wolverhampton

Ipswich Town 1 Stoke City 0

/ martinpbrooks / 1 Comment

Matches against Stoke City always remind me of a bloke I knew when I was at university in the late 1970’s called Tony.  Tony was from Wolverhampton and had a thick West Midlands accent but supported Stoke City, or “Stowke” as his accent forced him to call them.  Tony, however, was what many people might term “a bit of an oik” and as well liking to boast that he had “shagged the Chief Constable’s daughter”, (Staffordshire’s or West Midlands’ I assumed), he also once defecated into a milk bottle and regularly claimed that he only went to Stoke City matches for the violence, or “vorlence” as his accent called it.  Oddly, however, he was also a really nice bloke.

Also a really nice bloke is my friend Gary, although he has no discernible accent and as far as I know has never been carnally involved with any relative of a senior police officer.   I must remember to ask him one day what he does with his empty milk bottles.    Gary joins me on the train to Ipswich, which a text from Greater Anglia has told me is running a little late this evening.  Unperturbed, we talk of the World Cup and Gary tells me how the city of Seattle, which has been nominated as one of the venues for World Cup matches, had decided to combine one of its match days with a Gay Pride Day.  The Gay Pride Day was chosen before the World Cup draw took place and when the draw was made last Friday Seattle discovered that on its Gay Pride Day it would be hosting Iran versus Egypt.  I laugh out loud as does the woman opposite us.

We arrive in Ipswich more than two hours before kick-off, but the floodlights of Portman Road are already shining, and Ipswich is aglow with electric light from lamp posts, buses, traffic signs, headlights and windows.  The sky is a deepening dark blue and the tarmac of the roads shiny black. The red and white stripes of a Stoke City shirt peak out from beneath a jumper. Gary and I hasten as best we can to ‘the Arb’, which isn’t quite as busy as usual, probably because it is mid-week.  First to the bar, I buy a pint of Lager 43 for Gary and a pint of Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride and, impressed by Mick’s lunchtime snack on Saturday order a Falafel Scotch egg for myself, before we retire to the beer garden to drink, eat and wait for Mick.

Mick arrives just as Gary returns from the bar with more Lager43 and more Mauldon’s Suffolk Pride; at my suggestion he also has a pint of Suffolk Pride for the previously imminent Mick.   We talk of relatives’ funerals, Gary’s grandfather, who was a member of the Communist Party, and I tell of how I was watching Toulouse v Strasbourg on tv at the weekend and how when Strasbourg replaced Diego Moreira with substitute Martial Godo I remarked that I had been waiting for him to come on.  In fact, however, I had been waiting for some club or other to sign a player called Godot, or Godo as it turned out, so I could make that joke.

The beer garden begins to empty out as other drinkers fold and head for Portman Road, but like the carefree over-sixties that we are Mick gets another round in; rather curiously a gin and tonic for Gary this time, but I have another pint of Suffolk Pride and  Mick, eager for alcohol has a pint of Leffe.  Gary then tells us about a friend of his who went to Ireland and wanted to buy a newspaper in a village shop, but all the newspapers were dated the day before.   When he asked if they had any of today’s newspapers, the shopkeeper told him yes, but he’ll need to come back tomorrow.   We continue to laugh and drink and enjoy living before I suddenly notice that it’s twenty-six minutes past seven and we probably ought to go.

Once again, down in Portman Road where I can already hear the excitable young stadium announcer excitedly announcing the Town team, there are no queues at the entrances to the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand and I breeze through, throwing my aeroplane pose as I’m cleared of carrying any weapons by a man in dark clothing and a hi-vis jacket with a hand-held scanner.  Another similarly attired man tries to scan me again as I reach the famous turnstile 62 but rather than tell him I’ve already been scanned I just say “Oooh, I’m gonna be scanned twice”, which perhaps oddly, perhaps not, seems enough to deter him.

After venting spent Suffolk Pride, I arrive in the strangely sulphurous smelling stand to edge past Pat from Clacton and Fiona to my seat just as everyone bursts into respectful, appreciative applause for former Town goalkeeper David Best, who has died this week at the age of eighty-two.  I don’t know why, but I always think of David Best in the context of the night Town beat Real Madrid, but also wearing a red goalkeeper’s jersey, flying horizontally across the face of the goal in front of the North Stand to perfectly catch a shot and, when he spoke to me as he autographed my Texaco Cup final programme, having the sort of Dorset accent that I imagined belonged in the fictional creations of Thomas Hardy . Incidentally, David Best was for a while manager of Dorchester Town (Casterbridge) where Hardy had lived.

