“Every dream, if dreamed too long, turns into a nightmare,” the renowned author Andrzej Sapkowski once said. “And we awake from such dreams screaming.”

What’s the worst day you’ve ever had at work? Maybe you called your boss ‘babe’ by mistake, maybe you stumbled over by the water cooler and a couple of people laughed at you, something trivial like that. Anyway, imagine in your mind whatever that worst day entailed, and then remember that it won’t have been as bad as Harry Clarke’s.

His happened in front of 17,109 people and many, many more watching on television. This is the most-watched football league in the world, after all. Oh, Harry.

The lad had been dreaming of his full Premier League debut for his hometown club for quite a long time. He’s from Ipswich. It meant more. If there were any screams after his dream turned into a nightmare he unleashed them in private, but they were surely emanated.

It really couldn’t have gone any worse for him. And the contrast from the giddy euphoria of Ipswich Town going 2-0 up against Brentford before crumbling and drowning like a weak biscuit in a cup of tea couldn’t have been more stark.

Clarke was heavily involved in the latter as Ipswich shipped three goals in quick succession, part of a period of 24 minutes in which Clarke achieved undesirable Premier League history with the following incidents:

A Debut to Forget

Clarke wasn’t meant to play at the Gtech Community Stadium. The 23-year-old, a key part of Ipswich’s promotion from the Championship last season having joined his local team after coming through the ranks at Arsenal, underwent surgery on an Achilles problem in the summer and manager Kieran McKenna had wanted to ease him back into action.

With Ben Johnson and Axel Tuanzebe out injured, Clarke, who made his Premier League debut off the bench during the 2-0 defeat at home to Everton last weekend, was thrown in from the start.

“One of our own, he’s one of our own, Harry Clarke, he’s one of our own,” the rambunctious travelling Ipswich fans sang in the first half as the Tractor Boys looked to finally be getting to grips with the whole Premier League thing, 2-0 up and heading for an overdue first victory.

Clarke must have felt 10ft tall. He was probably fantasising how he was going to celebrate later on Saturday night. A full Premier League debut, fans singing his name, winning 2-0 and with a clean sheet, absolute perfection. Exactly how he dreamt it.

Instead, in completing football’s worst hat-trick of scoring an own goal, conceding a penalty and getting sent off as his and Ipswich’s world disintegrated, Clarke became the first player in Premier League history to endure all three on his full debut.

In fact it had only happened once before, to Southampton’s Jan Bednarek against Manchester United in February 2021. There are few things that would make Clarke feel any better right now, but at least his team didn’t lose 9-0 like Saints did that day.

“I’m getting goosebumps thinking about it!” Clarke said at the prospect of his Premier League debut after Ipswich earned promotion. “What an exciting time.”

You could only feel more sorry for him if he was a tiny little puppy giving inconsolable sad eyes as its owners left home.

There are plenty of examples of nightmarish debuts that still had a happy ending. Jonathan Woodgate did two of Clarke’s three things, scoring an own goal and getting a red card, when making his Real Madrid debut in 2005, but would later win the League Cup with Tottenham Hotspur (hey don’t knock it, they’ve won nothing since), while Joao Felix was sent off on his Chelsea debut last year (while on loan from Atletico Madrid) but that didn’t stop them paying £42million for him in the summer.

And then that chap called Lionel Messi was sent off 30 seconds into his Argentina debut against Hungary in 2005, and he did absolutely fine, you’d say.

“It was not like I had dreamed it would be,” Messi said. This was not how Clarke had dreamt it either.

McKenna had sympathy. “It’s his Premier League debut and he’s not stated a game since April, so he’ll get plenty of support from us,” he said.

“He did some good things in the game — there were some good things in his performance — but there were a few things, of course, a few defensive moments that’ll he’ll want to do better on and he’ll be disappointed with.

“But he’s a young player making his Premier League debut, coming back from a very big injury, and because of injuries we have we’ve had to throw him pretty much straight into the team, where ideally he’ll have had a longer period of maybe coming off the bench.

