One Game at a Time
Ipswich Town (H) September 24th, no 25th. Oh hang on it might be postponed, yes Morsy is in the Egypt squad so, oh hang on no he isn't....OK 25th it is.
Traditions.
If the last few days have taught us anything it is that traditions allow people to come together. To celebrate in common cause and in familiar terms.
Of course, not all traditions require the hundreds of years of history and pageantry that went into the funeral of our departed Monarch, or which will in time celebrate the crowning of her son as her successor.
In just a few seasons, for example, we have established two traditions for our visits to the desolate wasteland of Portsea Island. That the final score shall be, in Soccer Saturday parlance, a Desmond, and, that that score shall always involve an injury time goal for the home team.
One further tradition, although very much a home focussed one, is that there will be an epic whine from the Cowley boys as to how the officials have treated them appallingly, and that but for that they would have won comfortably.
Danny and Nicky are truly the Dastardly and Muttley of the League One management game. You can almost hear Nicky chuntering away like Muttley, âmedals, medals, medals!â as Dick, sorry Danny, does his post-match rant. Like their Wacky Races act-alikes, they have a great vehicle for their ambitions but still insist on trying to game their way to victory. Equally, to date, at Pompey they have yet to win or indeed finish in the top three of the division since arriving. Very Mean Machine.
So having yet to lose to any of our top six rivals, a marked improvement on last season, we face the challenge of almost top Ipswich Town, and their loyal fanbase, still coming to terms with their ongoing fallen, if not giant then very tall dwarf, status.
In many ways the clubs have similar hinterlands, maritime based economies, albeit Ipswich by virtue of their proximity to the Cinque Ports rather than being one itself, slightly isolated from the major cities. In footballing terms however, the divergence of their paths began in the 1960âs.
The 1960 season was an up and down one for Argyle, with the Ipswich home game being the first and only example of a home match being played away from Home Park, at Plainmoor, Torquay. This was following a ground closure order of 14 days from the FA after former Labour MPâs Denis Howells performance led to a shower of paper cups, orange peel, and fatefully a beer bottle landing on the pitch. Wednesday fans take note. Ipswich were to end the season as Champions and were promoted to Division One. Argyle finished mid table in a season that saw a debut trophy League cup run, a double over Pompey, the famous 4-6, 6-4 games versus Charlton on consecutive days starting on Boxing Day and the clubs record nine nil defeat at Stoke City. One match, a home victory over the nascent Leeds team, even had Chairman Ron Blindell interfering with team selection at half time. Although a 3-1 win took the sting out of that.
The Plainmoor game, in front of almost ten thousand mainly Torquay fans ended 2-1 to the visitorâs, courtesy of a defensive mix up between keeper Geoff Barnsley and centre half Fincham which allowed Town striker Crawford to walk his easiest goal of the season into an empty net. Whether that was significant or not it proved to be Barnsleyâs last game between the posts for Argyle, and he was replaced the following week as Argyle gained an unlikely point at Anfield in a one all draw. The Plainmoor single sheet programme is still much sought after, especially by Ipswich collectors and can go for three figures, so I will pause whilst the older readers go and rummage through their collection.
Ipswich, under the then plain Alf Ramsey, who had taken charge in 1955, finished top and took their place in Division One, alongside the really big clubs like their last weekendâs opponents, The Wednesday, newly qualified for the Fairs Cup.
Ramsey the surpassed all expectations pipping Burnley and previous seasons double winners Spurs to the title for Towns first and only time as League Champions. The following season Ramsey was headhunted to coach the national team ( which went OK), and Jackie Milburn was appointed. The impact was immediate and disastrous and after finishing 17th the season after their title win, Milburn quit to be replaced by Bill McGarry and his young assistant coach Sammy Chung, but Ipswich were relegated rock bottom in 1963/4.
Unlike todays shoot from the hip chairmen, relegation was not terminal for McGarry, and here we meet one of the most traditional, yet unorthodox chairmen of a football club, âMr Johnâ Cobbold.
