West Ham 4-1 Ipswich Town: Karl Fuller on a bad away day

Saturday was poor and I do not mean just our result and performance. It has been longer than I care to remember since I last experienced a bad away day. And I do not mean just from a result perspective.

Now we are in the Premier League, it would be foolish not to expect some crushing defeats along the way. But away days are much more than about the result.

I was very apprehensive about Saturday. Because for me personally, I dislike West Ham as much as I do Norwich.

Living in Clacton-on-Sea, the area is pretty much an overspill of East London these days. My whole life has been one of mixing with Hammers.

Be it school days, work, Sunday morning football, or just in general. There has always been a West Ham fan in my life with plenty to say. There just simply has not been Norwich fans this way to have a similar rivalry with.

Ipswich Town fans had a day to forget at West Ham (Image: PA) The day was doomed from the moment I arrived at Clacton train station to be honest. I saw too much claret and blue for my liking and then saw that all trains to Colchester were cancelled. Back in the car for a road trip to Colchester it was then.

Our eventual arrival in Stratford saw us turned away from our first drinking hole by the local police before we were even on the same side of the road as the establishment.

Once in place in our eventual pub of choice, I proceeded to knock my first pint of cider over and straight into my lap. That meant a soaked midriff for the next few hours.

 We arrived at the London Stadium at 2.30pm to the sight of the most enormous queues I have probably seen outside a football ground.

It would be almost 45 minutes later before we got in the ground. We eventually learnt that the queues were for bag checks.

None of my group of seven had bags and felt that half-an-hour had been wasted. After a body search, we thought that we could make our way into the ground before another search was set to take place.

Karl was not impressed with the London Stadium (Image: PA) At this time, we realised the game had kicked off and very quickly heard a loud cheer that suggested a goal had been scored. But it was not as loud as you would normally hear outside if the home team had scored.

So we thought that Ipswich had scored but then got the unwelcome news that West Ham had in fact gone in front.

We were still not through the turnstiles when we heard a similar sounding cheer. Thinking it was 2-0, Town had in fact equalised. Then we were in the ground. The fact that the noise sounded the same for both of those early goals sums things up for me.

The noise from the home fans for a goal was the same as 3,000 (minus a few of us at the time!) away fans. The rest of the game, it was a quiet and soulless experience if I am brutally honest.

The London Stadium was no doubt great for the Olympics 12 years ago. As a football stadium, I cannot recall any other that does it less for me.

How a certain generation of West Ham fans must sorely miss Upton Park. I pray that Town never leave Portman Road in my lifetime.

Jacob Greaves in action against West Ham (Image: PA) Let us have it right though. If Town had won 4-1, none of the above would have mattered. But we did not. To cap my woes, we put in our worst performance of the season.

We missed Axel Tuanzebe terribly. We were not the resolute outfit I had seen at Brighton. We were not the all-action combative side that went toe-to-toe with Aston Villa for much of the week before. I do not want to criticise. But that was a bad day for everyone involved.

That said, we remain proud of where we are right now. This season was always going to be a tough gig. We must move on and back the boys no matter what.