wes burns

Ipswich Town 3 Blackburn Rovers 0

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Woke up, fell out of bed.  It was damp and dreary outside when I drew back the bedroom curtains.  Feeling inspired, I thought I’d check to see when I had last seen Ipswich Town play Blackburn Rovers, and I was surprised to learn that it was in August of 2018; it was the first game at Portman Road under the pitiful and thankfully brief leadership of the diminutive Paul Hurst.  In case you’re wondering, I missed Blackburn’s last visit to Ipswich in September 2023 because I was in Brest, where I witnessed Stade Brestois beat Olympique Lyonnais one-nil to go top of Ligue1.

Times change, but Ipswich Town are playing Blackburn Rovers again today (Brest are away to Lyon tomorrow) and today’s match kicks-off at the silly time of 12:30pm, when civilised people should be eating lunch, in the pub, or still in bed.   I catch the train to Ipswich, looking up I notice it isn’t late, and I have a carriage to myself until Gary joins me at the first station stop in his brightly coloured anorak. The train speeds on through a damp and dismal winter wonderland of bare trees and decaying vegetation, brightened only by the sighting of two very off-white polar bears that live by a lake in Wherstead.  Arriving in Ipswich, pale sunshine is straining its way through the cloud because the sun always shines in Ipswich or tries to.  As we cross Princes Street bridge there are just two people sat in the beer garden of the Station Hotel and they look very young; they’re probably drinking Vimto.

In Portman Road, a crowd of people loiter, waiting for the turnstiles to open.  Gary and I speculate as to the attractions that Portman Road holds ninety minutes before kick-off but can’t think of any.  I am first through the door at the Arb and with no other punters at the bar I am soon paying for a pint of Estrella Galicia for Gary and a pint each of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride for Mick and myself (£14.90 with Camra discount).  We repair to the beer garden to sit in the shelter that backs on to High Street, joining a solitary man with glasses and tied back hair at the end table having first asked if we may; we may. Mick is late, but it’s not long before he arrives.  We talk of the African Cup of Nations, how Mick will miss Tuesday’s match because he must go to Scotland for a funeral, of the Tory councillor from Lymington in Hampshire sent to prison for twenty weeks for stalking former Tory MP Penny Mordaunt, and jury service.  Gary buys more drinks and we leave for Portman Road at about ten past twelve once we’re happy that we are the last to leave.

We part ways near Sir Alf Ramsey’s statue; Mick and Gary heading for the west stand whilst I make for turnstile sixty-two and the cheap seats of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand, where a smiling man first scans me for concealed weapons and scrap metal.  From outside, I have already heard the excitable young stadium announcer reading out the names of the teams and I didn’t join in.   After disposing of spent Suffolk Pride in the proper manner, I make for the stand, pausing only to allow the minute’s applause for all deceased Ipswich Town fans to end. I’m not a fan of the mawkish, public sentimentality of the ‘Memorial Day’.  Grief is private, life is for the living and we’re all going to die.

Kick-off is moments away as I shuffle past Pat from Clacton and Fiona to my seat a row or two behind ever-present Phil who never misses a game and his son Elwood, and two along from the man from Stowmarket (Paul), who today is making his return to Portman Road after missing several matches. When the game begins, it’s Blackburn who get first go with the ball, which they launch in the general direction of the Vets for Pets premises on Handford Road and the Co-op next door. Blackburn are wearing an unpleasant looking yellow kit, which from where I am sitting looks as if it is covered in brown smudges, ‘skid marks’ perhaps.  According to the Lancashire Telegraph however, the shirt is gold in colour and is a ‘love letter to Blackburn’ featuring several of the town’s landmarks throughout the design.  I squint and think I might just be able to make out the four thousand holes, give or take three thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine.  Aside from the shirts, the first two minutes of the game are ‘all Blackburn’ and in the third minute their number 20, Erain Cashin scores a spectacular goal, albeit in his own net.   Nunez and Philogene exchange passes before Nunez delivers a low, hard cross, which Cashin belts into the top corner of the goal from a seated position, thereby promoting himself as the possible answer to Town’s perceived need for a ‘top striker’.  Town lead one-nil.

The goal results in Ipswich gaining the confidence for Eggy to have a volley tipped over the crossbar by Blackburn goalkeeper and ancient Egyptian deity Toth.  The Blackburn number 10 is jeered by home supporters. “That’s Cantwell” says the fella in front of me. “Whoever he is” I respond, genuinely not knowing who he is although I’d seen his face before.  “He used to play for Norwich” says the fella.  “Like Nunez” says Fiona.  Ipswich have a corner “Come on You Blues” chant at least five of us. A far post header sends the ball into the six-yard box, Toth smothers the ball but then doesn’t and Jack Taylor belts it into the roof of the goal net from less than a metre out. It’s a goal ugly enough to have travelled through time from the days of Mick McCarthy.   Town lead 2-0, although I had expected the goal to be disallowed, but that was before I remembered we’re not in the Premier League anymore.

“All games should start like this” I think to myself and then tell Fiona.  Seventeen minutes have left us, Town still lead two-nil, Blackburn win a corner. Eight further minutes pass into history and Blackburn’s Atcheson claims the day’s first booking after fouling Jaden Philogene. I had been wondering how many goals we might score but things have quietened down.  A long throw from Darnell Furling momentarily excites. “A helluva throw” says the bloke beside me, “Like a bullet”, and it was.  Then Blackburn win another corner. “Wanker, wanker, wanker” chant the Sir Bobby Robson standers, and “He’s only a poor little budgie” to the tune of ’The Sparrow’, a Christmas 1979 hit for The Ramblers, a choir from the Abbey Hey Junior School, Manchester, and along with Brian and Michael and St Winifred’s School Choir, a rarely celebrated part of the ‘Madchester scene’.  I assume the target for the abuse is Cantwell, a man who sports a mullet, which makes him resemble a cross between Jerry Seinfeld and Mickey from the Job Centre in the BBC tv series  ‘The League of Gentlemen’.

There are twelve minutes remaining until half-time and as we wait for Leif Davis to take a corner having chanted “Come on You Blues” a few times for luck, Fiona comments on the grubby appearance of Blackburn’s yellow shirts that look like they’re covered in brown marks of unknown provenance.  An injured Jaden Philogene is replaced by Jack Clarke, Blackburn win another corner and two minutes of added on time are stolen from our futures before half-time arrives.

