Reserves 2-0 Leicester
Wednesday, 3rd Apr 2002 23:22

Darren Bent didn't score as the reserves beat Leicester 2-0 at Portman Road. Old Git reports.

Let there now be a moment's silence for Barry Took, a humorous man not unlike your Official Reserves Reporter, but we did all death in the last Reserves.

by OldGitWithABeautifulMind@Reserves-Fellowship of The Reserves; Winner-Best Reserves Report On An Ipswich Town Website.

Sing, We Are Top O' Th'League, Sing, We Are Top O' Th'League.

Tonight, Town Reserves swept away the crumbs of Leicester's even-worse-than-ours season, with two first half goals Not From Darren Bent!

The first was a neat tap-in from Leicester midfielder David Sherman - OK, he deflected Thomas GaardsÃ¸e's shot into his own goal, after 18 minutes, but, just before half-time, forgotten-man Richard Logan, fresh from Torquay United's reserves, nodded in at the near post a good, firm diagonal cross from right-winger Reuser, after a move begun by a flash of skill from my Man Of The Match, frail hunch-back Darren Ambrose.

By my notoriously unreliable reckoning, Town Reserves now top the Premier Reserve League (South), on goal difference from Derby County and, possibly, Arsenal, us with games in hand. The crunch match may be the visit of Derby to what is, in the Reserves League at least, Fortress Portman Road, on, is it, 1st May?

A beautiful evening in Ipswich...a pretty rare phrase, in the history of travel-writing, but to we gnarled, if saggy Reservista (our beards reminiscent of Che in his dotage, perhaps) an enveloping vista of beautiful blue, empty seats reaching up--from the Far Left of Churchman's to the Far Right of the new, towering, regal, Queen Motherish North Stand - to a clear blue sky, it's as close as we will get to a Workers' Paradise. It was a shimmering 17 degrees, in the new money, as the match kicked off, floodlit but in daylight, though the temperature fell 5 degrees during the match and so did night.

It was a dismal 16 in Tunisia, today, whence I travel on Sunday for my annual celebration of sun, sea and Mrs OG (though things have never really been the same since the Milanese 'mare when Mrs OG and I enjoyed a clash of gender-specific priorities: Christmas Shopping versus Enjoyment Of Life).

Pick up the thread: a beautiful night in Ipswich.........even if all our Reserves stars have been pinched.

Even Tommy Miller; that landmark of the Reserves' midfield, this season, who normally plays with a broken hip, to judge by his lolloping gait. We cackled amongst ourselves for knowing Sixto Peralta before any of you, but Our Tom? We had never bothered to mention him to our all-too-few mates. But he got stuck in, didn't he? MOM in the EADT and The Times.

Logically, sometime-Northern-Ireland-captain Magic Jim should now be turning out for the Reserves. He's not injured, and infallible Pope George never hesitated before excommunicating almost-England international J Clapham (a la Jloyd Samuel) into the Reserves, along with Dutch international Reuser and Dutch nice guy, Fab Ian. But he daren't do Magic, dare he? Jim can be as fiery as Ian Paisley.

And where was Pablo tonight? He stings like a butterfly but he's pure class, whereas Logan's pure arse (Pablo has an injured ankle — PH).

At least we've got the last few Town matches of Darren Bent, before he joins Manchester United. The Young Titus was a colossus partly because he was and is a literal colossus, but 'Dazza' has a real claim to fame: he is the world's most natural goal-scorer, who will make Ruud Van Nistelrooy look as profligate as Mr Andrew Cole, once Bent Double gets to Old Trafford (although, to make a bizarre-sounding comment about someone who has scored nearly 100 goals this season, Dazza is, in his own way, profligate, I knew Sir George would play Daz on the wing, against Chelsea, hoping that his instructions would be ignored and that Daz would burst through the middle and keep us in the Premiership. But I come to praise Caesar not to bury him; George has my vote of confidence, even if we don't achieve promotion again until I'm, er, I've forgotten the word).

But Darren Bent didn't score tonight.

He was subbed just after an hour by a taller, hairier, blonder J Clapham (so, er, not very like Clappers, then?) Matthew Robinson, who is a Yoof but failed to make much impact, but that didn't matter, as he has Yoof on his side, but, with Richard Logan at his side, our strike threat petered out during the last half hour.

Lovely to see cuddly Dicky Logan 'partnering' Bent (in the same way that Gazza is partnered by Jimmy Five-Bellies). Five-Bottoms Logan took his chance with both buttocks. Bent is lean, fit and fast; if Darren's Bent, Logan's Straight (if anything that round can be). Before you think that Logan is my new Karic, let me say that I write like this because it grieves me to see young talent run aground -or waddle aground, as in Straight's case. 'Log' was actually pretty good this evening but I know him of old: he only has to see a laurel and he's resting on it.

