Legendary Match in the Championship 1 Ipswich Town Semi

Well OK it’s not a league game, but nonetheless, we were in the 2nd tier! “Stan the Wham” one of our forum regulars, has written this piece of his memory of that amazing night.

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Blues 4 – 1 Ipswich Town, January 31st 2001, Worthington Cup Semi-final 2nd leg

In my opinion, bar the 2011 Carling Cup final, this was the best football match I have ever attended. St. Andrews had hosted ‘big’ matches in the few years leading up to this game; the heartbreaking penalty shoot-out loss to Watford in the 1999 play-offs and the embarrassing 4-0 Barnsley defeat in the 2000 play-offs , but they had failed to deliver. Even the win against Premiership Newcastle United in Round Four (Shearer never did score against us, did he?) of the Worthington Cup that season, had nothing on the Ipswich game.

It was a chilly night, the air was icy fresh and the St. Andrews surface was a lumpy no man’s land of a pitch – the perfect ingredients for a Blues team full of never-say-die mongrels like Martin Grainger, Martin O’Connor and Geoff Horsfield. As the match kicked off in front of a capacity crowd, waving blue and white flags, we stood and bellowed out a deafening version of ‘Keep Right On’ before anxiously taking in the early moments of the game.

The fan’s anxiety didn’t wane when Jerry Gill cleared a shot off the line in the opening 10 minutes but the crowd continued singing, shouting and cheering the players. Suddenly a Lazaridis shot smacked off the arm of an Ipswich defender and as Jeff Winter shook his freshly tanned head to deny Blues a blatant penalty the atmosphere became electric with rage. Moments later Richard Wright’s awful sliced clearance was jumped on by Martin Grainger who headed the ball into the net from close range (it felt like the fan’s in the Tilton had sucked the ball into the net) putting Blues 1-0 up. Horsfield doubled Blues’ lead with a low left-footed shot after Adebola had bullied his way through the Ipswich defence for a knock down and suddenly Blues were on their way to Cardiff…

But in typical Blues style they dropped their concentration and seconds later Ipswich scored a vital away goal, sending the game into extra time. As extra time followed Ipswich looked uncomfortable and of the gloved managers on the touchline it was George Burley who looked the most apprehensive. Burley’s fear wasn’t unfounded as Danny Sonner (yes, Danny Sonner) magically slid the ball into the box, feeding The Horse who put Blues 3-1 up. A boyish Andrew ‘AJ’ Johnson finished the job off by taking advantage of a horrendous bobble which left Richard Wright, England goalkeeper, looking rather silly as he slid the ball into the net and took Blues into their first major final since 1963.

As the final whistle blew I am not ashamed to say I was one of the thousands of fans who ran onto the pitch in jubilation. Francis was mobbed. Strangers hugged. A few shed a tear. I grabbed a piece of turf and stuffed it into my pocket, then ran around like a maniac. Eventually, we left the stadium singing a croaky version of Keep Right On. All the way home people waved their flags from car windows and beeped their horns in unison. We were in the final, against Liverpool, actually in the final.

Since that night I have been at some special matches down at St. Andrews. The 3-0 Villa win in our first season back in the Prem, the 3-1 win against West Ham that sent us to the Carling Cup final, but nothing has ever come as close to the atmosphere that night we beat Ipswich, it really was the archetype football stadium atmosphere.

One final thing, have we had a team since that one that has featured so many legends? I can think of individuals: Dugarry, The Forse, Hart, Foster, Stern John, even Savage since, but that team featuring Grainger, Magic Johnson, Gill, O’Connor, Stan and Horsfield really were a special bunch.