The End?

If I've learnt one thing in the last fifteen months, it is that the great Bill Shankly was wrong when he said. 'Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.'

Football is actually not that important sometimes and it has the habit of frequently letting you down, especially when you support Ipswich Town!

The day that mum died last February, I made the decision to go to Rotherham after visiting her in hospital early that morning, I knew deep down that she didn't have long to live, but selfishly thought that she would stay alive, at least as long as it would take me to travel up to Yorkshire, watch the game and then come back home. Within an hour of leaving her I got a phone call from my brother telling me to return to the hospital. When I got back she had passed away, just twelve days short of her 80th birthday. For the record Ipswich lost two-nil and apparently it was a shit game.

This season's fixtures came out and revealed that our last game was away at Derby, on May 7th, two days after dad's 80th birthday! I immediately thought about what he was going to do to celebrate it and where he would be. His options at the time, were, to stay in Ireland, come home to Ipswich, or there was even talk of us all going to Portugal.

I have to be honest, for a little while I did wonder if I could squeeze the game in and then fly from East Midlands Airport, or even go and see him on his birthday and come back for the game, bearing in mind that promotion/place-off places could be up for grabs! Fortunately I had learnt a valuable lesson from mum and those thoughts didn't last very long.

As I've said a lot recently in my blog, it's been a very disappointing season, especially at home. For various reasons, I only managed to go to five away games all season, Brentford, Rotherham, Milton Keynes, Fulham, Wolves, but didn't see a single defeat!

My highlight and goal of the season was at Fulham on a wet Wednesday night in the middle of December. Sharon and I were celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary, two day's after we very nearly lost dad.

He had an aneurysm on the Monday afternoon at home and was rushed into Clonmel hospital, before being transferred down to Cork hospital, where a team of surgeons were on standby. Somehow against massive odds, he survived. We will be forever indebted to the Irish healthcare system for what they did in saving his life.

We did consider not going to London, with dad in a coma, but in the end decided to go.

I remember looking up into the night sky with a slight tear in my eye when Freddie Sears picked up the ball, ran through the Fulham defence and scored within sixteen seconds of the kick-off. It was at that moment I knew that dad would be okay, I daren't tell anybody that until a few weeks later!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JgbgHoatdk

We had originally planned on going to Brighton the Tuesday after Christmas, but flew to Ireland and visited dad in Cork hospital instead. Sharon & I had a great night in the bar below our B&B on the night of the match, listening to some live music and a few antidotes from the Cork bus drivers, who frequent the place at the end of their shift, whilst following the match on twitter.

We won 1-0 thanks to a Daryl Murphy goal and duly celebrated it and dad's recovery with a pint of his namesake!

As it turned out Ipswich never made the play-offs and Derby had already secured their place in them, by the time they met. Town won the game 1-0,  to finish seventh in the league. I had thought that if there was something riding on the game then I could take dad to Daryl Murphy's wife's, parents, pub, Katty Barry's Bar, in Waterford and watch it on Sky. We ended up having a a great weekend in Ireland celebrating dad's 80th birthday, did you know that he was only 65 when Town last played in the Premier League?

I had backed Derby to win 4-0, as I needed a big result to try and win the TWTD Prediction League. In the end I paid for my lack of faith and I finished in fourth place. Sharon finished in 194th place and pipped dad, who finished in 203rd place, by a point.

If only I'd...

Was this his favourite birthday present?

Let's see what the future holds, Newcastle, Norwich and Aston Villa have all been relegated, so it's not going to get any easier to get promoted out of the Championship next season, but they are all attractive away days.

I couldn't resist!

Not sure about the new home kit...

but I like the away one

Season To Be Cheerful? Not Me

Already relegated MK Dons were the visitors to Portman Road for the final home match of the season and our final game as season ticket holders, but for how long?

Hopefully Marcus Evans will Bung Mick McCarthy a load of cash in the summer, he'll make a couple of significant signings, blend them in with some of the under 21's, get a more positive vibe back and then by Christmas I'll be regretting not renewing. We can all dream!

McCarthy has been integrating some of the younger players since Town dropped out of contention for a play-off place, he started this match with Miles Kenlock and Josh Emanuel alongside Teddy Bishop, who has missed the majority of the season with injury.

Since they were formed, Ipswich have never gone an entire league season without scoring at least three goals in a home match and today was the last chance to keep that record going. For this reason I picked us to score the magic three and with a changed team I felt that we would concede, therefore I went for a 3-2 home win. I also needed the points in the TWTD Prediction League!

David McGoldrick gave Town a sixteenth minute lead from the penalty spot and it looked like it would be a walk in the park for us as I just couldn't see MK scoring at all. McGoldrick however turned villain and conceded a penalty in the last minute of the first half, which the Dons duly converted through Alex Revell.

Brett Pitman restored the lead after sixty-eight minutes and Revell levelled things up again with six minutes remaining. All of a sudden I got excited, something which hasn’t happened to me at Portman Road in ages, if Ipswich could score another goal I would get eight points!

In the ninetieth minute, Kenlock crossed the ball in from the left wing and substitute Luke Varney headed the ball into the visitors net. 3-2 fantastic!

We hung around for the players lap of appreciation before leaving the ground. I wonder how long it will be before my next visit and how much I’ll miss it?

Eight points and I moved into third place!

41 Shots

Where did it all go wrong?

The penultimate home game of a what has now become a dismal and disappointing season was against Fulham, another Tuesday evening game for our enjoyment! Sharon  didn't want to go and Max, who, following his first day back at work after his recent shoulder dislocation, couldn't be bothered either, but he drew the short straw!

