[Lord Snooty]

Huddersfield Town v Ipswich Town
The Sky Bet Championship
Saturday September 30th - 15:00 ko
at the Kevin M. Nagle Arena

Huddersfield Town welcome Ipswich Town to Leeds Road on Saturday afternoon for the first home match for our new manager, Darren Moore.

Riding on the crest of a wave after that brilliant injury time equaliser on Monday night at Coventry, he'll be expected to deliver the full three points in this one, especially as it's against one of the teams who came up from League One. He should know all about Ipswich. They were the ones who pipped his Hillsborough Hillbillies to the second automatic spot. But let's not dwell on that.

Of the three promoted teams, the Tractor Boyz have started the best. Started better than their most optimistic of fans would expect as well. I was surprised when the pre season bookies had them down as something like 4th favourite for promotion, but they're certainly living up to Bet Fred's expectations.

They are second in the table, level with Leicester but just behind on goal difference, having won seven out of eight and just losing once. That one defeat came at home to the Leeds Urinals, but already this season they have beaten Sunderland, Stoke, QPR, Cardiff, Wednesday, Southampton and Blackburn, with the icing on the cake coming on Tuesday night, knocking Prima Donna League Wolverhampton Wanderers out of the Carabooboo Cup at Portman Road.

And they did that despite making ten team changes to the team that beat Blackburn on Saturday.

Well we're on a four match unbeaten run ourselves after wins against West Brom and Rotherham, followed by draws with Stoke and Coventry. This could be a classic.

No team news yet as I'm posting this early to give you all time to do the antigrams that you all missed out on from the Coventry match thread. Sorry about that, normal service has returned.



A brief history of Ipswich Town: formed in 1878 as Ipswich AFC, they became Ipswich Town in 1888 following a merger with Ipswich Rugby Club. They were an amateur team playing in the Norfolk and Suffolk League, the East Anglian League, the Southern Amateur League, the Eastern Counties League and eventually in 1936, the Southern League. At this point, they turned professional.

They had already moved into Portman Road in 1884, sharing with East Suffolk Cricket Club.

The club's first President, way back in 1878, was local MP Thomas Cobbold. He was part of the family that ran Cobbold Brewery. As was the President in 1936, John Murray Cobbold, who led the move for professionalism. The Cobbolds have been synonymous with Ipswich Town throughout their history and so the new stand built in 1971 was named the Cobbold Stand.

After two seasons in the Southern League, finishing first and third, they were elected into the Football League in place of Gillingham, playing just one season before war broke out and the League was suspended. They finished that season in 7th in Division Three (South).

John Murray Cobbold and his brother Robert Nevill Cobbold were killed during the war and so the Presidency was taken up by John Cavendish Cobbold. Ex Manchester United manager Scott Duncan was manager throughout this time and he led them to promotion, winning Div3(S) in 1953/54 by three points from runners up Brighton and Hove Albion.

It was just a one season stay in Division Two. They reached the FA Cup 5th round for the first time, but at the end of the season, Duncan resigned and was replaced by Tottenham Hotspur's recently retired captain, Alf Ramsey. Duncan stayed on as club secretary so Ramsey could concentrate on managing the team without having to bother with the administrative side. He had an ageing team that had just been relegated with no budget for transfers, after all they were a club that had only been professional for less than twenty years and had spent all but one of their seasons in the FL in Div3(S).

What followed was something miraculous, almost as miraculous as the 1920s rise of Huddersfield Town.

Ramsey had Ipswich into 3rd place in his first season, but followed that with winning the Div3(S) title. Both these seasons had seen the club score over 100 league goals. Ted Phillips scored 46 in the promotion season, which is still the club record.

They were back in Division Two and would not return to the 3rd tier until 2019. They had three mid table finishes and then left the 2nd Division again. But it was in an upward direction this time. Phillips was teamed up front with Ray Crawford from Portsmouth and the two of them scored 70 goals between them in 1960/61 as Ramsey led the club to the 2nd Division title.

Their first First Division season started steadily but then in a statement victory, they beat Burnley, who had been champions and runners up in two of the last three seasons, by a scoreline of six goals to two at Portman Road, a week after they had been beaten 4-3 at Turf Moor. That was followed by a win at West Brom and home wins against Blackburn and Birmingham and with those four straight wins, Ipswich were top of the league.

