Ipswich 0 v 0 Everton                                Sat. 13th Oct 2001

Att: 22,820

Everton: P.Gerrard, S.Watson, D.Wier, A.Xavier, A.Pistone, N.Alexandersson, M.Pembridge, G.Naysmith, T.Radzinski, D.Ferguson, K.Campbell

Subs: A.Stubbs, S.Simonson, I.Tal, J.Max.Moore, D.Unsworth.

Substitutions: Stubbs for Watson. (56m), Unsworth for Pembridge (67m), Tal for
Ferguson ( 84m).

As we were all wondering who Walter Smith was going to play up front once he had all three strikers available, He comes up with a big surprise by playing all of them at Portman Road today. Dunc & Kev played upfront with The Rad playing on the right.
That was the good news but the bad news was that Thomas Gravesen would miss the match due to the injury that was sustained during the midfielder's international game for Denmark last week.

In the first five minutes there was a clash of heads between Gary Naysmith and Jim Magilton. Everton started to settle down better than Ipswich, & the crowd were starting to get on the home team's backs. Then after sixteen minutes Steve Watson had a glorious chance to put Everton ahead, when he rose at the far post, but he headed wide. After that it was all Everton with chances from Campbell, Alexandersson and Naysmith. Campbell's chance was made by a brilliant piece of skill by Radzinski, but Campbell couldn't come up with the goods again. Alexandersson's shot was deflected away for a corner. There was a neat move which included Radzinski and not so Super Kev, who put it threw to Naysmith. Unfortunatley young Gary, just couldn't connect with the ball.

Ipswich finnished the stronger of the two teams with two chances in the last few minutes. Gerrard, who was hadn't had a shot to save, came to Everton's resue when.
Ipswich striker Marcus Stewart had Ipswich's best chace of the match so far, but it was scrambled away by the Everton keeper. Then a shot from Martin Reuser was nearly put into his own net by David Weir.

Everton should have been ahead, & we were all thinking. 'Blackburn again'.

Half Time: 0-0

Walter put The Rad upfront with Super Kev, & withdrew Dunc to the left. Strange or what? This seem to have a bad effect on the Blues, as Ipswich stormed out of the blocks. A shot whistled past the post from Ipswich's Fabian Wilnis. Wilnis who was a half time subtitution then went down the wing & put in a cross into Matt Holland who's shot was saved by Gerrard. Ipswich where putting a lot of pressure on Everton in the first fithteen minutes of the second half after Martin Reuser's header went over the bar. Everton's play was diabolicle. Then Everton made there first subtitution bringing on Stubbsy and taking off the injuered Watson. Alan Armstrong's shot hit the side netting.

Everton recovered, but that not so Super Kev had two of the best chances of the match to put Everton ahead. One of them was the best chance of the match. Radzinski then took the ball into the box, but his deflected shot was saved by Ipswich's keeper Sereni. Then Everton made there second subtitution bringing on Rhino for Pembo, who was playing well. I then sat back to see the most wiedest Everton midfield featuring Alexandersson, Stubbs, Unsworth and Big Dunc on the left?

In the last 20 minutes, Everton didn't create anything. Well with that midfield you wouldn't. The crowd did though with a great rendition of "I'd rather be Bin Laden than a red". Jermain Wright got threw the Everton defence to fire a tame shot at Gerrard, Alan Armstrong saw his shot hit the side netting for the second time. Everton then make there third and final subtitution by bringing on Tal on for Big Dunc. Ipswich put on all the pressure in the final ten minutes with only one shot coming Everton's way threw not so Super Kev putting the ball past the post, after a great run & cross by Gary Naysmith. But Everton hung on for a well deservered point.

The lack of midfield players is now a desperate situation. We must buy now. Get that Steve Lomas £3m out of your back pocket, Bill, & give it to Walter. The Star Man was hard to pick, with Radzinski playing well, & Weir, Pisto & Abel playing well at the back.

Quotes

Walter says: "I think Ipswich's chances were not as clear cut as our own so we defended well and I was pleased with that. We changed the formation a little bit in the second-half and still defended very well then. Ipswich got quite a few crosses into the box and for ourselves we are delighted that we managed to handle that situation. I think that has been the case this season in that we haven't played well but we have created opportunities and that was the case again today. It was a disappointment from our own point of view that we didn't manage to nick one of the opportunities that fell to us in the second-half."

