Suffolk Punch
Ipswich Town vs Middlesbrough, Portman Road, EFL Championship, 13th April 2024
Our tale this week begins around 52 hours prior to kick-off, with Ben strapped to a dentist’s chair in Billingham, sweating profusely, and both hands of an unfamiliar dental practitioner wrist-deep inside his mouth.
‘You’re going to hear a snapping sound’ she say, now wielding the latest implement in what has felt like the full range of oral torture devices.
And, after an almighty struggle, indeed he does hear a snapping sound. Actually, it’s more kind of a cracking/popping sound. But, aural similarities to the noises made by popular rice-based breakfast cereals aside, what it signifies is the successful removal of the broken wisdom tooth that has been plaguing Ben for some considerable time.
Two days later, despite still being sore, looking as if he’s gone a few three rounds with Tyson Fury and feeling very sorry for himself (if that hasn’t already been made absolutely apparent) he’s boarding the coach to Ipswich with Liz. The journey has a rather inauspicious start - we notice as we climb aboard that the drivers appear to be jacking it up to inspect a wheel … but thankfully this isn’t a precursor to the wheel rolling independently down the A1 on the way home, or a repeat of the time the coach EXPLODED on the way to West Bromwich Albion. 1 Today, whatever was wrong with the wheel, they clearly fixed it.
Liz isn’t the biggest fan of long coach journeys - suffering from motion sickness, she’s asleep within about ten minutes of leaving the Riverside Stadium. Meanwhile, Ben spends several hours distracting himself from the nagging pain caused by the hole in his mouth by playing Solitaire on his phone and attempting to become The (self-appointed) Ultimate Champion of the Universe.2
The coach stops at the services, so it’s time for Liz to wake up and for Ben to put down the virtual playing cards and have a cup of coffee. When we get back on the bus, Liz declares that ‘It’s time to open the edibles.’ Ben gives her a look until she realises what she has said, and then has to plead with him not to mention it to the kids. What she was actually referring to was the picnic we had brought and not THE OTHER kind of edibles - although if we had some of them it might speed the journey along and alleviate Ben’s oral discomfort somewhat. Instead, as he can’t open his mouth very far, Ben has to squash his lunch of plain cream cheese sandwiches completely flat so as to be able to post them into his barely-openable mouth, then nibble his way around them like a sad, giant mouse. (Yes, this self-pity is going to continue throughout this post.)
It was cold when we left Middlesbrough at 8 o’clock this morning, but when we arrive in Ipswich in the early afternoon, it’s warm. As we travelled by coach there isn’t much3 time to look around the town itself. Our impressions of Ipswich are therefore limited to a combination of the one time we visited previously, about 4 years ago when we were on holiday in Bury St. Edmunds, and a few glimpses of what we see of the town out of the bus window on the way in today. Admittedly that’s just an abandoned Toys R Us, a bank thick with daisies and a rather exciting dog agility competition in progress. Four years ago we thought Ipswich was a very pretty town with some lovely old buildings - sadly we didn’t see any of them today.
As we climb down from the coach we notice the Ipswich fans are in shirtsleeves, all the Boro fans in winter coats - but pretty quickly everyone sheds their outer layers and it’s blues and reds, jewel-bright in the sunshine, all the way to the ground. We find the Ipswich fans are very friendly and help to direct us the right way for the club shop and the away turnstiles.
Liz is initially slightly puzzled by the Ipswich shirt sponsor, which seems to be a row of incomprehensible characters - until she works out that it’s the symbols of Ed Sheeran’s ‘Mathematics’ tour. Now, we have been married for over 22 years and have what most folks would consider to be an incredibly harmonious relationship. However, we disagree quite profoundly about Ed Sheeran (and thus his role as club sponsor). Castle on the Hill is one of Liz’s favourite songs of the last ten years and she considers Ed Sheeran to be a local lad made good, giving something back to home-town club and thus his shirt sponsoring can only be regarded as a Thoroughly Good Thing. Whilst Ben doesn’t disagree with the ‘local lad made good/giving something back’ aspect, he’ll restrain himself by simply saying that Ed’s bland4, ubiquitous5 lyrically-questionable6 music is ‘not to his taste’. As regards the sponsorship thing, he just feels it's a bit divisive. Sure, it's better than having alcohol, tobacco or gambling <frowns at Middlesbrough> brands adorning the front of the shirt, but music is a bit…tribal. It is (or at least can be) a statement about one’s life and personality. It’s more than just a brand. Ben wouldn’t appreciate, if he was an Ipswich town fan, weighing up whether he’d be happy to promote Ed’s banal7 musical output as no-optional extra to displaying his support for the football team he follows. But happily he will never have to!8
We agree to disagree.
Once inside the stadium, we decide that it’s a good balance of modern and traditional. It feels like a proper, solid ‘home’ stadium, but there aren’t any stanchions in the way of the view and the seats have plenty of legroom. Not that we’re actually sitting in them, obviously.9 The stadium is a sea of blue with a splash of red in the away corner where we are - it’s a proper, traditional game in primary colours. Just how football should be.