It was Burnley who they were competing with, all the way to the end of the season. They really got going after Christmas and only lost one of their final 16 matches, securing them the title by three points ahead of the Claret Jugs. A 3-0 win at Arsenal, while Burnley drew with Blackpool, put Ipswich top of the league with one game left. They secured the title with a home win over Aston Villa in front of 28,932 spectators. Two goals late in the game from Ray Crawford sealed the deal, meaning they were the first team to win the Football League title at the first attempt since Preston did it in the first ever FL season.

Ipswich represented England in the 62/63 European Cup (now the Champions League). It was champions only back then and having beaten Maltese champions Floriana in the first round, they were beaten by AC Milan in the 2nd round.

Alf Ramsey left soon afterwards, tempted away by the lure of managing the England national team. Not sure how that went. You'll have to look it up yourselves.

Ipswich replaced him with another footballing legend, Jackie Milburn of Newcastle United fame. It wasn't a success and two years after winning the title, they were relegated back to Division Two. Milburn quit to be replaced by ex Huddersfield Town star, Bill McGarry.

Bill had them finishing in 5th, 15th and then 5th again before in 67/68 winning the Division Two title. They won it by a single point from runners up Blackpool. They finished their first season back at the top level in 12th, but McGarry was to leave them in the lurch in January, by joining Wolverhampton Wanderers.

He was replaced by the recently fired Fulham manager, some bloke called Bobby Robson. He stuck around for the next 13 years, which went rather well actually.

His first silverware came in the form of the Texaco Cup, a competition for teams in England, Scotland and Ireland that had failed to qualify for Europe. After beating St Johnstone, Wolves and Newcastle, they faced local rivals Norwich City in a two legged final at the end of the 72/73 season. Midfielder Peter Morris scored twice in the first leg at Portman Road to give them a 2-1 advantage. Then three days later, Trevor Whymark and Clive Woods scored at Carrow Road in another 2-1 win to give them a 4-2 aggregate victory and a first trophy for Robson.

Finishing 4th in the league qualified them for the next season's UEFA Cup (now Europa League) and they pulled off a shock result in the first round, beating Real Madrid 1-0 on aggregate. That was followed by a 6-4 aggregate win over Lazio, with Whymark bagging four in a 4-0 first leg win. He scored another as Dutch club FC Twente were despatched in the 3rd round, but the run came to an end in the quarter finals against Lokomotive Leipzig of East Germany. Kevin Beattie scored late on in the first leg for a 1-0 lead to take through the Iron Curtain. They went behind in the 50th minute and with the scores level, the game went into extra time and then penalties. It was not to be for Ipswich, with the Germans 4-3 up in sudden death, Northern Ireland international Allan Hunter failed with his kick and the Blues were out.

FC Twente got their own back, beating Ipswich on away goals in the first round of the next season's competition.

They qualified again in the next season, beating Feyenoord in the first round, but losing a 2nd round tie in a huge turnaround in fortunes. They led Club Brugge 3-0 after the first leg, with future Town player Terry Austin bagging the third. That lead was wiped out by half time in the 2nd leg but it wasn't until the 87th minute that they lost it, but lost it they did and so were out again.

They finished the league in 3rd, but followed that with a disappointing 18th. That season though, 1977/78, saw them win the FA Cup for the one and only time. They played Arsenal in the Final with Roger Osbourne scoring the only goal of the game. On a baking hot day at Wembley, Osbourne actually fainted whilst celebrating his goal in the 77th minute and had to be subbed off.

That success came after another disaster in the UEFA Cup. In November, in the 3rd round, they beat Barcelona 3-0 at Portman Road, but went out on penalties again after a 3-0 loss at Camp Nou.

They were beaten by Grasshoppers of Zurich in the next season, but then they only went and won it in the next season, 1980/81. It was yet another 3-0 first leg win in the Final. This was against Dutch side AZ Alkmaar and they did have another scare. Going 4-0 up on aggregate in the 4th minute of the 2nd leg helped, but they were soon behind on the night. John Wark then scored his 36th goal of the season to settle them down a bit more, before AZ went and kept on scoring. They had it back to just one goal by the 73rd minute, but Robson's boys held on to win the trophy 5-4 on aggregate.