During half time, I talk to the man from Stowmarket (Paul), who has been in hospital.  He tells me all about it and I can only marvel again at the NHS and the beautiful idea of distributing resources amongst the population for the common good and according to people’s needs.  I vent more spent Suffolk Pride and at twenty-six minutes to two the football resumes beneath a hint of winter sunshine.  Five minutes in and Ipswich have a corner.  The crowd is mostly quiet today because Blackburn have had a lot of the ball, albeit without doing much with it.  But Ipswich are dominating now and the Sir Bobby Robson standers sing “When the Town go marching in” at a depressingly funereal pace appropriate for ‘Memorial Day’.  Five minutes later however they feeling are more up-beat as they chant ‘Blue and White Army’ and it works as Town win another corner.

But Ipswich’s domination is fleeting as a Blackburn shot is blocked and another goes tamely wide.  When Blackburn win another corner, I see just how bad Cantwell’s mullet is and so advise him to “get your ‘air cut, Cantwell” as any responsible citizen would.  “Come On Ipswich, Come On Ipswich” pleads the home crowd and as if in response Eggy and Hirst are replaced by Ivan Azom and Wes Burns who draws a cheer for just trotting onto the pitch.  “I don’t need to get Monkey out, do I?” asks Pat from Clacton, and Fiona and I agree we don’t need any lucky charms yet, because we’re still two-nil up. 

In the final twenty minutes of normal time three more Blackburn players, Trondstad, Cantwell and Cashin are booked by referee Mr Kitchen, all for fouls on Jack Clarke who has become Blackburn’s target man since Philogene had to go off.   Mr Kitchen meanwhile sports an impossibly neat but receding hairline as if like a 1960’s Action Man his hair has been painted on to his scalp.   More substitutions are made, Pat from Clacton tells me about the pantomime she saw, the dame was called Belle Ringer, and for a short while my mind wanders off, I’m not sure where but I’m back in time for the eighty-eighth minute when Jens Cajuste surges forward, slips a through ball to Wes Burns and his square pass is swept into the Blackburn goal by Sammy Szmodics.  Town lead three-nil and five minutes of added on time make no difference, although it sounds like Cedric Kipre has been chosen as man of the match by something called Holiday Testing Concrete Limited; I expect it’s something to do with Brutalist architecture.

The final whistle sounds and people stay and leave in equal measure to cheer the victors or catch buses and trains or queue in car parks. or just walk home.  It’s been a slightly odd game, good in parts, very good in flashes. Ipswich have been too good for Blackburn whose greatest contribution to the spectacle has been providing a pantomime villain in Cantwell. Most significantly however, for the first time this season the visiting supporters have failed to sing “Football in a library, do-do-do”.  Having had to get up in the middle of the night to travel over 400 kilometres for a 12:30 kick-off I don’t suppose they could be bothered.

Ipswich Town 0 Brighton & Hove Albion 2

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It’s been a much more eventful, activity-packed day than usual, with visits to my dentist and my surviving aged parent, a bit of driving around Ipswich, and spending my once a week day in the office, from the window of which I saw the Brighton and Hove Albion team bus drive by.   It’s nevertheless been a grey day, but now, as I pass through the portals of ‘the Arb,’ darkness has fallen and as it’s not raining or snowing the weather is no longer noticeable, although for January it’s quite mild.  Most incredible of all however, today is Thursday, and the Town will be playing at home tonight.  Foolishly nostalgic, I pine for the days when no football was ever played on a Thursday unless it happened to be Boxing Day, or two clubs were embroiled in multiple FA Cup replays, such as when Ipswich gloriously beat Leeds United on Thursday 27th March 1975, or less gloriously lost at home to West Ham United on Thursday 6th February 1986. But whatever, I’m here now.

In the present, Mick is already stood at the bar ordering a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride and some food and he kindly buys me a pint of the same, and when I say I want to order some food too, he says he’ll pay for that as well; what a great bloke he is.  We repair to the beer garden, which is deserted, and wait for our food.  Over vegetarian burgers with what we think are sweet potato chips, we discuss how our lives and attitudes have been shaped by passing the 11-plus and being sent from rural primary schools to ‘posh’ schools at the expense of the County Council,  working class people’s mistrust of authority,  comedy, and how the environmentally friendly ‘Ecover’ cleaning brand is actually owned by evil multi-national Johnson and Johnson. After another pint of Suffolk Pride for me, and a Jura whisky for Mick because I misheard the bar maid when she said they only had Jamieson Stout and thought she said that the Jamieson is ‘out’, it is nearly ten past seven and time to exit through the now totally deserted bar towards Portman Road.

With ten minutes until kick-off, Portman Road is thick with queues, but I buy a programme from a queue-free seller and make my way around to approach the Sir Alf Ramsey stand from the direction of Russell Road. I join a shuffling queue but am quickly ushered towards a side gate in the style of Mr Benn and find myself inside the stadium just in time to bawl out the surnames of Burns, Broadhead, Hutchinson and Delap like a Frenchman would, as the excitable young stadium announcer reads out the Town team.  Around me, the familiar faces of Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, but not his son Elwood, who is absent tonight, await the imminent kick-off to a soundtrack of na-na-nas from The Beatles’ song ‘Hey Jude’.  Kick-off is delayed however because tonight is the annual “Memorial Matchday” and we are told that a minute’s applause for recently deceased Town fans will begin with the referee’s whistle, but instead it starts straight away, so keen are the remaining Town fans to celebrate the dead. Perhaps football has finally replaced religion.

It’s Brighton who get first go with ball, which they mostly try to send in the direction of the goal fronting the Sir Bobby Robson stand; they wear a kit of all yellow, just as they did when I first saw them play a league game at Portman Road back in 1980.  Unless you’re FC Nantes, in which case it’s your home kit, all-yellow is the anonymous, archetypal away kit, which is what away kits used to be before everything was put up for sale, or ‘monetised’.  The Town are of course in blue and white.

“Al-bion, Al-bion” chant the Brighton fans boringly, as if they’re here under duress, before launching off into some song or other which at one point sounds disturbingly like ‘On The Ball City’.  On the pitch, Brighton start well, selfishly keeping the ball to themselves.  “Who’s the Brighton manager?” asks Pat from Clacton.  He’s German isn’t he says Fiona.  “I don’t know who he is” I reply, “Alan Mullery?”.   “Alan Mullery!” says Pat as if she’s really saying “Pffft”.   “I suppose Steve Foster is playing at the back is he?” scoffs Fiona.  Behind me, two blokes discuss the Brighton team, although this mostly consists of them saying players’ names and then adding “Yeah, he’s good”.

