands (one either side of the pitch) and the high, green metal fence on three sides. We settle in the back row of the four-seat deep stand on the far side of the pitch from the entrance, between four youths in hoodies and an earnest looking man who is on his own. Time moves on and after a burst of Fatboy Slim’s “Right Here, Right Now” the names of the Haverfordwest team are announced over the public address system before the announcer perhaps takes a gulp of one of Donald’s double espressos and launches much more excitedly into the names of the Cardiff Met team; his doctorate on the art of stadium announcing in a postmodern context will be a doddle.

At seven forty-four the game begins, although the large digital clock on the side of the adjacent sports hall is trying to convince us that the time is only 18:36. The undergraduate who has been asked by his tutor to provide a practical demonstration of horology, sport and the built environment is contemplating re-sits. It is Haverfordwest County who get first go with the ball, which until half-time they will mostly attempt to send in the direction of the huge white tent and the athletics track beyond. Haverfordwest sport an away kit of white shirts and black shorts, whilst Cardiff Met’ model burgundy shirts with a blue and yellow band like a bib up the front, and navy-blue shorts.

Early exchanges are tentative. A bunch of pre-pubescent ultras in the corner of the ground by the big white tent chant “Archers, Archers”, not because they are fans of the wireless soap opera, nor because they have been tasked with advertising brands of peach schnapps, but because Archers is the nickname of Cardiff Met sports clubs and the club badge depicts a stylised rendition of a bloke with a bow and arrow. After five minutes, Cardiff record the first shot on goal, which is easily collected by the Haverfordwest goalkeeper Ifan Knott.

The match settles down into a dull contest only brightened by the orange shirts of the referee and his assistants, and the bald head of the referee as occasionally the glare of the floodlights reflects off his naked scalp. At ground level the players kicks are met with puffs of tiny rubber balls leaping up from the artificial playing surface. After twenty-one minutes another Cardiff shot fails to trouble the Haverfordwest goalkeeper as this time it travels over the surrounding fence and high into the trees that back onto the road outside. Five minutes later Haverfordwest’s Ricky Watts claims the first yellow card of the evening, although I’m not sure why. Met’s Toby Raison levels the score in this regard a bit later because of a push or a shove or perhaps a bit of both. As a highlight of the half it’s a poor one and as the half-time whistle is blown, I reflect on a half in which Met’ looked a little but not much more motivated than Haverfordwest and their number twenty-nine showed himself either to be a delicate boy or to be studying dramatic arts, although no one took much notice. But as the half wore on Haverfordwest had begun to dominate possession although without looking like they knew why they were doing it.

Half-time is as dull as the first half had been and looking for excitement Paulene and I walk to the other side of the ground, and I vent some spent Barry Island IPA. We take up a position for the second half in the back row of the three-seat deep stand behind the dug outs, which I will later discover backs onto no less a structure than the National Indoor Athletics Centre.

The football resumes at sixteen minutes to nine (19:21 by the stadium clock) and is as unprepossessing as it was in the previous forty-five minutes. But then, all of sudden, the referee Mr Kenny awards Haverfordwest a penalty. Again, I’m not sure why because I wasn’t really paying attention; I think it was for a foul rather than handball, but I can’t be sure. There then follow minutes of doubt and uncertainty because the Cymru Premier, a league of all round similar standard to step four or five of English non-league has VAR! So, we and the players hang about until Mr Kenny inevitably goes to look at the tv screen at the side of the pitch and decides it’s not a penalty after all. “Fuck VAR, fuck VAR, fuck VAR” chant the Haverfordwest fans with the most limited sex lives. The football resumes again, Cardiff launch a cross to the far post and their somewhat lumbering, top heavy looking number thirty six, Sam Snaith heads goalwards, Ifan Knott blocks the effort but as he tumbles to the ground the ball drops to the feet of Snaith who has a simple task of rolling the ball into a now unguarded net. From thinking they had a penalty kick just moments before, Haverfordwest County are now losing one-nil. “Sods law” says a grizzled, grey-haired man in the row in front of us “Better side all night” he adds, bending the truth a little but not too much.

A goal down, Haverfordwest begin to dominate the match as they desperately search for a goal. Number ten Dan Hawkins is probably the best player on the field, but he can’t do it on his own and for the most part County are playing a game of hit and hope in which their crosses are mostly too deep and no one quite seems to quite know what anyone else will do next. The group of Haverfordwest supporters behind the goal with their flag tied to the high fence begin to pass the time exchanging ‘banter’ with some home fans. My wife Paulene gets her entertainment from the interaction between a group of teenage girls stood down the front and a group of teenage boys sat a few seats along from us. One of the lads appears with what looks like a cardboard box containing a quite pungent shepherd’s pie, suggesting that there is food available, but it’s not burgers or chips.

A couple of head injuries, one for each team and multiple substitutions add on time such that the final count for time added on is eight minutes. But tonight, Haverfordwest probably wouldn’t score if Mr Kenny added on eighty minutes. The eight minutes slide away, taking with them the result and the three points which go to Cardiff Met’. I had been looking forward to tonight, probably for several years, but the match and the result have both been disappointing. So much for feeling re-born. All I can do now is to enjoy the drive back to our hotel through the dimly lit streets of Cardiff, drown my sorrows in another pint of Barry Island IPA, and look forward to Saturday at the Bridge Meadow .

Ipswich Town 0 Wrecsam 0

November 23, 2025November 23, 2025 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

I am not ashamed to admit that I’ve got ‘a bit of a thing’ for Professor Alice Roberts the popular physician, anatomist, physical anthropologist, author and tv presenter. I can’t help but smile, blush a little and feel a close affinity with her when she’s on the BBC’s ‘Digging for Britain’ programme and she uncovers some ancient artifact or other and comes over all misty eyed and wistful as she realises no one has clapped eyes on said artifact for a thousand years or more. As a football supporter who keeps track of every game I’ve ever been to and every team I’ve ever seen, today is a bit of a Professor Alice Roberts moment for me because today Ipswich Town are playing Wrexham (Wrecsam in Welsh) in the Football League, and that’s something neither I nor Professor Alice nor anyone else has ever seen before, not in a thousand years or indeed in the entire history of the planet or time itself. Sadly, I doubt Professor Alice will be here today to see it, perhaps I should have invited her, but at least I will be here.