They had earlier finished the league season as runners up to Aston Villa, their highest ever finish, which they matched the following season as runners up to Liverpool. Europe wasn't a success this time though, losing two seasons on the trot in the first round. The first of those was against Aberdeen, the second was Roma.

That was the boom years over though as history repeated itself. The FA poached their manager again as Bobby Robson left to manage England, just like Alf Ramsey before him. And just like before, they were relegated shortly afterwards.

They made it to the first ever Football League Play Offs in 86/87, but lost to Charlton Athletic at the semi final stage. It was a six year stay in the 2nd Division this time, which ended in 91/92 by winning the title again and so arriving in the top tier in time to become original members of the Premier League.

That was a struggle, getting relegated eventually after three seasons, with a humiliating 9-0 defeat at Old Trafford just before the drop was confirmed.

Chairman Patrick Cobbold, who had shared all that success with Robson, suddenly died in 1994 and so for the first time the club was without a Cobbold family member on board. That was soon sorted though when Major Philip William Hope-Cobbold joined the board in 1995. David Sheepshanks became chairman.

They kept reaching the Play Offs and kept failing. Losing to Sheffield Utd in the 1997 semis, Charlton again in the 1998 semis and Bolton in 1999 once again at the semi final stage. They did reach the Final in 2000, beating Bolton 7-5 on aggregate in the semis after extra time at Portman Road. It was Barnsley in the Final, the last one at the old Wembley Stadium. It was 1-1 at half time, but then Ipswich went 3-1 up with new signing from Huddersfield Town, Marcus Stewart getting the third. ( ) Barnsley pulled one back, but Martijn Reuser finished it off in the last minute to give the Tractor Boys the win and a return to the Prima Donna League.

That was of course, the season we should have reached the Play Offs. And we certainly would've done had young Marcus stayed with us. But he was sold to Ipswich and that was probably one of their best ever signings. Not only did his goals (5 in 13 games) help them into and beyond the Play Offs, but he followed that by top scoring for them in the Premier League 2000/01 season with 21, which had them finishing in 5th and qualifying again for the UEFA Cup. This earned manager George Burley the Manager of the Season award.

Marcus top scored again in the next season, sharing top spot with Marcus Bent, but it was only ten this time as the Tractor Boys struggled. They had the distraction of Europe, which ended at the 3rd round stage at the hands of Inter Milan, but the league form was poor and they were relegated after just two seasons back at the top.

Burley left the club after nearly 8 years in charge and Joe Royle came in. The club went into administration, but weren't deducted any points because that punishment had not yet been introduced. They had actually qualified for the UEFA Cup again, dubiously through the Fair Play League and lost in the second round to Czech side Slovan Liberec.

They made the 03/04 and the 04/05 Play Offs, losing at the semi stage to West Ham on both occasions. The next season saw them down in 15th, which prompted the resignation of Royle.

What followed was nine seasons of mid table mediocrity with some familiar names top of their scoring charts. Alan Lee top scored in 06/07 with 17 and in 08/09 it was Jon Stead with 13. They had some right jokers as manager. Roy Keane came in and told Jordan Rhodes he wasn't good enough and sold him to us for the price of a bag of Fun Size Mars Bars. That idiot Paul Jewell had a go, as did his mate and ex Town defender Chris Hutchings. It was Mick McCarthy who next got them to the Play Offs. That was in 2014/15 and it was another semi final failure.

This one would've hurt even more than usual as local rivals Norwich City finally got revenge for that Texaco Cup Final defeat. Same score as well, 4-2 on aggregate.

McCarthy stayed on until the end of 17/18, but his successor Paul Hurst failed and was sacked after five months. Ex Norwich manager Paul Lambert came in, but couldn't stop the rot and so Ipswich were relegated back to the 3rd tier for the first time since 1957.

They had four seasons in League One, eventually winning promotion back to the Championship at the end of last season, with Kieran McKenna in charge, scoring 101 goals, clocking up 98 points, but only finishing as runners up to Plymouth Argyle.

Head to Head



Ipswich lead the head to head with 22 wins to Town's 14, with 9 draws.

