As I type this, I'm listening to Midas Touch, another dub mixer of supreme qualities with his Harald Faltermeyer 'Beverley Hills Cop' 80's funk. Many thanks Midas.
It was a bit of an 80's day yesterday. Back to the Old Skool. Tributes to John Duncan, whose soundtrack would surely include 'Hang 'em High', 'Take the Long Way Home' and 'Cranson Hoofs it to Deadly" (does such a track exist? It did in 1988 - except when we played David Lowe up front and then we tried bad passes along the floor). RIP John. I once saw you at Roots Hall in 1992, when another John got us playing the purist game and we'd done Saarfend 2-1 courtesy of Thommo having a decent right foot. And, I'm sorry to say, I scoffed at you. You took it well though. Frustration was always my bete noir and my weakness. I just remember the relief when one of the Cobbolds or whoever finally saw sense and sacked you.
So back to yesterday. Terry came with me, because he's now a permanent member of the bandwagon jumpers who sense this season may not be heading towards mid-table again. He can make Friday as well. We nearly made Charlton away, except they sold quicker than Ed Sheeran playing Mannings, supported by Chas'n'Dave and The Strawbs. He blamed me for the failure of course. But then yesterday happened and I sensed a slight thawing of the new-found enthusiasm, as though shopping and Braintree-ing with the Missus had some salient qualities after all.
We met at the train station in Manningtree at 10.40am. I was hungover again. The nice morning, with trailing vapours in the air and a bit of warmth, was wasted on me. My belches tasted of sour tequila. My eyes kept watering. The headache moved from over one eye to over one eyebrow and then decided to affix itself to the whole forehead. The pint of Guinness he bought me, complete with the Station Caff's decent bacon'n'egg bap, raised the old blood sugar a bit but I still felt tender as we alighted into Ipswich. "Not gonna spew, are ya?" he kept saying as we did the walk into town. Fortunately not.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Ipswich has a 'match day smell', that mix of fried onions, cheap aftershave and optimism. Optimism smells like freshly washed clothes. Yesterday it was overbearing. Lincoln City at home. Three points. It's only a matter of how many we stuff past them. Tel caught it badly. Barely had we sat with our pints, my guts still rumbling from the bacon roll and last night's excess, than he was predicting six-nil, possibly seven if Ladapo turned up.
The pub was newly open and they came, in their groups, looking at the menus and debating the crispness of the chips. In their new blue home shirts, a few sporting the black third one we're inexplicably playing in on Friday. Or perhaps it's all part of a plan? I certainly thought so as I did the walk with Terry back up the road to the station. Mourning. We'll probably have 85% possession and Didzy will side foot one in on the 90th. Suddenly, mid-table seems possible again.
We left after three well-judged pints. Tel wanted to pop to Ladbrokes. I fancied a change from being squeezed in a corner table with a view of someone's back and a queue for the bogs. The trouble is, that's what Ipswich pubs are now on match days. Big gathering points. I'm pleased we've upped our average attendance but for how much longer will they put up with slips like yesterday?
To watch Terry in Ladbrokes is to watch a small deprived child wandering the massed courts of Hamleys on Christmas Eve. Everything was touched, read and watched. The betting slip was thrice screwed up as he thought about it. We'd done a footy bet on the online app, yet here he was picking horses, checking form, opening his wallet to finger twenties. Choices made, then briefly debated, we went back out to the Wise Monkeys to consult the sage of craft ales and hipster-looking service staff.
We left at two-forty. Tel wanted to see 'em coming out on to the pitch. He had one last piss, and we walked. It has been a while since I've been early enough to see 'em enter the arena. I'm usually half-cut, listening to the songs and the woohwoohwooh warning that 'This is Portman Road. This sound' as I contemplate a jumbo hot dog or a cheeseburger from one of the vans. I'm usually to be found having a fag and trying to flick stray fried onions into the hedge as the crowd settles down and they're away.
Still, at least it didn't rain, we mumbled gratefully on the 5.09 to Witham, calling everywhere as well as Witham. Made the early train. A sign of defeat, or a bad game. It wasn't a bad game though. It was frustrating. Tel blamed Donacien and Evans and said he lost count of the number of passes we made that didn't find a blue shirt. I was just numb. It wasn't like Lincoln even really deserved it. They were just an immovable object. At one point in the game, the frustration took hold again, much like it did at Southend thirty years ago and I arrogantly thought "Why don't they just roll over?" But they didn't and we lost. To a back-post header from a bloke in the clear with no-one in a blue shirt near him. Balls.
And, sadly, I sit here this morning, Paula gone to work, nursing a cuppa and wondering whether to walk along the river or through the woods, anywhere for a bit of peace from dog-walkers in Chelsea bobble-hats or joggers. We had a drink, Tel and I, when we got home, but we were both a bit shell-shocked still, and we left earlier, him at 9pm when Mrs Tel picked him up, me at 9.30pm when Paula collected me on her way back from her mum's. We left like Laurel and Hardy after they've done something wrong, sort of hang-dog, sheepish, slightly furtively. Tel might not be able to make Friday, he'll 'wait'n'see'. But he'll call me to let me know. "'S juss that the wife fancies a trip ter Braintree next weekend so...." left dangling like a guillotine on the Derby home game. The game I'm supposedly leaving Birmingham at two to make. Oh well. It's not like we haven't been here before, is it?
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