It’s been a miserable, grey, wet, November morning, lightened only by the occasional daydream about Professor Alice sitting next to me at the match. Fortunately, it’s not raining as I make my way to the railway station and board the train, which is on time. “Going to the match” says a man on the platform. “Yes, well, I don’t usually wear this blue and white scarf” I say rather facetiously considering I don’t know the bloke. “Bit of a giveaway” he replies. Of course, to make matters worse people do wear football scarves when not going to football matches, I’ve done so myself.

The train arrives, it’s not very full and I find a window seat for what will be a lonely journey because Gary is going to the match with his brother today and will therefore not be on the train. Across the aisle from me sit an elderly man and what I assume is his wife, or lover. “More football” he says grudgingly as people in blue and white scarves, shirts and woolly hats board the train at the next station stop, I think they are the only words the couple exchange the whole journey. Passing through Wherstead I spot a polar bear striking a Fox’s Glacier mint pose, well almost, and then the man opposite gets up fussily to take a bag down from the luggage rack. The woman glances at me fleetingly with a look of resignation that seems to say she realises he’s an idiot.

There are spots of rain in the air in Ipswich and only a handful of Wrexham fans are drinking in the garden of the Station Hotel. In Portman Road, because this is the first time that Ipswich have ever played Wrexham here, I buy a programme (£4.00) from one of the booths that looks like they should sell ice cream. Stupidly, I wish the seller “bon match” and then reflect upon the first time I ever saw Wrexham, in November 1978 at the Goldstone Ground in Brighton. I will later decide I like the Brighton programme from that day forty-seven years ago more than today’s effort because it read ‘Wrexham’ in bold letters on the front. Today’s programme just displays the two club crests in monochrome in the top right-hand corner, and they get equal billing with the flippin’ Sky bet/EFL logo. Brighton won 2-1 back when Ipswich were the current FA Cup holders and the Wrexham team included players called Davies, Jones, Thomas and Roberts; very Welsh it was. Having been born in Wales myself I am suddenly filled with bonhomie towards these immigrants for the afternoon and I half think about wishing any random Wrexham supporter “diwrnod da” but decide against it.

‘The Arb’ is busy with drinkers and diners and when I eventually get served, I order two pints of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£8.40 with Camra discount) before retiring to the beer garden where I sit at a table beneath an umbrella. I’m in the throes of texting Mick to tell him there’s a pint of Suffolk Pride waiting for him when he appears at the back gate. “What a lovely thing to do” he says of my buying him a pint before he arrives and he then disappears inside to order some food and get the next round in early. We talk of his continued lustful feelings towards Kemi Badenoch, blood test results, our disappointment that so many people are so willing to believe the worst, our continued and increasing despair regarding Donald Trump, mutual friends and the difficulty of describing one’s sibling. Mick eats his food, cheesy chips, and I tell him of the ‘le Welsh’ festival in Lille next weekend, le Welsh being melted cheddar cheese with beer and an egg on top, served with bread and chips. We laugh quite a bit and are dismayed that everyone leaves so early for the match and as per usual by about half-past two we’re the only drinkers left.

Having negotiated High Street, Crown Street, Lady Lane, Civic Drive and the Portman Road car park Mick and I part ways beneath the blind gaze of Sir Alf Ramsey’s statue. Mick asks what and when the next game is, neither of us has any idea. I mention that I think there is a midweek game versus Stoke at some time, but we both have faith that we will work it out in good time. At the back of Sir Alf Ramsey’s stand there are no queues at all and I approach the Anglo-Asian man looking for weapons with outstretched arms. He asks what I have in my pockets and I reveal the pair of woolly fingerless gloves that my wife knitted for me. “No mobile phone?” he asks. “Ahh, that’s up here” I tell him as I unzip a breast pocket on my multi pocketed coat to show him.

Having syphoned off some spent Suffolk Pride I find myself in the stand shuffling past Fiona and Pat from Clacton to my seat just as the excitable young stadium announcer, who today is wearing a woolly hat, tells us today’s line -up. I try to bellow the Town players’ surnames as a Frenchman would as the announcer reads them out, but he’s reverted to not being in-sync with the scoreboard today so it’s not a great success. My fellow football fans in the Stade Geoffrey Guichard or Stadium de Toulouse would doubtless be disappointed. Quel dommage.

Inevitably, ever present Phil who never misses a game is here but sadly his son Elwood and the man from Stowmarket Paul) are not, and this is because they have both been unlucky enough but at the same time lucky enough to have been benefitting from our National Health Service and have not been in a position to even take late fitness tests for today’s game. It’s Wrexham that get first go with the ball, which they launch in the general direction of Coe’s outfitters and the Halal butchers on Norwich Road. With Wrexham wearing red shirts and white shorts, and Town in blue and white I am naturally reminded once again of the Continental Club Edition Subbuteo teams from my childhood. Wrexham, however, seem to me to be wearing a particular shade of red that marks them out as being Wrexham rather than Bristol City or Barnsley or Nottingham Forest. But then again, I do know they are Wrexham, even if the front of today’s match programme was very little help in making that clear.

The early part of the game consists of Pat from Clacton telling me she’s wearing new glasses and they’re a bit wonky and also how she’s been a bit ‘chesty’ with difficulty breathing since she had Covid, whilst Fiona has lost her voice and sounds hoarse. As if that’s not enough, Wrexham win a corner after seven minutes and Pat also tells us she has a large floater in her eye. She then can’t help but mention the other sort of floater, although none of us admits to knowing much about these and the subject is quickly closed.

Eleven minutes gone and Town win two corners in quick succession giving us the opportunity to chant “Come On You Blues”, which we do and a loud bloke behind joins in too, which is nice. Dara O’Shea volleys past the far post from the second corner. “Come on Town, these are rubbish, and Welsh” says a bloke a couple of seats away and it seems that one of the other blokes nearby has Welsh ancestry and so his friends are behaving like Edward I would have if he hadn’t been able to build castles to suppress the Welsh but had been reduced to just taking the mickey.

