SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
Ipswich Town... 2
Huddersfield Town... 2
Saturday 25th October
2014
@ Portman Road Stadium
Ipswich
I had a bad feeling about this journey, I just couldn't get to sleep all night with things churning over in my mind, nightmares about the four and a half hour trip to Portman Road and I found out why during the course of the train ride out there. The sun was in the sky which was almost totally blue apart from the odd cloud which looked like a small sailing vessel in a vast ocean, although the temperature was quite cool in the morning as you would expect on the last Saturday of October when the clocks were due to go back a hour in the small hours of the morning signalling that winter was well and truly on it's way.
The first two trains were OK, both arrived at the station when they should and made good time on the trek towards East Anglia. I got off the second train that was heading for Stanford airport at Peterborough, there was a scheduled wait of around 35 minutes for the departure of the third train that would take me on to Ipswich and so I made my way to platform six to await it's arrival. But as the time grew nearer for the train to arrive there was an announcement on the tan ahoy that the train would be held at Peterborough station until further notice as a young person had been hit by a train between March and Ely. I was sat on that train in the station for 1 hour and 40 minutes before we were allowed to move on and complete the journey which meant I missed the first 25 minutes of the game including the first goal.
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| Sir Bobby Robson Stand |
As I mentioned earlier I missed the first goal by Tommy Smith for Ipswich but did manage to view via TV highlights and basically a corner from the left from Teddy bishop found the head of Smith at the near post who made no mistake. He should have made it two on the half hour when Bishop once again found him with a free kick this time which Smith deflected onto the post which had Alex Smithies in the Huddersfield goal scrambling to gather the rebound.
Nine minutes after the half time interval it was 2-0 to Ipswich when yet again a left sided corner from Bishop floated over to the far post found Jonathan Parr who clipped the ball over the static Huddersfield defence to David McGoldrick who controlled it and made a low cross which found Christophe Berra unmarked and he fired home from close range.
Although Ipswich had a two goal advantage they never really looked like being able to keep it, there was a nervousness about them probably brought about from past games were they have been in this position before of something similar only to let the opposition back into the game and throw away points and today was no exception for in the 70th minute a deep cross into the Ipswich area saw Grant Holt and Luke Chambers challenging for the ball and they both ended up on the floor and referee Richard Clark, who personally I thought had a poor game and his assistants, gave a very dodgy penalty. Up stepped Nahki Wells who fired the ball to the right of the keeper who went the same way but was beaten by sheer power and brought Huddersfield within touching distance of at least a point.
And that touching distance was well and truly achieved twelve minutes later when another cross from the right found Nahki Wells unmarked at the near post to head home to make his and Huddersfield's tally two for the afternoon.
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| Sir Alf Ramsey stand top tier |
Portman Road is a 30,300 all seated Stadium and although it's been around since 1888 it does look fairly modern thanks to redevelopment work done in the early stages of the new millennium. The East of England Co-op stand where I watched the game from is three tiered and fully covered. Across the pitch is the Cobbold stand which is two Tiered and only partially covered.
At the two ends of the pitch behind the goals are the Sir Alf Ramsey stand and the Sir Bobby Robson stand which are two tiered and fully covered. Both Robson and Ramsey were former managers of Ipswich and both went on to manage the England National side and as we all know, Sir Alf Ramsey was the manager when England won the world cup in 1966.
What I will say about the people in Ipswich which I found out to my annoyance for while being late for the kick off and in a bit of a rush as to get to the ground so I wouldn't miss any more of the game, the majority seemed so laid back that it's a wonder they weren't horizontal. They will not be rushed and are quite happy to delay you even further for they haven't, or so it seems, a care in the world.
Match Details
