Our visit to Ipswich Town is tomorrow afternoon, with a 3pm kick-off.

Portman Road is between the railway station and the town centre, and if you arrive by train it will be impossible to miss it, as it will be looming in front of you as you take the main exit from the station.

The most direct route from the north by car will be to take the A1156 exit from the A14 (signposted Ipswich West and North) then turning right after 2.5 miles onto the town's inner ring road. If you get there early enough the best bet for parking will be the large car park in Portman Road itself, which on matchdays is only accessible from the top end (Handford Road.) From the south you will approach on the A12 and you should take the A1214 on the edge of Ipswich and keep straight on when this road crosses the ring road and becomes Handford Road. There have been reports of away fans cars being damaged around the town, so you shouldn't leave anything in your cars which identifies them as coming from Leeds, including garage stickers. Other options are to use the car parks on the railway station side of the ground.

Alas, the traditional main away supporters pub (the 'Drum & Monkey') has now closed down, so at the moment there is really only the Station Hotel near to the ground, which is located just outside the railway station and has been a traditional meeting place for away fans. Last year it got packed out well before kick-off, and they were operating a 'one in, one out' policy. Other pubs in the area, such as the Victoria, the Hare & Hounds and the Swan, are very much home pubs and are best avoided by away fans. You could try the 'Punch and Judy' though they might trun you away if they realise you're an away fan. This pub is in the 'cardinal park' complex in Grafton Street, which is about a 5 minute walk from the ground, and also has a car park and fast food outlets.

The best of these is 'Ask Pizza', which Serves very good pasta & pizza. If you're approaching the ground from the railway station you can find the 'cardinal park' complex by turning right at the first set of traffic lights after you've crossed the river. The best options in the town centre are Mannings in the shadow of the town hall, and the 'Glass House' in the Buttermarket. There are no takeaways immediately by the ground, which is mainly surrounded by industrial premises and office blocks.

The club have increased the capacity to 30,300 in recent years, with the re-development of both ends. The Greene King (South) Stand and the North Stand are similar in appearance and size, with a larger upper tier which overhanging a smaller lower tier, and they dwarf the smaller older stands on each side of the ground. Away fans are normally allocated approx 2,100 tickets in the Cobbold Stand, (the one on Portman Road itself), 1,700 on the top tier and 400 in the family section below, where concessions are available. Some away clubs get an extra block of seats, making a total allocation of 2,500, but this time we didn’t get these extra tickets. I’m told that of the seats that we did get, only 250 were made available for non-season ticket holders, and these sold out within seven minutes!

The Cobbold stand is now the oldest part of the ground, and the facilities within this stand are limited, so if you need some refreshments then it's best to get them before you enter the ground. The narrow corridors can get dangerously crowded at half-time, as this part of the ground was the main stand when it opened in 1971, so it was never designed to cope with away fans who would all stop for an extended refreshment break on the way down and so need to depart for the loos en masse to relieve themselves during the interval. Also the seats within are rather crammed together, and can be a bit uncomfortable even for those with normal length legs. Or at least they would be cramped if we ever sat down! Ticket prices for away fans are: Adults: £26, Over 65's: £18.00, Under 16's: £8.00, as Ipswich have been generous enough to classify this match as category B.  

I don't normally bother to repeat the record attendance information that clubs put on their official websites, but in this case I'll make an exception. The record attendance at Portman Road is 38,010 for an FA Cup 6th Round tie on March 8th 1975, against the greatest team of that era, who went on to reach that season's European Cup final. Happy days!

Photo: Action Images

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