Another ten minutes elapse and it’s the Welsh who are avenging the deeds of Edward I with their wit as they sing “Football in a library, do-do-do” and Portman Road is quiet, like it always was when there were barely 15,000 of us here a few years ago. Wrexham fans know all about that scenario. The game meanwhile is frankly a bit dull, like the weather, which is at least wet as well and I start to wonder about the words “Tingly Ted’s Hot Sauce by Ed Sheeran”, which appear on the electronic advert hoardings between the tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand. Who the heck is Tingly Ted? Why is Ed Sheeran making hot sauce for him, and now Sheeran has defected to Barcelona is he making Romesco sauce and Salsa dips for Kinky Carlos or Perky Pedro? I am relieved when the following advertisement is for EMP Drainage who are promoted with the words “Domestic and Commercial Unblocking”.

Such has been the level of excitement since three o’clock, I am surprised to find there are only eight minutes until half time and the home crowd are suddenly enjoying the booking of Wrexham’s George Thomason after he does an impression of a combine harvester meeting an unsuspecting Chuba Akpom in a corn field. I can’t help feeling that we’re all just clinging on to the hopes raised by occasional attacks that penetrate the Wrexham penalty area. A single minute of added time brings nothing new but just before it arrives Jayden Philogene has a shot that the Wrexham goalkeeper Arthur Okonkwo, who is very large and bright yellow, only stops with a fumbling save.

Half-time is spent venting more spent Suffolk Pride and then chatting to Ray and his grandson Harrison at the front of the stand. Ray kindly offers me a ticket to see Mark Steele at the Apex at Bury St Edmunds, because his wife isn’t really that keen, whilst Harrison tells me of someone he knows, who asked him if he was the same Harrison mentioned in this very blog. Unable to tell a lie, not unlike George Washington but doubtless very unlike Donald Trump, the now famous Harrison naturally admitted he was.

The second half begins at three minutes past four and regrettably fails to differ very much from the one that preceded it. Philogene has another shot barely saved by Okonkwo, Wrexham number eighteen Ben Sheaf is booked for fouling Azor Matusiwa, there is a scramble in the Wrexham goalmouth and Egeli shoots over the Wrexham cross bar but the causes for celebration are limited as evidence by the bloke behind me breaking into a joyous chorus of the “Scum are going down” when he learns that Norwich City are losing 4-1 at Birmingham.

An hour has left us for ever. “Wrexham, Wrexham” chant the Wrexham fans to no particular tune as their team indulges in some rare passing and retention of the ball before Matusiwa is booked, unfairly of course, and Keiran McKenna makes the first much needed substitutions, bringing on George Hirst and Jack Clarke for Ivan Azon and Jaden Philogene. Jack Taylor has a shot over the cross bar and Town win a corner but with no success from that Pat from Clacton takes things into her own hands and removes a blue Dodo from her handbag, which she bought in Mauritius, the Dodo that is, not the handbag, which given Pat’s age might have come from Salisbury’s. The Dodo passes to Fiona, to me and back again into Pat’s bag and we just hope he’s more successful than the masturbating monkey from Cambodia, who has been the ‘lucky charm’ until today. Fiona and I decide to call the Dodo Derek.

Less than twenty minutes remain for Derek to work his magic but a Town corner is easily headed away, and more substitutions quickly follow with Nunez and Cajuste replacing Akpom and Taylor. Wrexham continue to get to every Town cross and shot before Town do. Today’s attendance is announced as being 29,147 and we are thanked by the excitable young stadium announcer for our “Incredible support”, although the Wrexham fans remain unconvinced as they launch into a reprise of the old favourite “Football in library do-do-do” after first telling us we’re “Only here for the Wrexham”, which frankly seems unlikely unless anyone is a fan of stifling defending and zero excitement.

Less than ten minutes of normal time remain, and another Town corner comes to nought before Keiran McKenna goes for broke by bringing on Kasey McAteer, who immediately begins to live up to previous performances by being flagged offside. Only four minutes of normal time remain now, Wrexham win a corner and referee Mr Whitestone books Wrexham’s Lewis O’Brien when Jack Clarke runs into him. Up in the Cobbold Stand, the Wrexham fans suddenly come over all Welsh and start singing Men of Harlech. The end of normal time is now imminent. Town win a free-kick but like everything else this afternoon they might as well not have bothered although after some more bagatelle the ball runs to Kasey McAteer for possibly the best chance of the game. McAteer blasts the ball spectacularly high and wide, seizing the opportunity to be crowned the new Lee Martin.

Four minutes of added on time prove as disappointing and sapping of optimism as the previous ninety-one and with the final whistle from Mr Whitestone Pat from Clacton and Fiona quickly take flight, along with Derek the Dodo, which is at least a first for him. I’m not far behind as I console myself with the thought that at least I hadn’t witnessed Town lose like I did in Wrexham back in January 1995 in the FA Cup third round. I can be glad too that Professor Alice wasn’t with me, she would probably never have spoken to me again, and so I can still look forward to the first time.

Ipswich Town 1 Bolton Wanderers 1

July 31, 2022July 31, 2023 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Here we go again, and it’s still July. I will admit to not looking forward to the start of the football season because as a person who seeks fulfilment in being idle I enjoy summer Saturdays with nothing much to do, and summer is still in its prime, it won’t begin to flop into autumn for another three weeks at least, that’s when the football season should begin again. But hey, how else are we going to fit in 46 league games, at least three games trying to win a pizza pan and probably no more than two or three games trying to win two cups that are inevitably destined to end up on the sideboard of one or two of the same four clubs from London and the north-west?

Today, it is ordained that we shall play Bolton Wanderers, last season’s nemesis who along with Rotherham United were the only team to beat us both home and away, which in the week of the last episode of Neighbours I will admit, whilst in confessorial mood, was my Australian ‘soap’ of choice. The last time Town played Bolton Wanderers on the first day of the season was in 1961, albeit at Burnden Park, and Town of course went on to win the Premier League that season, although it wasn’t called that then. By way of yet another private confession, last night I dreamt about today’s game and how Town drew two-all after twice going ahead with the opposition equalising twice from spectacular long range shots into the top right hand corner of our goal. I say opposition because oddly Town were playing West Ham United in my dream although they also seemed to be called Bolton Wanderers. Even odder is that I then dreamt that I woke up and realised I had been dreaming because all I could remember of the game were the two Bolton/West Ham goals and an empty ground. Then I really did wake up and felt a bit disorientated.

