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

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

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!

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.

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).

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!