A Season With Sharona ITFC 2011-12: Chopra Is A Bender. ITFC 3-1 Brighton 01 10 2011

A goal either side of Ibrahima Sonko’s bullet header for Michael Chopra ensured that Ipswich got all three points in this most pleasurable, come from behind encounter!

The return to Portman Road of Mauricio Taricco now assistant manager at Brighton reminded me of a trip to South America made by John Lyle and Mick McGiven in 1994 to sign a mystery striker, rumours at the time spread that it was going to be Gabriel Batistuta coming back with them to Ipswich. What we got was £1 million pound record signing Adrián Paz a five foot 6 inch Uryguan striker, who with his shoulder length black hair looked more like a porn star than a footballer.

He made his debut versus at home to Man Utd at the end of September and when my mate Paul and I first saw him we thought that perhaps Lyle had got him for nothing and spent the million pounds on cocaine! Paz went on to be a flop for Ipswich and left for the USA in 1996, the bonus of their jaunt across the world however was the signing of Taricco who went on to become one of the most popular ITFC players of the modern era.

Paz’s debut was a memorable game for many reasons, for a start watching Eric Cantona playing keepie uppie in the warm up was something else!

Ipswich were 2-0 up at half time with both goals being scored by Paul Mason. We were sitting behind the dugouts and in front of us in the second half there was a young ginger haired lad warming up for Man Utd who got loads of abuse. “Get out of the way you ginger c**t”, etc. To his credit he just ignored it all and carried on stretching. He got on the pitch in the 62nd minute to make his league debut and soon after Cantona scored to get Utd back in it. In the 73rd minute Paul Scholes that ginger haired lad equalised for Utd, what better way to shut up your critics? For the record Steve Sedgley won the game for Ipswich in the 80th minute. In the Man Utd team that day were also Bruce, Giggs, Ince and a certain Roy Keane.

Moving forward 17 years the weather was unbelievable for October, around 28 degrees at kick-off (temperatures normally associated with the Nou Camp rather than Portman Road)! Inside the ground there was much optimism after the 1-0 midweek victory at West Ham and the 0-0 draw the previous Saturday at Middlesbrough, Paul Jewell naming an unchanged side for the fourth match in a row.

Newly promoted Brighton who have stuttered a little bit of late after a good start to the season brought a good support with them and received a lot of stick from the home fans regarding the south coast town having a large gay community. There was “Does your boyfriend know you’re here”, Town full of faggots", “We can see you holding hands” and “YMCA”, probably not very pc but nonetheless quite amusing!

After an exciting but goalless first half they might have had the last laugh after they took the lead in the 53rd minute, Vicente scoring from the edge of the box. Over the past couple of seasons it would have been hard to see Ipswich getting a draw, let alone winning, when conceding first, but there is a new confidence in the team at the moment and within six minutes Chopra curled a shot into the corner of Ankergren’s goal from the edge of the box to open his Portman Road account. The visitors were in arrears after Sonko met Jimmy Bullard’s perfectly flighted corner planting the ball with his head straight into the back of the net on the 70 minute mark and then three minutes later Chopra bent another fine strike past the Brighton keeper.

Paul Jewell gave a debut to substitute and new loan signing from Man City, Reece Wabara in the 89th minute (who was very keen to warm-up unlike his Eastlands counterpart Carlos Tevez, who refused a similar request from his manager Roberto Mancini in Munich the previous Tuesday)! I like most people in the ground couldn’t work out where the ref got 6 minutes of injury from when the board went up, but I had a bet on a 3-2 score-line and wouldn’t have been too upset if the Seagulls had of nicked another goal.

I was really excited about this match and it certainly lived up to expectations. To quote my mother-in-law “I thoroughly enjoyed that”, a really entertaining game, great goals, terrific atmosphere (just like the old days) and another home win. After the match Sharon, Kev, Tracey and I popped along to Isaacs for a celebratory drink, we were going to stay in town but decided to make the most of the late summer warmth and went home to have drinks alfresco instead.