Having happily reined in my subconscious mind I have negotiated the crawling traffic of the A12 and walked across Gippeswyk Park. At the junction of Ancaster Road and Ranelagh Road I must decide whether to turn left towards the Bobby Robson Bridge or right towards the station hotel where I will no doubt be serenaded by boozing Lancastrians in the pub garden singing the praises of barm cakes, back to back housing and cotton mills. Seeking the quiet life as ever, I opt for the former. In Alf Ramsey Way I purchase a match day programme in the modern cashless manner which seems to take several minutes, before heading off over Civic Drive, past the enchanted Spiral car park which used to just be known as ‘the underground car park’ and up St George’s Street to the Arbour House (formerly The Arboretum) to meet Mick and discuss life over a pint of a beer (£3.90) from the Burnt Mill brewery which the pump clip said was Japanese, I ask the barman where it was from, “Stowmarket” he replies. Mick’s and my conversation rambles between spotty liver disease, the quality of television pictures, Ipswich Town’s latest signings and funerals before I buy a pint of Lacon’s Encore and a packet of Fairfield’s cheese and onion crisps (£1.00) and we discuss VHS videos of Ipswich Town’s greatest moments in history and retirement.

We leave earlier than usual for Portman Road because I have a bag of six Ipswich Town VHS videos to give to a bloke called Ash from Swaffham; I have arranged to meet Ash at twenty to three by the Sir Alf Ramsey statue, but he doesn’t turn up. I ask several people stood about if they are called Ash, but none are and two people think I have asked them if they’ve got any hash. Disappointed but not surprised, because the world is an increasingly unreliable place, I head for turnstile number 60 to begin yet another season full of hope and likely disappointment; but you never know (that’s the hope again).

Out in the Sir Alf Ramsey stand Pat from Clacton, Fiona, ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood are already here looking fresh and revived in their summer clothes, it reminds me of what the first day back at school used to feel like. On the pitch, be-suited stadium announcer and former BBC Radio Suffolk presenter Stephen Foster reads out the teams looking as if he is the best man at a wedding. Banners festoon the front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand telling us “The future is bright, the future is blue and white”; it rhymes, it must be true. To our right is the new scoreboard, beaming messages to us like something out of Orwell’s 1984. The stadium is alive with the sound of nigh on 27,000 people and as the game begins those in the lower tier of the Sir Bobby Robson stand break inexplicably into a chorus of Mary’s Boy Child, with lyrics altered to tell of eternal fighting and Norwich running away, because it’s Boxing Day. Off to my right in the Cobbold Stand, in an equally surreal vein, it sounds as if the Bolton supporters are singing “Oh wanky wanky, Wanky wanky wanky wanky Northerners.” But my hearing isn’t what it was and Boltonians do have thick accents.

The opening minutes of the match are messy with lots of physical effort, but little discernible entertainment. All the Bolton team appear to be about 2metres tall and there’s not a Frank Worthington amongst them. “Shall we sing, shall we sing, shall we sing a song for you?” chant the Bolton fans. As nice as that might be, no one takes them up on their kind offer and in a fit of pique they impolitely tell the Ipswich fans “Your support is fucking shit”, before peevishly announcing like thwarted adolescents that the large crowd is because “You’ve only come to see The Wanderers”. Only six minutes have passed and it’s like last season never ended; clearly supporters have wasted the whole close-season and not come up with a single original new chant between the lot of them.

A frisson of excitement shoots through the home support as a punt forward forces the Bolton ‘keeper James Trafford to play sweeper for a moment. Up in the Cobbold Stand the brief roar of excitement from the home support is an excuse to unleash what passes for wit with a chant to say they had forgotten we were here. How droll. It’s the eleventh minute and Town win a corner as a Bolton defender heads the ball out of his goalkeeper’s hands. Lee Evans’ exotic curling corner-kick curls too much and goes disappointingly straight into touch like a metaphor for last season. It is a quarter past three and Bolton win a corner leading to Wes Burns breaking away down the right and putting in a low cross which is blocked. Burns is looking neater and slimmer than last season suggesting to me that his call-up to the Welsh squad and access to the bright lights of Cardiff might have turned his head.

“They love a ball up the middle don’t they?” says the bloke behind me to the bloke beside him as Bolton launch an attack like a Russian missile strike. Fortunately for Town, Bolton’s attacks are producing few goal-attempts, but they are dominating play and look generally quicker and stronger than Town for whom debutants Marcus Harness and Leif Davis are doing little other than entertain me with the thoughts that Marcus Harness sort of rhymes and that Leif is a great first name.

The first half is more than half over and all of a sudden Bolton have a penalty from which Aaron Morley scores. Leif Davis is adjudged to have tripped some Bolton player or other, who predictably makes full use of the opportunity to fall headlong to the turf whilst simultaneously looking up pleadingly at referee Mr Samuel Barrett, who is not to be confused with Samuel Beckett. Disappointment reigns. But unusually the goal against proves a turning point in Town’s favour and for the rest of the match Ipswich are the better team. Corners are traded as the half hour approaches and in the Town penalty area some male posturing ensues. “Who the fuckin’ ‘ell are you?” chant the inhabitants of the lower tier of the Sir Bobby Robson stand and the Bolton supporters sing the same thing. Nobody seems to know who anybody is. It could be the result of dementia but it’s probably because third division footballers are generally not household names, with the exception of course of Town’s number 17, Ed Sheeran. Bolton’s number three Declan John becomes the first player to be booked in a possibly not unrelated incident.

The 37th minute has arrived and another of the day’s debutants, Freddie Ladapo, has a shot deflected away for a corner which Conor Chaplin passes into the penalty area for Lee Evans to side foot into the goal net in a moment of combined thought and invention that was two steps ahead of the entire Bolton team and probably a good 27,000 other people too. The sadness and shame of having gone behind in the first game of the season is instantly forgotten. “ You’re not singing any more” chant the home fans to the Boltonians delving delightedly into bottomless wells of Schadenfreude. More is to come almost, as a beautiful interchange of passes down the right between Janoi Doncaien, Conor Chaplin, Wes Burns and Sam Morsy ends with Freddie Ladapo having a shot blocked almost as soon as it leaves his boot.

