The View From Churchmans

And so the season which started with so little promise (despite the "young guns" nonsense from the club's marketing department) ended with a whimper. It was a real let-down after what had been so unexpectedly achieved in the meantime, and the many fans who'd rather have seen the marketing department get its wish can say "what a waste that the young guns didn't get their chance". But let's face ... More...

In the end, one of those magnificent performances where we came away feeling incredibly proud of our team. But it could have been oh so different! We were very slow out of the blocks, and West Ham didn't miss the chance of taking advantage of our usual calamitous defending. As the half wore on, we got back into the game, and that was perhaps ... More...

Once upon a time (and younger readers will never have experienced this), it was commonplace for the last home game of the season to have nothing riding on it. Both teams had a pleasant kick-around, everyone basked in the sunshine, and we all piled on to the pitch for a laugh at the end. Of course nowadays, if you're an Ipswich supporter, the chances of any end-of-season game being meaningless are about as ... More...

Whether history will show a point to have been enough, we wait to find out, but at least the Town side which showed up today was the one we hoped to see: the one which gets stuck in and is (almost) as good as anything else in the division. Truth be told though, Sunderland will deserve to be champions, and can probably feel they ought to have the scalp of Ipswich away ... More...

Just when we really didn't need one of those nondescript, clueless performances we seem to produce with irritating regularity, along comes a completely inept 45 minutes which even a second-half rally couldn't overcome. Wolves apparently played one of their best halves of the season (yes, I was sitting with a load of Wolves-supporting mates), but even so, at our best we'd have coped with that easily. We started with a 3-5-2 which was dragged ... More...

Remember all those games last season where we created chances at will, but gave away goals with schoolboy defending? Well, that side was back for its long-awaited encore tonight. We don't care how many you score, we'll just score one or two more. Great for the neutrals. Heart-stopping for the fans. Don't let the score fool you: Town dominated the match. At 4-1 with half an hour to go, I'm sure many of us ... More...

One of the best games of the season, if not the best, in terms of sheer footballing excitement. Excellent performance from the boys too, against a slick Derby side who came with an attacking plan to beat us (which deserved better, even if the best team on the day won). We had more decent chances on goal than in the Forest game, incredibly: there were five in the first half which either hit ... More...

Where to start? Is this team built that much on confidence that one home game it can put in a performance worthy of relegation, and the next look as good as anything this division will have to offer all year? We sat agog as the team came out, pinged it around and showed within three minutes that they were not only going to reverse the recent downward trend, but were suddenly about to ... More...

The sudden decline which set in after Christmas, but which was masked by some flattering scorelines, is now very, very apparent. We were probably just as bad as against Watford on Tuesday night, and this time against a better side too, one which knew its limitations and played to its strengths. Once again, it was a performance which can only be described as absolute rubbish. At least Joe didn't try to pretend this time ... More...

Nobody would suggest we've been playing well of late, in fact we've quite neatly spent the whole third quarter of the season (since the Wigan game) playing well below par. However, the results have continued to come in, and most of us have probably had the feeling that this really is going to be our season. Even Joe has admitted as such, sometimes quite harshly (such as describing the point at Preston as "daylight ... More...

A tough game, both in terms of football and conditions. The wind was probably the winner, as it had a big hand in most of the clear chances, but it was tight throughout, and fortune could have awarded the game to either side: fortunately it swung our way. In such conditions, it's hard to criticise anyone too strongly, and a keeper who put in even a half-decent display should be given a lot ... More...

An ordinary display from Town, with one or two areas of concern, but the outcomes were all positive, particularly three points (which was the main thing), and some confidence-boosting for the strikers, seeing their names on the scoresheet for the first time in 2005. A fairly conventional and predictable starting lineup, with perhaps only the selection of Karbasiyoon over Richards at left-back as a debating point. Westlake was suspended, and we missed his industriousness. In ... More...

Ah, the romance and glamour of the FA Cup. Well, perhaps not. If you're one of those people who thinks it matters (and we'd all like to think we are), I respectfully suggest you're deluding yourself: whereas against Wigan and West Ham I was screaming at players to get stuck in right to the end, today I had to look away whenever a player went to ground. Don't get yourselves injured in a ... More...

What a dreadful start to the New Year. At least things should be looking up from here onwards. Facing opponents who were bigger, stronger and faster than us was only half of the problem. The other half was that we played like we'd seen the New Year in with a real party and stayed for the lock-in. There's no excuse. West Ham were pretty decent, but no more so than Wigan, Reading or even ... More...

Not a match which we'll still be fondly remembering this time next year, or indeed this time next week, but a welcome three points after Boxing Day's disappointment. Although we played some sublime football for the first twenty minutes, it didn't amount to anything and (whisper it) the second half was rather boring. However, we were by miles the better team, and if Stoke had made anything of our nervous last few minutes it ... More...