Short lived celebrations in Huddersfield as Town 'stop the rot'

On Saturday, I headed to Huddersfield fully expecting to see Ipswich lose. It's an occupational hazard when you are a Town fan.

Town had lost four of their last five games (five from six if you include the cup exit at Portsmouth), a poor run of form that has seen a large number of fans and even boss Mick McCarthy fearing 'our play off hopes are slipping away'. Add to that the memory of a disappointing defeat last season at the John Smith's stadium that saw our hopes for promotion very nearly crushed and you can see why a defeat felt inevitable to me.

So, to be honest, I felt a little numb heading to catch the train back to Leeds after the game: I hadn't been at all prepared for the joy of seeing my fourth away win of the season and, of course, the famous Luke Chambers' fist pump.

I think I was in shock. Sadly this wasn't because we'd performed like a promotion chasing side, scoring with ease and playing our opponents off the field. The shock was simply because the previous visit to Huddersfield had been such a terrible experience and, in recent weeks, us Town fans have become rather accustomed to expecting the worst.

You might think then that our loyal supporters would be over the moon with the three points, particularly as the match had been billed by so many as 'must win' (even at this early point in the season). Alas, that doesn't seem to be the case.

I felt a little deflated when I found that even before I had returned home a number of social media users seemed to be belittling the performance already, angry that we hadn't produced a Barcelona-esque performance in this vital Championship tie.

I exaggerate, of course, but it was disappointing and the low mood seems to have continued among a few during the following days as well.  I mean, come on, are we not allowed at least a 24 hour period to bask in the enjoyment of a victory before we are forced back to earth with the reality of the precarious position we find ourselves in?

I ask myself, why are some of our fans feeling this way? Why would you not just be happy with three points away from home to 'stop the rot' of the recent bad form?

Well, they can't really be blamed, it wasn't the greatest game of football I've ever seen. The match report stats speak for themselves:

Shots on goal: Huddersfield - 22, Ipswich - 6
Shots on target: Huddersfield - 5, Ipswich - 1
Possession: Huddersfield - 67%, Ipswich - 33%

Viewed in that format, the lack of shots on goal is really worrying and adds to a trend that we have seen in recent matches: against Hull we had not one shot on target (although Daryl Murphy did hit the inside of the post).

We seemed to struggle going forward, that much is clear from the numbers, and, in the first half at least, I personally felt the defence allowed Huddersfield to come too far forward before making any challenges.

A nervy one goal lead was all we really deserved and for the duration of the second half you could sense that the away end were expecting an equaliser at any moment.

But that equaliser didn't come. We defended confidently and, despite the lack of activity going forward, I did feel we looked the stronger side. It seems to have been easy for some to overlook these points, as well as the fact there were some very good individual performances:

Murphy's assist for the goal was fantastic, beautifully taken and controlled with a pinpoint pass to Pringle for the winner. It was testament to how much of an influcence he was on the game and it was the first time I have seen him play that well so far this season (with the exception of Rotherham and Charlton, where he was phenomenal). Hopefully this is something that he can now keep up, too often I've seen comments that he has been invisible in our matches and he clearly hasn't hit the form we so adored last year.


Bialkowski once again turned in a performance that looks set to see him named as Town's 'Player of the month' for February. Bart kept us in the game, something that has become a habit since his return to the side, with some heart-stopping saves. Early in the first half, he faced strongly into a one-on-one situation with Nakhi Wells and stopped the shot with his legs, what a very different game it might have been without his input.

Though I'm happy to see such great performances from our big Pole in the goal, I'm concerned by how often we seem to be saying 'the keeper saved our skin today', with Gerken in previous games as much as with Bart this month. What has happened to the solid defence that we had last season?

On Saturday, Berra was okay for the most part but made some terrible errors when clearing the ball and I felt Knudsen stepped in to save him a few times. Smith made no obvious errors during the game but he was perhaps a little too quiet for my liking, while a Chambers error just in front of the goal late in the second half had my hands covering my eyes.

However, Knudsen had the best game I have seen him play in a Town shirt so far. Strong on the left and stepping in with confidence when needed to clear the ball, he still has a tendency to 'hoof' the ball far and high up the wing, whether there is a player there to collect it or not. But he was hard working and reliable, the pure passion on his face as the referee blew his whistle in the 95th minute was clear to see, something that has certainly endeared me to him. I know you can't win games on passion alone, but I do believe you should be grateful when you can see that it is so very clearly there.

Such passion, of course, could also be seen among over 900 fans in the away end. The final ten minutes were a familiar slog of nerves, with half an eye on the clock counting down behind us.

As we neared the final whistle, a repeated round of 'Singing the Blues' roused the crowd to see the boys safely past that final whistle with three points in the bag. It was one of those moments that make me proud to be an Ipswich fan and will be firmly placed in my bank of away day memories.

Pure relief followed at the final whistle and a somewhat subdued fist pump due to the way in which we had managed victory. A friend said to me as we were leaving the stadium that he thought we had earned that win... 'but my god it was boring'. A perfect summary in my opinion: It wasn't pretty, but we achieved what we set out to do, probably more so, and you can't ask for more than that.

My friend's thoughts were echoed by a Huddersfield fan who I spoke to after that game. Understandably, he was disappointed that they had come away empty handed, but not a bad word was said about McCarthy's side. He told me he felt we had played intellegent football: 'you knew our weaknesses and you played to those'.According to him, the stronger side won in the end: it was a kinder report than I've heard from several Town fans since the end of the game and I'll happily take it.