Two minutes of the half remain and having already given away a penalty on his debut, Leif Davis then makes a bid for immortality as he also becomes the first Town player of the 2022-23 season to be booked; it’s a good effort from him but no one will ever rival the appalling Town debut of Mark Fish, who funnily enough also played for Bolton Wanderers. Three minutes of time added on are played and then it’s half-time. I consume a Panda brand liquorice stick and talk to Ray, who tells me that his son Michael and his grandson Harrison are missing today’s game because they are respectively in Greece and Scotland. We share our doubts over the validity of the penalty and the efficacy so far of the left hand side of the Town team.

The game resumes at eight minutes past four with the mystifying partial rendition by the Bolton fans of Manfred Mann’s 1964 Number One hit record ‘Do-wah-diddy diddy’ (although it was originally recorded the year before by American band The Exciters). On the field of play, things are more mundane with the usual procession of corners and stuff that you get in football matches. It’s a little bit after a quarter past four and Trafford spectacularly tips a Lee Evans header over the cross bar; five minutes later and the first of a host of substitutions materialise with the luckless Lief and ineffective Harness being replaced by Greg Leigh (not to be confused by Prog-Rockers with Greg Lake) and Tyreece John-Jules (impossible to confuse with anyone). An hour has gone, Freddie Ladapo shoots tamely at Trafford before Leigh gets back to acrobatically head away a Bolton cross.

As the final third of the game progresses the sky begins to cloud over a little, there are flying ants taking to the air and landing on the shirt of the bloke in front of me; seagulls circle over the Portman Road car park; it’s stiflingly warm. It’s a dog day afternoon; I think of Al Pacino.

Ending a sequence of three ever worsening fouls, Bolton’s Conor Bradley chops down Tyreece John-Jules particularly dirtily and is booked. “You dirty Northern bastard” chant the Sir Bobby Robson standers reciting possibly football’s greatest chant. “Small Town in Norwich, You’re just a small Town in Norwich” is the Boltonian’s weak response, which does little to dispel the rumours that Bradley hasn’t washed, is Northern and was conceived outside wedlock.

Both teams continue to make substitutions like they’re going out of fashion, making four each with Sone Aluko and Kayden Jackson replacing Conor Chaplin and Freddie Ladapo for Town. Ipswich dominate, pinning back Bolton and making them play sardines in their own penalty area. It’s a niggly game as both teams display their frustration at being unable to beat the other. The crowd is announced as 26,688, and it seems wakes week has come early with 1,392 pale and pasty-faced folk from the mills and the mines making up the numbers in the Cobbold Stand. Pat from Clacton wins the guess the crowd competition on the Clacton supporters’ bus with a prediction of 26,679; she seems a little shocked but I can tell she’s excited by her win, it’s been a long time coming.

Back on the pitch, Luke Woolfenden is the second Town player to be booked. A Wes Burns header brings another corner, Sone Aluko shoots past the post and so does Tyreece John-Jules, who also has a shot saved, and then in the best opportunity of the whole game Wes Burns runs deep into the penalty area before placing one of those crosses usually labelled ‘inviting’ in front of Sam Morsy. Morsy sends Trafford the wrong way with his shot, but the ball strikes the fortunate keeper’s legs and is cleared.

After six minutes of time added-on, the game ends. It’s a shame not to start the season with a win, yet again, but it was a tough match against a strong team and Town did recover from going a goal behind, and on balance these are all good things. One swallow does not make a summer seems an appropriate homily for the occasion, because every occasion needs a homily; although in this case it’s not so much a lovely, swooping, screaming swallow as a scrounging, step-sibling murdering cuckoo.

Ipswich Town 0 Swansea City 1

April 25, 2019August 14, 2023 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Despite being fortunate enough to grow up and go to school in Suffolk, I was born in Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, Wales, where I lived until I was a few months old and my parents moved to my mother’s home village of Shotley and took me and my sister with them, like the good parents that they were. The nearest Football League club to Haverfordwest is Swansea City, (still Swansea Town when I was born) and there is an argument that says I might follow their fortunes, but I don’t. The dual nationality comes in handy when Wales do well in the rugby and I like leeks, cheese on toast, Ivor the Engine, Sgorio and daffodils; but that’s as Welsh as I am see. I wouldn’t normally mention it but today Town play Swansea City, and I’ve written this first paragraph in a Welsh accent.

At the railway station it’s another gloriously warm, cloudless day and sunlight glints off the tracks. The only travellers are all bound for Ipswich and the match; the train is on time. The carriage is sparsely populated and I share it with a hard looking woman and two young children, a girl and a boy. As the train arrives into Colchester she scolds them in a harsh voice that sounds like a man’s. “Drake, McKenna get away from the door”. I can’t help but derive amusement from the names of children nowadays, it’s my age. The children seem almost to roll their eyes as she speaks. Pleasingly they leave the train at Colchester and twenty five minutes later I arrive peacefully in Ipswich.

Ipswich is best under a blue sky and everything is beautiful as I walk up Princes Street and past the peeling paint of Portman Road with its ragged club flag to St Jude’s Tavern, which is dingy and the customers are reassuringly as old and ugly as ever. I order a pint of the Match Day Special (£2.50) Nethergate Venture. At the bar I meet Kev’ who I know from my days with Wivenhoe Town. Kev’ is wearing a dark flat cap which in the gloom of St Jude’s looks like a beret. I am wearing my “Allez les bleus” T-shirt today and tell him I thought the French had come to take me “home” to where I imagine I belong – that’s France, not Wales. I sit with the regular old gits who assemble here on match days. I talk to one of them (Phil) about statues of footballers and tell him that even Carlisle United has one, although I can’t remember who it is a statue of. Phil suggests it’s not a footballer but one of the Hairy Bikers because he knows one of them is from Cumbria. I tell him the Hairy Biker he’s thinking of is from Barrow In Furness, where the nuclear submarines come from. I drain my glass and fetch a pint of Butcomb Gold (£3.60), which seems livelier than the Venture even though I can’t help thinking Butcomb might be a West Country word for anus.