Brighton claim the game’s first corner in the eighth minute and we are treated to more morose repetition of “Al-bion, Al-bion”, which compares unfavourably with what I expected to hear, which was the much more upbeat “Sea-gulls, Sea-gulls”.  But in the final league table of disappointment over the course of the evening I don’t expect it to rank highly.  Ten minutes have passed and so far the game is all Brighton, and Ipswich fans are looking to the floor or the sky and whistling as if a little embarrassed, before some Bobby Robson standers eventually sing “Hark now hear the Ipswich sing, the Norwich ran away” in an attempt to change the subject.

“Thank you to today’s sponsors” reads the illuminated strip between the two tiers of the Sir Bobby stand but I quietly curse Umbro for apparently objecting to the poster style front page of the programme like philistine, money-obsessed bastards. The Brighton fans sing “Football in a library, der, der, der” to no particular tune.  Twenty minutes pass and Brighton have dominated them all, but without looking as if they will score, and therefore the belief remains that if only Ipswich can keep the ball for more than a few seconds they might nip away and demonstrate to Brighton what the point of the game is.  Brighton win another corner to no effect, before hope springs from the fleet of foot Nathan Broadhead, who runs away down field, shoots and the modern equivalent of Perry Digweed makes a diving save to give Town a corner and an opportunity to shout “Come On You Blues” with feeling .  It’s an event that changes the pattern of the game and enlivens the home crowd as chants of “Blue and white army” ring out. The twenty fifth minute, and Omari Hutchinson runs and shoots and ‘Digweed’ saves again.  “Town have woken up.“ says the bloke behind me and three minutes later Liam Delap runs and shoots at ‘Digweed’ too.  The words “Mezzanines, Staircases” flash across the front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand and Liam Delap oafishly barges his marker Paul van Hecke, to the amusement of many, and referee Mr Harrington awards a free kick.  Moments later Delap is fouled by van Hecke in what looks like revenge, but Harrington plays on.  “Winding him up” says the bloke behind me.

The Town continue to look the most likely team to score; Hutchinson sends Wes Burns down the right, Burns pulls the ball back but Jens Cajuste and Hutchinson both go to shoot at once and bounce off one another like Keystone Cops as the ball runs on and is cleared.  “Blue and white army, Blue and white army.” Chant the Sir Bobby Robson standers over and over and over again. Pat from Clacton tells me she had her tea before she came out; toad in the hole.  Brighton win a corner, “Al-bion, Al-bion.”  “Blue and white army, Blue and white army, Blue and white army.”  Two minutes to half-time and again Hutchinson shoots and ‘Digweed’ saves.  A minute of added on time is taken from the well of infinity and I wonder if we get ‘added on time’ when we’re about to die; if so, I expect to get quite a bit, some for the few days when I was in a coma in 2019, but mostly just for time wasting.  With that minute soon gone forever and half-time in full swing I go down to the front of the stand to chat with Ray, who with his wife Ros has been on a cruise to the unfortunately named Canary Isles and has missed the last three home matches.  He was sick in the Bay of Biscay too; I’m glad I stayed at home, not that I was invited, that would have been very weird.

The football resumes at twenty-eight minutes to eight.  “RJ Dean Plasterers” say the bright lights of the illuminated adverts on the Sir Bobby Robson stand and I think of Pearl and Dean the cinema advertisers before Liam Delap seemingly barges Joel Veltman just for the hell of it, like a sort of hobby to undertake in idle moments; Delap is booked.  Four minutes later, Joao Pedro, Brighton’s number nine, raises the level of violence as he flies through the air to shoulder charge Christian Walton.  Pedro is also booked, despite much baying for a red card from home fans, and VAR confirms that a yellow card is sufficient censure, possibly because he didn’t draw blood.

The half is almost twelve minutes old and the ball drops to Wes Burns in the Brighton penalty area, but his snapshot carries on beyond the far post.  It will prove to be the Town’s last decent attempt on goal and the game is about to change course as within two minutes Jacob Greaves can’t quite stop a ball from going beyond him and Yasin Ayari gets behind the Town defence and pulls the ball back to O’Riley, but it’s Mitoma who sweeps it into the net.  It’s the goal either Jens Cajuste or Omari Hutchinson would have scored in the first half had they not both tried to score it at the same time. 

It’s only 1-0, we’ve been one down before, but from here on Town are not going to be in the game. Pedro turns and forces an excellent flying save from Walton, Brighton win corner after corner and Town play the ball across their defence but seldom retain possession as far away as the centre circle.  Substitutions make no difference and finally, eight minutes from the end of normal time a free kick on the left is played into the Town penalty area, is deflected onto Jack Taylor and falls to Georginio Rutter, who is able to turn and stroke the ball into the Town goal.  VAR decides that the man on the pitch with the best surname, Lewis Dunk was not interfering with play when stood offside and Town are losing two-nil.

“How shit must you be , we’re winning away” sing the Brighton supporters, putting yet another set of carefully crafted lyrics to the football supporters’ staple ‘Sloop John B’, and the excitable young stadium announcer tells us that our ‘incredible’ support numbers 29,403, although 2,977 of us have been shouting for the wrong  but nevertheless winning team.

Six minutes of additional time fail to adequately atone for the lost hope and disappointment suffered, and with the final whistle Pat from Clacton, Fiona and ever-present Phil are away faster than greyhounds out of a starting trap.  I’m hot on their heels as I try to put distance between myself and the scene of yet another of life’s failures but feel a bit like I’m the dog who’s been doped.  I’ll be back on Sunday though, having forgotten all about it, perhaps until that final moment when my life will flash before me and I head for the ultimate memorial matchday.  Once a Blue, eh?

Ipswich Town 3 Bristol Rovers 0

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It’s been cold lately, which is reassuring because it is January, and low air temperatures at this time of year are part of the recurring pattern of life that means the FA Cup third round is upon us, albeit a week later than it was when I were a lad.  Neolithic farmers had stone circles and henges aligned to the  stars to mark the changing seasons, we have football fixtures.

Feeling at one with Mother Earth, I walk beneath a pale blue, winter afternoon sky to the railway station, where I meet Roly, who will be attending his first  game of the current season after three failed attempts to score a ticket for a league match, which has left him bitter and disconsolate; this is what being in the Premier League does to people.  A young girl stood next to us on the platform with what are possibly an older brother and her mother, remarks that I am wearing odd gloves (a blue and red one and a black and orange one) and so I explain to her that the other halves of the pairs of gloves had holes in them, although I don’t tell her that one of the gloves is a “Marcus Stewart” glove, because I guess that she wouldn’t know who Marcus Stewart is. Her brother supports West Ham, and her mother seems to be ignoring them both, and I sense the children are pleased that someone is talking to them, even if it’s Roly who is now feeling left out.