As mentioned above, Ipswich Town were a non league team during our glory years, so that's probably why we don't lead this Head to Head, so our first ever meeting didn't arrive until 1957 after they had won promotion to Division Two under the leadership of Alf Ramsey. He wasn't a legend of the game yet and neither was the Town manager at the time of this first game which took place at Leeds Road, Bill Shankly. It was Shank's boys who won it 3-0 in October, with an own goal from Dave Deacon opening the scoring. Eighteen year old Kevin McHale was next on the score sheet, with Alex Bain, a recent signing from Motherwell, rounding off the win. Ipswich won the return match in the following April 4-0 as we finished the season in 9th, one place behind the Blues.

We had another 3-0 win in the next season, as well as our one and only ever meeting in a Cup competition, which was a 1-0 defeat at Portman Road in the 3rd round of the FA Cup.

We had our first win down there on the opening day of the 59/60 season, Derek Hawksworth grabbing two of the goals in a 4-1 win. Shankly had left for Liverpool by the time the return match came around and it was Eddie Boot in the caretaker's seat as we completed the double with a 3-1 win at Leeds Road. Hawksworth scored his third goal of the season, all of them against Ipswich and he didn't score any more all season.

Ipswich won the title in the following season and they did the double over us, so we didn't play them in the season after that as they became champions of England. They were back down again in 1964 and back up again in 1968, doing the double over us again in their 2nd Division promotion season under the Bill McGarry management.

We won promotion a couple of seasons later and so met for the first time in Division One in 1970. After winning the first two matches of the season, we then went nine games without a win. Ipswich came up to Leeds Road in October and we got our third win. It was a 1-0 victory and it was the man known as Chopper, Jimmy McGill, who scored the goal. they won the next game and did the double over us in the next season as we got relegated and so it was ages before we played each other again.

We had a couple of 2nd Division seasons together in the mid 80s when Ipswich won all four games. And so it was the mid 90s when we met up again after that. This was in the 2nd tier, which we now call the Championship, after Neil Warnock had got us promoted before handing the job over to Brian Horton. Ipswich had just been relegated from the Prima Donna League. We got our first win over them for 25 years when Simon Collins scored for us in a 2-1 win at the McAlpine Stadium. Ipswich defender Steve Sedgley scored twice in the game, luckily for us, one of them was an own goal.

The next season was a struggle for us as Ipswich made it to the Play Offs. We just avoided the drop, but remarkably did the double over the Traktorz. Andy Payton scored twice alongside Marcus Stewart in a 3-1 win at Portman Road in the fourth game of the season. Then in the game between Christmas and the New Year, Payton rounded off a 2-0 win after young Ian Lawson had given us the lead.


They beat us 5-1 at theirs in the next season, the one we know as The Great Escape. We struggled against them in 98/99 as well, but then when Peter Jackson had been replaced by the great Steve Bruce in 1999, he put together a brilliant team and the home win against Ipswich was the third game in a six match winning run that took us up to 2nd in the league. Goals that day came from Jon Dyson, Chris Beech and the superb Stewart. Matt Holland scored theirs.

By the time we met up again in February, the club was in turmoil, the fans were angry, but the team were still in 5th. What was the anger all about? Bruce, chairman Iain Ayre and owner Barry Rubery had colluded between each other to sell Marcus Stewart to Ipswich. He'd already scored on his Tractors debut the week before we played them, a 2-0 win at Barnsley, so when we went down to Portman Road on the 12th of February, we dreaded the worst. And it happened. Jamie Scowcroft gave them the lead. Dean Gorre equalised and then late on in the game the inevitable happened as Stewie got the winner. What a kick in the teeth that was.

And so they stole our promotion, beating Barnsley at Wembley, and we didn't play each other again until we got promoted to the Championship in 2012. We had five seasons together in this league until we went up in 2017, which meant we were in a higher league than them for the first time since 1957.

We only won once in the first four seasons, in 2015 when Nahki Wells and James Vaughan scored in a 2-1 win at our place. We did the double over them in our promotion season and it was the Christopher Schindler show in both games. He scored a header from a corner at Portman Road to give us a 1-0 win and then scored the second in a 2-0 win at ours, after Izzy Brown had scored the first.

That was the last match in this series. When we came down from the Premier League, they were down in League One, from which they got promoted last season, so here we go again.....

So what's going on down in the old Tractor Shed? Managed nowadays by Kieran McKenna, the former Man Utd u18's manager. He was born 37 years ago in London, but was raised in County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland. Like most people in Norn Irn, he grew up as a Man Utd supporter.

