I Can't Help Falling In Love With You

Something very strange has happened to me of late. Something I didn’t see coming at all. From completely the other side of the United Kingdom, I’ve only gone and fallen in love with your football club.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been obsessed with this game of ours. It was one of those where I had little choice. Football quite simply runs through me.

I’d been kicking a ball since the moment I could walk and was even named after a footballer. All set to be called Gavin, my mother had a change of heart just days before I was born upon hearing the Match of the Day commenter shouting the name of Asa Hartford. To be honest, I don’t think I’d have been a convincing Gavin anyway.

Born in Suffolk to a father who had been supporting Ipswich Town home and away his entire life, he waited the ridiculously small period of eighteen months before taking me to my first game. From that day in 1981 I‘ve been at almost every home game, having very little memory of any of that first decade or so. Only the distress of dropping my He-Man action figure down the stairs of the Pioneer Stand during the Liverpool game in 1984 and the telling off I got when swearing for the first time, as Manchester United knocked us out of the FA Cup in 1987/88 with a dubious winner, remain ingrained from those early days.

The memories do flow thereafter. I vividly recall getting absolutely drenched at Vale Park as a 10 year old on New Years’ Day 1990 as a Town side (I learned years later were all hungover) got walloped 5-0, ending a 13 match unbeaten run. A hammering in the freezing wind and rain should be enough to scar any normal child from long away days yet there I was, just days later, at Elland Road watching us beat high-flying Leeds United.

My partner in crime, my Dad, with me at Portman Road

And so it continued for my entire life. The ups and downs of being a football fan, watching us beat Liverpool, Arsenal, Man City, Man Utd and even Inter Milan in the UEFA Cup, alongside being beaten by Barrow, Cheltenham, Maidstone, Barnet and Oldham.

From a young age, I was defined by football. For every football mad kid people knew, I was the one that got mentioned as being most the encyclopaedic of the lot. Ipswich Town was my specialist subject and I later ended up working at the club, just like my dad had, becoming mates with some of the first-team players, just like my dad had.

That’s when things got really surreal. I became very close with ex-England star Kevin Beattie, a man Bobby Robson claimed was better than the original Ronaldo, and struggled to get my head round Beattie being my Sunday League manager, as I played alongside 1981 PFA Player of the Year John Wark and got drunk over dinner with John Motson!

Don't ask! My Dad (left) and Kevin Beattie comparing who was in the best shape, and me (third left) chatting with ex-Ipswich players Jason Dozzell, Pim Balkestein and Fabian Wilnis in the recording studio.

For those 44 years there had been only one club for me.

One I’d follow all over England. Every home and away game as we finally escaped League One in 22/23 and almost every match during the Championship campaign that followed as we clinched back to back promotions to return to the ‘Promised Land’ of the Premier League.

Ipswich celebrating promotion to the Premier League against Huddersfield in May 2024

Sky Sports will constantly try and convince you that you’re supposed to yearn for away days at The Etihad, The Emirates and Anfield and I’ve done them all so far this season. But it’s not quite been the same story at Portman Road.

I was absent for a very rare home match in the 2-0 win over Chelsea back in late December. Instead I spent that week in Pembrokeshire, largely to be there for the re-opening of the Ogi Bridge Meadow Stadium in that far-from-classic victory over Aberystwyth. 35 years on from the Port Vale debacle, finally a much better New Years Day. It was that day that it truly dawned on me just how deeply I’d fallen for Haverfordwest County AFC.

With a wife originally from Pembrokeshire, we’d had plans for the last decade to move to Wales one day. With our eldest leaving High School just months before the youngest was due to start there, we’d identified 2025 a while back as our chance.

The Bluebirds were the closest team in the top two tiers to where she‘d grown up and therefore, very importantly, were playable on Football Manager. Over the years I’ve frequently replaced Wayne Jones, Nicky Hayen or Tony Pennock on my way to knocking TNS off their perch. Take that Mike Harris!

Elis with Wales International Wes Burns, who took a shine to him with him being Welsh and a long-haired speedster, and helped him order the exact same headbands to wear when playing!

This club became of interest to me more and more as time wore on, until the point where I was dancing round the living room as Lee Jenkins’ deflected shot ruined KF Shkendija’s ‘training match’. However, it was always at arm’s length. I’d check the scores and keep an eye out but wasn’t too heavily invested in goings on in the Cymru Premier League.

That all began to change last July. A trip to Halfords to get a new wiper blade quickly became a tour of a then empty stadium after Dennis O’Connor noticed my family and I snooping around outside as I pondered whether this might end up being my new home the following summer. That was it. Love at first proper sight. I don’t mean Dennis, although he was a perfectly charming and lovely man, but Ogi Bridge Meadow. Even with a pitch due to be ripped out any day. Other potential relocations like Pembroke and Milford Haven were quickly out the window. We were moving to Haverfordwest!

From that point I’ve followed every game live this season in one way or another, getting some strange looks in doing so.

In the last few weeks alone I have broken the silence in the away end at Anfield to shout as my phone notified me that Dan Hawkins had equalised against Bala. I’ve stood amongst hundreds of Southampton fans by the away end for the best signal to watch us take on Penybont on Sgorio. I’ve been secretly happy kick off at Coventry was delayed last weekend so I could listen to more of the first half commentary from The Oval. Oh how it’s great to have another yellow and green side nicknamed ‘The Canaries’ to try and dislike!

It‘s evident that the balance has now tipped. Next weekend I’ll be missing another Ipswich home match, swapping watching Son and Kulusevski for Ahmun and Fawcett and taking in the visit of Cardiff Met. Plans are already in place for a first Haverfordwest away match at Cyncoed Campus for the return fixture in April before heading to Stamford Bridge the next day as part of my farewell to Ipswich Town.

Our previous home game (At the LHP in Carmarthen) vs. Cardiff Met where we were victorious 1-0. Picture by John Smith/FAW

I am now so impatient to make the move. For the past few weeks I’ve become less and less invested in my upcoming visit to Old Trafford and more and more interested in how I’ll get to Flint Town United next season. As I’ve contacted more and more people in Pembrokeshire, from Ryan, to thank him for the incredible resource that’s been The Bluebirds Nest, to Alaric, who kindly helped my son Elis sponsor Abu, his favourite player since he too became emotionally invested in the club, I continue to be blown away with everyone that is part of this special football club.

Elis, who has his sights on playing for Haverfordwest, at Bridge Meadow on New Years Day for Aberystwyth

From this moment on I’m all in. I’m excited to trade the football tourism, the soulless identikit ‘stadium bowls’ and the antics that have sadly become necessary in a multi-billion pound industry for the charm of the Cymru Premier every weekend.

I’ve watched god knows how many cup draws to try and work out how the bloody hell to pronounce Penrhiwceiber! I’ve got the hang of ‘Rangers’ at least. I’m slowly learning to speak the language one hilariously basic phrase at a time and have absorbed every bit of knowledge I can of the league’s history from the Irate Eight right through to plans to lure Merthyr with a £6m carrot.

By meeting my future wife, fate determined that Wales, especially Pembrokeshire, would become dear to me and I cannot wait to spend the rest of my days in your beautiful part of the world. I didn’t set out to pick the Bluebirds. It just happened. But the one thing I can tell you from the warm welcome I’ve had from everyone I’ve reached out to at the club is that if I were to have deliberately picked any club to dedicate my future to, I couldn’t have found a better one.

See you all next Friday!

Asa Jennings