Sausage: You can't sing that!

Oo ar……Lookee 'ere, squoire
by
Mickey Blue Eyes.

Five a.m., Saturday morning. You have a baaad hangover and you are faced with a stark choice. It is:

(a) Do I carry on with my relentless, ruthless and unprincipled thrust to become our city's first elected mayor, thence to MP, thence to prime minister, thence to transAtlantic Green Card, thence to Senator and finally Prez and Master of the Universe

or

(b) Go on a six hour bus journey to see my footy team get a probable pasting.

???

No contest.

I went of course to flatland East Anglia and their current resident playing miracle, Ipswich. We all remember the other East Anglian playing miracle, Norwich, when they were managed first time around by, erm, Mike Walker. What goes around, comes around. C'est la vie, c'est la guerre.

But before that……yet another two weeks in the desert without a game. Many other things happened, see below, but two weeks without a game at this time of year is enough to have you banging your leisure time head on the wall until both are dented beyond repair.

The new match play format sucks. Even when we get a "normal" playing programme, what we actually get is a split of games spread over three days……all of it to suit TV. It has ruined the spontaneity of maximum Saturday games in favour of maximum useless TV advertising. Everybody I know rightly hates the set-up with a purple passion.

Previously, early morning Radio Five, Monday, an otherwise unemployable journo interviewed somebody from the Mancs with the job description of Group Managing Director, whatever that means. It seems they have started to flog insurance, mortgages and loans, known to the barrow boys who coagulate this sort of robbing muck as "financial services." It was only a matter of time. The propaganda flew thick and fast: "…extended business interests……ManU-ness (I kid you not) of the brand……broader portfolio……increased economic efficiency……synergystic impulses……vertical integration……SBUs……increased revenue streams……noo oppertoonities (sometimes they can't help themselves and they sink to Americanisms)……" And so on, forever vomity.

It was like listening to a Suit fresh off the night school production line with a MBA primer, mad zealot gleam in the eyes atop the strut of a gauleiter with padded shoulders. In the meantime the thick journo poked around pathetically before he finally fell back on the Mancs' fallen share price and said leerily, "This would seem to indicate that, haha, You're Not Fashionable Anymore." But the Suit was ready, all clichés on lock and load, with, "That isn't the way we see it. The market has undervalued us." It was enough to flatten the one-dimensional journo. Funny that, but dicksplat Ridsdale of Leeds said much the same thing a few weeks before to excuse their parlous long term position, fashionably described as "well run," oh aye yeh. Someone's lying huh? Didn't some economic thug like Minford or Friedman say "the market" is infallible? See what I mean?

For the time being, Ridsdale and his plausible ilk fool an awful lot of people who should know better. He isn't the first and he won't be the last tailor to the Emperor. Sooner or later though the bubble will burst and there won't be a damned thing he or they can do about it. Then, sadly, the game will take years to recover to a decent level. With a bit of luck Ridsdale and his cronies will be washed away on the cathartic tide.

Actually of course an MBA is merely a club entrance card, a qualification which is a counterfeit of intelligence, giving access to various meeting rooms to talk garrulous shite with the rest and worst of them. Fact is, MBA stands for Mediocre Bastard Alert. Any of them can find an excuse for almost anything, including the current destruction of four hundred lives' hopes through job losses at the Giro Bank in Bootle (remember when "financial services" were going to replace all those lost manufacturing jobs, and then it was "the computer industry"?), something the Alliance and Leicester group have been attempting since they bought the clients list years ago. Journos, MBAs and Suits, a triumvirate of leeching mendacity. Trust none of them, ever.

Then the Geordies announced their end of year figures: A nine million sterling loss, last years being twenty million. Well, sounds like those business whizzes and "creators of wealth" Shepherd and Hall have fucked up yet again, just like all the other spivs in all the other "entrepreneurial" fields. Seems they are more in debt than we are. But then, so are at least six other clubs in the top division. Those who say, "Keep politics and economics out of it," have some hard explaining to do to the rest of us who want our game to regain a semblance of fairness.