The Cobbolds are undoubtedly the most famous family in Ipswich, perhaps Suffolk, probably East Anglia, and come from brewing stock, shipping clean water down the Orwell for their ales. They first became involved in Town when Colonel John âIvanâ Cobbold put up the funds to allow the club to turn professional and get elected to the League in 1938. Ivan was the son of Lady Evelyn Cobbold, a colourful character who was the first recorded female convert to Islam to pilgrimage to Mecca. Having funded the club, both his sons, John and Patrick, eventually chaired it and Mr John undoubtedly led it to their halcyon days.
Prior to that the club, originally formed in a merger with a local rugby team in the late 1800âs, pottered around the Suffolk and East Anglian leagues until the Cobbold cash injection that propelled them into the League. Their ground has long been Portman Road, although before being redeveloped post Taylor Report the offices at the club still had bullet holes from when the ground was requisitioned for training by the Army during WW2. The interruption of the war meant that it wasnât until the mid-fifties that the club finally reached the second division.
It was at that point the Mr John assumed his twenty-year stewardship of the club as chairman. At best eccentric, at worst a functioning alcoholic, his determination to make the club a family affair underpinned their rise and success. When Alan Hunter was bought to shore up the Ipswich defence, his Blackburn chairman told him, I canât tell you anything about the club, but you will have the best Chairman in the League. When Hunter arrived at Portman Road, he was greeted by the sight of Cobbold standing through the sunroof of his car, firing a pretend rifle at his young son.
After McGarry and his assistant were poached by Wolves, Ipswich appointed Bobby Robson as manager. Robson was appointed after a chance meeting with a club director whilst scouting for Chelsea at Portman Road. He had been sacked the previous year after his first management stint, by Fulham, finding out when he saw the Evening Standard headline âRobson Sackedâ at Putney Station as he travelled by tube to the ground.
Ipswich regained Division One status and slowly Robson built a team that was to come within a whisker of winning the Treble in 1981. He bought only 13 players in 14 years at the club, relying on youth development for the rest. His masterstroke was persuading a young green (and Green) striker from the second division to join in 1976. Choosing Ipswich ahead of West Ham and West Brom, who were convinced they had their man, Paul Mariner left the West Country, breaking a fair few green hearts on the way out. In return Argyle got the money they needed to survive, and two players. Terry Austin, who had the unenviable and impossible task of filling the departed Mariners boots, and the unfortunate John Peddelty. The young talented centre half had already fractured his skull playing for Town and a further head injury meant he retired in his first season for Argyle on medical advice. He later became a policeman in Suffolk retiring in 2010.
And Mariner? Well, he showed West Brom what they could have had, scoring on his Town debut in a seven-nil rout of the Baggies. After being taken tragically too early, both clubs paid moving tribute to a player loved by both sets of fans at last seasonâs Portman Road game. It is safe to say for that for many seasons Ipswich had a secret if distant second team fan club in the West Country.
The measure of Cobboldâs influence was his desire for a calm approach. After Robson was summoned to meet his boss after a Best inspired drubbing at Portman Road by Manchester United, Robson feared for his job. He was instead, congratulated for the fine work he was doing and sent back to continue it.
Cobboldâs rules were simple. Once the game was over, he would brook no post-mortems in the boardroom, nor would he allow for blame to be assigned to the match officials. That said he was no shrinking violet. When being shown a bottle of Manchester United, Chairman Louis Edwards, monikered champagne, Cobbold, from a multigenerational brewing company simply said âOh donât be a pillock, Louis. Weâve got millions of bottles with our name on them.â Except he didnât say pillock, and this is a family friendly site đ.
Robson was finally lured away from Portman Road, not to another club, but, like Ramsey, to manage England, before later stints at PSV Eindhoven, Sporting, where he mentored a shy retiring translator called Jose something or other, and Porto where he was known as Bobby Five O from the number of five nil wins. From there he headed to Barcelona (where a condition of his employment was that they also hired that translator bloke, Jose. I wonder what happened to him?) and then Newcastle United to replace Ruud Gullitt.
