Rat Trap

ITFC v Leicester November 23rd 2013

I was looking forward to the match against second in the table Leicester City and was anticipating a decent game. It seems like ages since my last visit to Portman Road, that dreary Friday night at the start of the month against Barnsley. Max once again deputised for Sharon, who seems to be losing a bit of interest in the Tractor Boys at the moment, not that he's too bothered!

My Movember effort

Paul Anderson, The best ITFC Mo?

Things started very well, with David McGoldrick giving Town the lead within two minutes. The visitors looked a bit shell shocked by this, especially keeper Kasper Schmeichel. We were on top for much of the opening twenty minutes, but as happens all too often we couldn't find that second goal and allowed them back in the game.

Leicester were certainly the better side after the break and Ipswich's Nemesis and modern day pantomime villain David Nugent scored twice in six minutes to ensure the Foxes went away with all three points. That's now13 times that Nugent has scored against us in 12 matches and he certainly lapped it up in front of the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand as he celebrated each goal.

I was really pissed off when we left the ground, I felt overall we were a draw. Sharon probably made the right decision to stay away!

Ipswich 1-2 Leicester

McGoldrick 2                Nugent 51, 57

Att: 18,227

The playlist

Rat Trap by The Boomtown Rats - by coincidence the same weekend that The Wolsey Theatre began their Christmas Pantomime run with Dick Whittington, ITFC's very own "King Rat" David Nugent showed up to spoil things for Town fans once again. If only somebody had of shouted "He's behind you."

Smalltown Boy

ITFC V Barnsley November 1st 2013

If Carling picked live matches......

Anniversary tweet

Mick McCarthy's first anniversary in charge of Ipswich coincided with a match live on Sky against his home town club, Barnsley, under the Portman Road floodlights on a Friday night. To coincide with this there was a promotion for season ticket holders to buy up to a maximum of four tickets at £10 each (bit of an insult to season ticket holders in my opinion - having said that Max, Dale & Ben took advantage).

Strange to see Bagpipes at Portman Road - it did however encourage a few poppy sales

The 18,000 plus in the ground, along with the Sky viewers were treated to the worse game of football at Ipswich in recent memory and I can only imagine some of the post match comments, "Cor I would'n pay to watch that shit every week" etc, etc. It was so boring and pretty embarrassing to be honest, a poor advert for ITFC.

Aaron Cresswell congratulates referee Andy Durso on another fine performance and gets a red card for his efforts!

We were expected to beat the struggling Tykes quite easily and when Daryl Murphy headed in the opening goal I along with most of the other fans inside the ground expected us to collect all three points.

In fact he opposite happened, we were so poor and allowed Barnsley back into the game, especially after the break. To be honest it looked more likely that the visitors would leave PR with a win after Jim O’Brien’s 70th minute equaliser.

I heard my first "grunts" towards McCarthy as the game came to a close, some supporters have got very short memories, a year ago we were craving for a manager who would sort the mess out here, Big Mick has done a massive job stabilising the club in the last twelve months, he never promised that it would be pretty.

Ipswich 1-1 Barnsley

Murphy 41                    O'Brien 70

Att: 18,361

The playlist:

Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat - Barnsley & Mick!