Concrete Cows

Sky Sports chose to show our match at Milton Keynes live on Saturday lunchtime with a 12.30pm kick off, making it our third game in a row to be broadcast live on the channel. The game was the second one of the '10 in 10' (ten league games in ten days in December) series. Normally I wouldn't have made the two hundred mile round trip and watched it on the TV, but being a bit of an anorak it was a chance to tick another ground off the list!

'Ollie's' tour bus

The only word to sum up the experience (and I heard it so many times on the day) is 'Soulless'. Don't get me wrong, as far as new stadiums go ‘Stadium MK’ is very nice, it has  a 30,500 capacity, the seats are large and comfy, with plenty of leg room and there are very good sight lines, four large screens, a good PA  system - all mod cons! The trouble is that it's built on an out of town retail park with no pubs or cafes around, there's no real support, the only history is stolen from Wimbledon. In fact it's a model of an American franchise, except that it doesn't really work.

We arrived in Milton Keynes just after 10am and parked near to the away end, paying £7 for the privilege, I did ask the attendant if the parking fee included a valet!

After a walk round we went for breakfast, there was a choice of a few franchised (that word again) restaurants to choose from and the lads decided on Frankie & Benny’s.

Ipswich dominated the first-half right from the kick-off and even before Brett Pitman scored in the tenth minute I sensed that we could easily win the match by three or four goals. as it turned out we failed to take our chances and after the break the home side woke up and made a game of it. Fortunately we were able to defend well and went home with all three points and a clean sheet thanks to one or two fine saves from Dean Gerken. 

'Your grounds too big for you'

Not many home fans left to witness the Luke Chambers 'fist pump'

I wouldn’t imagine that the game, played out in dreary weather, in front of just 13,520 spectators (including over 3,000 town fans), made for great viewing, especially for the neutrals. Hopefully Sky’s anchorman for the ’10 in 10’ series, Ian Holloway will have better games to watch as he tours around the country!

We made it back to Ipswich in time to watch the Euro 2016 draw live from Paris and learnt that we will be watching England v Russia in Marseille on Saturday June 11th, with the tickets that we applied for and got in the ballot - happy days!

DNA...

David Nugent Again!

Middlesbrough went to the top of The Championship table (all be it briefly until Saturday at 5pm), following their two-nil victory at Portman Road in the rearranged Friday night match, which was moved to accommodate the Sky TV cameras.

Ipswich created the better chances in a very entertaining first half and would have gone into the break with the lead, but for a string of decent saves from Boro keeper Dimitrios Konstantopoulos (try getting that on the back of a shirt, luckily he also goes by the name of ‘Dimi!)

The Teessider's took the lead in the fifty-fourth minute when Christian Stuan beat Jonas Knudsen in the air to score with a close range header. From there on in just they looked to have ‘that extra bit’ and controlled the game, that’s not so say we didn’t create any chances of our own.

Twenty minutes later the inevitable happened, Nugent scored from the edge of the area with a shot that took a slight deflection of Tommy Smith before going in off the post - the jammy f**ker. He has never failed to score at Portman Road in eight visits.

On the basis of what I’ve so far this season whoever finishes above Boro will probably win the league, they certainly looked a class act. As for us? The game was a good measure to see how good we really are and in my opinion we just lack a little bit. Perhaps when Ryan Fraser and Teddy Bishop get fit we’ll be more able to compete against the better sides in the division.

Mixed Emotions

After weeks of unseasonably mild weather the winter has finally arrived in Suffolk and the visiting Wolverhampton manager Kenny definitely needed his jacket as he watched his side come from behind twice to grab a draw at a very cold Portman Road.

Sharon and I were at the ground early to get a couple copies of Dave Ablitt's book 'Howda Town Git On?' from Planet Blue, along with some Christmas presents. He was doing a book signing session along with Ray Crawford, who wrote the foreword for the book. Sharon took them home as she had decided not to go to the game, so I met Max at The Thomas Wolsey for a lime and soda (still no beer!)

All signed up with Dave Ablitt & Ray Crawford

Ray Crawford part of the 1962 Division One (Premier League in old money) Championship winning team

There was a minutes silence before kick-off in memory of former Town keeper Márton Füllöp who died at the age of just 32 on November12th after battling cancer along the victims of the terrorist attacks that happened in Paris the day after.

Town definitely let Wolves off the hook twice and really should have taken all three points from the match. Jonathan Douglas, scoring his second goal in as many games, gave us a sixteenth minute lead. The visitors, against the run of play levelled from a corner through James Henry, seven minutes before half-time.

