Sears For Years

Freddie Sears celebrated signing his new contract at ITFC by scoring the opening goal in a 2-0 victory over Burnley. The Clarets are finding life tough back in the Championship, following their relegation from the Premier League last season.

It was the first mid-week league game of the season under the Portman Road floodlights and it was quite a tense affair until Sears' goal in the sixty-sixth minute broke the deadlock. David McGoldrick headed in a Ainsley Maitland-Niles corner five minutes later which secured a second home win in the space of four days and effectively put us top of the league!

'He's getting the bus' It was the Park & Ride from Martlesham for me, meeting Max from work in Degeros

Ipswich attacking the Sir Bobby in the first half - Im never keen on this

A good nights work

Another fist pump from Luke Chambers - keep 'em comin'

Running Down A Dream

I spent the Friday evening before our first home league match of the season, running twice under the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand and around the perimeter of the stadium as part of the inaugural Ipswich Twilight 10K race. It was a good course and an enjoyable run, particularly as I got a PB. Anyway enough about me!!

It was nice sunny afternoon in Ipswich  -  much too hot to play football, but very pleasant for enjoying a cold Amstells at Degeros!

Sheffield Wednesday are a much improved side from last season and are tipped to do well this time around. They took the lead through Ross Wallace in the nineteenth minute, but as in Tuesday's nights game versus Stevenage we came back to win the game 2-1, thanks to goals from Freddie Sears and the much maligned Tommy Smith.

Mick McCarthy has targeted the team to go unbeaten at home all season, so far, so good!

We rounded the afternoon off back at Degeros, Sharon was driving so it was a quick pit stop before going home - how sensible!

So far, so good

Portman Road selfie!

It's A Knock-Out

At last Mick McCarthy (at his fifth attempt) has won a cup game as Ipswich Town manager.

He made ten changes to the starting line up for the home Capital Cup tie against Stevenage Borough, only captain Luke Chambers survived from the side that had drawn 2-2 at Brentford on Saturday.

Josh Yorwerth, Myles Kenlock, Larsen Toure and Brett Pitman were all given Ipswich their debuts.

Stevenage, under new manager Teddy Sherringham, took a first half lead when Christophe Berra unfortunately scored an own goal with a deflection past his own keeper Dean Gerken.

Yorwerth and Jay Tabb both scored second half goals to ensure that Town progressed to the next round. 

The enigma?

Sitting in the East of England Co-operative Stand again

Full time in Mick's first cup win at Ipswich

Ashes To Ashes

The Evening Star's take on the new sesason

Brentford away - I'd been looking forward to this day ever since June when the fixtures were announced.
I knew that there would be a high level of demand for tickets, as the capacity for away fans is only about 1600. We managed to get ours, thanks to Sharon, who joined the queue at Planet Blue at 8.45am on the Friday that they were released. I couldn't go as I was on my way to Düsseldorf!

It was decent of the England cricket team to bowl the Aussies out before lunch in the fourth test, regaining the ashes in the process and all just in time before the football season kicked off.

The Royal Oak had closed down, so there was no four corner pub challenge this season!

We had a pre-match beer in The Princess Royal

The Chiswick Arms - the nearest pub to the away end, we did console ourselves here at full time!

So the season began for us at Griffin Park against the team that had finished fifth in league (we had finished sixth). I was both surprised and pleased that Sky TV hadn't selected to broadcast the match live on the Friday evening.

There were debuts for Jonas Knudsen, Josh Emanuel, Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Ryan Fraser in the Town starting eleven, who took the lead just before half-time, thanks to Kevin Bru.

New boy Fraser doubled the lead five minutes in to the second half and Ipswich were cruising and I was looking forward to Luke Chambers' first fist pump of the season.
Mick McCarthy made three second half changes, Kevin Bru went off injured and was replaced by Giles Coke, who was making his Town debut, Jonathan Douglas (Brentford's captain last season) also came on for his Ipswich debut, replacing Ryan Fraser and finally David McGoldrick replaced Maitland-Niles.
In injury time it all went horribly wrong, we somehow allowed Brentford to score twice, through Andre Gray and James Tarkowski,  to wipe the smiles of everyone associated with the Tractor Boys. If ever a draw felt like a loss, it was today.

Welcome back to football - on days like these!

Some glum faces leaving the pitch

And it was until injury time!