Thirty years ago today Jason Dozzell became the youngest player to score a goal in the English top flight, a record which still stands. Aged just 16 years and 57 days, the Chantry High School pupil was given his debut as a sub and netted the final goal in a 3-1 home victory over Coventry City in the old First Division. TWTD caught up with Jason to find out what he recalls of that momentous day.
Ipswich-born Dozzell’s elevation into the first team squad came in the week after Town’s 2-0 FA Cup exit at Shrewsbury with manager Bobby Ferguson keen to put pressure on some of his more senior players following that defeat.
"I’d only played a few youth team games and a couple of reserve games,” Dozzell remembers. "In those days there was only one sub. I was pulled out of school on the Thursday and went and trained with the first team and I was in the squad for the Saturday.”
With the likes of John Wark, George Burley, Paul Cooper, Terry Butcher, Eric Gates, Russell Osman and Paul Mariner still at the club - although the Coventry game was the striker's last before his move to Arsenal - Dozzell admits he was a touch overawed by the company he was suddenly keeping.
"Outside the dressing room there used to be a boiler room on the right-hand side and I used to go and hide in there for half an hour because I was scared of walking into the changing room with the team I had supported only a few years earlier.
"I’d followed Ipswich home and away before I’d got really seriously into playing football. I never thought that I’d be playing with them.”
He says Ferguson only told him he would be involved shortly before kick-off: "You didn’t know until you got down there on the Saturday whether you were playing.
"I went and had the pre-match meal and we had the meeting at about a quarter to two and then the manager said I was on the bench.
"I try and think back now to what I was thinking and can’t remember. When you’re so young it sometimes just goes over your head. It’s only now when I look back I think ‘Jesus Christ!’.
"Eric Gates got injured after 29 minutes and I was on. I can’t remember any of how I felt at that point, I really can’t, apart from being very, very nervous. Of course, the icing on the cake was getting the last goal with us 2-1 up at the time.”
Three decades on, his memories of that goal are crystal clear: "I remember it like it was yesterday. There was a freekick on the halfway line, Terry Butcher took it, he aimed it at John Wark.
"He knocked it down, I slid in and I managed to get a good hook on it and lobbed the keeper and it went into the top corner. And the rest is history. It was a good goal, actually!
"I just put my hands up and ran away, I knew people there, my school friends were there where I scored at the North Stand end.
"And then I just got mobbed by everybody. I didn’t really have a goal celebration in my mind, I didn’t really think I was going to score!”
Becoming the talk not just of the town but of the entire footballing nation scuppered his plans for an appearance in a lower key game the following day: "I went to play for my Sunday league side, Langham Lions. I took my boots and everything to play but there were some reporters there.
"I was trying to get a sneaky game in but there were reporters there so I ended up stood on the sidelines with my boots watching.”
The media circus really started in earnest on the Monday: "I went back to school and television cameras came along and at break they got the whole school to make a big circle and I’m there in the middle kicking the ball, it was hilarious.
"They loved me at school after that. They used to give me detentions, but they loved me after that. I couldn’t do anything wrong!”
Despite the TV coverage in the days after the game, Dozzell, who is now a coach in the Town academy where his 14-year-old son Andre is following in his footsteps, has never seen footage of the goal itself: "I’m still trying to get a tape of it now but I’ve had no luck on that front.”
While Connor Wickham (16 years and 11 days) and Byron Lawrence (16 years and 47 days) have since made Town debuts while younger than Dozzell, albeit in the Championship, he remains the youngest player to score in the top division, a record he doesn’t expect to be beaten.
James Vaughan is the youngest to score in the Premier League era, the Huddersfield striker having netted for Everton against Crystal Palace when 16 years and 267 days in 2005.
"They don’t really mention it a lot because it wasn’t the Premier League then, but I still hold the record for top flight,” Dozzell said.
"No one’s really come close to 16 years and 57 days. Hopefully it’ll stand. You might see someone play at that age, a 16-year-old might make their debut, but it’s the goalscoring bit that’s going to be hard to beat.”
Dozzell was amongst the guests on last Saturday's Life's a Pitch on Radio Suffolk talking about Town past, present and hopefully future (01.40.00).