Saturday 29 December 2012

Big 5 at the Big Stoop

Harlequins 26 London Irish 15, Rugby Union Aviva Premiership - Twickenham




Strange that Harlequins get just over 10,000 at home games at the Stoop but move less than a mile down the road to Twickenham and with clever marketing get 82.000.




Football could learn a bit from Rugby, plenty of kids, free tickets and the remaining tickets cheap- if Ipswich did the same we could get a full house at Portman Road of over 30,000 say at £5 to get in.



Plus the fans will come back, my ticket was free and for an England game would have been close to £70 - plus pre match entertainment what more could you want?




Good rugby may have been the answer, fans will come back as a good day out but the rugby was poor and table topping Quins struggled to beat second from bottom Irish.





The Stadium is brilliant, good views from most seats, and well organised entry and exit - so learn football - or rugby will be taking all our future fans.



What could be improved is the Rugby museum - good but need more to look at but only £2 to get in you can't complain

Wednesday 26 December 2012

Better result this time, South of the river

Wednesday 26th December 2012, Charlton Athletic 1 Ipswich Town 2 - Championship, The Valley





A much better result this time we ventured south of the River Thames, saying that anything would have been better than that game at Palace.




Murphy is proving me wrong and put in a great 85 minutes today - win was needed as both Sheffield Wednesday and Peterborough keep winning


Saturday 22 December 2012

The rain came and the skill went!

Saturday 22 December 2012, Ipswich Town 1 Bristol City 1, Championship - Portman Road

The rain came and came and stayed but the skill went - more two points lost than a point gained!

Sunday 16 December 2012

Arbroath to Cornard - a one man show!

Saturday 15 December 2012, Cornard United 0 Halstead Town 2, Thurlow Nunn Division One, Blackhouse Lane



I was expecting goals, last time I saw Cornard they let in 14 goals and before the game they had a goal difference of minus 74

But it was closer game than expected with a young Halstead team only putting two past Cornard. One of the reasons is that Cornard have a number of new players including the keeper who was outstanding, making a number of superb saves. Halstead are a young team who try to play a passing game so maybe never had the killer touch to put a shed full of goals past Cornard.


Chris Symes the long serving manager at Cornard is looking to hand over, I say manager, he is actually owner, gateman, programme editor, seller, groundsman and numerous other jobs. There is no one else! One of the substitutes made the tea at halftime and Chris alternated from selling programmes, collecting gate money, serving beer and giving the team talk.



So Cornard may not even exist next season – but visit if you can, great pitch and a ground that would be good enough for a few levels higher. Chris has a number of contacts in the pro game and the Cornard ground has been used for training by a number of top teams from England under 21s to Everton to Walsall.


Chris also has success as a non-league manager at Braintree and Chelmsford but also in the early 70s he was a coach at Scottish side, Arbroath who managed to beat Rangers. How do I know this? The club house is a mini museum to Chris and every space in the bar has a signed replica shirt. If he just sold the shirts he could keep the club going for one more season.

Sunday 9 December 2012

DJ Campbell -"scores, when he wants "

Saturday 8 December 2012, Ipswich Town 3 Millwall 0, Championship - Portman Road

Looking up now and not looking down! Super Mick (and TC).

Saturday 1 December 2012

Not quaint - more rundown

Saturday 1 December 2012 - Long Melfoed 1 Braintree Town reserves 8, Thurlow Nunn League, Division 1, Stoneylands




May sound like a hammering, but Long Melford did play some football against a Conference Reserve side (who did not have a 1st team game today!)





In the end, the superior skills, fitness and a quality subs bench told.




Dave Gooderham (a native of Melford) did tell me the ground was quaint - more rundown to me - but great cup of tea!


Wednesday 28 November 2012

"Luke Hyam! He's one of our own"

Tuesday 27 November 2012, Ipswich Town 3 Nottingham Forest 1 - Championship, Portman Road




How can we play like that Tuesday after being so poor Saturday?

Saturday 24 November 2012

Will Mick keep us up?

Saturday 24 November 2012 - Ipswich Town 1 Peterborough United 1, Championship, Portman Road
I think Mick will keep us up - but and it is a big but! This is a very poor team and we need fresh faces in January plus we need to get rid of some dead wood

Tuesday 20 November 2012

From the train

Tuesday 20th November 2012, Witham Town 2 Bury Town 4, Ryam League Cup, Round 3 - Spa Road Witham




The ground you can see on the train from or to London, always thought it would be easy to catch a game there - and it was.