Robson was a huge success as a manager, with perhaps his greatest accolade being his cameo as team boss in the âIf Carling did Pub teams advertâ, and along with Ramsey has both a statue and a stand named after him at Portman Road. Just saying MiddlesbroughâŚyou have been warned.
Under Robson, Ipswich won their only two major trophies (if you donât count the Texaco Cup and I donât), the FA Cup in 1978 and the UEFA cup in 1981. That season they were pipped to the title by Villa (whom they beat home and away) and lost an FA Cup semi-final. Ipswich have never lost a home European tie, the best record in Britain, and that remains the second longest unbeaten run of such results, ironically behind AZ Aalkmaar, their 1981 final opponents.
With the loss of Robson came a decline for Town, which whilst gradual has yet to be completely arrested. A long spell in the Championship ended in 2018, and it is telling that in a list of Towns worst Managers, barring Jackie Milburn all came from the 2018 onwards period.
Ownership wise the death of Mr John in 1987 led to his brother becoming chairman, but after relegation in 1994 under Robson stalwart George Burley the club finally went into administration in 2003. Having recovered from that the club via a CVA that left some smaller creditors only getting 5p in the pound the club was acquired in 2007 by reclusive hospitality businessman Marcus Evans who owned the club for 13 years before selling out in 2021 to Gamechanger 20, a US based investment group. Evans retains a small stake in the club. Well, you never know do youâŚthey have done it before đ.
Ipswich were late also to the nickname game, not acquiring the Tractor Boys moniker until Leeds United called them it ironically in 2001. Since then they have seemingly never felt less like singing âthe Bluesâ. It has been fully embraced, and indeed their rivalry with Norwich is called the Old Farm Derby. Running around with shirt emblazoned Fisons, a fertiliser brand name for nine years didnât do much for the non-agricultural side of the image either.
Having landed in the third tier in 2019 this is Towns fourth go at defeating gravity. Having completely changed squad (not counting Ed Sheeran) the close season before this season under Paul Cook, a slow start meant that his services were dispensed with when placed eleventh, and copying the trend for appointing young coaches, Kieran McKenna was hired from the Manchester United Academy. They finished eleventh. Result.
Over the years, aside from Mariner, there have been few significant player interactions. On the plus side we have had the benefit of Steve âOh my Lordâ McCall in his twilight playing years oozing class, plus James Wilson currently. We also maybe didnât appreciate the talent of Conor Hourihane in his early days at Argyle where he was unfairly nicknamed Conor the Crab.
Managerially, again aside from Mariner, we had two brief caretaker spells from the previously mentioned McCall, and then from Russell âSpeedwagonâ Osman (his initials are RCO), who held the fort until the appointment of Neil Warnock in 1995.
The other way, Ipswich swooped in for Chuck Norris when the Holloway side was dismembered to temporarily assuage the financial dark clouds that eventually subsumed us. Most recently they also swooped for wantaway injured midfield bambi Panutche Camara. Town also have the perpetual contract runner down Freddie Ladapo, late of Rotherhamâs parish, so we may well face an ex on Sunday, if only off the bench.
So in a week of tradition we lose our traditional Saturday football fix, and instead host the Sky cameras, if not the Town Camara. Yet again one of the football giants at this level (record crowd 38,100) visit Home Park, (record crowd 43,596). Just saying.
There is, however, one tradition we would like to not develop. In the seasons of, or immediately after, the sale of both Mariner and Norris, we were relegated.
It is the end of a tough month, and to end with an Argyle win, would be the icing on the cake. To give the late, great Mr John the (paraphrased) final word, whatever the result it is only a crisis at this club if the boardroom (and my fridge) runs out of white wine.
Iâll drink to that.