With the big hand heading up the clock face towards the figure eight, the pub empties and carried on a gentle human tide I soon find myself back in Portman Road. A selection of people are hawking copies of the Turnstile Blue fanzine where Portman Road meets Sir Alf Ramsey Way and I buy one (£1); it’s issue 20 and it’s much like the previous nineteen in its tone, but it’s nice when things are familiar. Unusually there are queues to get into the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand; not because of weight of numbers but because not all the turnstiles are open. Nevertheless, despite my desire to be French I like a good queue to get in the ground; it carries a faint hint of the ‘big match’ atmosphere, which is the best 17,247 people can really hope for in a 30,000 seat stadium. I enter turnstile number seven and wish the bespectacled female operator a happy Easter as she returns my freshly scanned season ticket card to me. She looks up, surprised as if she’d forgotten about the resurrection.

Bladder drained, I occupy a seat near ever-present Phil who never misses a game and just along from Pat from Clacton. Pat is fed up because a large man in a red hat is sat directly in front of her today and she’s only short; whichever way she looks a big red head is in her field of vision. We sit and wait for the teams to appear from the tunnel.

Town have been officially relegated for over a week now and today’s match is amongst the most pointless they have ever played, childishly I live in the hope that they will therefore treat it as a bit of fun, a bit like testimonial games are supposed to be. Would anyone be bothered if the two teams each agreed to play a 2-3-5 formation? I am not optimistic for this however as professional football tends to take itself much too seriously, like many of the fans, as the drivel that appears on social media testifies. The teams are announced and my hopes of football for fun are dashed.

The flags of tiny mascots and larger furry mascots sway to an amplified soundtrack of swirling music giving an undeserved aura of grandeur to the two teams as they walk out for this meaningless encounter, but I stand and applaud nevertheless, swept up with the lie that this match is bigger than really it is. As the game begins the noise level simmers down and a degree of reality returns. Town are hopefully aiming at the goal just to the left of me, ever-present Phil and Pat from Clacton; they inevitably wear blue and white shirts adorned with the unwelcome red adidas stripes and that nasty sponsors’ logo. In crisp white shorts and black shorts Swansea look like Germany, they are the Teutonic Taffies.

“One Dylan Thomas, There’s only one Dylan Thomas” sing the male voice choir from Swansea from the top corner of the Cobbold Stand, or perhaps they don’t. A serious looking steward collects blue and white balloons that have drifted from the stand, thereby suppressing someone’s expression of joy; no doubt the balloons had strayed dangerously close to the pitch. I like to think that as part of the club’s Community programme the balloons will later be released at the birthday parties of deprived children. Next to me Pat from Clacton continues to glower at the big red hat on the big head of the big man sitting in front of her. On the touchline Paul Lambert is celebrating Easter with a new jumper, a grey one, an infinite number of shades lighter than his usual black one, and people still accuse Scots of being dour.

On the pitch referee Mr Darren England, which seems a good name for a football referee, makes himself unpopular with the home support by seemingly giving fouls against Ipswich players and not Swansea ones. “You’re not fit to referee Subbuteo, you tiny little bugger” bawls an incensed voice from somewhere behind me, failing to notice that being tiny is actually one of the main requirements of being a Subbuteo referee along with being made from brittle plastic and glued into a circular base. The game is rather boring and Swansea are hogging the ball; like every other club that has been to Portman Road this season, they have the better players. into the Swansea penalty area and wins a corner. Will Keane misses a header and scuffs the ball against a post, the ball bounces about like it’s made of rubber bands before Trevoh Chalobah sends it flying past the other post into the stand. Sixty seconds later, give or take, another corner is won and Toto N’siala heads Alan Judge’s kick solidly over the cross bar. The supporters behind the goal are getting almost as much possession of the ball as Andre Dozzell. Pat and I are breathless at the sudden burst of attacking football from Town and are glad for the rest that half-time soon brings.

I use the facilities beneath the stand, eat a Panda brand liquorice stick and catch up on the half-time scores. A young man in a shirt and tie and smart trousers compliments me on my ‘Allez les Bleus’ T-shirt, “Cool T-shirt” he says brightly. He’s not wrong. The match stats on the TV screen above the concourse are blatantly wrong however, claiming Ipswich have had eight shots to Swansea’s six; it’s as if the stats are being reported by Donald Trump or the Brexit campaign. I return to the stand to talk to Ray who confesses to being underwhelmed by the first half.

At six minutes past four the game resumes. I laugh when Gwion Edwards stretches to head the ball by the touchline then tumbles out of sight over the perimeter wall; “well for me” to quote Mick Channon, it’s the best move of the match so far. Happily, Gwion quickly bounces back up and plays on, but that’s the sort of entertainment end of season games need. Minutes later Dean Gerken makes a quite spectacular low, diving, ‘finger-tip save’ from a Daniel James shot before the very tiny, thirty-four year old Wayne Routledge, whose shorts almost reach his calves, runs the ball over the goal line and is met with jeers and guffaws from the appreciative crowd in the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand. But Wayne has a friend in fate today and within a few minutes a shot rebounds off Town’s right hand post and straight onto the turf in front of Wayne who is quick enough not to miss an open goal and Swansea are winning.

The attendance is announced as 17,247 with 557 of those being from Swansea; Collin Quaner and Kayden Jackson replace Andre Dozzell and Will Keane. Wayne Routledge is replaced by Nathan Dyer. “I can’t believe we’re losing again” says Pat from Clacton. I make a sympathetic humming noise in reply, I couldn’t think of any proper words to say. Behind Pat sit two large middle aged women. “We don’t really get the sun here, do we” says one obviously engrossed in the game, before adding “Coronation Street’s on tonight”.