At the first station stop, Gary boards the train and soon joins us on our journey having made his way down the carriage.  Like the three witches in Macbeth in reverse, we discuss when we all last met and decide that like so much, it was ‘before lockdown’.  But then, if you’re no longer at primary school most things were before lockdown.  We continue to talk aimlessly until like pensioners on a sightseeing trip we all peer out of the window to catch a glimpse of the polar bears that mark the approach to Ipswich.  I think I see one lying on its back as if sunbathing, but it might just be my excitement playing tricks on me.

Once in Ipswich, I struggle at the platform barrier with my electronic ticket as Gary and Roly, who relied on cardboard but had to kill a tree in the process, wait patiently on the other side.  We amble up Princes Street and Portman Road and take turns to buy programmes from one of the ice cream kiosks, and then complain that there is no groovy design on the cover, (damn you Umbro) or anywhere come to that, and the programme is a bit thin for £2.50. “Less of the usual rubbish to read though “I say cheerfully as we walk on up to the Arb, and occasionally I steer Roly in the right direction, as he seems to have forgotten the way; he’s only forty-seven.

On High Street, Roly reaches the front door of the Arb first, but ushers me through before him like a man much practiced in avoiding buying the first round, or any round. But then, he does have a wife and child to support, and he clearly gets his haircut more often than me too, although he doesn’t buy many razor blades.  We are soon clutching pints of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride, Nethergate Venture and Lager 43 (£13 something for the three with Camra discount) and greeting Mick, who is already sat in the shelter in the beer garden with a pint of Suffolk Pride of his own.  We talk of this and that and sometimes we laugh.  Gary buys another round of drinks after a while, but this time he and Roly only have halves and Mick has a whisky.  By twenty-five to three our glasses are once again empty and so with at least one other Town supporter still in the bar, if his shirt is to be believed, we leave for Portman Road.

In Portman Road the queues at the turnstiles are impressive in their length and the variety of speeds at which they move.  We join the queue for turnstile 62, but as ever it seems slower than the others and so we slip across towards turnstile sixty as two young women wave illuminated scanners at us. I tell them I can save them some effort if they let me know what they are looking for; apparently it’s weapons.  We hand over our assault rifles and grenades and move on up the queue.

Once in my seat, I find I have missed the excitable young stadium announcer’s reading out of the team, which is mildly disappointing, but more so is the absence of Pat from Clacton, although Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood are all here, even if many other regulars aren’t.  Fiona tells me that Pat had said she wasn’t going to come to this game, sadly it seems she’s no longer turned on by the FA Cup like we all are.

It’s the Town who get first go with the ball, which they pass around in the general direction of me and my fellow ultras; Town wear blue and white of course, whilst Bristol Rovers sport a change kit of plastic green shirts decorated with areas of black check, like a small geometric rash; their shorts are black like the rash.  The words “External Render” flash across the illuminated strip between the two tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson stand, and the Bristol Rovers supporters mournfully sing of when the Gas go marching in, and how they want to be in that number, or pipe, when it happens.  It’s the sixth minute and Ipswich have a free kick from which they win a corner and I bellow “Come On You Blues”.  Fiona gamely joins in, but we are lone voices in a sea of silence.  A second corner follows but things don’t improve chorally. “You’re supposed to be at home” sing the Bristolians to the tune of Cwm Rhondda and then they shout a short chant of “Football In a Library“, which quickly fades away into a stifled mumble as if someone had disapprovingly raised their finger to their lips and pointed to a sign that says “Silence”.

It’s the twelfth minute of the game now and Jack Clarke falls to the turf in the Rovers penalty area, raising his head and looking pleadingly at the referee as he does so.  He should probably be booked for such a poor attempt at scamming a penalty but isn’t.  Meanwhile, the Rovers supporters start singing “Que sera sera, Whatever will be will be, We’re going to Wemb-er-ley, Que sera, sera” revealing an unexpected love of the hits of Doris Day, a healthy optimism and a sense of the ridiculous all at once. Town have a corner, and a game of head tennis follows before the ball is claimed by the Bristol goalkeeper Josh Griffiths, and the Rovers fans begin to goad the pensioners and small children in the adjacent Sir Alf Ramsey stand by singing “Small club in Norwich, You’re just a small club in Norwich”.  The Rovers fans will later realise their mistake as they begin their drives home by looking for the A11.

Town are dominating the game, which is taking place mostly around the Bristol Rovers penalty area and with seventeen minutes lost to the history of the world’s oldest cup competition, it is from just outside that penalty area that Kalvin Phillips strikes an exquisitely placed shot into the left-hand corner of Griffiths’ goal, and Town lead one-nil.  For a while, Phillips’s name and image do not appear on the scoreboard, almost as if they can’t be found because he hadn’t been expected to score, but eventually we get to see him, and his haircut.  “Sing when you’re winning” chant the Rovers fans and they’re not far wrong, except today most of us aren’t even doing that.

Town’s one-nil lead lasts just six minutes and then makes way for a two-nil lead as Jack Clarke is suddenly left with the simple task of passing the ball into an unguarded net after a shot by Ali-Al-Hamadi is blocked.  “Fawlty Towers Dinner Show” announces the illuminated advert strip between the two tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson stand before the game descends towards half-time, and as Griffiths receives treatment, everyone else receives fluids, succour or remedial coaching on the touchline as required.

With eight minutes of the first half remaining, Town score again as Jack Taylor is suddenly stood before Griffiths with no one else near, and confidently strokes the ball past him, almost as if taking a penalty.  The excitable young stadium announcer weirdly tells us that the goal is scored by “our Jack Taylor” and we wonder if Bristol Rovers score will he say the goal is scored by  “their” whoever.  We very nearly find out in the forty-third minute as Aro Muric passes straight to a Bristol player, but Muric then saves the resulting shot with his feet.  He hasn’t had much to do in the first half, so perhaps it was just Muric’s way of keeping his eye in.  The half ends with another Town corner courtesy of Wes Burns, and two minutes of additional time, but no more goals are scored and with the half-time whistle it’s time to quickly visit the facilities, because it’s a cold day and those two pints of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride were seemingly only on hire.

Three-nil up with not much effort and the second half is anticipated eagerly, pregnant as it is with the possibility that ex-Town players Grant Ward or James Wilson might score own goals, and the excitable young stadium announcer will say that the goals are scored by “formerly our” Grant Ward or James Wilson.  Half-time passes with me turning round and recognising the man sat behind me; we both used to drink before matches in St Jude’s Tavern; apparently, he doesn’t anymore because his knees mean he no longer rides his bike.

