Sportsweek on Radio 5 on a Sunday morning (available as a free podcast in case you're interested) carried an interview today with Roy Keane as part of the build-up to the new season.
Intrigued, I listened, having rarely heard pearls of wisdom issue forth in that distinctive Irish accent. What did I learn? Well, that he's signed a 2 year contract, and will consider himself to have failed if Ipswich are not in the Premier League by the end of that period. And that he made mistakes at Sunderland, due to his own impatience and bringing in good players who were not the right characters for the club. Also that when he loses, his long suffering wife and five children know that he will be unable to sleep, and will lose his appetite for food for a couple of days. Well after this result, young Mr Keane (38 tomorrow), will be a starving insomniac for the rest of the week.
The Sky Blues lined up with Vivienne behind In the Afternoon and Ten Burners, Sharon, and making his debut on loan from Chelsea, The Postman. A new look midfield had On the Starboard Bow in the holding role, flanked by the Gunnar, with Inda Carlisle wide on the right and making his Ricoh debut, Comedy Roadshow. Up front, the usual suspects, More Reasons and Kings of. Our bench was packed with experience and youth. Experience in the form of Oh Lord and Wheels on his house, and youth in the form of everyone else. What would the next 90 minutes bring? Would we be up there with Cardiff, or down with Scunthorpe. And could we even suffer the sort of nightmare start that Norwich had seen yesterday, narrowly losing 1-7 to Colchester United.
After 4 minutes of relentless Ipswich pressure, the omens were not good. In fact, it was more like The Omen, missing only a demonic child on a tricycle, as the team tried to hang themselves from the nearest balcony. Fortunately, the Tractor Boys failed to take advantage of the situation, leaving Vivienne to claim the first assist of the season with a hopeful long punt upfield. More Reasons found himself on the edge of the box with the ball at his feet, and curled a delightful shot into the top corner to give us the lead after 9 minutes. Cue crowd celebrations and a very grumpy Irishman.
It got worse for Mrs Keane, the five Keane-lets, and the kennels full of dogs. Ten Burners got away with a hack on the edge of the box that should have been a penalty, and then a delightful period of slick interplay, thoughtful passing and intelligent moving (and it's a long time since I typed that) saw Sharon cross for More Reasons to plant a diving header in the corner from ten yards out. Two nil after 25 minutes, and life was looking good.
For about 3 and a half minutes. Then The Postman was caught out of position, the Ipswich centre-forward ran through and finished crisply past Vivienne, and our thoughts turned to holding on for 60 minutes. Could we? Should we?
We made it to half time without major incident. We'd played some nice football, Postman Pat looked stylish going forward, and OK going backwards. More Reasons had finished two chances beautifully, Comedy Roadshow and Inda Carlisle had sparkled intermittently, and the Klingon looked solid and feisty. The Gunnar had put in his usual shift of commitment and energy, and things were going ok.
I won't summarise the second half in detail, but will use a few choice words only. Alamo. Kitchen sink. Backs to the wall. Frantic. Scrappy. Indeterminate formations. Kim Wilde. ("You keep me hanging on", for those readers under a certain age, yes, the middle aged gardener used to be a pop star. Honest, go ask your dad about Marti Wilde's daughter if you don't believe me).
Hang on we did though. Three points safely in the bag, and Mr Keane glowered with a face darker than thunder as he stormed off back to the tractor park, his stomach tightening and his alarm clock facing redundancy. Our man of the match has to be More Reasons for two moments of real quality.
It's not settled those early season nerves by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a positive hard working performance, with some really nice football at times. We looked like we needed more time to organise the defence, but as Postman had only had one training session, that's not surprising.
Bring on Hartlepool, let's get a cup run underway.
League Position: 2
Wins: 1
Goals for: 2
Goals against: 1
Top scorer: More Reasons 2
i still say postman pat was kluivert going forward and starfish when defending....even the coalman admitted as much on the post match radio interview when he talked about "making sure he doesn't forget to defend"....slightly worrying that he may indeed "forget" lol.
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