Titus, a marginal injury victim, got whacked in the fifth minute by Thomas Wright, who was booked but later suffered a tit-for-tat felling by Titus, who was subbed at half-time by eager, big Lee Beevers, who played right back in the style of Gary Pallister, purposefully and strong, pushing diagonal balls into the box. Gaaardsoe (whose name, when Phil Ham writes it, has an owl, or is it a No Entry sign, in the middle of it) moved, in the second-half, into the middle of the defence, from right back. He was his usual tall, if badly drawn, self. Alongside him, Justin "Time's Nearly Up" Miller was his usual tidy-but-no-more self.

If you forget the name of one of our Eager Yoofs, it's fair to guess at either Darren (two) or Matthew (three). Robert Dickinson does not come into that category and was not playing tonight; why? Because of Nomenclatural Cleansing; or injury? Matthew Bloomfield, the midfield, mini-England international, who is compact, with a little beaver quiff like GraGra le Saux, was booked for a two-footed tackle that missed - which set a precedent and their Mortimer was thereafter booked for a foul on Ambrose - but Richards, at left-back, and Bloomfield, together with striking sub, Robinson, completed a dull night for the Matts. The Darrens, Ambrose and Bent, were tonight's Glossies.

Leicester Reserves - in glowing golden shirts - what you might call New Gold - bearing their cheerful sponsor's name, Lucky Goldstar, a gauche South Korean company - boasted a Scottish international. I guess that Berti Vogts felt lucky to have at least someone playing at that high level. Do they just play cricket, or something, in Scotland, in the same way that West Indians now only play basketball? I understand that Scottish people ingest more crack cocaine than is good for them. I, too, would like to try some, as it obviously peps you up, but my children won't sell me any. The Scottish international - or 'Scotland international', as we now have to say it - lasted an hour before being subbed by someone whose name you don't need to know. Alright, Lewis Tozer. Any the wiser?

Why not add 15 minutes of 5-a-side to warm-ups, so that everyone hits the pitch already 'playing'? We took a quarter of an hour to hit our stride, after which we dominated, Ambrose securing a beach-head in midfield that was finally eroded after Ashley Nicholls, late of Canvey Reserves, was allowed a quarter of an hour at the end.

Am I biased towards 'footballers' like Ambrose, Pablo, even Nabil (who has now quietly slipped to the position on the Reserves bench usually occupied by the new Yoof that no-one has heard of, and who doesn't actually get on the pitch) and I don't notice honest toilers like Jermaine Wright, Nicholls and Tommy Miller? I was stunned by Miller's selection and then stunned, but pleasantly of course, by his first team performance.

But why didn't George use poor Reuser, instead? Is it because The Dutch International is so like me: fat, smelly and lazy, his hair scented with pomade, unnecessarily expensive unguents kneaded into the folds of his body; me smelling of hops. Reuser tonight was like a 30-year-old at a disco, knowing what to do but also knowing that he shouldn't be there. In the first half, he put in a fair amount of work, Ambrose, Logan and Bent all missing his strong diagonal ball in the 24th min, so immediately afterwards Reuser decided to show them the way, and worked the ball this way and that to then dink it into the net like Beckham against Deportivo La Corunna. Except that Roosta missed. Seconds before half-time, he whacked the ball venomously against their goalie (whose name was Michael Price. Ours was Lewis Price (the Yoof). Two for the price of one. Ours had nothing to do, other than be tidy and keep awake. He sort-of had to make a save 15 mins from the end from Eamonn Zayed, who looked like he sounds, an Irish Pakistani.
Half-time: 2-0.

A couple of matches ago, Rob Chandler broadcast an advert for the Old Git Report. Tonight, the wuss, he broadcast an advert for the official itfc reserves report (which only warrants lower case.) He was criticised for advertising my Report. Saddo Ipswich Town. Tonight, I will be criticised for mentioning that I was chauffeured, in my beautiful British Racing Green Jaguar, by my daughter, Twiggsie, who has long since asked never to be mentioned again in my Reports. Young people.

Reservistas are a mixture of young people with a future and old people, most of whom, to look at us, have neither much past nor future. There were 1,103 of us, this day.

Second half : not much happened. We won.

Some of the crowd are on the pitch. They think it's all over. They should be reminded that that is an offence.

TEAMS:

TOWN: Price;

Gaardsoe, Miller(c), Bramble(Beevers), Richards;

Reuser, Ambrose(Nicholls), Bloomfield, Le Pen ( who is not mentioned in the body of the Report : er, deft, diminutive, intelligent, ineffective;)

Bent(Robinson), Logan;

subs not used : Peat(GK), Abidallah(never will be again).

LEICESTER: Price, Lyth, Davidson, Mortimer, Heath, Zayed, Sherman, Williamson, Wright, and on and on.

SCORERS :

SHERMAN(og), no, give it to GAAARDSOE(18); LOGAN(39).

THE END.
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