Belligerence

Ipswich Wanderers  2  Bury Town  0

Isthmian League – Division One North

Admission / Programme - £10 / £2.50

If we are being honest, I’ve done some pretty daft things over the years when it comes to watching football, and choosing to go to Ipswich on a day when Storm Kieron Dyer (or something like that) was sweeping the nation, was right up there!

Belligerence is the word I was use, and it was only because the previous day when Mrs H expressed her dissatisfaction towards my plans, that I really dug my heels in. Bloody minded is another phrase that also comes to mind.

There was a bit of method in the madness though, the South of England got a battering on the Friday and the forecast for Saturday morning was equally as shocking, but, I had spotted that as you got East of London and moved into Anglia, by mid-morning it looked to be drying up, so was it worth a punt?

Of course, on Saturday morning a massive part of me was looking at local options, but in my head, I wasn’t going to be beaten, besides, if it went tits up we had options at Felixstowe and Brightlingsea, so what’s to worry about?

I get a bit like that you see, I don’t like to be told, and for that matter, only very occasionally do I get my fingers burnt by making bad calls, so, with all things considered, bugger it, I was getting in my car and going to Ipswich, and only a referee could stop me!

That’s not to say I went brimming with confidence, in fact the only thing that gave me continued hope were the positive tweets being put out by the club about how great the pitch was despite the battering it took over the previous few days. The journey down the M1 and onto the A14 was blighted with heavy rain, and it stayed that way up until around Newmarket before it stopped, so the forecast looked to be spot on.

The club put a further tweet out as I was in the Stowmarket area stating the rain had stopped, and the groundsman was confident the pitch would be fine by 3pm. All good, expect that also suggested that currently, it probably wasn’t fine, and it only took a picky referee or an unhappy away team for it to fall by the wayside. What exactly was I going to find as I got to Ipswich?

Ipswich Wanderers then, what’s the story with these guys?

Well, they are mere whipper-snappers when it comes to their age, having been formed as a junior set up in 1980, they became an adult Sunday League side in 1982 and then joined the Eastern Counties League to play Saturday in 1988 when a second tier was created. Then known as Loadwell Ipswich, they quickly renamed and established themselves in the premier competition in East Anglia.

They’ve bounced between the two divisions of the ECL over the years but then more recently in 2021-22 they won a club record 23 successive games on their way to the Division One South title and then last season following a battle with Thetford Town, they came out on top and with it the championship and promotion to the Isthmian League. They got off to a rough start this season, losing their opening five leagues, but improved form since then has seen them find their feet and on the day of the derby game, they sat in a mid-table position.

The clubs ground on Humber Doucy Lane sits within the Rushmere area of Ipswich, which for those who are not familiar with the layout of the City, is on the East side, and accessible from the A14 via what is effectively the Northern Ring Road, albeit it isn’t actually a ring, more of a straight line!

My experiences of Ipswich are very limited indeed. As a university student I lived in a block with a lad called Simon Rutherford, who lived in Farnham but was an Ipswich Town fan. At the time the Tractor Boys were top flight (1992-93), and famous for being very good indeed at drawing games, so much so I used to wind him up by calling them ‘Drawswich’. He came to watch a couple of Derby County games with me but despite talking about it, we never went to watch Ipswich.

When doing the 92 I did pay a visit to the town for a first time, and that was via a train trip from Stratford on a boiling hot Saturday, to watch Barnsley get a good stuffing at Portman Road. It was while on that visit that myself and Mrs H discovered the Ipswich Marina and Waterfront, which we liked, so we hatched a plan for the following year.

August Bank Holiday weekend, go and watch Leiston on the Saturday, have a couple of nights stay in Ipswich, drink and eat at the marina, and then on the way back go and watch Needham Market. It was a great weekend, we enjoyed Ipswich, even if the day trip to Clacton-on-Sea was somewhat blighted by a vicious storm!

The entrance to Humber Doucy Lane was laden with deep puddles, but cars were being directed to parking spaces, and once through the turnstiles it was clear by looking at the pitch we would have no problems, it was indeed, as the club had stated, in superb condition, with the groundsman doing the final touches to the goalmouths with a sweeping brush and a towel!

The club have built a tidy little venue on HDL, you go through the turnstiles in the corner, and immediately to your right, almost on the corner flag is the clubhouse building which looks to be a modern construction. Moving round clockwise behind the East goal is what looks to be an old building that used to be dressing rooms, while next to it is an area of covered standing that runs around two thirds the width of the goal line.

The North side is hard standing, complete with the dugouts, but spectators are not allowed beyond the dugout area. It remains out of bounds all the way round beyond the West goal, until you reach the South (car park) side where you find a small seated stand followed by what a further and what looks like the original seated area, which in this case is a somewhat taller and steeper.. Then, moving beyond the players tunnel, a further covered area with terracing beneath it runs down towards the corner flag . The dressing rooms sit behind the areas of cover on the South side.

A crowd of just over 300 rocked up to watch the game, and it was the hosts that took the lead in the 19^th minute when Joe White inadvertently put the ball past his own goalkeeper. The visitors task was made harder when Ryan Jolland was dismissed just before the break, for a second yellow card.

The imbalance in numbers to a certain extent killed the game as a spectacle and you always felt that Ipswich had another goal in them, and that finally came in the final minute when Cameron Brown was first to a ball across the six yard box and found the back of the net.

Getting out of Ipswich afterwards was a bit of a ball ache, but I didn’t mind, I’d gambled and it had paid off. I’d thoroughly enjoyed it, sometimes, being a stubborn, pig headed, belligerent old bastard, pays off!

That’s why she married me, I think………!