3 Years Of Singing The Blues - Part Two

By Aston
April 3 2005

April 3rd 2002 - Singing The Blue’s first article was published, walk with me down memory lane as I look back at the past three years, again.

I left the last part of the review with Joe Royle as Town manager winning his first game in charge, shame he couldn’t win his second as well as Town were brought back to earth with a thump after UEFA success by Crystal Palace who came to Portman Road the following Sunday and left with all three points after a 2-1 win, next up for Town was the League (Worthington) Cup 3rd Round tie against Middlesbrough James Pullen replaced Andy Marshall in goal for this one and was only two minutes away from keeping a clean sheet on his debut but the one he conceded that day was 2 less than Mark Crossley as Town cruised to a 3-1 win. Again success in a cup game was not followed up by a league win as Town drew with Sheffield before going out on penalties in the UEFA cup against Slovan Liberec after conceding a late goal in normal time against the Czech champions.

With Town out of the UEFA cup they could finally return to league action with out the distraction of Europe and maybe even win a game and they did firstly beating Watford 2-0, on-loan Paul Gerrard keeping a clean sheet on his debut for Town, followed 6 days later by a 2-1 win over Coventry City at Portman Road.

Towns upturn in form was limited to those two games before another run of winless games starting against Nottingham Forest, David Johnson got both the Forest goals as Town returned to poor league form and then went out of the league cup on penalties against Liverpool despite taking the lead on 14 minutes thanks to Tommy Miller only to be pegged back on 54 minutes by Diouf penalty Town held on for the rest game and extra time before going out 4-5 on penalties Town next game was against 10th placed Rotherham in the league, according to Joe Royle Town played like Real Madrid for the first 20 minutes shame it wasn’t the full 90 as Rotherham went home 2-1 winners.

Town at this point were 13 points off the play-off zone with 2 games in hand on some of the teams above them with away days at Brighton and Portsmouth and a home game against Watford to come before the Christmas and new year fixtures.

It was looking like a small miracle would be needed for Town to reach the play offs and a draw with Brighton really didn’t help things although it was the start of a 8 game unbeaten run for Town in the league which included a 4-2 home win over Watford a draw at league leaders Portsmouth and a win at second placed Leicester City before Town’s draw with Brighton they sat 19th in the table on 23 points from 20 games after the defeat against Bradford at the start of February Town had risen 7 places and gained another 18 points leaving them just 4 points off the play-offs with a game over some of the teams above them, also by the start of February STB had enjoyed a few days off-line after the way I reacted to the news that Martijn Reuser had been given a free transfer (oops).

A couple of days before my out burst Town had gone out of the FA cup to Sheffield United, Town were 2-0 behind at half time and it looked to be all over after 64 minutes when Sheffield United made it 3-0 but 3-goals in 3 minutes soon changed that, Thomas Gaardsøe scored followed by a Tommy Miller penalty and then Darren Bent levelled the scores a minute later sadly all that hard work was in vain as Paul Peschisolido scored a 90th minute winner for the blades. Town returned to north to lose against Bradford City in the league before having the chance to extract revenge on Sheffield United for dumping them out of the cup as the blades came to Portman Road.

A win against the blades could bring Town to within just one point of the play-off zone it didn’t look very good for Town after 19 minutes when Pablo Couñago got him self sent off, it got worse for Town just before the half time break when Peter Ndlovu game the blades a 1-0 lead going into half time. Five minutes after the break it looked to be game over for Town as Dean Windass made it 2-0 with just over half an hour left Darren Bent made it 2-1, 20 minutes later Darren Ambrose made it 2-2 and the impossible come back looked to be on and with 3 minutes of normal time left it happened, Ambrose crossed to Bent who headed home to make it 3-2 and send Portman Road into carnival mode. The win was a fitting tribute to former assistant manager Dale Roberts who died after a long fight against cancer in the week before the match and played a big part in the development of both Darren Bent and Darren Ambrose.

That great win was followed by Town going into temporary administration despite the sale of Jamie Clapham to Birmingham during the January transfer window for £1.5 million, Town couldn’t afford to pay the bills and the administrators had to be called in meaning a number of Town’s jewels would have to be sold, first to go was Darren Ambrose who left to join Sir Bobby Robson’s Newcastle United for £1.5million that price was bad but it was better than the £3million combined bid tabled by the magpies for Darren Bent, Darren Ambrose and Matt Bloomfield. Justin Miller left to join Leyton Orient on a free transfer, although those players left during administration many more would leave during the summer and the coming year or so as a result.

While all that was going on off the field, on the field Town had dropped points against Wolverhampton, losing 4-2 and as if that wasn’t bad enough it was followed up by a draw with Grimsby Town. Many Town fans probably went to Carrow Road a week later expecting another defeat but all of them left walking on air with massive smiles after Dean Bowditch came on with 20 minutes to go and set up both goals in Town’s 2-0 win over the budgie’s.

It’s a shame Town couldn’t follow up that great win with more wins instead drawing away with Wolves and home against Stoke and away with Crystal Palace.

That’s were part two of this three year review will be left, Town sit 7th in the table a two point cushion over Norwich, 5 points out side the play-offs and with 10 games to go.

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