Boxing Day Ales

Festive beer

Cheeky portion of chips

The vinegar strokes

Salt 'n vinegar selfie

There was a crowd of 23,615 at Portman Road, the highest of the season so far, for the Boxing Day match against Queens Park Rangers. There were only 974 fans from London at the game, which when you consider that the cost of tickets for them was £35 each and that there were no trains running from the capital. It’s also quite understandable, given the fact that the relegated side have hardly set the Championship alive this season.

Sharon and I made our way to the match from The Nelson after a pint of Shingle Shells and a pint of Ghost Ship (for me, Sharon was driving so she stuck to Lime and Soda) We did stop for some chips on the way there though, opposite the Buttermarket - I can't wait to get back on the low carbs diet in the new year!

The same starting line up for the sixth consecutive match

We were sitting in the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand, having given up our season tickets to Max and Harry, due to there only being limited seats available in the Sir Bobby lower. The view we had from the upper tier was good, but there was no atmosphere at all, having said that the atmosphere inside the whole of the ground was so subdued, I think that everybody must have had a Christmas hangover!

Things were hardly inspirational on the pitch, it really was an awful first half, made even worse when somehow the visitors took a shock lead deep in to injury time, courtesy of headed goal from Junior Hoilett.

The place came to life shortly before Jonathan Douglas scored an equaliser with an overhead kick past a bemused Robert Green, the much loved (by Town fans), Rangers keeper, in the seventy-seventh minute, was it the flare in the North Stand that had gotten everyone excited?

In the ninety-third minute Luke Chambers did what all good captains do, he scored the winning goal with a great header - just when I was thinking that a one-one draw wasn't the end of the world! A perfect Christmas present and great reward for having to endure the first hour or so of the match.

I can't help but smile at times like these at all of the 'fans' who leave matches early, some of them having lost faith, others just want to beat the traffic, it takes all sorts I suppose.

2-1

An extra special fist pump today!

The mid point of the season

No Christmas Cheer

One of the pre-season favourites for promotion, Derby County, were the visitors to Portman Road and there was plenty to cheer about leading up to the last game before Christmas, following the two excellent away wins in the last seven days.

The match was similar to the previous home game versus Middlesbrough, in as much as Town were equal to their visitors until we went behind, this time it was Tom Ince who gave Derby a first half lead, that town were unable to respond to.

The result means that we have failed to beat any of the top four (Middlesbrough, Hull, Brighton and now Derby) so far this season, whilst at the other end of the table, we have a one hundred percent win rate against the bottom four (Bolton, Rotherham, Charlton and MK Dons)!

We are still sitting in the play-off positions at Christmas, but I feel a win at home versus QPR on Boxing Day is a must.

The Salvation Army Band playing some pre-match carols

A Pearler From Freddie

How do you celebrate thirty years of marriage to the perfect woman? How about a two day city break in London? Sounds like a plan. Oh and Ipswich just happen to be playing Fulham away!

We travelled First Class from Ipswich to London Liverpool Street on the 11.09am train and then got on the Underground to Embankment.

After checking in to The Strand Palace Hotel we took a short stroll to Covent Garden and after buying a couple of Christmas presents we got the Tube to Putney Bridge station, where we met up in The Rocket, with Darren, Henry, Mikey & his dad Ray (who kept us well entertained with his museum stories!) We had a couple of pints in there before getting a taxi to another pub nearer to Fulhams ground. I can’t remember what it was called, but they were having a barbecue in December, along with Mold Wine.

It was only a short walk from there to Craven Cottage, the weather was horrible, although perfect for a midweek, floodlit, game of football, in December. The fine misty rain which had started as we left Covent Garden was now set in for the night.

It's a good job we were in our seats in time for the kick-off, as Freddie Sears scored the fastest goal of the Championship season, (so far), after just sixteen seconds. There were loads of fans still filtering into the stand who missed it and what a cracker it was. Sears got the ball and raced through the heart of the Fulham defence before unleashing a great shot that flew past their keeper, Andy Lonergan!

The home team levelled things up after fourteen when Ross McCormack smashed a free-kick into the back of the net from just outside the box.

Ipswich were the only team throughout the match who looked liked they could go on and take all three points and so it proved. Brett Pitman scored the decisive goal, turning in 'Man of the Match' Sears's cross at the near post, in front of the travelling 'Blue Army' supporters, just short of the hour mark.

It was an enjoyable walk through Bishops Park back to Putney Bridge tube station in the drizzling rain, which was not planning to stop anytime soon!

We had mojitos when we got back to the Strand Palace, they probably cost more than the football tickets, but hey ho we had much to celebrate.

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.