It is the same right across Europe. The Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse are in the saddle. Club debts at this level can only be sustained at the tolerance of the banks. One English club has even sold its season ticket revenue to the Suits TWENTY YEARS IN ADVANCE. Anyone who thinks that is economically efficient ought to go and have his/her head seen to by a surgeon with a Black and Decker forehead drill and no available anaesthetic. A major slump ("recession" is the new Ministry of Truth term) might well mean a calling in of assets. Oo-er. Almost time for everyone to get real and leave the casino before mindless delusion damages our game beyond repair. Stock exchange, gambler's anonymous, it is all cut from the same repulsive cloth.

In the meantime the present eight years old phony league set up has inevitably run out of the impetus of novelty. Gates are beginning to fall (though this might be arrested temporarily if the national team does well in the World Cup), including ours. You only have to look at most away sections at most matches. Just as most of our fans have reached the end of their patience with Smiffy, so have fans everywhere who are in two minds about travelling to away games. They are asking themselves, "What's the point?……What for, TV advertising and sponsored shirts? It has all the insanity and lack of conscience of Railtrack, PFIs and all the other lying garbage.

Not that it will stop the more stupid among a tiny minority of our fans wailing about our debt, dealings and excessive salaries while screaming for new, better players (presumably on even more excessive salaries) and a youth academy too. You wonder when these deadbrains are going to disappear up their own rectum. When their heads stop turning it is odds on they will face the wrong direction. But they'll still spout rationalised bullshit and keep the bile flowing. Never underestimate the power of self deception among dickheads.

The Smiffy debate proceeds at full ebb and flow: Should he stay or should he be, well, fucked off? Me, I'm happy to let events take their course for another six games…… which takes us to the end of November. It is an interesting spread of opponents, three home, three away. Forecasting is basically silly but fascinating too, so I'll put my head on the block and say we should get at least nine points therefrom. Anything less and Smiffy should say sayonara before it gets out of hand. I have much sympathy for his predicament but enough is enough. Playing matters are in his hands, nobody else's, and the squad, though slight, is perfectly capable of playing some reasonable and effective footy if properly motivated and organised. On top of that he is now living on time borrowed from the fans' phenomenal patience and good will during his tenure. Though he puzzles me, I like Smiffy a lot. But there's no question it is looking ominous for him.

Doubtless if and when he goes the moronic crony Melledrew Tendency will blame the board. Scapegoats, somebody to hate, are eternally necessary for sour paranoia and ill-intentions. Somehow they seem unable to get it through their ten millimetres deep simian forehead and no-neck that sometimes things just go wrong, that winning is cyclical for everybody. Examples abound throughout sport, always have done, always will. Ipswich/Norwich are a classic example. There is no quick fix. Indeed, yes it is true, the board are not entirely blameless because nobody is, given the present situation….. but they don't play or manage the games. If we were high up the table (and it could have happened just as easily as four straight losses) it is a safe bet you wouldn't be hearing anything except gee whiz! praise th' lord an' pass th' tambourine! a la Elmer Gantry. Upton Sinclair, where are you when needed?

These are the selfsame morons who tried to perpetrate the lying nonsense that the stadium design wouldn't fit the site at Kings Dock. Just think about that absurd tripe for a moment without vapourising into laughter. Now the same whiners try to tell everybody that we need to raise £350 million to fund the project. Wrong by some distance, as usual, but hey! what's noo? You won't find a small thing like facts getting in their way. Fact is, we need to fund less than one sixth of that. The rest of it is required from the other members of the overall consortium. If it doesn't go ahead it will be because the other members couldn't put THEIR finances together, NOT EVERTON. Uncle Joe Dwyer of Liverpool Vision has already said as much in a public address to a professional body. Everton's money is already in place. He also said the decision has been postponed yet again until Spring, presumably while the rest of the consortium gets its financial act together. Still, it could be a lot worse……we could have those economic teddy boys Ridsdale and Parry in the front office.

All of which is enough for the Tendency to spit their dummies and send their toys cartwheeling out of the pram. You can never satisfy their kind of muck so there is no point even attempting it. You cannot hold a conversation with a brick. It merely distracts real Evertonians from the horrendous task at hand, which is helping to rebuild our club. The Tendency are part of the problem, not the cure. I cannot say I am sorry to trample all over their self pity or misery fuelled opportunism. So if they don't like it they can fuck off and the sooner the better. We don't need or want them. Our club and city is better off without them.