There’s barely time after the minute’s applause for Fiona and ever-present Phil who never misses a game to each hand me a Christmas card before the match begins.  It’s Stoke City who get first go with the ball, which they propel in the general direction of the Brewer’s Arms on Orford Street and the former Spiritualist church on Anglesea Road, whilst sporting their handsome traditional kit of red and white striped shirts and white shorts.   I will later notice however that the red stripes are all a bit wavy as if the kit designer had spent a long lunch hour in the Brewer’s Arms or was trying to convey the sort of weird ghostly aura normally accompanied by the made-up word “Woo-oooh”.  Happily, Town are in their standard blue and white and perhaps as a direct result of this soon have possession of the ball, are advancing down the left, exchanging a couple of passes and Jaden Philogene is cutting inside at the edge of the penalty area to curl the ball inside the far post of the Stoke City goal.  Town lead one-nil, and the game is barely two minutes old.  Every match should be like this I tell Fiona.

Two minutes later however, and Stoke have a corner, and three minutes after that their supporters are singing “Football in a library” and then “Your support is fucking shit” as they embark on a desperate attempt to make us feel bad about ourselves.  Stoke also start to dominate possession.  Behind me a bloke has his scarf wrapped over the top his head. “Dress rehearsal for your nativity play?” asks the bloke next to him.  Sixteen more minutes of winning one-nil elapse and Town dismantle the Stoke City defence again, only for Ivor Azon to shoot high and wide from a metre or so inside the penalty area with Stoke defenders scattered like shards of broken pottery.  The bloke behind me thinks he sees Nunez chuckling.

“One of you singing, there’s only one of you singing” chant the Stoke fans to an oblivious audience, and Jack Taylor generously allows time for the whole Stoke team to receive remedial coaching on the touchline as he receives treatment from a Town physio for some ailment or other.  “Who’s the Stoke manager?” asks Fiona, but I tell her I don’t know and all Fiona can come up with is Tony Pulis.  Later on, I will remember the name Tony Waddington, but Wikipedia will tell me he died in 1994.

The game re-starts and Stoke still keep the ball most of the time, but without ever looking like scoring.  I realise I recognise Stoke’s Nzonzi, having seen him play previously on the telly for Rennes and then I realise he even came on as a substitute for France in the 2018 World Cup final.  “Addy, Addy, Addy-O” sing the Sir Bobby Robson standers out of the blue, perhaps to celebrate the twenty-sixth minute but possibly in an attempt to encourage Town to keep possession of the ball a bit more often.  The chanting of “Come-On Ipswich”, a few minutes later, which sounds more like pleading, betrays our anxiety despite still being a goal ahead.  But gradually the chanting and pleading starts to work, and Town dominate the final ten minutes of the half, even inspiring more confident sounding but boringly repetitive chants of “Blue Army”, whilst Nunez and Philogene both shoot on target but at the Stoke goalkeeper, and Nunez also shoots wide.   

Three minutes of added on time are added on and then it’s time to leak more spent Suffolk Pride before speaking with Ray, his son Michael and grandson Harrison.  When asked by Ray for my thoughts on the game so far, I tell him that despite seemingly never having the ball, Ipswich look like the only team likely to score.  The football comes back at nine minutes to nine and Town soon have their first corner of the game in what will become a better half for the Town in which Stoke look even less like scoring than they did in the first half; although Pat from Clacton woke up with a blood-shot left eye this morning and so even if we did score again, it would be a bit blurry to her. 

Five minutes pass and it’s about now that I notice that the stripes on the Stoke shirts are not straight but a bit wiggly, and not for the first time when watching a team in red and white stripes I am reminded of Signal toothpaste.  Signal co-incidentally and appropriately, given tonight’s opponents, also being the name of the fictional local newspaper in Arnold Bennett’s passingly football-related, 1910, Potteries located novel ‘The Card’.  More Town corners ensue.  “Your support is fucking shit” opine the travelling “Stokies” as they ironically become the first set of away fans in well over two years to fail to fill at least half of the away section.  Not surprisingly, their chants are greeted with disinterested silence, which is followed later by confirmation that tonight’s attendance is a meagre 27,008, the lowest of the season so far.   The drop in attendance and therefore income is large enough to mean that at least one player won’t be getting paid this week.

