Ground: 146
Date: Saturday 6th August 2022
Ipswich Wanderers 1-0 Yaxley
FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round
Attendance: 98 (official)
Ipswich Wanderers - History
Ipswich Wanderers were founded in 1980 as an under-14s team in the village of Bramford, three miles west of Ipswich itself. They joined the bottom division of the Ipswich Sunday League two years later, before becoming founder members of Division 1 of the Eastern Counties League in 1988. 1988 also saw the club become Loadwell Ipswich due to sponsorship, but they changed name to Ipswich Wanderers a year later.
After a decade in Division 1, they won the title in the 1997/98 season to earn promotion to the Premier Division for the first time. They finished second-from-bottom in their first season at this level, but they remained in the Premier Division until suffering relegation at the end of the 2007/08 season. Six years later, they finished 3rd in Division 1 to secure promotion back to the Premier Division, twelve months after winning the Suffolk Senior Cup for the first time.
That spell in the Premier Division lasted just four seasons, with the club relegated to Division 1 North at the end of the 2017/18 season. After three seasons in this league - two of which were curtailed due to the covid-19 pandemic - they were laterally transferred to Division 1 South for the 2021/22 season and went on to win the league title to secure promotion to the Premier Division once more. They also won their second Suffolk Senior Cup at the end of the season.
FA Cup success has been limited to three runs to the 2nd Qualifying Round, the most recent of which came in the 2015/16 season when they beat Debenham LC, Barkingside and Canvey Island before losing to Enfield Town. As for the FA Vase, they have twice progressed as far as the 5th Round: in the 2006/07 season, they beat Norwich United, Long Melford, Soham Town Rangers, Brimsdown Rovers, Oxhey Jets and Lowestoft Town before losing to AFC Totton; in the 2015/16 season, they beat London Bari, Clapton, Hoddesdon Town, Cricklewood Wanderers, Edgware Town and Bodmin Town before losing to Bowers & Pitsea in a replay.
My Visit
It was fun to get in four groundhops in pre-season, but it's safe to say that pre-season games lack the energy and excitement of competitive football. So I was very much looking forward to August signalling the return of competitive football, even if Yaxley's pre-season schedule really wasn't filling me with optimism for our first competitive game against Ipswich Wanderers.
Still, with a supporters' coach being put on for the game, I wasn't going to miss it and would travel in the hope of a positive result to start our season with. Hell, even if there hadn't been a supporters' coach, I'd have taken the train and then a bus from the station to the ground even though that would cost clost to £25. Either way, I booked my seat on the supporters' coach on Sunday before finding some time on Friday (in between trying to sort something out for a job application) to write up the club's history for this entry.
Yesterday morning, the coach was set to leave at 11am, but I had to get ready to leave the house just after 10am so my sister and her boyfriend could be dropped off at the train station first. This meant I arrived at our ground by around 10:45am, only to find that the place was practically deserted with just one player, our club photographer and the coaching staff present.
The coach ended up arriving just before 11am, and after taking several minutes to manoeuvre into the car park we found out that the coach was actually not leaving until 11:15am. This gave time for a few more players, supporters and the manager to arrive, but we still looked light on numbers. However, it transpired that several players would be making their own way to the game, particularly the London-based members of our squad (for whom it was easier to take the train to Ipswich rather than coming to Yaxley first).
In any case, it took just over two hours to get to Ipswich, and I passed my time on the coach by playing more Pokemon and having an early lunch. As we got off the coach at 1:30pm, one of our London-based players also arrived, having apparently walked for an hour to the ground from Ipswich station. A couple other players arrived by car moments later, and the final few from London arrived about fifteen minutes later.
Us supporters and club officials then headed into the ground and were welcomed by the Ipswich Wanderers officials present. Normally, I would head straight into doing my circuit of photos, but I instead spent a good hour chatting to our photographer and a father of one of the players. I eventually did my circuit of photos with about fifteen minutes to spare before kick-off, though this was another case where the ground layout did not allow for a complete circuit. I also made sure to buy a programme for £2 before kick-off, and I was impressed by the quality of it: an excellent publication from Chenery Creative.
During the first half, I stood behind the near goal as Yaxley were shooting in that direction, before moving beyond the stands on the near side to stand near the far goal in the second half. At half-time, we headed into the boardroom for a cup of tea and some snacks (sandwiches, party-sized sausage rolls, a few small cakes etc.) before heading back out for the second half.
