Ipswich Town: Tony Garnett's tales from his time covering Town

When I first joined the East Anglian Daily Times I spent the best part of a year on the News Desk.

To escape boring office duties I appointed myself as docks correspondent and could always justify my absence with some sort of story.

Tony Garnett covered Ipswich Town for more than 40 years

I even went on a trip on a coaster in March when the North Sea was roughest. All the crockery was broken on the MV Faience as it made its way to Newcastle to collect sulphate of ammonia. I made my  own way home!

My sports editor at the East Anglian Daily Times, Alan Everett, had a short fuse. We put it down to his experiences as a prisoner of war in Italy.

He was once kept waiting some 20 minutes for an arranged meeting with Alf Ramsey.

He knew the Town manager was alone in his office and thought he must have been reading Charles Buchan's football magazine. Certainly Alf had no visitors in that time and did not appear to be on the phone.

Everett was furious. I was the new boy in the sports room and told to take on the coverage of Ipswich Town, apart from home matches.

This also involved ghosting the club notes in the official programme. No one checked what I had written but I was instructed to make it bland, boring and unquotable.

I had joined the sports staff only a few months earlier to replace Mike Williams, later to become the Daily Telegraph golf correspondent.

Sir Alf Ramsey in his office - he used to let Tony train with his players (Image: Archant)

I was born in Suffolk and had watched Ipswich Town during school holidays since the early fifties with my grandfather who was a season-ticket holder.

I travelled with the first team to away games, often by train. The club made the travelling and hotel arrangements and then invoiced the newspaper.

Alf allowed to me to come to the ground some afternoons to kick a ball around with any players who turned up for extra training.

I was allowed to use the club changing rooms in the old cricket pavilion. Trainers Jimmy Forsyth and Charlie Cowie would fit me up with a shirt, shorts, socks and a dry towel. I brought my own boots.

One day Ted Phillips, who was reputed to have had the hardest shot in football at the time, challenged me to try to stop one of his penalties on the practice pitch.

Of course I was foolhardy enough to accept the challenge. I knew I was on a hiding to nothing but saving one would have been more than any League goalkeepers were managing to do in that period.

Ted was simply hammering these shots with a heavy old leather ball. The first one whistled past my head.

Ted Phillips, known for having the hardest shot in football, took penalties at Tony (Image: Archant)

Alf’s office was in a Nissen hut. He looked out of the window some 40 yards away, saw what was going on, and shouted: "Stop that at once Ted, you’ll kill him!”

I was a very young captain of the Saxmundham cricket team who would play teams like Walberswick (Clement Freud was their wicket-keeper) on a weak Saturday fixture list and Norwich Barleycorns (half the Norfolk side) on a Sunday.

I co-opted two Town footballers, Roy Stephenson and Doug Millward, to play for my club side.

I got to know Millward particularly well and would spend a Thursday afternoon at his house in All Saints Road to compose the Ipswich Town notes in the Green’Un between us.

In those days Ipswich footballers could be fined for being quoted in the press. I never used direct quotes.

Tony roped Doug Millward into playing cricket for his Saxmundham side

The first away match I covered was at the Victoria Ground in March 1960. I travelled by train in the official party.

It was a meaningless night fixture with a crowd of only 4,070 dispersing very quickly. By the time I had phoned my report the lights had been switched off. The Press Box exit was locked. The ground was deserted.

In those days the duty reporter at EADT would type my copy. That night he had not the slightest interest in football, knew none of the names and was certainly no touch-typist.

There was scaffolding down the side of the stand but that seemed too dangerous an option in the dark. I could not see to dial directory inquiries.

My last hope was to clamber down to the directors’ seats.  I was in luck. Their door back into the club house was still unlocked.

Thankfully Town chairman John Cobbold was still drinking in the Board Room. I walked back with him to the North Stafford Hotel.

John Cobbold, centre, helped Tony escape the ground after his first away match

The final match of that season was at  relegated Hull City’s Boothferry Park. Ipswich were safely in mid-table. There was nothing hanging on the match except pride and a win bonus.

Left-back Ken Malcolm came from the fishing port of Arbroath. He was Town’s Scottish left-back who took no prisoners. He was a regular first team player.

After dinner in the hotel on the Friday night Malcolm asked me whether I would like him to show me the fish market at Hull.

I was amazed by this suggestion but, of course, I agreed. I had never seen a fish market.

Ken Malcolm took Tony on an early morning trip to the Hull fish market (Image: Archant)

It was a new experience at the busy St Andrew’s Dock hearing language I had never previously experienced at my closeted public-school background.

I cannot imagine what Alf Ramsey would have said had he known that one of his defenders was up before crack of dawn on the morning of the match and was back in bed at 8am!