The View From Churchmans

It's been an extraordinary season, when you think about it. Town have looked like candidates for both automatic promotion and for relegation at different times; there's been the worst-ever and the second-worst-ever local derby results; one of the heaviest defeats in the club's history and one of the largest away wins in the club's history; a victory over Arsenal, of all teams; and an almost unheard-of mid-season managerial ... More...

It's hard to know what to say. In some ways, for the fans at least, I think it could be argued that this was the worst result in the club's history. If that sounds far-fetched, was (for example) losing 0-9 at Old Trafford, with the club clearly way out of its depth, any worse than this? At least it was a good day out, like the Chelsea cup ... More...

Just as those on the fence were wondering about renewing their season tickets (but you knew you'd give in eventually, didn't you?), comes this belter of a match, the first six-goal game at Portman Road for well over three years. True, four or five of the goals were down to defensive errors, but as we were all queueing up to tell Mr. Keane, we don't come to a ... More...

A glorious April afternoon, a ticket promotion and an impressive away support of over 1,600 combined to produce what I think is Portman Road's first league crowd of over 24,000 since 2009, but the atmosphere was already a little end-of-term, and the team's performance was slightly flat. Indeed, Palace can think themselves unlucky not to have got a point or more; they had as many shots on goal, ... More...

In almost a carbon copy of the previous home game, Town failed to offer any threat up front and found themselves cruelly exposed by clever attacks from a neat, organised opposition. After twelve consecutive failures to beat Watford, a new club record streak against a single opponent is looming, but at least we'll have to wait a year or so for that to actually happen. By then, I ... More...

Two home defeats in a row, and although the last one was daylight robbery, this certainly wasn't. Reading were a solid, competent opposition, with creativity rather than graft required to break them down, and of the former, Town offered little. There was a flat atmosphere inside Portman Road from the outset, and neither the crowd or the team ever got going. The defence had too many weaknesses, the ... More...

At the moment, with both promotion and relegation extremely unlikely, most supporters would take exciting, promising football over a ground-out three points. And that's lucky, because it's exactly what they're getting. Although Town's second-half performance was unremarkable, the score was still daylight robbery: it should have been three - and could have been six - by half-time. But there's a theme developing here: that's three games running where ... More...

Sure, everyone was disappointed that Town didn't take three points from this one, but with promotion and relegation both highly unlikely now, it was just the performance which mattered. And despite not being able to keep it up for 90 minutes, Town's first-half display was in some ways as exciting as anything seen at Portman Road for the past couple of years - or more. It was a ... More...

We begin with an apology. Regular readers may have been under the impression that I believed Roy Keane to a half-decent manager who admittedly had lumbered himself with a talentless squad, but who didn't get the breaks and probably shouldn't have been sacked so soon. What I should have said is that Roy Keane is a talentless man-manager whose joyless attitude sapped the enthusiasm and creativity out of ... More...

There are three-nil defeats which depress you, and three-nil defeats which manage to leave you still feeling proud of the losing team. This was definitely the latter. Town couldn't have done much better, and the fans couldn't have asked for more. In the end, to have beaten a Champions League side over two legs was going to require the opponents to be below par throughout, and Arsenal didn't ... More...

Well, I doubt if anyone at half time saw that second half coming. The first 45 minutes were pretty dismal, and Doncaster could easily have had three, with only the post and a goal-line clearance saving Town from an embarrassment. But the second 45 was comfortably the most exciting and encouraging half we've seen in a league match at Portman Road in the last year or so. It ... More...

Football, eh? I can't ever remember a match where, queueing up to get in, I was so certain we'd lose. So of course we were going to win. It just stands to reason. After all, there was nothing in Town's favour: a temporary manager with the taxi running outside, half a team unavailable, a terrible last few weeks, a record defeat just three days before, and one of ... More...

Town were always going to lose this one, but to go down by seven goals for only the third time since the mid-sixties was a bitter pill to swallow for an impressive travelling support. The relief with which many supporters (although not this one) greeted Roy Keane's dismissal two days earlier will have conveniently masked any awareness that going into successive matches against two of the best teams ... More...

Despite the last couple of matches having offered a respite from the nightmare run of defeats, after this toothless display it does rather look like those two matches were a blip, rather than a change of fortunes. With the Leicester win having been in bizarre conditions and the Coventry draw having been largely against ten men, it would be understandable if that turns out to be the case. ... More...

One of the strangest matches I can recall at Portman Road ended up with a scoreline which history may show to be the turning point in Town's season, or just a blip caused by freak circumstances. Certainly playing on snow when the rest of the country had its feet up in the warm wasn't a test which was representative of either team. But you can only play the ... More...