Town struggle to equalise and Pat and I are a little despondent, “I don’t really enjoy coming here anymore” she says “It’s not like it used to be”. We are Ipswich’s spoilt generation who remember the 1970’s and early 1980’s. But Pat is already planning to renew her season ticket and might get one for her young niece too. Of course, I am going to renew mine as well, as will ever-present Phil who never misses game; I’m looking forward to the big discount when the other 13, 996 sign up. Pat takes a photograph using the 20x zoom lens on her compact Sony camera and picks out her brother stood in the North Stand, it’s one of the most impressive things I’ve seen all afternoon.

Time drifts by under a hazy blue sky and at last the stadium clock turns nine minutes to five. It’s been a disappointing hour and a half of football and to add insult to injury we are forced to sit through six minutes of time added on; as if relegation wasn’t bad enough we are now all in detention. Hopes are raised with a last minute corner and Dean Gerken leaves his goal to join in the penalty area melee at the far end; I stand up and lurch forward as if to join him too, but realise just in time that that sort of commitment is generally frowned upon nowadays. Little Alan Judge’s corner kick is poorly judged and sails away over everyone’s heads anyway. Finally Mr Darren England makes a belated and vain bid for popularity by blowing the final whistle.

Normally the team does a lap of honour or appreciation around the pitch after the last game of the season, but because the last game of this season will be against Leeds United, that lap is occurring today. Having been relegated, the Town players don’t want thousands of oafish Yorkshireman flicking v’s at the them and screaming at them from the Cobbold Stand to “Fuck Off” as they wander round clutching assorted babies and toddlers and waving nicely. The players re-emerge from the tunnel without delay and I slavishly applaud as they drift by beyond a wall of stewards; within a couple of minutes I go home for my tea.

Ipswich Town 1 Leeds United 0

January 15, 2018 / martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

Today sees the fourth game at Portman Road in 26 days, it’s as if Town don’t play away from home anymore and I’m getting a bit fed up with it to be honest and hanker after a change of scenery. The wide open spaces of non-league football are ever more attractive compared to the claustrophobic pall of gloom that hangs around Portman Road and seemingly seeps from the pores of so many home ‘supporters’.
But what’s this? Today Ipswich are playing Leeds United and I shall transport myself back to the 1970’s with a scarf tied round my wrist, double denim, feather cut and platforms. In my mind Leeds United embody the 1970’s, that awful but grimly fascinating and rather marvellous decade, and I love to see a game against Leeds United because of that, and also Leeds are guaranteed to bring a good number of supporters who are equally guaranteed to make a noise and create that rare thing at Portman Road, a bit of atmosphere and the sensation that there is a football match taking place.
It is a dull, grey January day as I head for the railway station past flat, featureless, cold

fields above which a few seagulls circle. At the station I meet Roly who has travelled from Borley and looks slightly disagreeable as he clutches a paper cup of coffee. He admits to having eaten a bacon butty from the station buffet and says that he only feels marginally happier than if he hadn’t eaten it, which for a greedy man like Roly means it was not a good bacon butty.

The train is three minutes late due to ‘congestion’ attributed to engineering works.
Once on the train we discuss grandmothers sucking eggs and how the use of powdered egg affected this during World War Two; we also discuss the relative merits of the minute’s silence or applause at the start of football matches. I long to be trusted to be respectfully silent in a dead person’s honour as football fans used to be, but Roly points out that there is now an unwritten etiquette of applauses for individuals who have shuffled off the mortal coil naturally, whilst armistice day and terrorist attacks and the like attract a silence. We agree that an applause in the wake of a terrorist attack might be misconstrued, but it nevertheless makes us laugh.

Arriving in Ipswich we are greeted by a posse of police on the station forecourt. The Station Hotel opposite looks packed, there is condensation on the windows, bums on the window sills and a crowd of Leeds fans occupy the car park and garden.

It’s not the prettiest riverside setting, but probably makes these Yorkshiremen feel at home, like they’re down by t’canal. Roly and I stroll on and the Leeds United team bus passes us heading towards Portman Road, which is the scene of a military operation. Police vans partly

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block the road whilst policemen are strung across the road restricting the easy flow of people along the street. The Leeds team bus has disappeared into the yard behind the Sir Alf Ramsey stand and a group of people clamour around the gates, presumably seeking a glimpse of Leeds players, or maybe they’re bus spotters. We walk on, a group of late-middle aged men meet beneath the hollow gaze of Sir Alf Ramsey’s insouciant statue.

In St Jude’s Tavern we each drink a pint of today’s ‘match day special’ (£2 a go) which is Elgood’s Festive Feelgood; we talk football and in particular of the myriad of players who have appeared for Town in the last twenty years or so. We speak of Kevin Ellis, who made one appearance against Arsenal in the Premier League 1995, remained at the club for two more years before going to King’s Lynn and never playing another game for a League club. We both have another pint of the ‘match day special’ and then I have a half of St Jude’s Hazelnut Stout (£1.80), partly because I feel guilty about only drinking the cheap beer. It’s only 2.30pm, but Roly is eager to leave so that he can buy a pie; he is probably not obese, but he could easily become so. We part in Portman Road because Roly’s seat is in the posh seats in the East of England Co-operative Stand, where by rights he should get divvy on his pie.
In Portman Road the police are hard at work controlling the crowd for whatever reason, which means not allowing passage behind the Cobbold Stand for home fans and sending us all around the ground and back up Princes Street to get access to the Sir Alf Ramsey

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stand. I don’t mind; this scenic route, it makes a change. I buy a programme from a girl in a kiosk on the corner of Alderman Road and pass by the main entrance to the club as a massive black Bentley sweeps through the gate.
By the time I’ve enjoyed my walkabout and the street theatre that the Norfolk and Suffolk Constabulary are providing today it’s nearly time for kick –off and the teams are soon on the pitch when I take up my seat. Before the game today there is a minute’s applause for Ted Phillips, one of the greatest players ever to represent Town, who died this week at the age of eighty-four. Ted was in the teams that won the Third Division South, Second Division and First Division championships and in total scored 181 goals in 295 games. We’ll probably not see his like again, definitely not for the twenty-odd quid a week he got paid. I would happily stand and applaud him all afternoon and am very disappointed that his picture is not on the cover of the programme.
The game kicks off and is closely fought, but this is not a Leeds United I recognise, this team is the anti-thesis of the renowned Lilywhites, this team are wearing an all-black kit,

