Are we nearly there yet?
As each game passes, we can see the finishing line drawing ever closer.
The end of the season is just five games away and then one can really sense the entertainment will begin. I feel like I’m at the cinema, trying to just get through the adverts before the main event.
Popcorn at the ready, but I’m saving myself for some action to get the interest going, rather than moping around with a nondescript feeling of what another poor season has done to me.
The final nail has been in place for a while as far as I’m concerned. Hammer in hand at the ready for one last hit and season over.
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That moment came for me in seven typical moments last Tuesday night that personified Ipswich Town this season and much of last season as well.
I was late in switching the Wimbledon game on. I knew nothing about the first 20 minutes. I did not even know what the score was. The laptop fired up, iFollow logged into and as the game appeared, the top left-hand corner of the screen revealed a 0-0 scoreline.
I did not expect anything more on our half of said score. We really have become known as 'Ipswich nil' these days.
But, the last ounce of hope, of anything remotely positive that was still swimming around at the bottom of my heart, evaporated in those seven minutes when, firstly, Wimbledon scored twice, and then we were reduced to ten men.
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I watched the remainder of the game. I say watched, I mean looked at the screen without taking in anything looking back at me.
The best thing to happen on Saturday lunchtime was that my daughter’s guitar lessons restarted. It stopped me from drawing £10 out of the cash machine and finding the nearest waste bin to deposit it in which is effectively what I have been doing for the last few away games - so I didn't see the exciting 0-0 draw.
How brutal was Paul Cook's press conference towards the end of last week? The more I read into his thoughts, the more I did not know whether to laugh or cry. It was a damning indictment of where we are at.
If I wasn’t sure how to react then, I certainly laughed at Paul Lambert’s thoughts on Sunday when he announced that he had left us, ‘in a more than decent place’.
Alan Judge became the first of the big names to be officially released. For more reasons than one, I think it’s the right move for the club to move forward, but I still would like to place my thanks on record for his time with us.
I have seen in recent weeks, comparisons being drawn between some of our current squad with players of yesteryear who equally did not hit the dizzy heights during their time with us.
Graham Harbey’s name often gets a mention, but how many people do you know won money thanks to Harbey? Allow me to step forward.
In the days when I used to travel on the Clacton branch of supporters coach, I would partake in the competitions that would be run by the sisters in charge of the coach, Jill Lewis and Pat Edwards.
One such competition was first-goalscorer. For 50p, you would draw a ticket out of an envelope and win half the prize fund if your number came up.
On October 27, 1987, we played Southend in the League Cup. I pulled out ‘Ipswich No. 3’. Knowing that was usually Harbey’s number I wasn’t expecting to win.
Sure enough, that was his shirt number that night. I wasn't confident. But I should have been, we won 1-0 and who should score? Yep, Graham Harbey! I think I won the princely sum of £5! Thanks Graham!
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