Only fifteen minutes of normal time remain by now and later than usual Keiran McKenna dives into the world of multiple substitutions as Eggy, Azon and Taylor go for a sit down and Clarke, Cajuste and Akpom get to run around for a bit. Ten minutes left and Azor Matusiwa becomes the first player to be booked tonight by the referee, Mr Adam Herczeg, who is a sucker for giving a free-kick when anyone falls over. Meanwhile, Pat from Clacton won’t be having a baked potato when she gets in tonight, but she will have something cheesy from Marks & Spencer with a latte and she won’t be go to bed until midnight.  As for me, I wish my bed was just the other side of my front door so I could step straight into it when I get indoors.

The final ten minutes ebbs and flows a bit more than has been the pattern up to now but it’s Ipswich who should score and don’t.  Behind me a bloke complains that if he’d only known there would be no more goals he could have gone home after two minutes.   The game soon ends in the second and final minute of the unexpectedly brief period of added on time following a Stoke City corner, which doubtless has legions of pessimistic Ipswich fans anticipating going home disappointed.  With the final whistle, Pat from Clacton and Fiona disappear like water vapour, although Fiona does turn to say good-bye, which water vapour never does.  I applaud briefly and then, conscious that I have perhaps nine minutes in which to catch my train make a bolt for the exits.

It’s been a decent game again tonight, mainly because Ipswich have won again, but despite Stoke dominating possession by a reported 57% to 43%, Town have apparently had twice as many shots at goal (16) and six times as many shots on target.   Statistics are however famously boring and do nothing for one’s personal safety.  On my way back to the railway station therefore I instead keep a look out for any angry looking Stoke fans brandishing milk bottles. 

Ipswich Town 1 Wolverhampton Wanderers 2

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

The back of the Sir Alf Ramsey stand is thick with queues when I arrive and as I stand in line I pass the time by looking up at the dark metal fascia of top of the stand, which is impressively streaked with guano, although there is not a seabird to be seen, as if when asked they will say “it was like that when we got here” .  The queue to turnstile 62 is as ever the slowest, so I switch to the seemingly better lubricated turnstile 61, but I’m still syphoning off excess Suffolk Pride as the team is read out and by the time I am reacquainting myself with Pat from Clacton, Fiona, the man from Stowmarket (Paul), ever-present Phil who never misses a game, and his young son Elwood, all trace of the excitable, young and somewhat lanky stadium announcer, and his sidekick Boo Boo, has gone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ipswich Town 1 Stoke City 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment


After a week of beautiful winter sunshine today is grey.  As I am about to walk to the railway station I receive a text message from Roly to tell me that there are rail replacement buses between Colchester and Ipswich.  The gloom of the day deepens.  I leave the house forgetting to say goodbye to my wife Paulene.

At the railway station I see Roly over the tracks on Platform Two, he is eating a muffin and holds a paper cup of coffee.  Roly is a conspicuous consumer, of food. Our train journey is brief and we soon find ourselves boarding a sleek grey coach belonging to Tendring Travel, the front of the vehicle sports a Union flag, which no doubt goes down well in that land of hope and glory that leads to Jaywick.  Already on board there are people sporting the blue and white favours of Ipswich Town and it feels like we’re setting off on an away trip, but equally I feel like an extra in the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour, such is the magic of boarding a bus or coach.  A ‘steward’ in a day-glo coat quietly counts us on to the coach, she’s Tendring’s Wendy Winters, but predictably less glamourous. I cast a fat bloke over the aisle as Ringo’s auntie Jessie; the partly-vacant seat next to him is predictably the last to be occupied.  The unhappy looking driver is very anxious that his vehicle is not over-filled “I can’t have anyone standing” he says, twice in quick succession.  Someone has to alight but then we depart.  The bus is swelteringly hot.

We arrive in Ipswich twenty five minutes later than if we’d arrived by rail, but of course we have been charged the same price for this slower, less comfortable service.  If I’d wanted to save money by travelling by bus on Ipswich Buses service 93 from Colchester to Ipswich or by National Express coach I could have done so.  Instead I thought I would pay a bit more and travel by….oh dear, bus.

