All the Championship games had a 12.30pm kickoff for the last match of the season, which meant a 6.30am start for us and after last weeks dismal game at Portman Road I did wonder why I was bothering. As it turned out we had a really good day and it was well worth all the effort in the end. We brought Kev a ticket for his sixtieth birthday and including Tracey there were eight of us traveling up north (seven, Emily, Harry, Jack and us oldies in the Zafira and Paul a one way ticket on the supporters coach). We had a stop half way at Peterborough services where there were supporters from Hull, Leeds and Coventry. Tracey had some good banter with a Hull fan who spotted her Jimmy Bullard (not the most popular man on Humberside!) T-shirt.
Rovers were already doomed to life in division one before the start so there was little for any of the teams to play for, having said that if we lost the game there was the possibility of our worst season in fifty five years.
The game was a cameo of our season, at times we knock the ball about and look really good and then at times defensively we just seem to go awol! We were on top from the start and took an early lead with Tommy Smith heading in Lee Martin’s corner after ten minutes. Ryan Stevenson unleashed a thirty yard rocket which went in off the underside of the crossbar to double the lead on the half hour. Rovers hit back five minutes later, Fabian Robert scoring from close range just when Town were looking like they could emulate last seasons six-nil victory.
Second half substitution Jason Scotland increased the lead from the penalty spot after he was tripped by Abib Beye in the seventy-ninth minute and I was looking forward to picking up seven points in the TWTD’s prediction league with the correct score until more slack defending allowed Beye to grab another goal back for the home side in injury time. I should also mention that Byron Lawrence came on to make his debut and become the second youngest ever ITFC player (after Connor Wickham) replacing JET with ten minutes left to play.
As we were driving out of the car park I noticed Jimmy Bullard (who had been a surprise member of the squad) signing autographs so I pulled over and while I got my camera Tracey went and got her T-shirt signed. The players were on good form and in the end she got her picture taken with Jimmy and Jet, Jack also got his picture with Jet, Jason Scotland and Aaron Lee-Barrett, I even got a picture with JET, (when I sent it to Max he commented “How f**king happy do you look.)
We got back home at 7pm having stopped off at Cambridge on the way back where we had the birthday cake that Sharon had brought along for Kev.
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