Not only was it easy to get to, I managed to see a good game of football, it seemed no team wanted to go to the dreaded penalty’s - so the last 15 minutes were end to end football with Bury getting two goals in last few minutes.

The ground is basic but a roof on all 4 stands is a luxury at this level. Witham also have the noisiest fans- well three of them who you would have thought they were in a crowd of a few thousand rather than about 50!

Saturday 17 November 2012

Embarrassing

Tuesday 13 November 2012 - Walsham Le Willows 1 Ipswich Town Reserves 5, Suffolk Premier Cup - Summer lane
Saturday 17 November 2012 - Leicester City 6 Ipswich Town 0, Championship, King Power Stadium

On Tuesday we saw our club in a good light, taking a strong team to play a village side and Big Mick charming the locals then today we were a joke - or as Mick said on Radio 5 - 'embarrassing'



Saturday 10 November 2012

Pride back

Saturday 10 November 2012, Ipswich Town 2 Burnley 1 - Portman Road, Championship



Before the game the players shook hands with soldiers from 1 Royal Anglians - the soldiers had just returned from Afghanistan - the fighting spirit rubbed off on the players as like our British soldiers, they showed pride, determination and fighting spirit- pride is back.


Friday 9 November 2012

Murder in Saf London

Tuesday 6 November 2012 – Crystal Palace 5 Ipswich Town 0, Selhurst Park – Championship
Wednesday 7 November 2012 – Ipswich Town Under 21’s 0 Swansea City Under 21’s 1 – Training Ground

Tuesday – a disgrace and will have shown Mick that he has some job just to keep us up.



Wednesday – Now the turn of the Reserves and another defeat – Mick would not have seen much to encourage him – but I was please as Mick and Terry watched the whole game and Mick even contributed to the half time team talk.



Mick will keep us up!

Sun then mud!


Weekend 3/4 November 2012, Euro Cyclo-Cross Championships and British Competition


Saturday saw the Euro Cyclo- Cross Championships arrive at Chantry Park – a dry, sunny but cold days saw some fantastic racing – with 3 very different races – the Junior Men’s race was a display of total domination by the Dutch rider (son of a former Tour De France rider) the next race, the Men’s Under 23 had a very tactical race with the Belgians and Dutch fighting each other and then the end race of the day saw a GB win in the women’s race – which needed a photo finish to decide that the Gold would stay in the UK.



Sunday Saw a British race event – but still saw Belgium win the Elite race – but rain all day saw mud, mud and more mud- but yet again fantastic racing.



Now let’s get the World championship in Ipswich.

Thursday 1 November 2012

3 Stadiums in one day!

Barcelona is a great city for many reasons but as a footie fan hard to beat.




On Saturday we managed to get to see Espanyol play at La Prat but on the Monday we managed to get 3 Stadiums in - no games but still good to visit .



We started at the Nou Camp and a visit to the FC Barcelona museum then the security man let us slip into the Mini Estadi, home of Barcelona 'B' then it was off to the home of the 1992 Olympics.


There are also a number of other second and third division grounds you could visit in the city - so get over to Barca and enjoy the trip.

NOU CAMP



BARCELONA 'B'


OLYMPIC STADIUM



More than one team in Barcelona

Saturday 27th October 2012, Espanyol 0 Malaga 0, Spanish Primera Division

Estadi Cornella - El Prat



I had to escape the dire football being served up at Ipswich so off I went to Barcelona, but not a game at the Nou Camp for me it was to the 'other' team in Barcelona - Espanyol.






Their stadium may not be a big as the Nou Camp but it is one of the best grounds in Europe and very new but has a great feel to it.




Not a big crowd as third placed Malaga arrived in town; Espanyol may be near the bottom but were the better team in an entertaining nil nil draw.




One myth we hear in England is that football is far cheaper on the continent - not so in Spain and TV also rules the roost here - you can see every game on live TV as not one game kicks off at the same time. Another pain is that kick off times are not decided till a week before the fixture.



So if you go to Barcelona, take a tour of the Nou Camp, visit the Olympic Stadium but catch a match at La Prat!