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.

Happy Murphday

Ipswich won their game in hand, beating Blackburn in a rearranged match, (due to Rover's recent FA Cup run), under the Portman Road floodlights, on a very cold Tuesday evening, getting to within one point of the play-off places, with just nine matches left to play.

There is still a feeling of doom and gloom around, it seems that the majority of the Town fans had given up on the season going into the game and some of them were even calling for manager Mick McCarthy's head, especially after our one-nil defeat at fellow play-off rivals in Cardiff on Saturday.

Max and I moved down towards the front of the North Stand, relocating the season tickets to try some different seats, in readiness for next season, yes we are going to renew!

The crowd of 16,488 (214 from Lancashire), was the lowest attendance of the season at Portman Road this season so far and they were very quiet, mind you, there was very little to cheer about coming from the pitch, in what I have to say what was another unentertaining game. After an hour had been played, I felt that the game had nil-nil written all over it. Fortunately Daryl Murphy,(celebrating his thirty-third birthday), had other ideas and gave Town the lead from the penalty spot after sixty-seven minutes, following a shove on Luke Chambers in the box.

Murphy was on the scoresheet again twenty minutes later, substitute Luke Varney, (facing his former club), broke from, inside the Town half and played the ball to the birthday boy, who took a touch before unleashing a fantastic shot from twenty yards out, past Jason Steele and into the Rovers net.

Town now need to beat rejuvenated Rotherham, who have found a new lease of life under Neil Warnock, at home on Saturday. It will be the first home game that I have missed all season, due to a trip to France.

Once You Pop, You Can't Stop

Note the name Dozzell amongst the subs - Jason's sixteen year old son Andre

That's on-loan Ben Pringle, who scored the only goal in a 1-0 victory, for the second game running, adding to his winner at Huddersfield last Saturday.

Nottingham Forest were the visitors to Portman Road on 'Supporters Day', (Town fans from all over the world meeting up for various functions over the weekend). Luckily we were all treated to an entertaining game of football - much better than what we have watched recently!

Bartoz Bialkowski was on top form in the Ipswich goal, making several sharp saves to help build a platform for us to take the three points. Also having an outstanding game was Kevin Foley, another recent addition to the Town squad. He ran the re-jigged midfield and it was he who set up Pringle for the games only goal in the sixty-third minute.

After the recent doom and gloom/over expectancy/reality check, we are all of a sudden sniffing around the top six again. In reality though I think the top four are sorted (Burnley, Hull, Middlesbrough and Brighton) and it's between Derby, Sheffield Wednesday, Cardiff, Birmingham and us to sort out the final two play-off places with twelve games left to play.

Holiday Blues

I came home from a really good holiday in South East Asia not very enthusiastic for football, which is very unlike me.

Since Christmas Ipswich haven't been playing that well or picking up many points, we didn't add to the squad during the January transfer window and lost to Portsmouth in the FA cup after a replay at Fratton Park, so not too much to get excited about.

It was three weeks to the day that I attended my last Town match, the 2-1 home win against Reading, since then we have lost away at both QPR and Bristol City.

High flying Hull City were our visitors, for yet another Tuesday night game. We were more than a match for them in the first half and were unlucky not to go in at halftime with the lead, after Daryl Murphy’s shot had hit the post.

It was City who took the lead though, three minutes after the restart, with a cool finish from Mohamed Diamé, past Bartoz Bialkowski and from that point on they completely controlled the game, in a similar style to what Middlesbrough had done earlier in the season.

As much as we tried the visitors held strong and took all three points back ‘up north’, and remained at the top of the table, bringing our sixteen game winning run on a Tuesday night, to an end in the process.

The defeat, (our fourth in five matches, including the FA Cup loss), dropped us down to tenth place, six points off the play-off places.

When the fixtures were released back in June I picked out next Saturday's away game at Huddersfield, as one to go to, but such is my lack of enthusiasm at the moment, I'm not going to bother! I figure out I'll have another chance to go there next season!

Not Pretty In Pink

Our home match v Reading was put back from Saturday afternoon to Tuesday night, due to the Royal's involvement in the FA Cup fourth round - we didn't have a cup game, having lost a replay against League One Portsmouth at Fratton Park, but enough of that already.

It was the eve of mine and Sharon's holiday to Singapore, Burma, Koh Lanta and Thailand, so we thought that we'd celebrate the occasion and have a rare, (nowadays), pre-match beer. We met Max at his flat and walked down the road to his new local The Brewers Arms, a pub that I had never been in before.

