Ipswich Town Away

Thousands and thousands and thousands of miles away from Mehdipatnam, England is stirring. Friends will hopefully be still asleep, in blissful ignorance before the hangover hits, curled up, perhaps alone, perhaps not, with their intoxicated dreams at least for company.

Meanwhile a small procession of coaches will be hurtling along the A14 to Suffolk, full of quiet optimism and A****n victory re-runs. For the last decade I too would have been heading for Suffolk for Ipswich Town away, but not this day.

The emotional significance of this fixture still confuses the fuck out of me. It means a bit more. Ipswich is a strange and shit old town that holds some old memories that despite their age seem to rear their head this day every year. Last season, whilst selling A Load Of Bull, I spent the customary hour before kick off constantly looking over my shoulder, left towards the Bobby Robson statue, right back towards the station, petrified of seeing F. yet strangely wanting to know how she was getting on. Mostly petrified. She didn’t come. We lost 3-0.

In about three hours a steady procession of royal blue smattered with old gold will start making its way from the station, past the Station Hotel, down Princes Street past the grey retail warehouses and rotting port and into Ipswich centre. The Drum and Monkey, behind Cobbald Street and the away end will be full of gold and black and lager and songs and maybe trouble. F.’s father will probably be gulping a lager in The Manningtree Arms next to the town hall, telling the same stories of Wolves’ games gone by and radical Ipswich triumphs. She will too probably be there, bizarre as ever, probably wanting the win a little bit more for similar reasons to my own.

On a practical level we nearly always lose. It is the away ground I have been to the most; since 1995 and a Don Goodman winner there has only been one other win witnessed, the glorious 4-2 George Ndah inspired victory in 2003.

In many ways I am glad to be four and a half hours in the future. Ipswich and F. are a life gone by, a strange era re-awakened only for one random selected day a year. This day. And I will be completely oblivious, probably roaming around Hyderabad in a rickety auto or flying through traffic and pollution on the back of a bike. I will find out the result by text late at night, when I have the guts to switch my Indian sim card with my UK one. And then closure for another year.

It’s been three weeks away. “1650 new migrants invade UK every day” screams the Daily Express I am told. Invade?!

Do I miss Britain?

I miss the good people. Victories away from home. Last minute winners. Cider. A girl or two. (Inexplicably). Sylvain Ebanks-Blake. A good Pav Tav night. Drumming. 19:55 at Fidds.

But fuck Britain. Fuck patriotism if the above is what it stands for. Everyone here seems to be very proud of their country. For me, no. Maybe the aforementioned hypocrisy of this writer is borne in the utter hypocritical state that is home. Doublethink Orwell called it.

And what of India this week? After the initial white noise of pure crazy it has settled down to a random correlation of highs and lows, almost echoing the huge divide between rich and poor here. Each day provides something different, however much my sub-conscious pretends there is routine. Yesterday we were delayed getting home from work by half an hour because our bus couldn’t find a way around two camels. I am still unable to translate Indian time-keeping into logic, with such feelings of frustration being constantly contradicted by the complete and overwhelming generosity of most Hyderabadis I have met. I have been drinking maybe too much rum. I have definitely told too much people about this blog (one).