Dean Gerken got himself in a bit of a pickle there. McCourt couldn’t take advantage
Daryl Murpy heads BMMTB’s in front:clap:
Slab. 
After a slow opening 20 minutes we have really stepped it up and have been dominant since. Have been very impressed with Aaran Cresswell at left back. Strong in the tackle and very composed on the ball, he is a decent attacking threat
Barnsley have made a decent start to the second half here. Need to up it
Deserved leveller for Barnsley. We haven’t gotten to the pitch of this game at all in the second half
McCourt is owning Portman Road.
End to end stuff here now
Big Mick is a credit to himself. Brushes off the bitter disappointment of missing out on the Ireland job to lead Ipswich to a last gasp 3-2 victory at Blackpool. What a professional.
BMTB’s drive for promotion begins here.
Why wasn’t this win tipped up?
A solid 1-0 win at Charlton today for BMTB.
A solid 0-0 draw for BMTB at double European champions Nottingham Forest, and perhaps they were unlucky not to come away with a win. Big Mick sporting a beard which I must say suits him very well.
Were they fuck unlucky, Forest were robbed
[SIZE=5]Ipswich Town[/SIZE]
Season in one word Better
How’s it going? Pretty well overall, bearing in mind that a battle against relegation is all we’ve had to look forward to at this point in the season for the last few years. Town are solid but not particularly spectacular, which is what’s required in the unremitting, relentless grind that is the Championship. The current standing of 10th, three points from the play-offs is an ideal position from which to launch a push for the top six in the second half of the campaign. I think the overall expectation was that this season would be one of consolidation in upper mid-table after last year’s escape from the drop following Mick McCarthy’s appointment, so making the top six would be a welcome bonus.
Who’s been the star? It’s difficult to look past manager McCarthy. When he took over 13 months ago Town looked destined to drop into what’s now League One for the first time since the 1950s. Having masterminded last season’s survival bid, he spent the summer rebuilding the squad on a relative shoestring and the Blues have continued to move in the right direction.
Biggest disappointment? Probably that McCarthy hasn’t been given a bit more to spend by club owner Marcus Evans. But given the levels of cash splashed out with no success under previous managers, you can empathise with his reticence and the club seems to be taking Financial Fair Play more seriously than one or two other sides in the division. However, most fans would feel Mick has done well enough to deserve the purse strings being relaxed a little. The addition of Sylvan Ebanks-Blake may suggest that that’s already starting to happen.
All we want for Christmas is … A hitman (or hitwoman) to take out the [U]Football League[/U]'s fixture computer for giving us trips to Doncaster on Boxing Day and then Bournemouth on the 29th. A decent haul of points from those two treks would also be quite nice. Beyond that, a couple of signings in January to augment the squad, not an overhaul, just building on the good work up to now.
Phil Ham [B][U]TWTD[/U][/B][/URL][B] ([/B][URL=‘https://twitter.com/twtduk’][B][U]@twtduk[/U][/B])
[quote=“chewy louie, post: 876518, member: 1137”]
Phil Ham [/quote]
Ipswich are the side of Ham.
When Big Mick refused to meet or acknowledge Margaret Thatcher at the 1988 Scottish Cup Final.
From The Herald in Scotland:
Players were pressurised into meeting Thatcher
Alan Campbell
Friday 12 April 2013
ALMOST exactly 25 years ago the Scottish Football Association braced itself for an afternoon which had the potential to plunge into one of excruciating embarrassment. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher meets Celtic players Roy Aitken, Pat Bonner and Mark McGhee at the 1988 Scottish Cup final. The Prime Minister of the day was due at Hampden as guest of honour at the Scottish Cup final between Celtic and Dundee United.