The football resumes at four minutes past four and our Ben Johnson, as opposed to the seventeenth century playwright and poet, replaces our Wes Burns, as opposed to just any Wes Burns.  Mick is eating a vegan pie, which he says is very good.  After five minutes Town earn another corner and then a minute later are awarded a penalty as Grant Ward (not to be confused with Grant Wood, painter of ‘American Gothic’) does his former team a favour by handling the ball.  Ali Al-Hamadi steps up to fool Griffiths by shooting hopelessly wide of his right-hand post with one of the worst penalty kicks ever seen at Portman Road.

The embarrassment of the penalty miss seems to put a damper on the whole match now, which like me never seems to recapture its initial zest for life.   At half-time the names of two-hundred people (mostly children by the look of their fashionable 21st century names) attending their first game appeared on the electronic scoreboard and I’ve now come to notice several people in pristine examples of what can only be described as ‘this season’s blue and white knitwear’.  My reverie is broken by a rare Rovers corner. “Come on Rovers, Come on Rovers” chant the Bristolians, and I enjoy the burr of their west country accents, which can plainly be heard in the word ‘rovers’.  Bristol’s brief brush with attacking football ends with a free-kick to Town, which displeases the travelling supporters.  “Wankerr, Wankerr” they chant at the referee Mr Langford, and then, strangely obsessed with masturbation “He wanks off the ref, He wanks off the ref, Ed Sheeran, he wanks off the ref” to the tune of Sloop John B, something that Brian Wilson probably never foresaw, despite tripping on LSD, when the Beach Boys popularised the Bahamian folk song back in 1966.

The match drifts on towards the inevitable final whistle; I tell Mick that I saw some of the ‘new’ film version of ‘West Side Story’ on tv the other night and liked it, a bloke somewhere behind me believes Al-Hamadi is trying too hard and Mick and I agree that a city the size of Bristol should really have a team in the first division, “Like Lincoln” says Mick, misguidedly. 

There are still more than twenty minutes left as Bristol bring on the clunky sounding Gatlin O’Donkor in place of Chris Martin, who in another world would have been made to play alongside Michael Jackson (Preston & Bury) and Paul Weller (Burnley & Rochdale).  I tell Mick that I think we’ve reached the stage where someone now needs to release a dog onto the pitch.  More substitutions ensue for both teams, but they don’t compare to bringing on a dog, and then the excitable young announcer thanks all 27,678 of us (541 from Bristol) for our ‘incredible’ support.

A seventy-eighth minute corner for Town raises a spark of interest and mysteriously several people all around the stadium illuminate the torches on their mobile phones; Aro Muric is swapped for Cieran Slicker, who Gary is convinced is no longer an Ipswich Town player. Not ‘our’ Cieran Slicker at all then, according to Gary.  A final hurrah sees George Hirst lob the ball over both Griffiths and the Bristol cross bar, and some late enthusiasm amongst the crowd in the Sir Alf Ramsey stand has some gobby pre-pubescent chanting “Blue Army” and a lot of people echoing his chant; it sounds dreadful, and I imagine the participants all with drippy grins on their faces thinking how cute it is.

Just a minute of added on time is to be played, which is unbelievably brief given the number of substitutions made, but I guess the fourth official is as keen for this all to end as I am.  Town have won, and won easily, and it’s not what we’re used to anymore.  As the man from Stowmarket (Paul) said at half-time, it’s bit of a Sunday afternoon game, one put on for the children.  Gary and Mick are quickly off into the night after the final whistle and I soon follow, for what else is there to do but await the fourth round draw.

Ipswich Town 0 Newcastle United 4

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

I had hoped that I might be able to acquire an extra ticket for today’s game, which I would have given to my friend of forty years or more, Jah, who is a Newcastle United fan.  Predictably perhaps, the slender avenues of opportunity were few and they proved to be culs-des-sacs.  I’m not a member, and having a season ticket continuously for over forty years counts for nothing; I was resigned to my fate.  There are now, no doubt some who having read the above are apoplectic with rage that I should consider buying a ticket for someone supporting the opposition team.  To them I say “Grow up, it’s only a game” and “Yah boo, sucks”.

It’s the Winter Solstice today, a grey day, like most days lately, but the train is on time and I see a polar bear through the window  as we descend into Ipswich through Wherstead, which is better than seeing one inside the carriage.  Gary is not with me again today; after going to previous matches with his brother and then having hurt his chest, which made him unable to make the hike up to the Arb, he has now awoken to find a toenail hanging off and so once again cannot make the trek to the pub.  Alone, but in the company of hundreds of other people sporting blue and white favours, I make my way to Portman Road to buy a programme (£3.50) from one of the booths that I hope will one day also sell ice creams, and observe the gathering crowd.  The Bobby Robson statue sports a “half and half” scarf, which controversially suggests he was what people younger than me call a “plastic fan”, when in fact he’s probably made of bronze.  People are having their photographs taken with the statue and I think of two songs by the Kinks, ‘Plastic Man’ and ‘People take pictures of each other’

At the Arb, I am mercifully served quickly and take my pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£4.14 with Camra discount) into the beer garden where I sit at one of the tables in the shelter, opposite a couple who are probably in their forties and seem pleased that this part of the shelter has the benefit of two electric heaters, even if it’s not going to help save the planet. I am a minute or two early; I’d arranged to meet Mick at 13:45 and an exchange of text reveals he is only now leaving home, so I read the programme I bought earlier and reflect on how the pieces by the manager , CEO and captain are just like every other piece by a manager, CEO or captain I have ever read before , but then, what is there to say?  Today’s front cover, which isn’t the front cover (it’s inside the back page) is by a designer called James Hobson, who if his picture is to be believed, wears 3D glasses possibly as a fashion accessory, or possibly when working or just when having his photo taken. Either way, I decide that I like his design, which is reminiscent of some of the more graphically adventurous programmes of the early 1970’s, of which Ipswich Town’s was sadly not one.  

In due course, Mick arrives and we talk of my wife, our siblings, Mick’s recently deceased neighbour, the smoke detectors in the flat in Felixstowe where Mick’s paramour lives, Christmas, how sentimental people are nowadays, and Gary’s absence.  At some stage I obtain a further pint of Suffolk Pride for me and a Jameson whisky for Mick (£8.80 with Camra discount) and we talk until a quarter to three, by which time we are alone in the beer garden and this makes us wonder why everyone is so keen to not just turn up as the game is about to begin.   After the easy downhill walk to Portman Road, we part at the junction of Sir Alf Ramsey Way and I make it to my seat in time to bawl out the surnames of three of the Town team as the excitable, although today very serious sounding young announcer reads the team line-up to us.  Naturally, Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his son Elwood are already here.