He played gaelic football as a kid for Enniskillen Gaels, but then got into soccer playing for Enniskillen Town United and Ballinamallard United at youth level. Then he went and got a scholarship with Spurs, back in that there London. Whilst with Tottenham he represented the Northern Ireland national team at under-19 and under-21 level.

Unfortunately, he got injured and was forced to retire from playing aged just 22, without making a first team appearance. His next move was to go and study for a sports science degree at Loughborough University and did some coaching stints at his former club Spurs, as well as Nottingham Forest and Leicester City. He also had a two month stint over yond with Vancouver Whitecaps.

After graduating, he was given a job back at Spurs, working through various roles before becoming manager of the u18s team, reaching the FA Youth Cup semis in 2015. That led to Manchester United making an approach for his services, which being a boy from Eniskillen, was too tempting to turn down.

After a couple of years there, he was promoted, alongside Michael Carrick to be assistant manager to José Mourinho after the previous number two, Rui Faria was fired following a quite unbelievable result in which Manchester United were actually beaten by little Huddersfield Town. José didn't last much longer and when Ole Gunnar Solskjær became the new manager, McKenna was kept on and the same when Ole left and Ralf Rangnick came in.

Feeling like he was riding his luck somewhat, he then jumped ship when the Ipswich Town job came up after Paul Cook was potted. He officially took charge on 20 December, alongside his assistant Martyn Pert. He guided them to mid table obscurity in that first half season, but then in the next season he and his team won promotion to the Championship as runners up to Plymouth, with McKenna winning back to back Manager of the Month awards for March and April.

They confirmed their promotion in style with a 6-0 win at home to Exeter City. The Ipswich board were so chuffed, they gave him a new four year contract.

Last week's Championship line up at home to Blackburn:

31 Václav Hladký - Czech keeper, ex St Mirren and Salford City.
2 Harry Clarke - Arsenal kid, signed after loans at Oldham, Ross County, Hibs and Stoke.
6 Luke Woolfenden - 24 year old centre back, been there since age 11.
15 Cameron Burgess - Ex Accrington, Aussie international defender, born in Aberdeen.
3 Leif Davis - From Wallsend Boys Club, via Morecambe and Leeds Urinals.
5 Sam Morsy - From t'Egypt, ex P.Vale, Chesterfield, Wigan and Boro.
25 Massimo Luongo - Aussie international, ex Swindon, QPR and the Wendies.
7 Wes Burns - Welsh wing back, arrived via Bristol City and Fleetwood.
10 Charlie Chaplin - Ex Barnsley striker, won last season's League One Golden Boot.
33 Nathan Broadhead - Welsh international striker, signed from Everton in January.
27 George Hirst - Sheffield born striker, who's dad was a Wendy legend.

Subs:
8 Lee Evans - Sweaty comedian signed from Wigan.
9 Freddie Ladapo - Striker, now at his 17th club.
11 Marcus Harness - Ex Pompey winger.
12 Dominic Ball - Ex QPR midfielder.
13 Cieran Slicker - 21 year old keeper, yet to make his league debut.
14 Jack Taylor - London born Irish u21 international, signed from the Pish.
18 Brandon Williams - Full back on loan from Man Utd.
20 Omari Hutchinson - 19 year old winger on loan from Chelsea.
24 Dane Scarlett - 19 year old striker on loan from Spurs.


They made ten changes for the Wolves game in the Cup on Tuesday and lined up as such: Hladky, Ball, Edmundson, Baggott, Williams, Evans, Taylor (Luongoat), Jackson (Burns), Harness (Aluko), Hutchinson (Humphreys), Ladapo (Hirst). Unused subs; Woolfenden, Chaplin, Slicker, Donacien.




Club connections:

Marcus Stewart: Was one of the best players ever to pull on a Huddersfield Town shirt. By all accounts a thoroughly decent bloke as well and it's such a damn rotten shame that he's now been diagnosed with this horrible condition called Motor Neurone Disease. The life lottery sucks!

Some of you will be going on the Miles For Marcus sponsored walk, if so, feel free to drop your Just Giving link on here or whatever it is we're using these days.