To suggest that the Right Honourable Margaret Thatcher was not a popular figure in Glasgow in 1988 is as controversial as opining that tomorrow might be Sunday. The leader of the Conservative and Unionist party was nearing the end of her 11-and-a-half years term, and Thatcherism was a creed which, as now, provoked deep divisions. Inviting her into the bearpit of Scotland’s national stadium, in front of a capacity 73,000 crowd largely drawn from the demographic which most despised the Prime Minister, seemed to be an act of breathtaking rashness. The morning of Saturday, May 24, was bright, warm and sunny, but what would the afternoon hold?
While the build-up to the final had focused on Celtic, chasing the double in their centenary year, and a still-formidable Dundee United side, there was plenty of other news to keep the back pages busy. In this newspaper a youngish football writer with a full crop of hair called James Traynor started an article by stating: “One of these days there will be good news concerning Rangers.” That the same gentleman is now employed as a highly paid fire-fighter on Edmiston Drive is proof that there is nothing new under the sun. Or, in this case, the Herald.
The same week, Edinburgh businessman David Murray stepped up his attempt to buy Ayr United by tabling an “astonishing” £1.25m offer. Closer scrutiny revealed it to be £500,000, with the balance being in the shape of a business strategy which was reported – perhaps generously – to be worth a further £750,000. Twelve months earlier the Prime Minister had been criticised for leaving Perth to attend the FA Cup final at Wembley. Somewhere in London a public relations genius decided she would grace Hampden the following year, but this actually played well with an SFA desperate to elevate the Scottish Cup final to the status of the London showcase.
Thatcher being Thatcher, she did her best to crank up her unpopularity rating on the eve of the game. During a Scottish Conservative and Unionist rally in Perth she told the true blues: “The Scots invented Thatcherism long before I was thought of.” The Daily Record’s front page was all over the quote, describing it on the morning of the final as a spectacular own goal. Strangely, there hadn’t been much in the Scottish papers about Thatcher’s visit. But both Jim McInally and Andy Walker, who played in the final, recall that it had been the subject of much debate at Tannadice and Celtic Park. So much so that a compromise was agreed with the SFA: the players would be introduced to the Prime Minister, but not out on the pitch as is normal practice with a guest of honour.
“The visit was pretty controversial,” confirms McInally, who played in the midfield for United and is now the manager of Peterhead. “We were under a bit of pressure from the SFA to meet her. Some of the players weren’t keen so the SFA asked if we would compromise by doing it inside the stadium. Jim McLean was as anti-Thatcher as anybody but he felt we should go with that.” According to McInally, the United players shook hands with the Prime Minister in the foyer. Andy Walker, now a Sky Sports pundit but then a Celtic striker, says he and most of his team-mates met Thatcher in a different location. “In the old Hampden you went in the front door and there was an old snooker room to the left,” he recalls. “We lined up in there and she came down to meet us.”
“A few didn’t get involved and the one who refused point-blank was Mick McCarthy,” reports Walker. “He was from Barnsley and the son of a miner. Shaking hands with her was a no-no for Mick.” Before the game started Thatcher took her seat in the stand to a chorus of boos and protests. Many in the crowd brandished red cards. Derogatory chants ran round the ground. But that was the worst of it, and when an engrossing final got under way most of the crowd switched their attention to the pitch and Celtic’s dramatic late come-back to win the double in their centenary year.
The SFA, and its then secretary Ernie Walker, were deemed to have escaped what could have developed into an ugly afternoon. The last word goes to McInally. “You didn’t need to be a politician to be horrified about what was happening in Scotland at the time,” he points out. “Scotland was getting a raw deal between the poll tax and other things that were going on. It was a bit of a no-brainer to feel the way many of the players did, but it was a massive cup-final for us and that was more important than anything else.”
To be anti mccarthy is to be pro O’Neill. I can just imagine him begging to meet thatcher. Sickening Uncle Tom behaviour from O’Neill
Yes, how dare he beg to meet someone in your imagination.
Exactly. Creeping around in my head looking to meet dead brit prime ministers, has this man no shame? I did google search but could find no conclusive evidence that they did meet but i won’t let this throw me off the scent.