Reeling from our experience Roly and I hot foot it up Portman Road to St Jude’s Tavern, barely registering that the programme kiosks have been painted dark blue and therefore making me imagine even more vividly that each one is a Tardis piloted by Mick Mills  capable of time travel back to the 1970’s, that distant time when Ipswich Town first seduced me.  St Jude’s is busy with drinkers, but Roly and I claim a table where we sup our pints of today’s Match Day Special, Goblin’s Piss (£2.50) which I am relieved to discover tastes much, much, much better than it sounds.  Our conversation is of football and more precisely Ipswich Town and we conclude that playing Collin Quaner and Will Keane up front together is like having two Mich D’Avrays; a concept which we like very much.  We drink quickly, probably due to de-hydration from our coach trip and I soon return to the bar to buy a further pint and a half of the Match Day Special, which has now changed to St Jude’s Hoppy Jude (still £2.50).  Roly only has a half because he is nothing if not responsible and he will be driving his car later this evening (it’s a Vauxhall Astra). I suspect Roly also wants to leave space for something to eat once he gets to the ground; I sometimes wonder how he is not the size of Ringo’s auntie Jessie.

Under the insouciant gaze of Sir Alf Ramsey we part, Roly heads to the ‘posh’ seats of the East of England Co-op Stand and its gourmet offerings whilst I slum it in the cheap seats of Churchman’s, now the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand.  There is no queue at the turnstile where I thank the operator cheerily for his pedal-work and proceed to my seat via the toilet.  Unusually I get to my seat before the match ball has been plucked from its plinth. Pat from Clacton is here but ever-present Phil who never misses a game is not, he’s being wined and dined with supporters club supremos and is watching from a ‘posh’ seat somewhere.

Ipswich begin the game playing towards me and Pat from Clacton, as ever they wear blue shirts and socks with white sleeves  and shorts and display the deeply tacky logo of an organisation of on-line scammers across their chests.  Today’s opponents are Stoke City and to their everlasting credit they have eschewed the wearing of any unnecessary change kit and instead wear their traditional kit of red and white stripes with white shorts and socks. They look a bit like Signal toothpaste, and coincidentally this chimes with the novels of Arnold Bennett set in the Potteries in which the fictional local paper is called The Signal, although I do not recall any reference to toothpaste in any of the novels I have read. I can very much recommend ‘The Card’, which even weaves football into the story near the end.

The ‘Stokies’ assembled in the corner of  the Cobbold Stand (we will later be informed that there are 1,138 of them in the total crowd of 15,924) immediately burst into a chorus of Tom Jones’ Delilah for which they are rightly famous amongst people who pay any attention to these sorts of things.  Ipswich supporters seem to have given up already on inexplicably singing “Sweet Caroline” as our attempt at being quirky and interesting, possibly because it will now forever harbour painful, dark memories of the destructive Paul Hurst era, brief though it was.  Moving forward, as people now say instead of ‘looking ahead’ in these thrusting modern times, spectators in the Cobbold Stand, East of England Co-op Stand and Sir Alf Ramsey Stand could be given song sheets for Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘The Sound of Silence’.  Make it performance art and the song sheets could be blank.

The heavy grey cloud and hint of damp in the air lend the afternoon a sombre atmosphere but the floodlights are on and once again, as on Wednesday night versus Derby, this feels like a proper football match; the Sir Bobby Robson Stand, or more accurately the corner of it occupied by the Blue Action supporters group is audible.  From the lower tier of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand however, the Stokies are more audible and soon sing “One Gordon Banks, there’s only one Gordon Banks”.  Many Town supporters in the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand begin to applaud and frankly I’m confused as to whether this is a one minute’s applause for the deceased goalkeeper or just applause directed at the Stoke fans singing “One Gordon Banks”.  Modern football with its sentimentality is complicated.

Stoke are dominating possession but not in an exciting way; they don’t look much like scoring and their fans are hopefully being ironic when they sing “We’ve got the best team in the land”; having been to Stoke On Trent I think it likely that Stoke supporters are capable of irony.  For Town, little Alan Judge (Judgie) looks our best player by some way and when he picks himself up off the turf after being fouled the spectators around me applaud him warmly, showing far more enthusiasm for this ‘resurrection’ than they do for supporting and getting behind the team the rest of the time.  “Shoot!” bellows someone from behind as Town players circle in front of the Stoke penalty area. “They don’t know where the goal is anyway” mumbles the old boy behind me, clearly hankering for the latter days of Mick McCarthy’s reign when we only came to games to be miserable.