Marcus was born 50 years ago in Bristol and first came to our attention playing for Bristol Rovers. We knew all about him by the time we played Rovers at Wembley in 1995, but he still managed to score against us, a minute after Andy Booth had given us the lead.

Although Boothy was and always will be a Town legend, I was well chuffed when a small portion of the money received for his transfer to The Wednesday went on bringing Stewie up to Huddersfield in the summer of 1996. He made his debut in a 2-0 league win over Charlton, but his first three goals came in the form of a hat trick the following Tuesday night in a home win over Wrexham in the League Cup.

His first league goal came in the fourth game of the season, a brilliant 3-1 win at, of all places, Portman Road. A week later, he had another couple. It was a Friday night Sky game against Oldham, 2-1 down with five minutes to go, he was presented with a chance in front of goal, instead of blasting it, he did what became regular thing for him, shimmying to wrong foot the defenders and goalkeeper, he took it to one side, opening up the goal to fire home. A classy finish made all the better when Kevin Gray scored an injury time winner.

Sadly, he got injured shortly after this and after goals at Stoke and then Colchester in the Cup, his next goal didn't come until Grimsby away in February, which is why he only made 19 appearances that season and why we struggled at the wrong end of the table.

The next season, the one where Peter Jackson and Terry Yorath came in to save us from relegation, Stewie was the only one scoring in the first part of the campaign, but when Andy Payton went off to play for Burnley, Marcus formed a great striking partnership with Wayne Allison.

He scored a brilliant goal in the famous win at home to Stoke, the one where Jacko was charging up the touchline shouting at Paul Dalton in injury time.

He bagged another one down at Stoke in the return game later in the season, a six pointer against relegation rivals that eventually saw Chris Kamara sacked at the Britannia Stadium.

Marcus was our top scorer with 16 that season and bettered that with 26 as Jacko and his boys went top of the league in the early stages of the next one. He scored in the 3-2 win at Tranmere on a Friday night in September to go top of the league during a five match winning streak.

One of his best goals was a magical back heel finish in a 1-1 draw at home to Sunderland which kept us top before the wheels started to come off. The wheels had really fallen off after a shock 7-1 defeat at Barnsley, but Marcus had us back on course the following weekend when he bagged a brilliant hat trick at home to Crystal Palace as we gave the Eagles one of these nights by winning 4-0 with us being able to take it easy after Marcus's third goal. Delroy Facey added the fourth.

The following season saw Steve Bruce replace Jacko and he brought in Clyde Wijnhard to partner Marcus up front. What a dynamic duo they turned out to be in what I think was the best team I've seen whilst watching the Town. Shame it didn't last. 

Stewie got his account open for the new season with a double over Blackburn Rovers in a 3-2 home win, though the first of his brace was officially given as a Simon Grayson own goal. That was followed by a disappointing 1-0 reverse at Tranmere, but the next visitors to the McAlpine were them there Eagles again (please no more song titles).

The new kid in town, Clyde, got a hat trick to add to two more from Stewie and one each from Chris Beech and Kenny Irons as Town won 7-1. Probably the best Town performance I've seen. We were like Brazil that day.

His next goal was a "Panenka" style penalty in a 1-0 win at Wolverhampton, which apparently annoyed Bruce. Meanwhile we actually had a League Cup run going on, including a famous win down at Chelsea where Bruce had Marcus playing at left back for most of the game.

Just after that game, we went on another brilliant run in the league, winning nine games out of ten to go top of the league. Things were looking good. But the rumours of a big money transfer away from the club would not go away. He kept on scoring though but sadly the two he scored in a 2-2 draw down at Crystal Palace would turn out to be his last in the bright blue n white as the next week saw the dastardly trio of Bruce, Ayre and Rubery sell him to Ipswich.

He scored 67 goals for us (68 if you count that Grayson og), which has him 14th in our all time goal scorers chart, level with the great Ian Robins. Here's a compilation of all his goals on YouTube, courtesy of those guys from the And He Takes That Chance podcast.

So Marcus went to Ipswich and became a legend there as well. As soon as he went there, he scored at Barnsley on his debut, then came that infamous goal against us. He really endured himself to the Tractor family when he scored three goals in their Play Off campaign, which they won to get to the Premier League.