No club has a divine right to success. As yet another example, it took the Mancs twenty five years to reach their present level, including a spell in the Second Division. They were long overdue a good run and in the interim almost got sold for a knock down price even with their bloated fans base. Nobody else wanted us except the present lot. At the time of their difficulties nobody else wanted the Mancs either. Despite scuttlebutt, nobody has yet offered additional viable finance to us. Anybody who says differently is lying. Nobody else wants us now, either. Anything else is self-deception verging on paranoia or local media cheap gossip, to say nothing of 45 Magnum frangible rounds through both feet at short range. In the meantime we have to make a fist of what there is. That's the way real life works.

The morning of England's game against the Greeks I clicked through TV channels seeking solid pre-match news without hype tripe. First, too early and out of sync, I hit BBC 1 and a teenies pop programme. Wherein your standard female Generation X singer fronted a group of four well scrubbed standard gyrating Xer females, all of them in tight kecks, all of it as antiseptic as an intensive care unit for the sexually deprived. The singer oozed Guinness, treacle, a face like a smacked arse, and a tuneless dirge called, "Have You Ever Loved And Lost." Almost immediately I lost patience and thought savagely in my best scouse, "In your case, gerl, I'm not surprised," before flipping quickly to BBC 2. The contrast was mind boggling. A very old black-and-white movie starred, jaysus tonight, John Wayne, The Dook himself, and had an incredible Moulin Rouge style dance ensemble performing in front of presumably upper class Dixie aristocrats in what looked like a Civil War domestic setting. Knickers, garters, suzzies and silk stockings glinted everywhere, and that was just the girls. The girl dancers did hand stands, underskirts a-cascade, wiggled their gorgeous asses and legs and flashed what was up their skirts to every stuffed dinner jacket in sight. Fan waggling, talcumed elderly Southern ladies fainted at ten seconds intervals. There was enough genuine erotic exuberance to get you through the weekend suitably scathed. It was all very satisfying.

I compared the Xer girl of the smacked-arse face with the movie dancers. It was like comparing the withered misery of the Melledrew Tendency with your average enthusiastic fan. No contest. Give me the fans, give me the girl dancers every time. Give me also the attitood of a hugely grinning white turbaned domestic big black momma in the movie who admonished a finger wagging Uncle Tom, "Git UNRELAHABLE, Brother!" and just afterwards had a terrific line, "……so ree-laxed, he almost DISSOLVED." All this long before ghetto slang got out into the zeitgeist. It set me up beautifully for the match against Greece. I didn't need the self styled experts or trained media monkeys. Actually, we never do. It has just become a bad habit, like reluctant tolerance of someone's nasty body odour or adolescent drunkeness.

Idly, I anticipated the World Cup match with a perfunctory effort at a tabloid headline. In ten seconds I settled too easily for "Greeks Bearing Rifts" if we won well, which I fully anticipated, and "Geek Tragedy" (sic) if we lost or drew. As it was, we drew with a typically brilliant last minute Becks free kick after a ragged, poor display……but enough to get us qualified. Even I hadn't allowed for the depressing and ridiculous (but entirely predictable) media frenzy which followed. If the free kick hadn't gone in it doesn't require much imagination what the reaction would have been. See, the media are very like the Tendency……they MUST have someone to blame if matters don't work out. It is an ugly sight. Lynch mob action always is.

It is a sight much like those loony dipshits who don't support England because their grandma, ma, da, fifth cousin or uncle twice removed is of alleged Celtic origin, thick twats. Invariably they know nothing of Celtic culture or society nor do they have the slightest intention ever of finding out. For them, a pint of Guinness in Dublin is the only qualification required. It so happens that my family is entirely of Europe-wide Celtic lineage, but so what? I am an Englishman……as frustrated as the next man by our so-called "home" counties/metropolis dominated cultural and political control…… but when it comes down to footy support I despise those counterfeit "Celtic" wankers just as much as I loathe the cockernee nazis who tried and failed to steal our national side. There isn't much difference between the two. Might as well make it another trio and throw in the no-nothing Hampsteadistas with no ceiling to their mouths and an empty attic above that.

