The Long And Winding Road

Well, that was quite an eventful season! We sacked manager Paul Jewell, then appointed Mick McCarthy a week later, chairman Simon Clegg "left" soon afterwards, coincidence? We scrapped with relegation for forty-five games and ended up in fourteenth position with sixty points. We also had three players making the headlines for the wrong reasons, Michael Chopra for race fixing. Paul Taylor for ABH and Guirane N'daw for assault still have court cases ongoing.

After a hand full of games I was getting very despondent, thinking that I might not have another season ticket, we were getting beat easily and the atmosphere at Portman Road was so negative. It was not the best place to spend your leisure time and quite depressing, but by the time the renewals dropped through he letter box I didn't give it a second thought, that's the impact made by McCarthy and Terry Connor!

I managed to get to thirty-five league games, twenty-two at home (I missed the Barnsley game in January), thirteen away, plus the Capital One Cup game versus Bristol Rovers at Portman Road and the FA Cup tie at Villa Park.

My most memorable games at home were the 3-1 win over Nottingham Forest and the 3-0 win against Crystal Palace, both of them midweek matches played under the floodlights. Away from home the 1-0 victory at Birmingham (McCarthy's first game in charge) was a key moment in the season, but I loved the "return of the Mac" to Molineux in December where we beat Wolves 2-0.

Goal of the season was Aaron Cresswell's half volley versus Palace, although Carlos Edwards had a couple of contenders, the injury time winner at Derby and his superb strike versus Birmingham in the final home game of the season.

At the time of writing we will have Doncaster, Bournemouth and either Brentford or Yeovil joining us from League One. QPR, Reading and probably Wigan dropping down from the Premier League. They'll be replacing promoted Cardiff, Hull and either Watford, Brighton, Crystal Palace or Leicester from the playoff's, alongside relegated Bristol City, Wolves and Peterborough.

Both dad (bluetipp 196th with 30 points) and I (jewellsrimet 168th with 34 points) were beaten by Sharon (paulslittlejewell 137th with 38 points) on the TWTD's prediction league! A very disappointing return especially from dad who came 13th last season.

Former striker Ian Marshall acknowledging a bit of humour!

The complete playlist:-

1 Uptown Top Ranking by Althea &Donna

2 My Way by Frank Sinatra

3 Flowers by The Psychedelic Furs 

4 Beautiful Day by U2

5 Superstition by Stevie Wonder

6 Cocaine In My Brain by Dillinger

7 Starman by David Bowie

8 I'm Not Down by The Clash

9 Hurry Up Harry by Sham 69

10 Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day

11 Empty Sky by Bruce Springsteen

12 Skyfall by Adele

13 The Magnificent Seven

14 Countin On A Miracle by Bruce Springsteen

15 You've Got A Friend In Me by Randy Newman

16 Feeling Good by Nina Simone

17 Two Princes by Spin Doctors

18 The Keeper by Chris Cornell

19 Born For A Purpose by Dr Alimantado & The Rebels

20 Locked Out Of Heaven by Bruno Mars

21 D.J. By David Bowie

22 Living For The Weekend by Hard Fi

23 He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother by The Justice Collective

24 Joe Le Taxi by Vanessa Paradis

25 Don't Look Back in Anger by Oasis

26 Don't Leave Me Leave Me This Way by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes

27 So You Win Again by Hot Chocolate

28 Night Nurse by Gregory Isaacs

29 You Can Do Magic by America

30 Say My Name by Destiny's Child

31 Sit Down by James

32 Seven Nation Army by Whitestripes

33 Sign Your Name by Terence Trent D'Arby

34 Clocks by Coldplay

35 What A Fool Believes by The Doobie Brothers

36 Scooby Snacks by The Fun Loving Criminals

37 Ships In The Night by Be Bop Deluxe

38 Reasons To Be Cheerful To Be Cheerful, Part 3 by Ian Dury & The Blockheads

39 F.e.e.l.i.n.g C.a.l.l.e.d L.o.v.e by Pulp

40 Us & Them by Pink Floyd

41 Talk To Me by Southside Johnny & The Asbury Dukes

42 The Long And Winding Road by The Beatles

Talk To Me

Burnley 2-0 ITFC May 4th 2013

Once I had found a cheap hotel that looked reasonable, we made the decision to go to the final game of the season - £65 including breakfast at The Rosehill House Hotel seemed to good to miss! We both took Friday off work and took a leisurely drive up to Lancashire via Worksop, Sheffield and across the Snake Pass, which was bleak and not very scenic. We were planning to have a picnic there but ended up having it in Accrington where we also had an improvised tour of the Crown Ground, home of Accrington Stanley!