And it’s so nice to be warm at a football match. It’s been a long, cold, wet winter/spring/year/decade/lifetime. Even though it’s mid April by this point we’ve still been wearing winter clothes most of the time at home, and the rain isn’t letting up. So this feels like proper spring, almost summer temperatures, and we all relish the sun on our pasty winter skin. We bask in the warmth as we watch Ipswich’s mascot, Crazee the horse, touring the stadium. Now, something we know about from our holiday four years ago is why Ipswich have a horse for a badge and a mascot. It’s a Suffolk Punch, and they’re absolutely beautiful animals. We stayed on a farm that bred them, and were lucky enough to be able to meet the horses, who were very big, very strong and very friendly. Here’s one! So, I’m not surprised that the club’s proud of them.
But, alas, we’re not here to wax lyrical about sunshine or horses (or, in Liz’s case, Ed Sheeran), we’re here to watch the game! The match kicks off, and Ipswich waste no time in taking the game to Boro. With their promotion rivals Leiciester and Leeds already having slipped up in games earlier this weekend, Ipswich are keen to capitalise and head back to the top of the Championship table. However, despite the home team dominating the opening proceedings, it’s The Boro who take the lead when Emmanuel Latte Lath heads in a Luke Ayling cross. It’s a mixture of surprise and delight in the away end, personified by an unsolicited bearhug Ben is given from the man behind him - one which thankfully avoids his swollen face!
Ipswich respond well, whilst Boro don’t help their cause with a number of individual mistakes. The inevitable equaliser comes when Massimo Luongo crashes a shot in off the underside of the crossbar from an Ipswich corner. And minutes later, the home team almost go 2-1 up when Jeremy Sarmiento rolls the ball past Seny Dieng in the Middlesbrough goal, only to see it come back off the post. Boro withstand the Ipswich onslaught and start to carve out a few chances of their own, but neither team can find the net before half time in what is an absorbing 45 minutes of Championship football.
During the break, the inescapable strains of Ed Sheeran resound around the stadium as Ben makes a few notes for this very blog entry, using Ye Olde Pen and Paper. Having unwittingly committed the apparent crime of ‘writing something down at a football match’ a fellow supporter insists on knowing what he is writing, in a tone that implies the wrong answer may result in a physical altercation. Luckily, Ben’s mumbled (for mumbling is all he can manage, remember) reply of ‘notes for my football blog’ is deemed an acceptable response and Ben doesn’t have his remaining teeth punched out.
Liz, meanwhile, is queueing for the ladies’ toilets. As with many older grounds, Portman Road has not been built with the female football fan in mind. Men can choose from two blocks of toilets, but there’s only one sign for the ladies, so Liz joins the queue. There are only three cubicles (one blocked) two sinks and one hand dryer. When she compares notes with Ben, he mentions that the blokes’ had space for probably 60 concurrent urinators. Sixty! Not sixteen, sixty! 60:3 might have been the gender ratio of away fans when Portman Road was built, but these days?10
After such a good first half, we’d be forgiven for assuming the match would slow down during the second half, but it continues to be a pulsating affair, with end-to-end action and both goalkeepers called into action on numerous occasions. Omari Hutchinson goes close for the home side, only to see his shot saved by Seny Dieng, and at the other end Vaclav Hladky in the Ipswich goal denies both Isiah Jones and Matt Clarke, when both looked certain to score for The Boro.
A fantastic afternoon of football in the spring sunshine finishes 1-1 and we’re soon on our way home. It’s back past the dog agility course, the beautiful bank of daisies and the forlorn looking ex-Toys R Us. We didn’t expect to win, and are pleased not to have lost, the football has been eminently watchable, the weather has been tremendous, we’re not about to get an Ed Sheeran-induced divorce and the wheel hasn’t fallen off the bus. We settle in for the long ride home again. Liz is asleep almost immediately, as Ben wearily flattens a sausage roll and rummages through a bag of Quavers looking for ‘the straight ones’ that will fit into his sliver of a mouth-opening…
The football season might be drawing to an end, but we’ve still got about half a dozen matches left to write about! The beginning of the end of the football season at South Shields will be next week’s post. Will they end the season in a playoff place? Will they end the season on a win? Will they sell a decent cup of tea? For the answer to these and other questions, tune in next week …
Slight exaggeration - the hydraulics went. But it did make a loud bang! Ben.
The quest is still ongoing.
Any.
Accessible. Liz.
Having a universal appeal. Liz.
Deceptively simple and very singable. Liz.
Straightfoward and enjoyable. Liz.
I’d be proudly wearing the shirt within seconds. Liz.
If you’re not a British football fan you may not be aware that even if seats are provided, if you’re an away fan you DO NOT SIT DOWN unless absolutely unable to stand.
I can’t help but wonder how they fare when they play women’s matches there. Or perhaps they don’t. Liz.