No, England for me every time and if we do well in the World Cup, which I might attend, then I won't wait to shove it with an open bottle of vinegar as far up the congealed jaxies of the phony "Celts" as I can manage. More than that, the decent English fans, the majority, have earned it. Like us at Goodison they have waited interminably for some sort of success. And this England side looks like it might just give it to them. The outstanding young nucleus of Beckham, Scholes, Gerrard and Owen promises much; I fervently hope they can deliver, chance notwithstanding. You don't need to be nationalist to love and support your country's team, nor do you need to flee to Hibernia each time England plays badly. Which is why I celebrated not wisely but too well when we qualified. I am willing too to bet it pissed off the O'/Mac/Dai/ Tendency no end. The thought amuses me hugely.

That is why there is much to be said for keeping our national side in venues outside Laahndan. Everyone gets a chance to support them. Given current success of the Road Show, there is no genuine reason at all why our unloved capital can be used only for show games. It's time to give those small minded centralised metropolitan Suits a broken nose, culturally speaking of course. You only have to look at the mess they made of the Wembley/Pickets Lock developments to see how "good" they are at their job.

Which incidentally doesn't augur well for our Kings Dock proposal. Then again, anybody who thought it would be a piece of cake has been living on Planet Thick. If you could be arsed, you could almost sense the Tendency limbering up in morose anticipation, a chance to let out yet one more long bleat. Beats me why the fuckers even bother to get out of the bath. It can't be easy treading so much paranoid bleach. But we have knocked yet another toy out of their hands by scooping the story of alleged potential ground sharing promoted by bureaucratic Suits who can't do their job or who exceed their remit, also that the same Suits will be culpable if consortium financing fails. When I can be arsed, I relish Tendency bashing; it is much better though to dismiss them to the periphery where they belong. Of much more importance is the fact that failure to obtain the Kings Dock will be catastrophic, though not fatal. It will probably set us back at least ten years through regrouping and replanning for the future. That is why the only two things which matter on the issue are: (a) What stands in our way? and (b) How can we eliminate the obstacle(s)? Any other approach is a complete waste of time.

The two weeks leading up to the Ipswich match were notable for gales and torrential rain everywhere except Merseyside. Air eddies created by tidal movements of the Mersey and the Dee gave us enough protection to ensure mostly sunny days while the rest of the country almost drowned. You couldn't tell that on Saturday morning at five a.m. though. It was black as pitch but with a moderate temperature.

You know what it's like at that time of the morning. Your head feels slightly unreal, or like a bear with a sore arse, completely out of sync with your bio clock. So I wasn't best pleased when my moby went off half way through ablutions. I trailed sopping water all the way to picking up the phone. It was control-freak Fred. I barely refrained from telling him what to do with his moby. Next time I will. But there won't be a fucking next time, not after I got, wait for it, THREE more moby calls from him between then and getting on The Bus. It appears some people have to learn the hard way not to interfere in other peoples' lives.

I collected two members of the Bellies Army at Huyton roundabout and then post haste violated every traffic statute in the book to the meeting point, just as everyone was boarding The Bus. Perfect timing.

Travelling arrangements have changed dramatically since the hardy days of The Bus as a minibus. Texyla's innate CEO abilities have us now on an air-conditioned coach with a loo, free mineral water, coffee and soft drinks. Dunno how he does it, nor do I have the slightest wish to know. I long ago learned the art of leaving management techniques well behind me when I close the studio door, especially when it is my leisure time. "Stress" is the most abused word in the English lexicon. As a straightforward matter of fact Texyla actually enjoys fathering everyone to make sure it all goes smoothly. If only he knew how priceless and rare a genuine management ability that is.

Half way through a journey in medium dense morning mist we collected the Midlands Blue Bellies contingent at a M6 junction rendezvous. Incredible long term fans, these. They've stuck with the club through thick and thin, especially during our nadir. And as we all know only too well there has been a lot of nadir about during the last five years. Just chatting with them makes you feel real good. Early morning blues soon disappeared as the bio clock reasserted itself. Most Evertonians these days can identify readily with the immortal failed movie actor who was employed only to remove elephant shit from the set of a safari picture. When his friend queried why he tolerated it he replied, "What!?……And give up showbusiness!?" Quite so.