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they could be anyone; a team of referees. Leeds United in all-black, it’s just wrong. But happily the Leeds fans are still the same; loud, raucous, foul-mouthed and very heavily stewarded. There are even police inside the stadium today, although strangely they seem to be watching the home fans. Without the Leeds fans this game would be dull like all the others; they have the whole of the Cobbold Stand today and have displaced Ipswich season ticket holders, but it was the right thing to do, it has made this game special and if Ipswich hasn’t got supporters interested in filling the ground and creating a match atmosphere, then let someone in who has. Nevertheless, there are only 18,638 of us here today and that is despite the addition of visiting supporters of Fortuna Dusseldorf who have adopted Town as their English team; we seem to have lost nearly 20,000 people somewhere since Town met Leeds in the FA Cup sixth round in 1975.
There are a lot of fouls in this game, a nostalgic nod to ‘dirty Leeds’ of the 1970’s perhaps, but the fouls are mostly clumsy rather than cynical, niggly or vicious although both teams’ physios are called upon to treat the wounded. Like most Second Division matches nowadays it’s a bit of a mess, as once again levels of effort and running exceed levels of skill. I nevertheless think I see Town captain Luke Chambers quite artfully control the ball and pass it accurately and then look rather pleased with himself; it may just have been a look of surprise however.
It’s not a bad game, but the presence of the noisy away support is carrying it somewhat. It takes until the 19th minute for the first decent shot on goal and this is followed by the news from the Leeds fans through the medium of “Cwm Rhondda” that “your support is fucking shit”. It’s taken them a while to realise this but they got there in the end. It doesn’t look like either team is particularly likely to score and then in the 37th minute the odds on a goal shift in Town’s favour as Leeds United’s Eunan O’Kane is sent off by referee Robert Jones for an off the ball assault (headbutt)on Town’s Jonas Knudsen.

Everyone loves a sending off, if it’s not one of their own players. Kane must walk the full length of the pitch and a Leeds fan set off a fire cracker, the loud crack and the smoke just add to the drama and excitement.

After four minutes of time added on for injuries and sundry stoppages, during which Town’s on-loan Kosovan Bersant Celina hits a post with a shot, the imposing Mr Roberts, who likes to stand with his hands on his hips, blows his whistle for half-time. I head down to the concourse and devour a piece of left-over Christmas cake that I had brought with me in lieu of thebacon butties or pies that others might eat to see them through the afternoon. I gaze up at the TV set delivering the half-time scores and first half stats, which are clearly wrong. I learn that I could buy a hospitality package for £35 plus VAT. I look at the programme and am impressed by the diversity of the Leeds squad with players from fifteen different countries. Ipswich players come from just seven countries, and one of them is Wales. The Leeds squad also has some fine surnames, my favourites being Roofe and Grot although Borthwick-Jackson and Peacock-Farrell also deserve a mention. Inside the programme there is a tribute to Ted Phillips, but if as the tribute says he is a legend, and he is, it should probably run to several pages, not just two. Also in the programme is the usual piece from club captain Luke Chambers. Luke is in philosophical mood today and amongst other nuggets says “I think football stadiums in general have become places where supporters can vent their frustrations over 90 minutes, sometimes that frustration comes from life as much as football. You see it everywhere now ”. It’s a very funny read.
For the second half I decide to sit with Pat from the Clacton-On-sea branch of the supporters club because the people near where Pat sits seem to have a bit more life in them, although they don’t really sing either, and at least when I do they laugh. The players and officials return to the pitch and Mr Roberts crosses himself, which is pure showmanship and not really becoming of a referee, but hey-ho.
The Leeds fans are still in good voice and treat the home crowd to renditions of “We all love Leeds and Leeds and Leeds” to the tune of ‘The Dambusters’ March’. Soon afterwards the chant of choice switches to “ We are Leeds, We are Leeds, We are Leeds” to no particular tune at all and then “When the Whites (sic) Go Marching In”, forgetting that their team is wearing all black, which may be why they previously had to remind themselves that they are Leeds.
Ipswich’s superiority in numbers isn’t making very much difference, although they are having more possession than usual and Leeds are not looking very likely to score. It will take a moment of very inept play or one of special skill to get a goal from this game and surprisingly it’s the latter that comes to pass in the 67th minute. Bursant Celina receives the ball from a throw-in on the left; he drifts in towards the centre of the field running sideways like a stray dog before suddenly unleashing a beautiful, gently dipping, but powerful shot into the corner of the Leeds goal. It truly is a thing of beauty, mostly because it is scored by someone in an Ipswich shirt.
Ipswich should really press home their advantage even more now, but they don’t, although they are the dominant team.

At the side of the pitch the managers and coaches are animated, the Spanish Leeds manager looking sharp in a smart, tailored coat, Mick McCarthy and Terry Connor looking like a couple of scallies in anoraks and tracky bottoms.

A Leeds substitute comes on with his socks turned up over his knees so that he is in black from neck to toe like a mime artist, but for some reason he also reminds me of Papa Lazarou in League of Gentlemen. The Leeds players become frustrated, particularly their Swedish centre-half Pontus Jansson who deserves an award for succeeding in getting the bulk of the North Stand lower tier to sing loudly in unison; to the tune of Cwm Rhondda, they chant, even if it is just to ask “Who the fuck, Who the fuck, Who the fuckin’ ‘ell are you?” and then, after presumably consulting their programmes to answer their own curiosity “Jansson, Jansson, you’re a cunt”. The upshot is that Jansson is booked by Mr Roberts, possibly for having inspired the putting of rude words to a hymn tune, but more probably for persistent fouling.
There is not long left but Town have to hold out against a late Leeds onslaught in which goalkeeper Dean Gerken saves the day with a fine dive to his right to parry away a shot from Pierre-Michel Lasogga, who is German. Finally however, Mr Roberts calls time; it has been an enjoyable afternoon for several reasons; Ipswich have won, the goal was spectacular and the opposition have had a player sent off, but also because of the presence of the Leeds fans who have created an atmosphere usually so sadly lacking at Portman Road. I am look forward to next season’s game already, if I can survive all the dreary ones in between.