Ipswich get first go with the ball this afternoon, but you wouldn’t know it, because no sooner has the game begun than Newcastle are one-nil up as a long ball forward, a cross, a very poor clearance and a bouncing shot puncture all our hopes of the sort of straightforward home win we crave.  There is a long wait of over a minute for VAR to dismiss the possibility of offside and predictably it does so.  “ Newcassul, Newcassul, Newcassul” sing the Geordies in the Cobbold stand and then “Haork, noww heeya …” with their accents coming across far clearer than the words they’re singing, in a way that is unmatched by supporters anywhere else in England.  The Town fans fall silent but then a brief chorus or three of “Come On You blues” rings out, before fading feebly into the gloom as darkening drizzle sweeps across the pitch and Newcastle dominate play, seemingly at times just through being bigger blokes.  Fifteen minutes up and it should be two-nil as Anthony Gordon heads down and the ball bounces over the Town bar.  Ipswich are incapable of holding onto the ball for more than a couple of passes, being brushed off the ball by these bigger boys; it’s like watching Under 15s play Under 13s.

The worst of it is that whilst Town are of course in blue and white, Newcastle have not turned up as Newcastle United in their famous black and white stripes, black shorts and stockings; no, they’re in some weird, needless arrangement of white shirts with green sleeves and green shorts, the colour of the Saudi Arabian flag.  “He’s good that thirty-nine” says the bloke behind me.  “He’s always available” .  “It’s Graham Harbey, isn’t it?” says the bloke next to him.   Twenty minutes gone and Jens Cajuste conjures Town’s first shot on goal, one that flies above the cross bar and hits a woman a few rows away.  Sam Morsy makes a saving tackle and is serenaded; I hope he likes Oasis.  “We’ve been a bit more involved, the last five minutes” says the bloke behind me and the drizzle has become rain and has begun sweeping in beneath the roof of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand. My trousers are flecked with spots of rain.

It’s the thirty second minute, Newcastle have the ball, just passing it about around the Town penalty area, then they’re two-nil up.  A bloke with the unpromising name of Jacob Murphy just fires the ball into the roof of the goal net. Apparently he used to play for Norwich City, and Wikipedia tells us he is a nephew of former Town bench-warmer Tommy Parkin.  The goal happened so quickly it feels like Newcastle have scored without even bothering to have had a shot.  Hurt, but not beaten I chant “We’re going to win 3-2”, to the tune of Blue Moon, the 1934 song by Rodgers and Hart, but I feel as if I’m being ignored.  I tell Fiona that I recall Town beating Newcastle 5-4 back in March of 1975 “I remember it was a wet afternoon like this….” I tell her wistfully.  I also recall Town losing 0-3 to Newcastle the following August, but I don’t mention that.

The bloke sitting beside me and the blokes behind me leave for the bar, being two-nil down is evidently more than they can bear without the crutch of alcohol, they may need help.  “Bruno, Bruno” chant the Newcastle fans, and then “There’s only one Bobby Robson”, although in truth there is either no Bobby Robson anymore or there are several of them, all of whom remain, so far, unknown to us.  There are ten minutes until half-time and Conor Chaplin takes his usual sit down on the turf to allow everyone a few moments of remedial coaching on the touchline and to put in their orders for half-time refreshments.

With play resumed and half-time fast approaching, Muric makes a flying save from a shot by someone metaphorically draped in the Saudi flag. The approach of half-time is then slowed down as four minutes of added on time are announced and Sam Szmodics replicates Jens Cajuste’s earlier shot over the cross bar, meaning Town have at least now had two attempts at scoring.  But seeing a goal not scored at the far end, Muric then seemingly decides to try and create one at his own end as he suggests belief in the infallibility of Jens Cajuste by passing to him when there is a Newcastle player directly next to him.  Sadly, Jens is not infallible, and an outstretched leg robs him of the ball which runs to Alexander Isak who has the embarrassing task of scoring from a just a few yards out.  Now trailing three-nil, Town win their first corner of the game and I chant “Come On You Blues” with decreasing enthusiasm as hope is sucked from me by the aura of gloom all around. Inevitably the bigger boys get the ball away.

Half-time is a relief as I get to jettison excess Suffolk Pride, look at the half-time scores and eat a Nature Valley Crunchy Oats & Honey bar.  It is six minutes past four when the match resumes with Ali Al-Hamadi having appeared in place of Omari Hutchinson; within four minutes a busy Al-Hamadi has a shot blocked.  A glowing advert for Hawk Express Cabs makes its way along the front of the North Stand offering a number to call for anyone lacking the mental strength needed for Premier League football and seeking a means of escape.  Fortunately, none of the Town players’ shorts look large enough to conceal a mobile phone inside, except perhaps Jack Clarke’s, but he’s only a substitute today.

The situation nearly worsens as Bruno hits a post with a header in the fifty-first minute, but this  is a mere stay of execution as three minutes later Isak completes a hat-tick  of goals, unexpectedly stabbing the ball into the net past Muric as Town defenders flounder all around him. “Damage limitation now” says the bloke behind me, although I’m feeling that the damage is already done.  Over in the Cobbold stand, the away fans go all folksie and start singing  the Blaydon Races and Fiona says “ I can’t hear you singing we’re going to win 5-4” .  Perhaps because we’re not going to.

Town substitutions are made in the sixty-second minute as Cajuste and Chaplin wish good luck to Phillips and Taylor.  A minute later Wes Burns gets down the wing and puts in a deep cross, or is a shot? Either way it evades the far post, but is worth a round of applause before Newcastle make their own substitutions and Sam Morsy is booked.  “Is it worth getting Monkey out? “ asks Pat from Clacton, hoping to revive the Town via the mystical properties of a key ring from Vietnam featuring a masturbating monkey.  “He’ll have his work cut out” I tell her “it’ll exhaust him”.  But it’s Newcastle who win a corner and when it’s passed, I ask Pat what she’s having for her tea.  The answer is a baked potato with chicken in sticky sauce from Marks & Spencer.  Fiona doesn’t know what she’s having for her tea yet, and I don’t either. 