Lewis Baughan had a fantastic chance to give Yaxley the lead in the first couple of minutes, smashing a close-range shot over the bar after Liam Hook crossed across the face of goal. He hit another effort over the bar a few minutes later on the volley.
Ipswich Wanderers were proving a threat from set pieces and with quick balls over the top, eventually taking the lead in the 32nd minute when Charlie Howlett headed in a cross at the far post. It should have been 1-1 a few minutes as Liam Hook charged into the box and hit a low cross to Emmanuel Osilaja, but the striker somehow scuffed a shot wide of the post with the goal at his mercy.
It was very nearly 2-0 early in the second half as a cross eluded everyone and flew across the face of goal, but Matt Blake couldn't reach the ball for the tap-in. Moments later, Dan Cotton spotted Ipswich Wanderers keeper Glyn Dixon off his line and took a shot from just beyond the halfway line, but it landed on top of the net. Ipswich Wanderers then hit the woodwork twice in quick succession as a cross across the face of goal was poked into the crossbar and a Blake shot rattled the post.
As the second half wore on, Ipswich used every trick in the book to frustrate Yaxley and run the clock down, but the away side had a late flurry of chances as they tried to take the tie to a replay: Cotton shot wide a couple of times, Frazer Garner hit a header over the bar and Edgar Silva-Morais had a couple of good chances with some strong solo work down the wings and through the middle. However, Ipswich Wanderers were able to hold on and condemn Yaxley to another early exit from the FA Cup.
Rather counterintuitively, this game made me slightly less pessimistic about Yaxley's prospects for the league season. While we did lose to lower-league opposition (for the third, maybe fourth year running in the FA Cup), it was at least somewhat down to poor finishing and was otherwise a decent performance. In particular, new signing Edgar Silva-Morais impressed me from the bench with his trickery and powerful runs, while Jake Battersby's pace caused plenty of problems on the left wing.
Furthermore, the way Ipswich Wanderers played is not too dissimilar to the way quite a few of the teams in our league play (constant long balls over the top), so in that sense this game served as good preparation for our league campaign. Still much to do to better handle that approach, but we're not as far off the pace as pre-season had led me to fear.
As usual with when we take the coach to away games, we had to wait for the players to get changed and have post-match food before we could leave. This gave us plenty of time to chat about the game while we waited, and myself and club photographer Graham were offered one of the burgers made for the players as they had made too many. During this time, I also heard an Ipswich Wanderers official announce that the official attendance was 98, which seemed quite low to me: it looked to me more like there were around 120 people in the crowd.
Eventually, the coach ended up leaving at around 5:45pm and made it back to Yaxley just over two hours later. I used that time to write up my match report and sort out most of my photos (i.e. the ones that were on my camera and not on my phone) before playing some more Pokemon until my laptop's battery was almost dead. In the end, I was home by 8pm and went for a shower before sorting out the final few photos and making a few tweaks to the Yaxley programme (having successfully identified some of the new signings' photos).
With Yaxley away at Sutton Coldfield next week, I'll be fitting in another new groundhop instead of making that revisit so soon. I'm thinking of asking for a lift to FC Parson Drove, my nearest unvisited Step 6 ground, but we'll see.
The Ground
Humber Doucy Lane is a characterful ground with cover on three sides. There are three different stands on the near side, two of which contain seats while the nearest is a covered standing area. Behind the near goal is another covered terrace which extends most of the length of the pitch, while there is a smaller covered structure between the dugouts on the far side. I'm not entirely sure how you access that last stand though, as space constraints mean you cannot go beyond the dugouts on the far side. Each of these stands are painted in the club's blue and white to give them some added character.
The only side of the ground that lacks cover is the far side, which is also closed off to spectators for whatever reason despite having hard standing. Club banners cover the fencing on that side to separate the ground from the nearby trees. Elsewhere, there are some club buildings positioned behind the near goal next to that covered terrace, with the clubhouse (which is currently undergoing redevelopment works) positioned adjacent to these. The boardroom is positioned behind the covered terrace on the near side and the tea hut is directly next to it.
Though there is an additional pitch behind the main one, the ground is otherwise tightly hemmed in on all sides with very limited space for expansion. The record attendance at the ground is 550 for a Suffolk Premier Cup semi-final against an Ipswich Town XI in 2007.
Photos
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