We made our way to Portman Road after a couple of San Miguels and were in our seats in time to see the two teams enter the pitch, Reading wearing a truly awful strip, of what I would describe as, insipid pink - it looked like a white kit having been washed alongside something red by mistake! They describe it as African Violet.

The seasons lowest attendance of 16,616 witnessed a first half which was as bad as anything that I've seen all season, it reminded me of the 0-0 match versus Wigan just over a year ago. It was that bad that Sharon was reevaluating her renewing her season ticket!

The second half did start a little bit brighter, but it still had a feeling of a goalless bore. Ryan Fraser gave Town a surprising lead, (from my point of view, given my negativity!), in the fifty-seventh minute, when his shot, from a Freddie sears cross, deflected off Jake Cooper and past Reading's stranded keeper Ali Al-Habsi.

Cole Skuse, gave away a needless penalty ten minutes later, after needlessly bringing down Hal Robson-Kanu in the box. Garath McCleary converted the resultant penalty to level the scores.

With just a minute remaining on the clock, substitute Brett Pitman popped up with the winning goal smashing in Fraser's low cross from close range, extending Town's record of wins on a Tuesday night to sixteen and moving us back up to sixth place in the table, in the process.

Rush Hour

It was all of a rush to get to football on Saturday, having spent the morning at Max's flat assembling his bed and putting up curtains (which I failed miserably at!) We were driving home to Kesgrave at 1.30pm, the time that I like to going to the match.

After we had a quick change of clothes and bolted some food down Sharon kindly dropped Max &me back into town. As she pulled away in civic drive I suddenly realised how cold it was and realised that I hadn't got a hat with me. Luckily I just about had time to visit Planet Blue to buy a new one!

I let Harry use my season ticket so he could stand with Max, whilst I got one in the Sir Bobby Robson upper as the lower was all but sold out, mainly due to the £10 tickets, that were available for season ticket holders to buy for their friends and family.

I finally got to my seat, coffee in hand, about three minutes before the teams came out.

To be honest the game wasn't that much of a spectacle, Preston, who are doing the best of the three sides that came up from division one, seemed content to go home with a draw, even though they took a seventh minute lead through Daniel Johnson!

Daryl Murphy levelled things up after thirty-eight minutes with a long range shot, which from my vantage point high in the upper-tier seemed to take ages to hit the net.

Apart from that the only other excitement during the afternoon was a Preston goal ruled out for off-side after sixty minutes and Towns appeal for a penalty just before full time, when Paul Huntington handled the ball in his own area, but the ref was having none of it.

Recently I've sat in The Sir Alf upper and The Sir Bobby upper where the views are quite good but there is a distinct lack of atmosphere in either, if it's taught me anything it's that I much prefer standing down in the Sir Bobby lower.

By the way that hat was a godsend

A Crazee Night

Leeds brought over two thousand fans with them to Portman Road, that's great away support for a midweek match and they were all in buoyant mood after Souleymane Doukara gave them the lead after just twelve seconds of the match!

Everybody associated with Ipswich were shell shocked, especially Jonathan Douglas, whose dillying on the ball had led to the goal, there was the fear of conceding another early one. However, we went on to dominate the match, once we had weathered the first fifteen minutes. The team was actually applauded off at half-time, even though we were still trailing by the odd goal.

Luke Chambers got us back on level terms within five minutes of the restart, heading in a cross from Ryan Fraser. It took until the ninety-second minute for our dominance to finally count  and take the lead, securing all three points in the process, (for the second match running the early leavers missed out on the drama). Substitute Brett Pitman headed in another cross from the lively Fraser, to send Leeds home empty handed. It was all that they deserved, having hardly mustered a single attack since taking that twelfth second lead.

After the game United boss Steve Evans slated Ipswich's style of play, accusing us of just playing long balls up to Daryl Murphy, whilst we may have been guilty of that in some games, I thought that our passing football tonight was as good as we've played all season.

Town boss Mick McCarthy gave a good retort to the little fat man “He can talk, can’t he? He certainly gives his jaw some exercise, I don’t know what else but his jaw certainly gets some exercise." - touché!

At half-time I asked Crazee to have a photo taken with Tracey, who was celebrating the last day in her forties! We had teased her about being mascot, so this was the next best thing!

Leeds Keeper Marco Silvestri had the worst kicking display I can remember in ages

The three points lifts us to fifth place in the league table and on a personal level I got up to seventh place in the TWTD's Prediction League table.