We arrived at the same country pub venue as last year, The Beagle. It's in a beautiful small scale country setting. Which is just as well because we got there at eleven a.m. and had to wait for it to open up. Needless to say it didn't prevent anyone from quaffing what they brought with them. Two younger members of the party ended up distinctly the worse for wear even before the pub opened. Serve 'em right. The human race has only ever learned the hard way. One of them was even refused entry to the match because he weaved unevenly up to the entrance gates and a wide awake bizzy quite correctly refused him entrance.

Outside the pub, a lovely day in the warm beer garden, Paul revealed his surname as, erm, Gerrard, and almost got lynched for being so honest. And then he compounded his inadvertent sin by revealing his brother's name as, haha, and you'll really like this, STEVE. Everyone threw their surplus ale, and it was a lot, over his footy shirt. Then another Steve recounted the tale of a trip on a Dublin bound ferry when somebody approached a healthily endowed young lady and bet her a pound he could make her tits wobble without touching them. Foolishly she accepted the bet. At which, he handled both substantially and outrageously and then flipped her a pound before leaving without another word. Do not try this if you are not confident of the outcome. It might be another Joeline Joel.

Local well-heeled middle class bores (why are the English middle classes grossly ignorant enough to mistake style and true class with half-witted petty snobbery?) looked on in bemusement as the choir loosened its collective larynx and relaxed amidst roars of laughter. Nice pub and staff The Beagle, but some of its customers suck and so does the unbought Carlsberg. We all brightened even further when a sensational female arrived. Definitely Germanic and driving a Beamer 4x4, she sat with an elderly couple in the beer garden. She had cascading streaked blonde hair and a gorgeously proportioned body sprayed with a low cut black shirt and tight black trousers clenched around a sylph waist by a black belt with glinting silver buckle. Genuine self confident class and style which illuminated the blazer-wearing/Laura Ashley dross all around her. Nice, made my day.

To the ground, where a simple new double decker stand is completed behind one of the goals. A new one is under construction behind the other goal. It will be a real tribute to Ipswich when completed. This is one footy club for whom I have admiration beyond extravagance. Given their circumstances they shouldn't even be in the top division. But they flourish, and deservedly so too. They are a marvellous credit to the game, from the way they play to the way they are run. I hope they end up winning a trophy or two. Except, of course, when they play us. Reality, all is reality.

The away section was opposite the main stand and next to the newly completed double decker stand, wherein we bated local yokels mercilessly throughout sterile parts of match play. It is truly amazing how easy it is to wind people up. I say this as a veteran of long standing, one way or another. But you have to stop when they go purple in the face and start making cut-throat gestures because then it has passed from mere chauvinist neurosis into apoplexy and/or psychopathy. Damned interesting social experiment though, haha.

We considered the teams. Now, if there is one immutable law in Smiffy's Rubik it is that you will be caught completely with your trousers around your ankles. It happened again. We had a front three of SuperKev, The Big Yin and The Rad. Blimey. Who could ask for more in our present circumstances? Buggered if I know what the rest of the formation was, not really……so read the rest of this as guesswork because this formation stuff bores me witless. I leave that to others with the inclinations of a refrigerator and the mind of a bar of soap.

It quickly became obvious that our midfield, such as it was, whoever it was, could not get the ball through to the front three. However, nor could Ipswich get to grips with the game and lose sight of the threat from Kev-Yin-Rad. It was a fluid game though and both sides looked like they might make a break through at any time. We had the better of most exchanges but Ipswich passed the ball beautifully and looked extremely patient and more self confident as a team. To me they always looked like they had another gear.

It was an interesting if edgy half punctuated by a near miss header from Stevie, a few good saves from their keeper from SuperKev and Nic and us on our feet every time the ball got near their penalty area. Possibly The Rad played slightly deeper than he would like.

Whatever the formation, Nic was playing right centre midfield again and that almost completely negates his attacking contribution. Pembo is usually only half the player when he hasn't got a central partnership with Gemmo. The midfield result was therefore completely unsatisfactory. Even The Gravedigger might have made a difference but he wasn't available. Stubbsy was on the bench too. Our defence was solid enough at this point where Davey-Abel played central and laid it wide to Stevie, Gary and Sandro.