“Like all of our players and our culture, he’ll take his mistake on the chin I’m sure and look to learn from it, work harder and work hard on those things in training and come back again strong.”

McKenna admitted he had contrasting emotions of different extremes — pride at seeing his Ipswich team play so well and score three times but devastation at still ending up as the losing side.

For poor Clarke, it was merely the latter.

Brentford's Late Show

Mayhem. Complete and utter mayhem that, after 97 bonkers, breathtaking, brilliant minutes, left Ipswich Town fans wondering if their Premier League return is simply doomed.

Of course, the club’s analysts will pore over every minor detail in a bid to understand precisely what occurred in west London on Satuday. Mistakes will be turned into lessons for players to heed; videos will be watched and rewatched to pick the bones out of a performance that was, at various points, better than Kieran McKenna might have envisaged after losing a glut of key players on the eve of the game.

But after nine matches without a win, after throwing away a two-goal lead, after equalising with 10 men at the death only to see Bryan Mbeumo’s deep, loopy cross squirm its way into the net in the seventh minute of added time to give Brentford a 4-3 win, what other way is there for Ipswich supporters to make sense of it? Maybe it just isn’t meant to be.

In isolation, this was such a freak rollercoaster game that detailed answers probably should not be sought. But there comes a point at which repeated plucky endeavour must turn into points or else it is worthless. Call it Luton Town syndrome, if you like.

Rob Edwards’ team did not survive their sole season in the top flight and it is becoming increasingly difficult to see Ipswich doing anything other than making a similarly swift return to the Championship. Adventurous, brave, entertaining – yes. But porous. And, most importantly, winless.

“It was an incredible game,” said McKenna, who confirmed Chiedozie Ogbene had suffered a suspected achilles tear when he left on a stretcher after 35 minutes.

“It’s obviously a mixture of great pride in the performance on an individual level and team level. The quality, resilience that we’ve shown through a really challenging week led to so many good things in the performance.

“But of course it’s extreme disappointment, devastation about the late goal that means we don’t get any points for our efforts. We showed so many things today that are back on the right track. We showed our real identity as a team. I think, although we don’t have any points to show for it, it was a step in the right direction.”

Perhaps his counterpart, Thomas Frank, has unintentionally stumbled across an unlikely winning formula. Brentford had taken the lead in seven of their previous eight league games, before throwing away a league-high 11 points from those positions; an alarming statistic following the unwanted record of squandering 30 points after taking the lead last season. Then again, maybe this was just one of those peculiar, unexplainable encounters. Before what appears to be a distinctly hospitable run of games in November, the hosts are now into the top half of the table.

“We are in the entertainment business, so I thought we had to give you a bit for your money,” joked Frank, who admitted that Brentford had produced “40 of our worst minutes in the Premier League” to start the game.

By that point, his side were two goals down, Ipswich striking twice in three minutes on the counterattack through Sam Szmodics and George Hirst’s excellent finishes.

From fleeting elation, the familiar flat feeling soon returned for the travelling contingent. With half-time approaching, the ever-lively Keane Lewis-Potter began a move that culminated in Yoane Wissa burying a first-time strike.

Two minutes later, parity was restored when Wissa’s shot from a tight angle came off Harry Clarke to go down as an own goal.

Clarke’s first Premier League start quickly turned into a nightmare. Soon after half-time he dragged down Lewis-Potter for what was initially deemed a free-kick but then upgraded to a penalty by the VAR. Mbeumo confidently smashed home the spot-kick.

Clarke was booked for his troubles and his disastrous day ended early when Lewis-Potter drew him into another rash challenge, prompting a second yellow card.

Despite Brentford’s dominance, Ipswich thought they had grabbed the unlikeliest of points when Leif Davis’s brilliant cross allowed substitute Liam Delap to convert. But their joy, again, was short-lived.

A Day of Mixed Emotions

Mbeumo’s cross in injury time evaded everyone and Delap’s strike in the final few seconds cannoned off the Brentford post to the heartache of the travelling fans. “Football is relentless,” summarised a relieved Frank.

Ipswich are still winless this season.

(Top photos: Getty Images)