Football Ground Guide: Fans Ground Review, Portman Road, Ipswich Town FC

Portman Road Ipswich Town
Championship League v West Ham United
Saturday, January 1st 2005, 1pm
Eli Altmann

I am a west ham season ticket holder and I went to see us play Ipswich Town at Portman Road on New Years Day, 2005. As I do not have a drivers licence, I took the official club coach travel to the match. We left Upton Park at 9.45 and the journey was entirely traffic free. After a tour of what seemed like the whole town we arrived at the ground at 12.00 ( it was a 1 o'clock kick off ). The coach parked in a large car park around a 5 minute walk from the away supporters entrance. The first thing I do when arriving at any ground is buy a programme and their addition, titled " town " was very informative and cost Ł2.50, about average. Unusually I saw only one fast food stall in that street which sold the usual, burgers, hot dogs, bacon burgers etc.

The away supporters are given about half of the Cobbold Stand. 2,000 seats in the upper tier and 600 in the lower tier. I was sat in the lower tier. Row B, seat 37. It was a decent view of either. I entered the ground at 12.30 to see both teams warming up. There was the usual pre match entertainment, music and mascots walking around the pitch. One thing that was very different from any away match I had been to in the past was that we were right next to the home supporters and there was not
one steward separating us which is very surprising considering West Ham's notorious past. Just before the game the tannoy played the theme tune to the great escape with the home supporters shouting Ipswich! At the end of each chorus. That was about all we heard of them all match which is very weird considering they are top of the league and are strong favourites to be promoted. The West Ham supporters were as vocal as ever and that is what created all the atmosphere.

The stadium, similarly to Upton Park, has three very modern stands and one quite run down and old one, The Cobbold stand (where the away supporters are seated ). By far the most impressive of the four is the Brittania Stand. This has three tiers. Either end has a large stand and consists of an upper and lower tier. Although both ends were allocated to home supporters only the only real noise came from the North Stand.
The half time snack bar was pretty much the same as at any other ground. Thankfully it was only open to the away supporters in the lower tier because there were only two teenage girls serving. The grub was the usual, pies etc.

The game could not have got off to a better start for us. We took the lead
after only 51 seconds and from then on looked comfortable and Ipswich rarely threatened. The victory was sealed up in the 90th minute when we scored for the second time. At the final whistle the home supporters showed great sportsmanship by applauding west ham off the pitch after ages celebrating a great victory in front of the away fans because we totally outplayed them.

The coach arrived back at Upton Park after a truly memorable day!

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