It’s twenty-five past three and as little Judgey crosses the ball with speed and purpose a chant of “Come on Ipswich, Come on Ipswich” comes out of the blue from the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand; a spontaneous, instinctive, momentary burst of enthusiasm in a dull first half. Less than ten minutes later and Alan Judge is floored again as he is fouled by Stoke’s James McClean who becomes the first and only player to be booked by the small, balding referee, Mr Scott Duncan.  Hilariously McClean tries to make out that it is he who has been fouled by then diving outrageously; he is fully deserving of the chorus sung just for him by the Sir Bobby Robson Stand of “Wanker, Wanker…”  It makes me wonder why so many professional footballers are such bare-faced cheats and why the normally po-faced Football Association puts up with it.

Four minutes to go until half-time and the game is hardly thrilling.  “That’s gettin’ misty” says the old girl behind me, understandably more engaged by the weather than the match.  Stoke have had better chances to score than Ipswich, but fortunately seem to believe that the cross-bar is much higher than it actually is. A minute before half-time however, Town’s Jonas Knudsen loses all sense of where he is in relation to the rest of the planet and heads a harmless looking cross away from rather than to Bartosz Bialkowski in the Ipswich goal, allowing the cheating James McClean to run on and score from less than a yard into an empty goal; even he couldn’t miss that or fall over. Once again justice doesn’t play to the whistle and has gone early for a half-time cuppa. 

Half-time follows and after a chat with Ray I let out some more of the Goblins Piss and Hoppy Jude.  I take a look at the half-time scores and search for a Panda brand liquorice stick that I thought I had in the inside pocket of my coat.  I will eventually find it later this evening in the coat lining, I should probably buy a new coat, this one has to be twenty-five years old at least.  The new half begin at five past four and Ipswich improve a little and the crowd remain with them, politely applauding an over-hit pass which last season would have drawn scorn and bile from the stands.

Teddy Bishop begins to run with the ball. He does it once; he does it again and is brought down to win a free-kick. “I knew that would happen” says the old boy behind sounding annoyed as if to say he shouldn’t have bothered.  “But he’s won a free-kick” says the old girl displaying a more measured tactical approach to the game.  Alan Judge draws a spectacular flying save from the Stoke goalkeeper Jack Butland when the kick is taken.

Collin Quaner goes down injured and the game is stopped with Stoke in possession. Sportingly, the Stoke fans boo, revealing their proud Premier League heritage.  When I was at university I knew a Stoke City supporter; his name was Tony and he was a lovely, friendly bloke, fun to have a drink with. He lived in Wolverhampton but went to watch Stoke he told us, because of the violence.  He was very proud of his sexual conquest of the daughter of a local Chief Constable and he once defecated in a milk bottle; I didn’t see him do this, but I saw the milk bottle, which was enough.

Fifty seven minutes have been played and the Stokies sing “Is this a library?” It’s a mark of how things have improved at Portman Road that they have had to wait this long to sing it; they do so only once; it’s almost as if it’s a condition of sale on the tickets.  Stoke press forward and earn a corner, the ball runs back to the edge of the box and one of their number, I have no real idea who, but it could have been Oghenekaro Etebo , wellies the ball nominally goalwards; travelling like a comet the ball drifts left in a graceful curve under the influence of an unseen gravitational force and heads at speed directly towards me.  I remain seated but raise my arms, succeeding only in getting a finger-tip touch which barely alters its trajectory.  “Why didn’t you catch it?” shouts Ray “I would have if I could be bothered to stand up” I tell him “I’m just very lazy, it’s why I’m not in the team”.

The game drifts away, meandering towards time added on as the evening chill sets in. I sense disappointment and frustration behind me. “Come on! You can beat this lot. They’re nearly as bad as you are” calls the old girl cruelly. “That’s all very pretty…” says the old boy as the Town pass the ball across the pitch and back “…but does absolutely nothing”.  He sounds bitter and his attitude illustrates why English football will always be inferior to French or Spanish or Italian, because we can’t abide all that soppy passing.