There was no hurry and little enthusiasm to get into town for a pre-match beer, so instead we had a cup of tea at his flat before walking to Portman Road.

The only thing that had either of us remotely excited, was seeing Andre Dozzzell make his home debut, following his second half run out at Hillsborough on Saturday, (where like his father Jason, scored for the club on his debut, as a sixteen year old).

In truth the game was another drab affair, Dozzell did okay and showed a lot of promise, a bright light on a dull evening. I stood there in The North Stand, glad that I wasn't renewing my season ticket, it's no fun listening to the 'fans' ridiculing their own team.

My main observation of the evening is that we've lost our way as a team, the confidence, togetherness and camaraderie of twelve months ago seems to have disappeared. My fear is that unless we have an injection of funds and sign some decent players, get rid of some of the dead wood, that we seem to have accumulated, then we could be facing a relegation battle next season!

For the record, Fulham took a second half lead, through Moussa Dembele, we took seventy-one minutes before we had a shot on target and Jonas Knudsen scored his first goal for Ipswich in second-half injury time to grab a draw for The Tractor Boys.

Andre Dozzell number 41 

Season Ticket Sabatical

I hate being negative, especially about ITFC, but after the last few weeks I have become increasingly disillusioned about football at Portman road. The truth of the matter is that I haven't seen a good game there all season, it's been pretty awful to be honest, not once have I walked out of the ground with a smile on my face, wishing that the game hadn't ended.

It's that bad that I predicted a 3-1 win to Brentford on Saturday and got it right, being a smart-arse was the only consolation on what was another drab Saturday afternoon.

I don't blame Mick McCarthy for it and if he left us to take the vacant Aston Villa job, I'd fully understand. He has done a great job at Ipswich, but in my opinion he has gone as far as he can with the 'tools' available to him. If Marcus Evan's seriously wants us to get promotion to the Premier League then he needs to show a bit of faith in the man who rescued us from the jaws of League One and back him.

We've decided not to re-new our season tickets, which is a bit sad really - but going to the match has got to be fun and exciting sometimes and never a chore.

The game itself got off to a terrible start for the visitors, following a horrendous leg break for Alan Judge following a tackle in the middle of the pitch from Luke Hyam. The game was held up for ten minutes whilst he received treatment on the pitch before being stretchered off. Hyam received a yellow card for his challenge and following the restart he was continually being wound up by the Brentford mid-field and booed every time he touched the ball by their fans. He eventually 'bit' and got his marching orders in first half injury time - silly boy!
That was fifteen minutes after we had conceded a controversial goal, Cole Skuse felt he was fouled on the halfway line, but the ref waved play on and Brentford broke forward and took the lead.
We actually looked better in the second half with ten men and did create a few half chances, but it was Brentford, who made the most of their extra man, putting the game beyond our reach with two more goals in the sixty-fourth and sixty-eighth minutes.
With time running out substitute Liam Feeney scored Town's first goal for more than six hours, to at least send me home smug!

Not a good afternoon for Alan Judge

Oh Dear!

Another Tuesday night of frustration at Portman road for Max and I, against relegation threatened Charlton Athletic, in what was surely a 'must win game' for both sides. The visitors looked hungrier than us but in the end it finished in a very disappointing 0-0 draw, which in effect means that they'll go down and we'll be staying in the Championship for the fifteenth season running. Two points and no goals scored in the last three games have in effect finished us off.

Max is not the only one with a dislocation, Town's season is also now disjointed !

Seven points off the play-off's

The last time that I felt so disillusioned about renewing my season ticket was in 2006, it was when I had season tickets in the North stand upper with Sam, Max, Paul and Tom. If I remember rightly it was a boring game and at half-time with the score 0-0 I said to Paul that if we lost I wouldn't renew, look what happened... 

Note the attendance 23,592 

If Saturday's home match against Brentford is anything like that, then I'll know what to do!

No Silver Lining

We left Ipswich for the trip to the Black Country nice and early at 9.30am and were in Wolverhampton three hours later, not bad considering that we had to use the M6 toll road, to avoid long queues around Birmingham. We walked into the city centre once we had parked the car and found a Yates's, where we had a couple of drinks before heading to the ground.

Molineux is one of my favourite football grounds to visit, it's been redeveloped over the years, but still has the feel of a 'Ground' rather than a stadium. At the back of the Sir Jack Hayward Stand there are several fast food stalls and I was looking forward to getting some food from one of them in particular - Sano Spices Masala Express. I had chicken tikka in a nan bread and afterwards just to be greedy I got some Masala chips, bloody lovely!

Inside the ground there was a strange and subdued atmosphere, it was almost like an end of season game with nothing to play for, in Wolves case it was true, but from our point of view we surely needed to win?

As for the match itself, it was quite a tame and lack lustre affair, Wanderers never looked like scoring and we didn't show enough ambition to go and win it. The home fans started chanting 'Boring, boring', during the second half, showing their disapproval of what they were watching. It was quite ironic, with their former manager, Mick McCarthy, standing in the visitors dugout, himself the target of being too negative in Town's shocking one-nil defeat at home to Rotherham, before the international break - a game that I was fortunate enough to miss!

It's only the beginning of April, but unless I have a change of heart and go to Sheffield Wednesday in two weeks time, or we make the play-offs, (which is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine, considering that we're now five points off the top six), then the trip to Wolverhampton will be my last away game this season.