COYG!
Ipswich Town (H) September 24th, no 25th. Oh hang on it might be postponed, yes Morsy is in the Egypt squad so, oh hang on no he isn't....OK 25th it is.
Traditions.
If the last few days have taught us anything it is that traditions allow people to come together. To celebrate in common cause and in familiar terms.
Of course, not all traditions require the hundreds of years of history and pageantry that went into the funeral of our departed Monarch, or which will in time celebrate the crowning of her son as her successor.
In just a few seasons, for example, we have established two traditions for our visits to the desolate wasteland of Portsea Island. That the final score shall be, in Soccer Saturday parlance, a Desmond, and, that that score shall always involve an injury time goal for the home team.
One further tradition, although very much a home focussed one, is that there will be an epic whine from the Cowley boys as to how the officials have treated them appallingly, and that but for that they would have won comfortably.
Danny and Nicky are truly the Dastardly and Muttley of the League One management game. You can almost hear Nicky chuntering away like Muttley, âmedals, medals, medals!â as Dick, sorry Danny, does his post-match rant. Like their Wacky Races act-alikes, they have a great vehicle for their ambitions but still insist on trying to game their way to victory. Equally, to date, at Pompey they have yet to win or indeed finish in the top three of the division since arriving. Very Mean Machine.
So having yet to lose to any of our top six rivals, a marked improvement on last season, we face the challenge of almost top Ipswich Town, and their loyal fanbase, still coming to terms with their ongoing fallen, if not giant then very tall dwarf, status.
In many ways the clubs have similar hinterlands, maritime based economies, albeit Ipswich by virtue of their proximity to the Cinque Ports rather than being one itself, slightly isolated from the major cities. In footballing terms however, the divergence of their paths began in the 1960âs.
The 1960 season was an up and down one for Argyle, with the Ipswich home game being the first and only example of a home match being played away from Home Park, at Plainmoor, Torquay. This was following a ground closure order of 14 days from the FA after former Labour MPâs Denis Howells performance led to a shower of paper cups, orange peel, and fatefully a beer bottle landing on the pitch. Wednesday fans take note. Ipswich were to end the season as Champions and were promoted to Division One. Argyle finished mid table in a season that saw a debut trophy League cup run, a double over Pompey, the famous 4-6, 6-4 games versus Charlton on consecutive days starting on Boxing Day and the clubs record nine nil defeat at Stoke City. One match, a home victory over the nascent Leeds team, even had Chairman Ron Blindell interfering with team selection at half time. Although a 3-1 win took the sting out of that.
The Plainmoor game, in front of almost ten thousand mainly Torquay fans ended 2-1 to the visitorâs, courtesy of a defensive mix up between keeper Geoff Barnsley and centre half Fincham which allowed Town striker Crawford to walk his easiest goal of the season into an empty net. Whether that was significant or not it proved to be Barnsleyâs last game between the posts for Argyle, and he was replaced the following week as Argyle gained an unlikely point at Anfield in a one all draw. The Plainmoor single sheet programme is still much sought after, especially by Ipswich collectors and can go for three figures, so I will pause whilst the older readers go and rummage through their collection.
Ipswich, under the then plain Alf Ramsey, who had taken charge in 1955, finished top and took their place in Division One, alongside the really big clubs like their last weekendâs opponents, The Wednesday, newly qualified for the Fairs Cup.
Ramsey the surpassed all expectations pipping Burnley and previous seasons double winners Spurs to the title for Towns first and only time as League Champions. The following season Ramsey was headhunted to coach the national team ( which went OK), and Jackie Milburn was appointed. The impact was immediate and disastrous and after finishing 17th the season after their title win, Milburn quit to be replaced by Bill McGarry and his young assistant coach Sammy Chung, but Ipswich were relegated rock bottom in 1963/4.
Unlike todays shoot from the hip chairmen, relegation was not terminal for McGarry, and here we meet one of the most traditional, yet unorthodox chairmen of a football club, âMr Johnâ Cobbold.