He was the leading English goal scorer in the whole of the Premier League in that season that saw them finish 5th. No international call up though. Two Ipswich Town Player of the Year awards followed before he went on his merry way again, up to Sunderland this time.

He only went and won the Championship with them.

He was 35 years old by this time though and instead of playing in the Prima Donna again,  he went back to Bristol, signing for City, before finishing off at Yeovil and then Exeter.

Ipswich in popular culture: Struggling to find much here. There's the actor Richard Ayoade who was brought up there. As was the British tennis player, the late Elena Baltacha, who moved to Ipswich aged two when her footballer dad, Sergei Baltacha came to play for Ipswich Town. Darts players Keith Deller and Mervyn King. That's about it. No YouTube videos for this one.












Recent form - last 6 matches:

Coventry 1-1 Town
Town 2-2 Stoke
Town 2-0 Rotherham
WBA 1-2 Town
Town 0-4 Norwich
Boro 1-1 Town

Ipswich 3-2 Wolves (EFL Cup)
Ipswich 4-3 Blackburn
Southampton 0-1 Ipswich
Sheff Weds 0-1 Ipswich
Ipswich 3-2 Cardiff
Reading 2-2 Ipswich (EFL Cup, won on pens)

Town are 17th in the Championship table with 9 points. Ipswich are 2nd with 21.

Leading scorers:

Terriers:
Jack Rudoni (2)
Michal Helik (2)

Tractors:
Nathan Broadhead (4)
Freddie Lapado (4)
Conor Chaplin (3)



September the 30th down the ages: How did we get on in previous matches played on this date?


Let's start with a big win. On this date in 1933, we beat Sheffield United 6-1 at Leeds Road. Having finished the last three seasons in 5th, 4th and 6th, Town would go on to finish 2nd, our third and final runners up position at the top of English football.

It would be Herbert Chapman and his Arsenal team who would win the league, the second of their hat trick of titles. But today we faced the Blades and not only were we the sharpest tool in the box, we blunted them so much that they ended up getting relegated as the bottom side.

Three goal scorers for the Town, managed by Clem Stephenson, each scoring twice. First up was Batley born Jack Smith, who went on to be a legend at Newcastle and Man Utd. George McLean got two as well. He came from Forfar but was a Bradford Park Avenue legend, scoring well over a hundred goals for them before joining us. He scored 46 goals in his time with us and is 31st equal in our all time goal scorers chart. Also scoring a couple was wing half Wilf Bott from Featherstone.

Moving on to after the war when Town were struggling in the First Division and a record defeat at Division One level. It was the actual heaviest club loss until Man City in 1987 in Div 2. Clem's younger brother, George Stephenson was now Town manager and on this date in 1950, he took his downward spiraling Town side up to Ayresome Park and they got hammered 8-0 by Middlesbrough.

This came after a pretty decent start and we were actually top after four matches. But a 6-0 reversal at Newcastle and a 6-2 defeat down at the Arsenal really put a dampener on the Town's red hot start. The week after Arsenal, saw the team lose 4-3 at home to Sheffield Wednesday and this Boro debacle was three defeats in a row.

There were some Town players in the team that I've written about on here before. Jeff Taylor the opera singer, Conway Smith the son of Town legend Billy Smith, Eddie Boot the future Town manager and Vic Metcalfe, who my auntie used to catch the bus from Mirfield with. I wonder if she gave him some stick on Monday morning.

Boro were managed by one of Chapman's Arsenal legends, David Jack and had the Golden Boy of England at inside forward, Wilf Mannion, who now has a statue at the Riverside Stadium, based solely on this performance against the mighty Huddersfield Town. He scored a hat trick in this match, as did Alex McCrae, with Johnny Spuhler and Geoff Walker getting one each.

On this date in 1967, we beat Blackburn Rovers at home 2-1. Brian Clark got the first, before going on to Cardiff later in the season, where he would become a European Cup Winners Cup scoring hero. Our winning goal came from John Coddington. He's 13th in our all time appearances chart, having played 356 matches for the blue n white stripes. Sadly for him though, by this stage of his career he wore the blue n white quarters of Blackburn and this was an own goal.


On this date in 1995, we beat West Bromwich Albion 2-1 at the Hawthorns. It was our first season back in the 2nd tier, with Brian Horton taking over from Neil Warnock, who had walked out on us after winning promotion to join south west giants Plymouth Argyle.