Time added-on arrives and Town are pressing, but not looking likely to score; they win a corner and in a stroke of good fortune Paul Lambert, still wearing his black Marks & Spencer v-neck jumper and black slacks still has one substitute left.  On to the field comes Suffolk’s favourite 1.93m high Congolese centre back Aristote (Toto) N’Siala.  I can almost hear the Stoke players thinking “Who the feck is going to pick him up?” Possibly several players go to mark Toto and as the corner is taken I see the ball and the number fourteen on the shirt of Will Keane converging.  “Goal!” I shout and a fraction of a second later Keane’s head sends the ball into the net and Town have equalised.     It is a moment I may not forget, like when Mich D’Avray scored from Kevin O’Callaghan’s cross against Liverpool in February 1986.  

There’s barely time left for either side to score again and a little predictably they don’t.  The game ends and for the second match in a row Town have not lost and we are deliriously happy.  This is truly one of the weirdest season’s I have ever known at Portman Road.  We are still bottom of the league and we never get appreciably closer to the teams above us, but for some reason it feels good and a good number of people are enjoying it.   Are the Russians putting something in the water or the Match Day Special?

Ipswich Town 1 Birmingham City 1

/ martinpbrooks / Leave a comment

It’s Saturday 1st April and I have been looking forward to this day since at least the afternoon of the previous day. Ipswich Town hasn’t played at home since the dire, dull, dreadful, goalless draw with Wolverhampton on March 7th; that’s a three week drought of football and more. Of course I’ve been to see other teams in the interim, but they were mere floozies, Ipswich Town is my first love, my true love, the only team for whom, ultimately, the results really, really matter. I’ve won twice at Wembley with Ipswich and in Europe and together we won the Texaco Cup and have suffered relegations. Ipswich Town is ‘the wife’, although at times we fall out, we can’t be parted; we have a binding contract.
So, with a spring in my step I head off for the match; a walk to the station, a train ride and a walk to St Jude’s Tavern up Portman Road. It’s 1:30 and the turnstiles are about to open, there are quite a lot of Brummies hanging about wondering where to go and what to do, why can’t Ipswich give away fans their own “fanzone” on Portman Road car park? They do it at Wycombe Wanderers, serving terrible Greene King beer admittedly. But then, I guess a visitor with any nous would do some research and seek out the pubs serving proper beer, so why not leave the lumpen proletariat, the ‘leave’ voters to get on with it.
As I walk by there is a dog outside the away end.33658581591_fbc6a9f087_o He’s black and friendly looking and accompanied by a lady in a day-glo tabard bearing the words “Search Dog”. Apparently the dog is sniffing out things people shouldn’t be taking into a football match, such as flares, the firey things not the trouser. The dog however, looks like it’s sniffing out what’s to be found in the gutter, as dogs do. A little further along the road there are more dogs,33658589351_64c1f608c6_o Labradors or Retrievers with collecting buckets; guide dogs for the blind. The club website says it’s Ladies’ Day at Portman Road today, it didn’t mention dogs.
Eventually, I enjoy three pints of ale with St Jude and talk to a white haired man who admits to not having seen Town in Division Three South, but he’s followed them for 60 years. I want to be like him in a few years time, with young whipper snappers pointing me out as someone who had seen Rod Belfitt play. The pub empties at about a quarter to three and I’m left talking with the friend I came to meet, about why I write this blog. It doesn’t matter, it’s time to get to the match and I head down Portman Road smiling to myself about the joys of beer and football.32944974044_8fd60a352e_z As the ground hoves into view I am struck by the sight of Sir Bobby Robson’s face on the corner of the ground. He looms over the chip van on the adjacent car park, as only England managers’ and knights’ faces should. As I pass Sir Bobby’s statue further on, I meet the white haired man from St Jude’s again, he is touching the statue’s foot for luck. If I was a Catholic I think, I should write to the Pope and ask if we might have a Saint Bobby. At the same time I think with Ipswich’s puritan and non- conformist heritage it’s wrong, very wrong to touch a statue’s foot for luck. No wonder the Town are doing so badly.
The search dog is still outside the away end as I pass by and I ask what his name is. At first I mis-hear what his handler says and think she says he’s called Cecil. The dog’s name is actually Zero. I prefer Cecil; he looks like a Cecil. Having patted the dog I enter the ground and take up my seat in the lower tier of Churchman’s or theì Sir Alf Ramsey stand as it’s now known. I think that may be there should be a huge mural of Sir Alf plastered across the back of this stand too, but with a cigar in hand to reference the popular name of the stand and his success. Sir Alf won the League Championship and a World Cup, two things Sir Bobby didn’t achieve; you were close Sir Bobby, but no cigar, not like Sir Alf.
It’s now that time; 3 o’clock, Saturday afternoon and the game begins. Same old rubbish sadly. Town and Birmingham City are both wading through the sludge that is the bottom third of the Second Division and it’s easy to see why. Birmingham have brought along a decent number of supporters however, 952 of them32974927023_68e5933084_o.jpg and now and then they break into song, the dour, slightly unhappy, resigned “Keep right on to ‘til the end of the road”. It’s a song that was written by Harry Lauder in 1916 in honour of his son who had been killed in the war, it’s meant to be a song of hope but it doesn’t sound like it and you could say that the message of the song is that you’ll only be happy once you’re dead.
Birmingham City is a spectacularly dull club and always has been. From the middle of the country, the Midlands, Birmingham City is geographically average and generally average overall. Apart from Trevor Francis and one League Cup win there’s never been anything to write home about from Birmingham City. It’s telling that the club song is “Keep right on ‘til the end of the road”. Life is a struggle for Birmingham City, because existence is boring or sad, all you can do is keep right on’ til the end. It’s fitting therefore that Ipswich should be playing them now, because that is also how it feels at Portman Road. If we can only make it to the end of the season, may be things will be better next year. Town have been bobbing along in the second division for fifteen years, but Town fans should be proud of such consistency. It is a worthy achievement to avoid the twin scourges that stalk Second Division clubs; the apparent ignominy of relegation to the Third Division and the moral degeneration brought on by the financial crapulence that comes with promotion to the evil Premier League; the league of greed. Nevertheless, carefully treading this middle ground can be a bit dull, particularly as it’s nice to watch good football, and winning and good football usually go together.
Speaking of dull, the first half passes largely without incident, although Ipswich’s Cole Skuse goes off injured at the very end. Interesting name Cole Skuse; the only other Cole I can think of is the fantastic Cole Porter. The surname Skuse has medieval Cornish origins and is to do with living near Elder bushes, which makes me think of the taunting Frenchman in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. So it was appropriate that Skuse should be replaced by Kevin Bru, Ipswich’s own Parisian Mauritian. Hopefully, as the two players pass on the touchline Monsieur Bru tells Cole “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries”.

