Pride of Anglia - Ipswich Town Football Club
since 1878
Do You Remember ... February/March 1981
When Town scored 11 goals in a week... all away from home?
At the height of their powers, and chasing honours in three competitions, Bobby Robson's team were taking on - and beating - all-comers in the Spring of 1981. Coming off the back of six straight home games - all won - Blues faced a tricky week involving all three competitions.
Unbeaten in 14 games, since a thrilling 5-3 defeat at White Hart Lane in December, Town were nonetheless in buoyant mood as the League leaders travelled to Highfield Road to take on a Coventry City side who had lost only three of fifteen home games that season. The Blues team included nine full internationals, despite missing George Burley and John Wark, both ruled out by injury, and the well-oiled Tractor was stopping for nobody!
The weather was terrible and the pitch resembled a bog but this did not deter Ipswich who switched from their usual short game and got the ball forward as quickly and as often as they could, which caused the Coventry defence all manner of problems. The game could have turned out differently had Coventry's claim for a seventh minute goal been upheld, when Gary Gillespie beat Paul Cooper to head the ball home, but the referee had seen an infringement and the goal did not stand. After half an hour a through ball from Frans Thijssen allowed Alan Brazil to give Town the lead, which they held until half time, and they never looked back. The second half was only two minutes old when Eric Gates latched onto another ball from Thijssen to put Blues 2-0 up. Steve McCall scored his first League goal with a tremendous 25 yard shot, having been set up by Russell Osman and it was Osman himself who completed the scoring with a diving header past a despairing Les Sealey. This was Blues biggest away win for 12 months, since beating Everton at Goodison Park by the same score, and so began a successful start to arguably the toughest and most important week in the Club's history.
European Giants
Four days later Town were in France, taking on one of Europe's finest in the form of French giants and League leaders and 1976 European Cup finalists, Saint Etienne, who boasted such talent as now-UEFA president Michelle Platini and Dutchman Johnny Rep, and were packed with other internationals. In the previous round Les Verts, as the French side were known, had travelled to Hamburg and humbled the home side 5-0, sending shock-waves across Europe.
700 Blues fans were among the forty thousand who filled the ground hours before kick-off, creating a white-hot atmosphere in the Stade Geoffroy Guichard where the home side were virtually impregnable in European competition. By the end of the game, only the Town fans were cheering, as Ipswich put on a display considered by many to be their finest ever.
When Rep gave the team regarded by Bobby Robson as the best his side had ever faced the lead after 16 minutes, Blues' task was looking daunting but 12 minutes later Paul Mariner headed home the equaliser from an Arnold Muhren cross and Town began to take control of the game, making light of the heavy conditions. The second half was only minutes old when Muhren scored with tremendous left-foot drive from 30-yards that went in off the post, and the home side began to wilt. After 57 minutes the French goalkeeper Casteneda could only parry a shot from Terry Butcher, playing this game at left-back, and Mariner strode in to give Blues a 3-1 lead. The icing on the cake was provided by the inevitable John Wark goal - his 30th of the season, rising high above the French defence to head home and at the end of the game the Town players were generously applauded off the pitch by the home fans.
After the game, Robson beamed, "We were simply magnificent. This result will cause a real stir around Europe." Skipper Mick Mills said, "this was one of the few occasions you have a super performance from all eleven players." Paul Mariner later recalled, "it was one of those nights you dream about, a night when everything clicked into place, every pass we tried came off and we were always going to score goals." No English club had performed on foreign soil with more skill and breath-taking power against a side rated as one of the best in Europe.
There was little time for the players to savour the accolades as only three days later they were back on the pitch, at the City Ground, Nottingham, in a Sixth Round FA Cup tie!
Chasing the Treble
In front of nearly 35,000 fans, the new Toast of Europe took on the current reigning European Champions and 5th-placed Forest, managed by the irrepressible Brian Clough. In one of the most pulsating Cup-ties imaginable, an unchanged Blues side had a dream start when Paul Mariner scored his third goal in four days after only 14 minutes, when he latched onto a poor back-pass by full-back Viv Anderson to beat keeper Peter Shilton - both England internationals - at close range. The same two Forest players are involved 10 minutes later when the hapless full-back heads past his own goalkeeper to give Town a 2-0 lead, and Anderson's misery is complete when he dislocates his shoulder and is substituted (asked after the game if Anderson would miss the next game, Clough replied, "Yes, with a bit of luck!") Had Blues held firm for a while they would surely have gone on to win this game but within a minute of the own goal, Trevor Francis - with Mariner, the best two strikers in the land - pounced onto a Russell Osman header and reduced the arrears. Shortly before half-time an electric run and cross by Francis set up Colin Walsh to send the teams in to the break on level terms.
A disputed penalty six minutes into the second half - when Forest substitute Raimondo Ponte drove the ball against John Wark's arm - gave John Robertson the opportunity to drive the ball home and establish an unlikely lead for the home team. Town never gave up and with eight minutes left on the clock the match received the climax it deserved when Frans Thijssen scored his first FA Cup goal for Blues to send the tie to a replay (which Town won three days later with a unique right-footed volley from Arnold Muhren!).
And so ended one of the most spectacular weeks in Town's history with an eleven goal haul, on top of the League, marching onwards in the UEFA Cup, and on their way to an FA Cup Semi-final.
Ian Hunneybell