The View From Churchmans

I'm sure every Town fan is still looking at that score in disbelief. It would have been a tremendous result in any season, but in this one? I know that Town's goalscoring record is much better than the league position suggests, but five? Against the supposedly tightest defence in the division? Where did that suddenly come from? It certainly wasn't from any radical departure in personnel or tactics. Jewell ... More...

The cynics in the crowd were remarking at half time that this wasn't going to plan for Paul Jewell at all - he'd finally conceded to what the fans had been asking for all season, with young players through the heart of the team, and surely Town were supposed to be on the wrong end of a thumping by now, to prove he'd been right to stick with ... More...

I'm not sure when - or if - Town have previously lost five out of six home matches, but I can't even find the motivation to look it up at the moment. Perhaps the most damning statistic, however, is that in their last 10 matches, Forest have failed to score an astonishing 8 times ...but in the other 2 games, they've scored 3 goals - both times against ... More...

So... was that amazing 40 minutes at Oakwell a flash in the pan or yet another turning point in Town's season? That's what the home support came to find out, and the answer was, well, uncertain. This was quite simply two poor, unadventurous sides playing out a poor, unadventurous match, and either could have scraped a victory, although a goalless draw might have been an appropriate result. For ... More...

Town became just the eighth team in the last decade to lose seven league games in a row in the Championship, and no team has had a run like that and avoided the drop since Stoke and Bradford in 2002-03. For those who say a season in League One might not do the club any harm, I should point out that the last four to lose seven in ... More...

I'm not one of those people who think that anyone in the crowd can possibly call things better than the manager, with his intimate knowledge of the team and (I hope) opponents, as well as his experience of managing. But when 17,000 people can see that a decision he's about to make is the wrong one, well, you have to believe in the Wisdom of Crowds theory. If ... More...

The score most certainly doesn't tell the tale here. Town were utterly awful in the first half and merely mediocre in the second, and were comprehensively beaten ...by the bottom team in the table. Before this season, in the last 45 years, Portman Road had only seen the home side three goals down at half-time on three occasions in this division. Now we've had not one, but *two* ... More...

A continuation of everything which was wrong on Tuesday night, but this time against a more challenging side and with the almost inevitable result. Palace had the best record of any visiting side at Portman Road over the past decade even before this match, and now they've probably been moved up in to the "bogey team" category here. Town seemed uninspired, and just couldn't put a sustained period ... More...

This won't be the most exciting of reports, as it wasn't the most noteworthy of games. Town only really got going for a brief period in the second half, and for the rest of the game Portsmouth looked the more likely to produce something ...but it sums up the match if you consider that even so, they only troubled Stockdale a couple of times. I think the danger inherent ... More...

A fascinating match, and probably one of the best seen at Portman Road in the last few years. Two teams on form, and trying hard to play very different styles of football - Town a fast, progressive passing game, and Brighton a rather strange, unhurried, no risks approach which concentrated on not giving the ball away at any cost, even if it meant bringing the match to a ... More...

Town’s biggest win at Portman Road since last February was seen by the smallest league crowd for nearly 12 years, thanks to a perfect storm of a Monday night game on Sky, some erratic recent performances, tiny travelling support and the increasingly ridiculous-looking ticket prices. Still, at least 15,000 of us can say "I was there" to also see the first clean sheet at home since last March. Any ... More...

If Town's downfall over the excruciating past two games had been a lack of cohesiveness, inspiration and leadership, a new problem quickly - and perhaps predictably - transpired in this match: a complete lack of confidence. Yet another two new names on the team sheet, and it was clear that the management had been working on the things which had gone wrong, but this side was now just ... More...

Well, if you've seen the past 6 home matches, you've seen Town concede 17 goals - equalling the all-time club record. And this is the second time since Paul Jewell took over that Town have lost three home games in a row, something which hadn't previously happened since 1995. It might be ridiculously early in the season to say it's a crisis, but you can see how it ... More...

For the second year running, Town followed up a stunning opening-day away victory with an insipid home performance - indeed, in recent seasons the home league record in August is currently a miserable W1 D3 L4. You don't usually miss much if the season starts before you're back from your fortnight in Tenerife. The afternoon saw six players making their Portman Road league debuts, but perhaps a more ... More...

It's been an extraordinary season, when you think about it. Town have looked like candidates for both automatic promotion and for relegation at different times; there's been the worst-ever and the second-worst-ever local derby results; one of the heaviest defeats in the club's history and one of the largest away wins in the club's history; a victory over Arsenal, of all teams; and an almost unheard-of mid-season managerial ... More...