The second half begins and within two minutes Birmingham are in the lead; a shot is saved but the re-bound becomes a close range goal. Ipswich don’t respond at all well and carry on not having shots on goal and not passing to one another and not doing all the things associated with playing well.  With an hour gone the Ipswich public in the North Stand react.  They hadn’t got behind their team before now and still they don’t as instead they opt to sing to manager Mick McCarthy that his “football is shit”.  Then, again through their preferred medium of song they tell club chairman Marcus Evans that he is a cunt and chief executive Ian Milne that he is a wanker.  Spleens are vented and the North stand end of Portman Road is awash with bile and rude words; apart from the Birmingham supporters who are shocked and anxious in equal measure due to their team being a goal ahead, the rest of the ground is its usual comatose self. 

The Ipswich players continue not to give value for the entrance money or the huge wages necessary to buy the ridiculously ostentatious cars parked in the club car park.  A slow hand clap is attempted by the West Standers but fortunately fails; beaten by their own apathy. But then when all looks lost in the developing maelstrom of self-loathing and poor football from both sides, Grant Ward finds space wide on the right and crosses the ball. In keeping with the type of game it is, the cross is so poor that it sails straight into the goal to give Ipswich a barely deserved goal to equalise Birmingham’s barely deserved goal. How we cheer, once we’ve got over the shock.
There is still twenty minutes to go and some of us foolishly hope the lucky break will see Ipswich go on to play like a proper football team and score another goal or two. Of course that doesn’t happen and the final whistle is met by a stampede for the exits, or as much of a stampede as a host of over sixties can manage and the usual chorus of boos. Outside in Princes Street there are two police dog units, but I can’t see any dogs;32974895873_c16d6ac493_o only two policeman who are possibly trying to look inscrutable in an attempt to hide the fact that they have lost their dogs. Mind you, one of the dog units is from Norfolk; I thought there were quarantine laws.
On the train home I talk to a chatty man from Witham, well he talks to me really. He’s been watching Town since the 1950’s like the white haired man I met in the pub. He’s disappointed with today’s game like everyone else, but he clearly still loves it all and will be back again on Tuesday for the Wigan Athletic match, as will I. The moral of the story is that real football fans ‘keep right on to the end’ which those Birmingham fans knew all along.