Our first meeting against Ipswich was a 2-1 FA Cup 1st Round defeat at Portman Road in November 1936 when they were still playing non-league football. They were elected to Division 3 (South) two years later and were frequent opponents until their promotion to Division 2 in 1957. There was then a gap of 26 years before we played again in the League Cup 5th Round of 1982 (another 2-1 away defeat). Since then they've been regular opposition. In all we've played 60 times including two meetings in the very prestigious Full Members Cup, winning 19, drawing 15 and losing 26. We've scored 80 goals and conceded 99. At Portman Road we've played 31 games, winning 6, drawing 8 and losing 17, scoring 36 but conceding 63.
Last season we beat them 2-1 at Vicarage Road under Aidy although it seems much much longer ago than that. The Sky cameras were there to watch us go 1-0 down after just 2 minutes but we fought back to win with second half goals from Eustace and JJOT. In March we went to Suffolk and drew an exciting and close fought game 0-0.
Nothing really has to be said about Ipswich's season so far other than its not going well. They drew 1-1 at home to Swansea on Saturday.
An ex-Horn at Ipswich is, of course, Tamas Priskin. Along with McAnuff he's the only other player I would've forgiven for going to work with Judas seeing as how he played so well under his charge, yet so badly under anyone else. Instead, bizarrely, he chose to go and join Roy Keane's Ipswich revolution. Maybe he thought he'd be okay under another Irish manager. He's yet to start a League game but has come off the bench 5 times and scored once. He did start and scored in Ipswich's 2-1 League Cup loss to Peterborough.
Finally a piece of advice for those who gave Neil Eardley a warm reception when we faced Blackpool. Ipswich do have a player on their books called Tommy Smith. I've checked a couple of websites and the nearest thing he has to a Watford connection is a loan spell at Stevenage Borough. He isn't THAT Tommy Smith.