Twenty minutes left until we can go home and Town win a second corner of the game, Leif Davis holds the ball above his head before he takes it to indicate that it’s one which a Newcastle player will boot clear.   Six minutes on and Al-Hamadi is booked before Town’s final substitutions bid a farewell until next time to Szmodics and Wes Burns, and “Hello” to Ben Johnson and Nathan Broadhead, who is soon having a shot saved by the diving Newcastle goalkeeper, which possibly makes Nathan our man of the match in an attacking sense.  Today’s attendance is announced as 29,774 with 2,991 being potential extras for TV series such as ‘Vera’, ‘Spender’, ‘Our friends in the North’, When the Boat Comes In’ and ‘The Likely Lads’.

“Na Na, NaNa, Na Na” sing the Newcastle fans to the tune of the 1969 hit “Na Na, Hey Hey, Kiss Him Goodbye”, just as Bob Ferris and Terry Collier might have done at the time had they been real people.   Less than ten minutes of normal time remain and Al-Hamadi shoots high and wide and the advert for the Hot Sausage Company makes an appearance between the tiers on the front of the Sir Bobby Robson stand, but the power of advertising is waning because of a mass exodus from the stands as people believe that missing the final whistle will help them deny they were ever here.

Before we all finally slope off into the night, four minutes of added on time produce another goal for Newcastle, for a short while anyway, but this time VAR is the Town supporters’ friend as the messy goal line event is deemed to have been an offside incident.  This is a rare good thing on an afternoon of mostly bad things, and I may cherish the memory of it for some time.  My friend Jah will later send me a message to say that he was glad he wasn’t at the match because despite Newcastle being “imperious” (pfft) it’s not nice being present at the death of hope.  What he doesn’t know is that I’ve witnessed the death of hope dozens of times at Portman Road and it’s not dead yet.

Ipswich Town 0 Everton 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s a grey, wet, autumn Saturday morning and I’m thinking of the last time I saw Ipswich Town play Everton at Portman Road.  It was almost exactly twenty-three years ago, on 13th October 2001.  In fact, that was the last time anyone saw Ipswich Town play Everton at Portman Road. The result that day was a goalless draw, and I have no recollection of it whatsoever.  The first time I saw Ipswich Town play Everton at Portman Road however is a different matter, because that was the first time I ever went to Portman Road; it was the 6th April 1971 and I sat with my father in the then soon to be demolished ‘chicken run’.  We travelled to the match in the family Ford Cortina. It was an evening kick-off and I remember it being light outside the ground, then dark, and the programme having a photo of Johnny Miller on the front; it cost 5 pence but was effectively free because that was also the price of the Football League Review that was stapled inside.  A vague, coincidental symmetry through time meant the result was another goalless draw as it would be thirty-one years later and, just as they are fifty-three years later, Town were fourth from bottom of the league table.  

Today’s family Ford Cortina is a train as I embrace the concept of ‘modal shift’, and it’s on time.  The rain has stopped, the sky is clearing, and I’m sat in the first of the two carriages with pointy ends which makes it easy for Gary to find me when he boards at the next station stop.  Making life easy is a lot about planning.  Gary is a generous fellow and today he is carrying a polythene bag from the Cadbury’s outlet shop inside which is a book called ‘Tinpot’, which is about supposedly forgotten football tournaments such as the Anglo-Italian Cup, Watney Cup and Texaco Cup, although of course no one in Ipswich or hopefully Norwich has ever forgotten that Mick Mills lifted the Texaco Cup at Carrow Road in 1973.  Gary had bought a copy of the book himself and thought I would like one too, so he bought me one.  Such random acts of generosity and thoughtfulness probably make the world go round, and I urge everyone to make them as often as possible and to send postcards when on holiday.

As the train speeds onwards towards Ipswich we talk of my recent holiday in France and the French football results, and as we descend the hill through Wherstead I think it may not only be my imagination that has the train lurching to one side as everyone finds a window through which to gawp at the polar bears; Gary and I spot two of them, bears that is, not gawpers.

Ipswich station forecourt is busy, as is the garden of the Station Hotel, which crawls with and echoes to the sound of Evertonians.  Gary asks me if I’m going to buy an ice cream, and I tell him I am but unusually we don’t make it to one of the blue booths but instead buy our programmes (£3.50 each) from a young man at a sort of blue painted, mobile, metal desk; I ask for a choc ice and he ignores me, possibly because his mind is totally focused on programmes, possibly because he recognises an idiot when he meets one.  To our collective disappointment, the programme cover today does not feature one of the much trumpeted and popular “Call me Ted” poster-like designs, but instead displays just a boring photograph of a running Ali Al-Hamadi.  The poster design is instead on a tear-out page at the back, negating what we were originally told was the point of the exercise to have these posters as the cover.  I ask myself why it is that even when professional football clubs get something right, they then manage to get it so very wrong?

Gary wants to buy a Town shirt for his nephew and says he will see me in ‘the Arb’ a bit later and so I wish him luck as he heads for the club shop and I stride on up the hill, becoming progressively warmer and sweatier as the sun shines down on what is now an unseasonably warm afternoon.

 At ‘the Arb’ the bar is surprisingly not very busy, so I am soon clutching a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride (£3.96 with Camra discount) and seeking out Mick in the beer garden, which is very busy.  Luckily, a table is vacated much the same time as I arrive, allowing us to sit and talk of bowels, cancer screening, colonoscopies and prescription drugs in the afternoon sun.  I also explain why Gary will be joining us later but am surprised when he appears sooner than expected bearing a glass of Lager 43 lager but no Ipswich Town shirt.  It seems the only shirts available are in outlandish sizes and apparently his nephew is neither tiny nor vast. 

We talk, we drink, Mick buys another round and we talk and drink some more.  The Suffolk Pride is extremely good today but resisting the temptation to just stay and drink it all afternoon we leave for Portman Road, although not until all our fellow drinkers have done so first.  Portman Road is busy, thick with queues as if the turnstiles are all clogged up with fans who need outsized shirts. Ironically, it is Gary who hears the public announcement that kick-off is delayed by fifteen minutes and so, having bid Gary and Mick farewell somewhere near Sir Alf’s statue, I amble nonchalantly through the crowds and queues past lumps of molded concrete decorated with empty plastic glasses, paper cups, drinks cans and paper napkins.

 Joining the queue for my favourite turnstile, number 62, I am followed by two blokes who are complaining about the queues; they’re the sort of blokes who describe anything that goes a bit wrong as “a fucking joke”.  I explain that the kick-off has been delayed until a quarter past three and they seem disappointed that they can no longer be outraged at possibly missing kick-off.  Then one of them notices a steward, who is not white, at the front of the queue checking people’s pockets, bags and jackets. “I’m not racist but…” says the previously outraged bloke “but all these stewards, they’re…”   As I eventually pass through the turnstile, I hear the bloke who isn’t racist remonstrating with the steward for touching him.