The Cobbolds are undoubtedly the most famous family in Ipswich, perhaps Suffolk, probably East Anglia, and come from brewing stock, shipping clean water down the Orwell for their ales. They first became involved in Town when Colonel John âIvanâ Cobbold put up the funds to allow the club to turn professional and get elected to the League in 1938. Ivan was the son of Lady Evelyn Cobbold, a colourful character who was the first recorded female convert to Islam to pilgrimage to Mecca. Having funded the club, both his sons, John and Patrick, eventually chaired it and Mr John undoubtedly led it to their halcyon days.
Prior to that the club, originally formed in a merger with a local rugby team in the late 1800âs, pottered around the Suffolk and East Anglian leagues until the Cobbold cash injection that propelled them into the League. Their ground has long been Portman Road, although before being redeveloped post Taylor Report the offices at the club still had bullet holes from when the ground was requisitioned for training by the Army during WW2. The interruption of the war meant that it wasnât until the mid-fifties that the club finally reached the second division.
It was at that point the Mr John assumed his twenty-year stewardship of the club as chairman. At best eccentric, at worst a functioning alcoholic, his determination to make the club a family affair underpinned their rise and success. When Alan Hunter was bought to shore up the Ipswich defence, his Blackburn chairman told him, I canât tell you anything about the club, but you will have the best Chairman in the League. When Hunter arrived at Portman Road, he was greeted by the sight of Cobbold standing through the sunroof of his car, firing a pretend rifle at his young son.
After McGarry and his assistant were poached by Wolves, Ipswich appointed Bobby Robson as manager. Robson was appointed after a chance meeting with a club director whilst scouting for Chelsea at Portman Road. He had been sacked the previous year after his first management stint, by Fulham, finding out when he saw the Evening Standard headline âRobson Sackedâ at Putney Station as he travelled by tube to the ground.
Ipswich regained Division One status and slowly Robson built a team that was to come within a whisker of winning the Treble in 1981. He bought only 13 players in 14 years at the club, relying on youth development for the rest. His masterstroke was persuading a young green (and Green) striker from the second division to join in 1976. Choosing Ipswich ahead of West Ham and West Brom, who were convinced they had their man, Paul Mariner left the West Country, breaking a fair few green hearts on the way out. In return Argyle got the money they needed to survive, and two players. Terry Austin, who had the unenviable and impossible task of filling the departed Mariners boots, and the unfortunate John Peddelty. The young talented centre half had already fractured his skull playing for Town and a further head injury meant he retired in his first season for Argyle on medical advice. He later became a policeman in Suffolk retiring in 2010.
And Mariner? Well, he showed West Brom what they could have had, scoring on his Town debut in a seven-nil rout of the Baggies. After being taken tragically too early, both clubs paid moving tribute to a player loved by both sets of fans at last seasonâs Portman Road game. It is safe to say for that for many seasons Ipswich had a secret if distant second team fan club in the West Country.
The measure of Cobboldâs influence was his desire for a calm approach. After Robson was summoned to meet his boss after a Best inspired drubbing at Portman Road by Manchester United, Robson feared for his job. He was instead, congratulated for the fine work he was doing and sent back to continue it.
Cobboldâs rules were simple. Once the game was over, he would brook no post-mortems in the boardroom, nor would he allow for blame to be assigned to the match officials. That said he was no shrinking violet. When being shown a bottle of Manchester United, Chairman Louis Edwards, monikered champagne, Cobbold, from a multigenerational brewing company simply said âOh donât be a pillock, Louis. Weâve got millions of bottles with our name on them.â Except he didnât say pillock, and this is a family friendly site đ.
Robson was finally lured away from Portman Road, not to another club, but, like Ramsey, to manage England, before later stints at PSV Eindhoven, Sporting, where he mentored a shy retiring translator called Jose something or other, and Porto where he was known as Bobby Five O from the number of five nil wins. From there he headed to Barcelona (where a condition of his employment was that they also hired that translator bloke, Jose. I wonder what happened to him?) and then Newcastle United to replace Ruud Gullitt.
