There’s never ever been more football info around than there is currently, but, it’s funny, the more TV channels there are out there, the less television I watch, and, on a similar theme, I’m far less well up with what’s going on at other football clubs despite all the websites, You Tube Vlogs and blogs like this one there are around covering every side City come up against.
Part of this, is down to me and the aging process I guess. For example, I have every copy of what I still call the Rothmans Football Yearbook since the first one covering the 1969/70 season. Time was, it felt like I would read the book from cover to cover, but, as my three score years and ten gets too close for comfort, I’ve barely opened the current edition which arrived about a fortnight ago. These days, I use the Yearbook very much as a reference aid (I suppose this was always meant to be its function among normal people!) and my yellow Wisdens, going back to 1972, have undergone the same transition. My excuse when I wonder why I don’t read books anywhere near as much as I used to is that I don’t have the time any more, which, when you think that I’ve been “retired” since 2009 is ludicrous really.
All of the above is the preamble for me saying that one of the mysteries of all the pre season punditry telling us how the Championship table would look come the end of the season was how high they had Ipswich Town finishing (a few picked them for a top two finish) compared to how low the Plymouth Argyle team which pipped them for the League One title last season were tipped to finish.
I think their manager Keiran McKenna is a major reason why Ipswich are predicted to do so well and the fact that their side had a lot less reliance on loan players last season than Plymouth’s did has something to do with why Ipswich are fancied for the top six and Argyle for the bottom half a dozen. Certainly, the start the two teams have made, so far anyway, suggests that the pundits had it right regarding the merits of the two sides.
I can remember watching Plymouth beat Ipswich 2-1 early last season in what I reckoned was one of the best League One games I’d seen in recent years – I can recall thinking that they both would have beaten the City side of the time pretty comfortably, Ipswich were also impressive in winning at Sunderland in their opening game of this season and I think we’ll definitely go there as underdogs tomorrow. After all, the best thing about our win over Sheffield Wednesday was the result – the performance wasn’t too hot. By contrast, we were very good in winning at Birmingham on Tuesday, but how many of that side will start tomorrow – I’ll be surprised if it’s more than three.
Anyway, it’s good to see Ipswich back at this level, no way they are a third tier club in reality and it looks like it’ll be some time before they return there. The very tough start to our away programme definitely continues tomorrow and I’d be delighted, and a little surprised, if we can come back with a point.
Here’s the usual seven questions on upcoming opponents with the answers to be posted on Sunday morning.
60s. Odd how your mind can play tricks on you, I associate this midfielder with one of the most distinctive kits in the British game, yet he spent far more time wearing the plain blue and white of Ipswich (kudos to them as well for resisting the temptation to change their shorts colour to blue unlike some I can mention!). He started off in another country wearing yellow and red for little nomads, before signing for a club that had gone by the name “The Bank of England” during much of the previous decade, but, after not playing a single league game for them in two years, Ipswich signed him and got six years out of him during which he was a regular member of a promotion team and the one which stabilised Ipswich’s position back in Division One. As the decade came to a close, he stayed in blue and white, but wore the colours in a different style before a move to that club’s biggest rivals. There was then a move back to his second club where this time he played six league games for them. Next up was a season in Apartheid South Africa and a loan move to play in yellow and red again to end his career in full time football. He won seven caps for a country he wasn’t born in and, surprisingly, the first of them didn’t arrive until he was on the point of leaving Ipswich, who am I describing.
70s. Another player with one of those surnames that I’ve only heard in football (and then only the once). A defender, he moved a long way from home to join Ipswich and was rewarded with a debut at Anfield at the age of just seventeen. He made it to fifty appearances for the Portman Road club before he and a colleague were part of a transfer deal which saw a future England international joining Ipswich. I did read a messageboard post saying that the two makeweights in the deal were their club’s worst ever signings, that’s harsh on our man who, having already suffered a concerning head injury while with Ipswich, then went through another one at this new club and was forced to retire from the game at the age of twenty two. Following football, he returned to Suffolk and became a policeman, but who is he?
80s. An Artificial Intelligence stink from the 80s maybe! (3,6)
90s. Curse an old coin perhaps.
00s. Who was the Ipswich player who retired from football at the age of 22 during this decade to pursue a career in Gaelic Football, only to make a comeback in his native land some seven years later – winning a Player of the Year award for the Gypsies in the process.
10s. He led the Ipswich attack in a game at Cardiff City Stadium during this decade, upset the local council by making derogatory comments about Ipswich town centre shortly after signing for the Portman Road club and will be found doing media work from places like the RAW Charging Stadium, Meadowbank and Grosvenor Vale this season, who is he?
20s. Religious member of family who used to take ages to go to sleep?
Answers:
60s. Danny Hegan was born in Scotland, but played his international football for Northern Ireland and he began his career with Albion Rovers (the Wee Rovers) before signing for Sunderland who he left in 1963 without playing a game for them. Hegan then clocked up over two hundred games for Ipswich until a move to West Brom in 1969 and then he spent the first few years of the seventies with Wolves before another short stay at Sunderland (this time he played six times for them). Highlands Park in South Africa was his next port of call before a loan move to Partick Thistle to finish.
70s. Bishop Aukland born John Peddelty made his debut for Ipswich in a 2-1 defeat at Liverpool in 1972. He and team mate Terry Austin were part of the deal which took Paul Mariner from Plymouth Argyle to Ipswich in 1977, but after suffering the second serious head injury of his career quite soon after arriving at Home Park, Peddelty was advised to quit the game at 22.
80s. Ian Atkins.
90s. Adam Tanner.
00s. Shane Supple saved a penalty in the last game he played for Ipswich before the club agreed to cancel his contract because he had “fallen out of love” with the game. Supple returned seven years later to play for the Bohemians of Dublin (nicknamed the Gypsie’s).
10s. Aaron McLean was Ipswich’s centre forward in a 0-0 draw at Cardiff City Stadium in January 2013 during a loan spell from Hull City. McLean currently works as a summariser for what is now called TNT Sports in their coverage of the National League.
20s. Christian Walton, the Waltons was an American TV series from the seventies and eighties. I never saw a single episode of it, but knew all about their say goodnight to everyone ritual as acted out here.