On the lower tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul) , ever present Phil who never misses a game and his son Elwood are as ever all in place awaiting the delayed plucking of the ball from its Premier League branded plinth as flames climb high into the pale blue afternoon sky and everyone cheers enthusiastically.   Since the Fulham match at the end of August, when I was last here, the stadium announcer seems to have completed a degree course in Stadium Announcing,probably at somewhere like the University of South Florida, and over-dosed on vowel-expanding drugs.  He sounds utterly ridiculous, and I think I hear him at one point refer to “The Everton”, but he does at least synchronise his team announcing with the scoreboard allowing me to shout out the surnames of the Town players as if I am at a game in France.  For this I am very grateful.

Eventually, the now heavily choreographed prelude to kick off arrives. A young man in crumpled trousers and jacket, which don’t match, appears to orchestrate the grand arrival of the teams and I think how I miss ‘Entry of the Gladiators’ and how with its acquired circus connotations it would be so appropriate in the Premier League.  The teams pour onto the pitch from beneath what looks like a stack of speakers at a rock concert or a part of the Nazis’ Atlantic Wall fortifications. When everyone settles down a bit, Town get first go with the ball and mostly aim it in the direction of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand. Town are of course in blue shirts and white shorts whilst Everton sport what at first looks like white shirts and blue shorts, but closer up the shirts look off-white and the shorts a sort of bluey grey.  How very moderne, I think to myself.  Confusingly, the front of the Everton shirt appears to bear the word ‘Stoke’, but given how all things football now mostly relate betting it probably says stake, which coincidentally is what the Premier League needs driving through its heart.

Everton take an early lead in corner kicks, the Town fans sing “Blooo and White Army” and Pat from Clacton tells me how she’s just got back from her annual week playing whist in Great Yarmouth, and she won a bit shy of thirty-five quid.  Then excitingly, a break down the right from Wes Burns ends with Jack Clarke shooting hopelessly high and wide of the goal.  As the bloke beside me remarks of Clarke’s shot “That was awful”.  But it’s good enough for the northern end of the ground to break into the joyless dirge that is their version of ‘When the saints go marching in’, substituting the word saints for Town of course.  But despite this, Everton are looking the better team and their players seem much quicker in both thought and deed. Aro Muric makes a save from the Everton number nine who has only Muric to beat after a criminally poor pass from Kalvin Phillips, but then Muric boots a back pass from Luke Woolfenden out for a corner, possibly a comment on the back pass.

With just seventeen minutes consigned to the history of goalless football, Everton score as a result of some poor ball control in the penalty area from Wes Burns, which hands the ball to Iliaman Ndiaye, who only has to score, which he does.  Everton are playing as if on Ecstasy, whilst Town are on Temazepam.   Nevertheless, it’s not as if Town haven’t gone 1-0 down before and Omari Hutchinson is soon being hacked down by number five Michael Keane who is booked by referee Michael Oliver, who from the look of his hair I have deduced isn’t related to Neil Oliver and doesn’t visit John Olivers the chain of East Anglian hairdressing salons.

A free-kick and then a corner follow and then Jack Clarke slaloms into the penalty area only to tumble to the ground and Michael Oliver points to the penalty spot.  In leagues not totally beholden to the wonder of the cathode ray tube this would be enough to give Town a free shot on goal, but being the Premier League VAR must decide and it’s time to place your bets on whether Town will get a penalty or not.  My money is on not and I win the unwelcome jackpot as Mr Oliver decides with the help of video assistance that it was actually Jack Clarke who kicked an Everton player rather than the other way round.  How very convenient.  “You can stick your Premier League up you arse” I chant coarsely to the tune of ‘She’ll be coming round the mountain’.  This is what the Premier League does to people.

Town win another corner and the crowd chants “Come on You Blues” at least twice before Everton win two corners of their own, after the second of which Town fail to clear the ball properly and somehow allow the previously convicted Michael Keane to get behind the defence and score from a narrow angle.  “Everton, Everton, Everton” sing the Evertonians, revealing themselves as true heirs to the lyrical imagination and genius of Lennon and McCartney.

The pantomime of VAR has resulted in six minutes of added on time as well as the mental scars of having been given and then having dashed all hope of a swift equaliser. Kalvin Phillips offers more hope with a free-kick after Leif Davis is cynically fouled, but he then dashes that with his shot over the Everton crossbar instead of under it.  Meanwhile, I can’t help thinking that the name Calvin-Lewin on the back of the Everton number nine’s shirt looks like it reads Calvin Klein. I surmise that this is because I have become overly used to seeing the words ‘Calvin Klein’ on the fashionably exposed waist bands of millennials’ underpants.

Half-time is a sort of relief and I talk to Ray who I haven’t seen for six weeks, but then at twenty three minutes past four the football resumes.  “They’re chasing shadows int they” says the bloke behind me and Everton win two corners as the clock tells us that the game is two thirds over.  Conor Chaplin and Harry Clarke replace Wes Burns and Dara O’Shea.  Pat from Clacton wonders whether she should unleash the masturbating monkey good luck charm from her handbag, and I wonder if Kieren McKenna would have an opinion on that.  Perhaps Pat should write to him and ask when he’d like her to ‘bring him on’.

Sammy Szmodics and Jack Taylor replace Kalvin Phillips and Jack Clarke, and today’s attendance is announced as 29,862, with 2,977 being Evertonians. The excitable stadium announcer uses words such as incredible, amazing and fantastic to describe the support and I begin to wonder if he might need a sponsor for his incontinence pants.

With the changes to the team, Town seem to have improved a bit and are dominating the last fifteen minutes as Liam Delap shoots spectacularly past the post, Omari Hutchnson shoots and wins a corner and Cameron Burgess heads over the cross bar.  Then, as Pat from Clacton worries whether the baked potato she is having for he tea is going to be burnt to a cinder by the time she gets in, George Hurst replaces Liam Delap and from a Town corner Conor Chaplin shoots straight at the Everton goalkeeper before Jack Taylor forces a low diving save from him.  Four minutes of added on time fail to influence events although Muric prevents a third Everton goal as Calvin Klein runs through on his own again.

With the final whistle I am one of many quick to head for the exits to catch trains and buses and without really knowing the exact time I am surprised to get to the station two minutes before my train is due to depart.  It’s a small victory on a day of defeat, but heck, there are still another fifteen home games to endure or hope for better.