No, we didn't play the prettiest of football.

Yes, we should be putting bottom half teams like Huddersfield in their place if we want to have a serious go at this promotion race.

But it was, after all, a win and three points. Three points that keep us well within the race for the play offs (particularly with Birmingham, Derby and Preston all losing).

All we can do is take one game at a time and that, my friends, means we achieved our goal for this weekend. Can we just be happy about that until the next one please?

Legalisation: The Right Solution To Prostitution?

Eighteen months ago two young girls were reported missing by their worried families.

They were Tania Nicholl and Gemma Adams, sex workers from Ipswich.

In the following month their bodies and the bodies of three girls like them were found, strangled and dumped. The Suffolk town would never be the same again.

Today the East Anglian reported that, thanks to the work of the Police and local Community projects in Ipswich, there are now NO girls working on the streets of Ipswich.


I recently made a Radio Documentary about what has been done in there to eradicate prostitution. In light of today's news I wanted to share it with you:

The government are yet to consider the Prostitution clauses of the Criminal Justice and Immigration bill.

It’s a debate that attracts a lot of attention and could see the UK move to either decriminalise sex workers, or completely outlaw the industry.



So what did Ipswich do that worked so well?



But that's obviously not the ONLY way to deal with the issue. What else has been done around the world?



So what do you think? It's such a complicated issue but it's so important that we make our minds up and decide on a course of action to help these girls.




Genuinely, everyone I met when I was making this documentary really believed in what they are doing.

The girls that have been helped by the Iceni project had absolutely no hope in life. They were desperate, at absolute rock bottom. Suzannah would probably have gone the same way as her parents if she hadn't had Brian and Co. to save her.

What if it was you, your Mum, your sister, or your DAUGHTER? Wouldn't you want to do whatever you could to get them out of this life?

No girl WANTS to be in this life, so lets help them get out of it.

May it one day not even be an option.

It's a Mann's World

This weekend I went to Silverstone to support a local World Renault Series driver...

Pippa Mann is from Ipswich, she's 23 and she's the only woman driver in the league that feeds into the Formula One championship.

I covered the race for Town 102 because she's a local girl... plus, it was a nice chance to report on something other than football.

Here's the package I put together for them which went on air today:






Pippa's been driving since thirteen, when she competed in Go-Karting competitions. By the age of nineteen she was driving for one of the top karting teams.

In 2007 she joined the Renault World Series and became the first female driver to earn points in that league.

This weekend she started the first race from 23rd place. As she says in the interview her tyres weren't right and it was a struggle for her to keep the car on the track at all.

But she managed to overtake one driver and with others dropping or crashing out of the race she finished 19th, leaving her 20th on the grid for the second race.

That's the one I attended.

Silverstone was not what I expected at all.

Being a seasoned football fan I thought it would be a beautiful, modern circuit with modern stands around it and maybe some hospitality suites for the VIPs.

But the seating areas... were the grass. And the VIP bit was a tent connected to her truck.

And do you know what? I think it was great!



There were so many people around (10, 000 apparently), and I started to feel bad for my stubborn addiction to the beautiful game. I'd never heard of the World Series before I was offered the opportunity to go there, but its worth a peep trust me.

Its an open race, no driver has won more than two races so far this season, and with less money than the Formula One the teams have to work even harder on their cars.

Its free to go and see, so check it out!

Anyway, back to the race.

Pippa spent her time battling with Brit Duncan Tappy. He was on her tail for the most of the race but she held him off well.

At one point she actually managed to lose him, catching up with the 19th place car. But another fault with the car saw her drop back.

Actually, it meant the dying seconds were the most exciting part of the race as she pulled right over to the inside to stop Tappy nipping past and held him off as she headed over the finish line.

The reaction at the camp was one of pride for her. She'd raced well, especially considering the severe heat yesterday.

She's now 25th in the league (of 26....) but it's only half way through the season so I'll be rooting for her to pick up a few more points.


I talked to her for a bit about my favourite topic, the treatment of Women in Sport. She says she's used to being the only girl in a man's world:



Pippa's next race is in Hungary on the 5th July, so good luck Pippa - give me something to think about while there's no footie!

Spotlight on Ipswich

I have been a bit distressed this week to see my rolling news board on this page has been filled with stories of Steve Wright.

The trial of the man accused of killing five prostitutes began on Monday and every news department in the country appears to have moved into Ipswich.

For the next eight weeks our humble town will provide the leading story for the whole world - if only it were for something happier, eh?

I am lucky enough to be on month long placement at Town 102 Radio in Ipswich at the moment and it is fascinating watching them handle this major incident.

What is interesting is the difference between the small local stations (like Town) and bigger national organisations.

BBC Look East had three reporters at the court yesterday - they even went as far as presenting the evening news from outside.

Our station had a lovely reporter down there - and then rushing back to work through her lunch break on other local stories.

It just seems an injustice to me that the local journalists who have been there from the beginning, who have held campaigns to make women in Ipswich safer, are missing out on the big interviews to news producers that would not normally give two hoots about Ipswich.

In time people will start to forget what has happened but Ipswich will be forever stained with the events, just as Soham was.

I have no doubt reports of Ipswich Town games will all start with the line: The atmosphere in the ground was sombre because of what was going on down the road...


Anyway, back to the real world - The Blues have Blackpool on Saturday and they still haven't been able to get Norris...

...I'm sorry but it's what I've been thinking about this week!