Robson was a huge success as a manager, with perhaps his greatest accolade being his cameo as team boss in the âIf Carling did Pub teams advertâ, and along with Ramsey has both a statue and a stand named after him at Portman Road. Just saying MiddlesbroughâŚyou have been warned.
Under Robson, Ipswich won their only two major trophies (if you donât count the Texaco Cup and I donât), the FA Cup in 1978 and the UEFA cup in 1981. That season they were pipped to the title by Villa (whom they beat home and away) and lost an FA Cup semi-final. Ipswich have never lost a home European tie, the best record in Britain, and that remains the second longest unbeaten run of such results, ironically behind AZ Aalkmaar, their 1981 final opponents.
With the loss of Robson came a decline for Town, which whilst gradual has yet to be completely arrested. A long spell in the Championship ended in 2018, and it is telling that in a list of Towns worst Managers, barring Jackie Milburn all came from the 2018 onwards period.
Ownership wise the death of Mr John in 1987 led to his brother becoming chairman, but after relegation in 1994 under Robson stalwart George Burley the club finally went into administration in 2003. Having recovered from that the club via a CVA that left some smaller creditors only getting 5p in the pound the club was acquired in 2007 by reclusive hospitality businessman Marcus Evans who owned the club for 13 years before selling out in 2021 to Gamechanger 20, a US based investment group. Evans retains a small stake in the club. Well, you never know do youâŚthey have done it before đ.
Ipswich were late also to the nickname game, not acquiring the Tractor Boys moniker until Leeds United called them it ironically in 2001. Since then they have seemingly never felt less like singing âthe Bluesâ. It has been fully embraced, and indeed their rivalry with Norwich is called the Old Farm Derby. Running around with shirt emblazoned Fisons, a fertiliser brand name for nine years didnât do much for the non-agricultural side of the image either.
Having landed in the third tier in 2019 this is Towns fourth go at defeating gravity. Having completely changed squad (not counting Ed Sheeran) the close season before this season under Paul Cook, a slow start meant that his services were dispensed with when placed eleventh, and copying the trend for appointing young coaches, Kieran McKenna was hired from the Manchester United Academy. They finished eleventh. Result.
Over the years, aside from Mariner, there have been few significant player interactions. On the plus side we have had the benefit of Steve âOh my Lordâ McCall in his twilight playing years oozing class, plus James Wilson currently. We also maybe didnât appreciate the talent of Conor Hourihane in his early days at Argyle where he was unfairly nicknamed Conor the Crab.
Managerially, again aside from Mariner, we had two brief caretaker spells from the previously mentioned McCall, and then from Russell âSpeedwagonâ Osman (his initials are RCO), who held the fort until the appointment of Neil Warnock in 1995.
The other way, Ipswich swooped in for Chuck Norris when the Holloway side was dismembered to temporarily assuage the financial dark clouds that eventually subsumed us. Most recently they also swooped for wantaway injured midfield bambi Panutche Camara. Town also have the perpetual contract runner down Freddie Ladapo, late of Rotherhamâs parish, so we may well face an ex on Sunday, if only off the bench.
So in a week of tradition we lose our traditional Saturday football fix, and instead host the Sky cameras, if not the Town Camara. Yet again one of the football giants at this level (record crowd 38,100) visit Home Park, (record crowd 43,596). Just saying.
There is, however, one tradition we would like to not develop. In the seasons of, or immediately after, the sale of both Mariner and Norris, we were relegated.
It is the end of a tough month, and to end with an Argyle win, would be the icing on the cake. To give the late, great Mr John the (paraphrased) final word, whatever the result it is only a crisis at this club if the boardroom (and my fridge) runs out of white wine.
Iâll drink to that.
COYG!
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