It was our first away win of the season and new signing Tom Cowan scored the first. Andy Booth got the second and Bob Taylor scored for the Baggies.


And in 2003/04, we had been relegated to the bottom tier again for the last time ever and the first time since we were promoted in 1980. Since we were last down there, automatic promotion and relegation had been introduced between the Football League and the Conference and so on this date in 2003 we had our first ever meeting with Kidderminster Harriers.

The game was played at the McAlpine Stadium and we won it 1-0. It was young scoring sensation Jon Stead who got the goal, his ninth so far in the season which would see him transferred to the Premier League with Blackburn Rovers and the team, managed by returning hero Peter Jackson, promoted via the Play Offs.

Ipswich Anagrams: some football related, some not, but all mentioned in this match thread.

1. Acts Swarm True 
   
2. Trapdoor Man 
   
3. Teach Anabella 
   
4. Barry McGill 
   
5. Erroneous Borg 
   
6. Nickname Karen 
   
7. TV Worker Myrah 
   
8. Bad Clot Bonds 
   
9. Daycare Hairdo 
   
10. False Army 
    

[jjamez]

1 Marcus Stewart
2 Portman road
6 Kieran McKenna
7 Trevor whymark

[talkSAFT]

Great post, Snooty!

[theo_luddite]

Your mention of The Texaco Cup got me going back to my school days of 1971, to The Watney Cup and when the mighty Halifax Town had been the highest scorers in then Division 3 (and if I'm right were the last 3rd placed team not to get promoted or involved in later play-off's as only the top two got promoted at the time, though that wasn't this season). This was a pre-season competition and teams qualified by being the top two scoring sides in their division the previous season (that hadn't otherwise won a title, qualified for Europe or been promoted).

They played the then really mighty Manchester United, (George Best, Bobby Charlton, some up and coming kid called Denis Law, Alex Stepney and all that) and beat them 2-1. So mighty, Man U had finished 8th, but only Champions Arsenal and Runners-up L666s had scored more goals.


'Fax Manager at the time, Geore Kirby took the plaudits, but his head coach was some guy called Mick Buxton, the brains behind the move for the first goal, which he later used to devastating effect as Town's Manager when we won the old 4th Division. Malcolm Brown cross, delivered to the head of Ian Robins, goal. Worked almost every time.

The Shaymen lost in the next round at home to some team call West Bromwich Albion. Who they then? Well they'd finished 17th on 35 points, two places below some other club called, er Huddersfield Town.

Innovators to the end, The Shaymen were the first professional club to wear shirt numbers on the back and front of their shirts. Where would they put them now? They said it was to help see the numbers on TV but I think Kirby couldn't see his hands in front of his face and he did it for his own benefit.

For some reason, both sides wore 2nd kits, but as lots of folks still saw the outside world in black and white back then, the traditional blue and white of Haifax and red and white of Man U would have looked more or less the same to them on the tellybox.

Back in the day there were probably more Man U fans living in Halifax than Shay fans (probably still are) and many queued for tickets at the Shay ticket office. Those I went to school with were not happy bunnies on the Monday I can tell you.

---

PS - well done Snoots, it could take whilst kick off Saturday to read all that

4. Barry McGill = Bill McGarry

[ritchiebaby]

4 - Bill McGarry
9 - Richard Ayoade
10 - Alf Ramsey

[theo_luddite]

5. Roger Osbourne

---

On the, admittedly very few times, I sampled some of Cobbolds brews I tihought them superior to Greene King. Sadly, Cobbolds is no more and by a convoluted route of takeovers and mergers the brand is now owned by said Greene King, who have no intention of resurrecting a superior brew. The yeast strains will no doubt be long gone so it woudn't be the same anyway.

[ritchiebaby]

3 - Elena Baltacha

[ritchiebaby]

8 - Cobbold Stand

I took ages looking for Stan Cobbold's name, but couldn't find it. I was blaming the green print and then it came to me!

[theo_luddite]

Raking over old coals from a previous thread.
Haven't seen this widely reported, or even on the local bulletins yet.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023...-and-woman
Wonder who that pair might be?

[theo_luddite]

Deary me, we were bad under Frothy last season but Wendies tonight? Who do they play next? Oh, yes, new manager guaranteed.