Ipswich
Town's victory over Lincoln City in the FA Cup First Round replay
means that the Tractor Boys will be at St Andrews to face the Sky
Blues next Sunday in the Second Round. Whilst the clubs have met many
times in the league and League Cup they have never met in the FA Cup
before. It means that the clubs will meet twice in six days at St
Andrews as the Suffolk club are due to face the Sky Blues in a league
game on the following Saturday.
The
obvious question arose, when did City last play the same club at home
on successive weekends? The answer is January 1947 when City were
drawn against Newport County in the Third round of the FA Cup, a week
before the club's Second Division clash at Highfield Road. Newport
were having a nightmare season and would eventually be relegated
having conceded 133 goals and City were comprehensive winners of both
games. A 5-2 victory in the Cup-tie saw George Lowrie score a
hat-trick with other goals from Ted Roberts and George Ashall. Seven
days later City went goal-mad winning 6-0 with Lowrie getting another
hat-trick and Roberts (2) and Ashall also on the score-sheet again.
City travelled to Division Two leaders Burnley in Round Four and lost
0-2 to a team that would reach the final at Wembley in May.
There
is another occurrence of successive home games against the same club:
on 26th October 1959 City played Southend in a Southern Floodlit Cup
replay (a competition which pre-dated the League Cup), having drawn
at Southend the previous week. City won 4-0 with goals from Ken
Simcoe (2), Brian Nicholas and Alan Daley. Five days later Southend
were back at Highfield Road for a league game and this time the
Bantams won 2-0 with goals from Ray Straw and Ken Satchwell. This was
the fifth year that the Southern Floodlit Cup was played for but only
the second season that City had entered. It was somewhat of a
'Cinderella' competition but all the league sides in London and the
South entered and put out strong teams. After defeating Southend,
City beat First Division Fulham and Southampton to reach the final
against West Ham who were defeated 2-1 at Highfield Road in front of
almost 17,000.
There
are some other examples of several games against the same club in a
short space of time. In 1986 City played Liverpool three times in
eight days with two League Cup games and a league game at Anfield in
between. In 1932 City faced Reading four times in 17 days with an
away league game and an FA Cup tie that went to three games including
a second replay at Stamford
Talking
of Ipswich Town, long distance City fan Colin Heys asked me about a
Coventry City game against Ipswich in 1982. He has acquired a
single-sheet programme for the game played at Highfield Road and
wondered why a full programme wasn't issued.
The
Sky Blues had been due to play Ipswich on 14th November but the game
was postponed because of World Cup qualifying games. It was
rearranged for a midweek game (26th February). On Friday 15th
January, as snow and ice hit the country, City's scheduled game at
Old Trafford was called off because of a frozen pitch. City chairman
Jimmy Hill moved quickly and suggested to Ipswich manager Bobby
Robson that City could play Ipswich on a frost-free Highfield Road
the following day. Bobby agreed and the game went ahead at short
notice. There was no time to print a full programme but enough time
to get BBC Match of Day cameras there. Sadly City blew a good chance
of beating the league leaders and threw away a 2-1 lead, conceding
three goals in the last nine minutes. There were only another four
games played in Division 1 that day plus 15 or so in other divisions.
John Wark scored first for Ipswich but with nine minutes left City
led through goals from Steve Hunt and Gerry Daly. As City wilted
goals from Arnold Muhren, Paul Mariner and Alan Brazil sealed the win
for the Tractor Boys.
City's line up was:
Blyth: Thomas, Barnes, Francis (sub Hormantschuk), Dyson, Gillespie,
Bodak, Daly, Hateley, Hendrie, Hunt. The attendance was 11,578.
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