Wake Me Up When September Ends

 Barnsley 1-1 ITFC September 23rd 2012

For the second season running Paul Jewell survived the "Barnsley chop" at Oakwell. Last time it was courtesy of a second half recovery when all seemed lost, Town recovered from being two nil down at half time to win 5-3 ensuring their first win after seven straight defeats. Another loss could well have spelt the end for him with the pressure already mounting following a dismal start to the campaign.

We begun our trip to Yorkshire on Friday afternoon, dropping Max off at Ferrybridge services en route (he had a night out in Bradford lined up with Devvo) whilst Sharon and I continued up north to Harrogate for my birthday night out with Paul & Gail.

We met up with the bantams before the game, hangover free at the Hardy's pie van near to the ground for "A full bag of mashings" (pie, peas and gravy), except for Devvo who opted to have a burger, poor show from the northerner!

"a full bag of mashings"

A touch of glass

There was a small crowd of approximately 8,500 inside a sunny Oakwell and the Ipswich fans seemed to be mainly behind their under pressure manager, although a "Jewell out" banner was displayed before and after the game but as Arsene Wenger would say "I didn't see it".

Ipswich managed to take an early lead after six minutes, Aaron Cresswell netting a well worked free kick which Barnsley keeper Ben Alnwick failed to deal with. A second goal soon after would have given the nervy Ipswich side a much needed cushion but in honesty we hardly created a chance. As the teams headed back to the dressing rooms at half time Guirane N’Daw had a “coming together” with Tykes frontman Craig Davies which soon fizzled out. N'Daw was subbed soon after the restart following a booking, he was obviously still wound up!

The home team were on the front foot and Town were forced to defend for the majority of the second half, Danny Higginbottom showed what a useful acquisition he could be. The inevitable equaliser came in the 74th minute when Scott Loach could only get finger tips to Stephen Dawson's goal bound shot.
There only looked likely to be one winner from that point on but fortunately the visitors held on for a point. This match ended a very poor month for ITFC in which we have only managed to get two out of a possible fifteen points.

Playlist 

Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day - hopefully Ipswich will wake up and get our season going. Also celebrating Sharon managing to get tickets to see Green Day in June.