A real football ground

The Rosehill Hotel

After checking in, we took a walk into Burnley town centre which was about half a mile down hill from the hotel. I have to say it was fairly uninspiring and after a drink we had to trek back up.  

The lady at the hotel reception booked us a table at Ninos, an Italian pub/restaurant in nearby Cliviger, after informing us of the lack of decent places to eat in Burnley. It was only a fifteen minute taxi ride there and it was well worth the £7 fare.

Turf Moor from one side of town

Ninos

Turf Moor from the other side of town at Cliviger

My Saturday morning was kicked off with a full English breakfast which was excellent. After packing, we checked out of the Rosehill and headed to Turf Moor for the 12.45pm kickoff.

With the luxury of knowing that we were safe in the Championship Mick McCarthy chose to make four changes from last weeks game, including giving Tyrone Mings his Ipswich debut.

Motorcycle emptiness

The game was pretty uneventful, especially the first half where the two teams just seemed to be playing out the time. It took a superb strike from Burnley substitute Junior Stanislas to break the deadlock and bring a very quiet home support to life after sixty minutes. McCarthy then gave a debut to academy player of the season Jack Marriott before the game restarted. Both sides then had chances to score before Martin Paterson doubled the Clarets lead with just three minutes left of the season, heading a corner past Scott Loach. 

This meant that I needed Town to score two quick goals so that I could finish above Sharon in the TWTD's prediction league. 

Burnley swapped keepers in the final minute, Lee Grant making way for the veteran Brian Jenson. "The Beast" clearly a fans favourite and wasn't going to concede two late goals so I, like Ipswich, was beaten!

The playlist
Talk To Me by Southside Johnny And The Asbury Dukes - unknown to us until we arrived in Lancashire it was the weekend of “The 25th Burnley International Rock and Blues Festival”, with Southside Johnny And The Asbury Dukes headlining on the Saturday night. We saw Southside Johnny perform Talk To Me with Bruce Springsteen in Madrid last year at the Bernabéu. 
Max had requested Motorcycle emptiness by the Manics if we had have won. Max and I both think that Burnley manager Sean Dyche is a secret biker!

Us And Them

ITFC 3-1 Birmingham April 27th 2013

After a comfortable win in the last home game of the season we are now mathematically safe, but it has taken until now and sixty points to achieve it!

There was an upbeat atmosphere at Portman Road and I sense that better times lie ahead for us as long as we keep the main man Mick McCarthy here. Mind you, I'm always optimistic, every season I predict at least the playoffs for us!

I'm not a big lover of Birmingham, but fair play to them the blues brought a large following of 1,977, many of them turning up in fancy dress as it was their last away game. They made plenty of noise and for once they were good humoured. I also have to say that I quite like their pink away strip!

Full time

Carlos Edwards got the end of season party atmosphere going for us after just six minutes with a screamer that would rival Aaron Cresswell's strike, already awarded goal of the season. Six foot and eight inches tall Nikola Zigic thought that he had equalised two minutes later but his header was ruled out for offside.
Town were two nil up after just seventeen minutes when Luke Chambers, unmarked, headed in Cresswell's free kick from six yards out. Frank Nouble then had two goals disallowed before half time, both for offside - harsh decisions from my viewpoint behind the goal!
Daryl Murphy added a third goal for the blues after fifty-seven minutes with a smart left foot shot and substitute Chris Burke scored a consolation goal for the visitors just before the end.
That result put Sharon four points ahead of me in the TWTD prediction league (she predicted the correct score and gained six points). I'll have to pull out all the stops to finish higher than her in the final table next Saturday!
After a short delay, Mick, Terry & the players came out for a lap of appreciation, they were warmly received by the crowd, the majority having stayed behind after the game, unlike last season where hardly anybody hung around and the players couldn't get back to the changing room quick enough.

While we were all celebrating a great escape one hundred and seventy miles up the road the natives were restless. Wolves fans were on the pitch ripping the dugout roof off and demonstrating against owner Steve Morgan following a two-one loss to Burnley which all but confirmed their back to back relegations.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing but if you look at the demise of Wolves since the sacking of McCarthy and what he has achieved at Ipswich in six months then you don't need to be a rocket scientist to see what a big mistake they have made.
As I said on my Facebook check-in at the match "Thank Evans for McCarthy."
The playlist
Us And Them by Pink Floyd - Two contrasting scenes at Portman Road and Molineux, without McCarthy in charge we might have been on the pitch calling for the owner's head and if he was at still at Wolves they probably wouldnt'!