Ipswich Town v Reading nostalgia: McAuley and Walters on target as Town beat 10 man Reading

In this week’s nostalgia, we travel back to seven years ago when Town secured a hard-fought 2-1 win over Reading at Portman Road on 5 April 2010

Two goals in three first-half minutes sealed a crucial win for the hosts against plucky ten-man Reading, whose own play-off chances suffered a potentially crippling blow.

Reading started the brighter and Ipswich hardly got out of their own half for the first 15 minutes, but the game changed on the half-hour mark when Reading defender Matthews Mills saw red when he went into a 50-50 challenge with David Norris with his studs showing and referee Keith Stroud decided it was worthy of a red card.

The 10 man advangte went in Ipswich favour when they took the lead on 41 minutes when Gareth McAuley headed home a Grant Leadbitter corner and beat Reading keeper Adam Federici to make it 1-0.

Town doubled their lead on 44 minutes when David Wright’s cross to the far post was helped back into the centre by Daryl Murphy for Jon Walters to beat two Reading defenders to nod home.

In the final minute of the second half, Gylfi Sigurdsson curled home a 22-yard free-kick to give Reading hope, but Town held on comfortably enough to earn three points at Portman Road.

TownXI: B Murphy, D Wright, Peters, Delaney, McAuley, Leadbitter, Norris (Martin 86), Colback, Walters, Healy (Wickham 46), D Murphy (Counago 72). Unused: Lee-Barrett, Rosenior, Edwards, Smith. Att: 21,403.