The first half wasn't as relatively smooth as the Blackburn display but it was tight and determined. No question this was because of our midfield or lack thereof. Ipswich had much the better of the midfield exchanges, a thought which didn't augur well for the second half. So, summing up in a simple minded way, we had a front and a back but no middle. Oh well. The sooner Gemmo and Gazza are available again the better. Really we could do with risking the wrath of the bank and buying a good midfield player; but of course they won't lend us the money. Who can blame them?

Our only bad moment of the first half came when Paul spilled a close range header and then rescued the ball from the ensuing desperate scrum.

The second half started and Ipswich moved up their threatened spare gear, having made one sub at half time. They supplemented it with another with another with ten minutes left. But it had quickly became obvious that they had decided to exploit Stevie's notoriously bad tracking-back and immediately played it down their left much more. So after ten minutes Stubbsy was brought on in his place and the team reshuffled to gawd knows what shape. It didn't make much immediate difference so Beloved Lard Arse came on for Pembo ten more minutes later. But one (among many) high ball(s) does not an Unsy joke make. No, we leave that to the likes of Yankee comic Rich Hall's wonderfully vicious observation of "…having a bad ass, like a water bed shoved down a pair of Wranglers."

Most of Ipswich's attacks developed down their left where we were lacerated time after time. Inexplicably, our right side defence was wide open for the remainder of the game even though we funneled back much more.

To our relief, Paul made a couple of tremendous close saves and didn't make any more spills. He played really well at just the right time. A goal then and we might have crumbled as of old.

During this spell we seemed to completely abandon the midfield, and pushed Nic wide right, from where he did some damage by engaging their left back in a close quarters dribbling contest. Nic won more of these than he lost, thus stretching their defence wider and leaving them vulnerable to counter attacks. The result was a couple of breakaways and some chances to SuperKev, all of which he missed. In particular there was one splendid interchange with The Rad which left him clear rightside and closing one-on-one. Normally you'd have put your house on him burying it but their keeper made a splendid job of outpsyching him and saved it. Had you bet you would be selling The Big Issue in Church Street today.

The Yin's contribution was negligible and reduced even further throughout the second half until he was subbed by Idan who went wide left, his best position, in the closing minutes. This meant we had pressure right and left. It almost paid off when a classic left side triangle involving Unsy, Tal and Gary ended with the latter breaking through to the byline and banging in a perfect hard low ground cross to the near post. Kev got clear of his marker and sidefooted it first time. It whistled narrowly wide. Had it gone in, and it only needed another hundred millimetres or so, we would have won and walked off with three points. That's footy. Didn't stop us turning the air purple though. Back on the bench Smiffy's normally stoic features must have been a picture. Mine certainly were. I dare say I looked like I had just smoked an exploding cigar.

The last ten minutes were played out with us anxiously looking at a digital clock behind our goal. As always in such conditions it didn't seem to move at all. Adrenaline was at suffocating levels as we muttered, "Blow-The-Fuck-Ing-Whistle-Will-Yer."

Eventually the ref timed it out and we sat back relieved. We had a point where none was really expected. Might even have bagged the lot with a little bit of luck.

Man of the match was a young black lad for Ipswich, a brilliant and classy number 2, whose name completely escapes me. He is an international in the making if I ever saw one. Good luck to the boy.

For us, you can't gainsay what Smiffy did with his original selection from limited resources. I hope he perseveres with a front three of Kev-Yin-Rad; my only reservation about it is where The Yin fits in. He is one of the most maddening players I have ever seen in a royal blue shirt. You would think he would have the time of his life nodding it down to two players like Kev and The Rad. But perhaps it needs time for the three of them to get it right. I hope so.

So……out of the next six games I mentioned at the beginning, we have one point from the required minimum of nine. It was a reasonable start. Those who made the tediously long journey were at least partly rewarded, unlike last season when we never really looked like getting near them.

Maybe the hands of fortune have just started to swing. Maybe. If so, they had better hurry up. We have a lot of players just about at their peak. After this season is over they will be true veterans and we will need more and younger players. Time and tide waiteth for no man.

Next up, Villa, and their new buys. Should be an interesting test.