Help The Aged

ITFC v Reading January 26th 2014

Back to winning ways after three defeats on the bounce, to QPR at home, Preston away in the FA Cup replay and then a dismal one-nil loss at Millwall (glad that I missed that one).

Paul was in town so he came along to the game with Max and me, whilst Sharon volunteered to gloss the cloakroom - surely Town haven't been that bad lately! 

I don't know why, but we were taken back by the "on the day" admission prices, it's no secret that Portman Road is overpriced. £35 to sit in the Sir Bobby upper, £30 in the lower and £20.50 for the over 60’s.

I've known Paul since 1971 when were first years (that’s year seven in modern money) at Copleston. Our year was the last intake into the boys school before it mixed with the girls school the following year.

As we grew up we would lie about being over sixteen to buy fags and in the case of pubs, lie about being over eighteen. Then as we got older we’d try to get away with being under sixteen, so we could get into football or speedway as a child. Today Paul may have reached a new milestone - I'm saying nothing!

Did he or didn't he?

During the second half the whole ground was lit up by people turning on the torch light of their mobiles and waving them around

Reading came to Ipswich on the back of a 7-1 home win over Bolton in their last match and so will have been full of confidence. In fairness they looked the better side in the first half, although without really creating any clear cut chances. Dean Gerken did have to make one save, a shot from Danny Williams which I'm not entirely sure was bound for the back of the net. We were the happier to go in all square at the interval.

I can only assume that Mick McCarthy stuck a f**k into his players at half-time as they looked a lot sharper and more determined in the second half! He also swopped Paul Anderson for Carlos Edwards.

Daryl Murphy broke the deadlock with a rasping shot from the right hand side of the box, which went in off the bar after sixty-two minutes. Reading then went all out for an equaliser but Towns defence stood strong.

The result was put beyond doubt in the last minute of the match thanks to a great individual goal from sub Anderson, he took on and beat Jordan Obita on the right, just inside the penalty area, then slotted the ball across Royals keeper Alex McCarthy and into the net.

Sharon predicted the result and first scorer correctly and had asked Max to put a bet on for her, guess what? He forgot to!

Ipswich 2-0 Reading

Murphy 62

Anderson 90

Att: 15,323

The playlist

Help The Aged by Pulp - I think that mine and Paul’s days of getting Id’d are well behind us, all we’ve got to look forward to pretending to be sixty plus. Hey you're never to old for a challenge!