Daryl Murphy, with his first goal of the season at Portman Road, got Ipswich back in front in the fifty-fourth minute, but as in the first half, we huffed and we puffed but just couldn't blow the house down! Then with a quarter of an hour of the match left to play the wolves levelled again when Benik Afobe headed in a great cross from substitute Adam Le Fondre.

There was a nice touch from the Portman Road crowd in the twenty-first minute when all four stands joined in with a minutes applause for our former keeper Füllöp. He was signed from Sunderland by Roy Keane in 2010 and wore the number 21 shirt. I felt that this was a more fitting tribute from the Town fans than the earlier sharing of the minutes silence.

Although it’s not quite pantomime season, Grant Holt, who is on loan at Wolves, played the part of the villain very well. The unused substitute got a rousing reception from The North Stand when he came up for a stretch, midway through the first half. There was a torrent of abuse aimed at him and a rendition of every Grant Holt and budgie song known to man. He lapped it all up and I swear it was the longest ‘stretch’ that I’ve seen all season. My favourite moment was when the crowd sang ‘Did you shag Delia?’ he turned to them and nodded and gave a wry smile!

Millers Time

Well, that was an enjoyable day out!

We're into November now and this was only my second away game of the season so far. A packed Astra, with Sharon, me, Max, Darren and Henry left Ipswich at 9am and made it to Rotherham in just under three hours, after a rain swept journey up north.

They say 'It's grim up north' but the sun was shining as we arrived!

I noticed the 'old school' pylon floodlights of Millmoor as we drove into town and so I took a minor detour to have a look at The Millers former home.

Rotherham left Millmoor at the end of the 2007/08 season to play their home games five miles down the road, at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield. This was as a result of a falling out over the cost of rent with the grounds owners, the Booth family.

I was actually surprised to see the ground still standing. Even more surprising was learning that the club had been in the process of building a new stand, which was never completed, there must have been a serious fall out behind the scenes!

I can't help thinking that I would have liked to have seen a game here

I wonder if the local business man Ken Booth who originally brought the club in 1987 (whilst it was in administration), before selling it to a supporters group for a £1 in 2004. He paid off the clubs three million pound debt, but kept the freehold of the stadium and the clubs training ground.

I wonder if he ever thought about his reggae star, namesakes lyrics 

'And l would give everything I own.

Give my life, my heart, my home.

Just to have you back again'

as he watched the New York Stadium being built across the A630, within sight of the defunct Millmoor?

Millmoor with its incomplete stand to the right and The New York Stadium in the background

We were informed by the security guard that the stadium is due for demolition and he allowed us to wonder around the outside to have a closer look. Ironically they offer football parking on the site!

After our visit we parked the car near to the New York Stadium before taking a short walk into town centre, where we found a Wetherspoons pub The Corn Law Rhymer. Sharon and I had coffee followed by Lime and Soda, no carbs, no beer! We left Max Darren and Henry in there and had a wander around the town before making our way to the ground. Rotherham is not quite the dump that I expected to find!

There was a very well observed minutes silence before kick-off as it was Remembrance Day on Sunday.

Ipswich were fast out of the blocks and it was one of those days when we could have easily scored nine or ten goals. Brett Pitman opened the scoring after just eight minutes, then Jonathan Douglas scored his first goal for Town fifteen minutes later. There was huge relief from everybody associated with ITFC two minutes before the break when Daryl Murphy finally opened his account for the season!

The feeling at half-time was that we could easily go on and knock up a big score in the second half and that was underlined when Murphy added his second goal within three minutes of the restart. Surely it was game over?

Not according to the home side, who suddenly came alive and out of nowhere Brandon Barker and Matt Derbyshire scored two cracking goals within in the space of just two minutes. So with more than thirty minutes left to play the Millers sensed that perhaps they could get something out of the game after all. Rightly so, given Town's recent record of throwing away late points at both Brentford and Forest.

Truthfully though, watching the game I couldn't really see that happening, the game was really open now and the home crowd had finally found their voices.

However Murphy silenced them when he completed his first ever hat-trick in an Ipswich shirt with seventeen minutes left to play, much to the delight of the thousand plus away fans.

Murphy celebrates his second goal

Game, set and match ball for Murphy

The end of an enjoyable afternoon in The New York Stadium

Yet another international break beckons, so no more 'proper' football for two weeks, perhaps Murphy will be able to get on the scoresheet for the Republic of Ireland in their two legged Euro 2016 play-off qualifier against Bosnia.