Today’s ‘On This Day’ programme is from 1984 and comes from Ipswich Town. Read our notes on the programme below and see all the top-flight issues from 1984/85 here.
Ipswich’s issue for their home game against Manchester United featured a somewhat unusual cover image, including defender Terry Butcher; an Ipswich ‘Carnival Queen’; a police dog handler; and twelve bottles of champagne! Inside we learn this is related to a new ‘champagne game’ running in the VIP guest room at Portman Road!
Together with notes from manager Bobby Ferguson the programme opens with a page of news from around the club and a ‘Junior Blues’ page. Sitting alongside news from the Supporters’ Club is a coaching article from first-team coach Charlie Woods. Written with younger fans in mind, this feature encourages kids to concentrate on developing their basic passing skills, using a picture of full-back (and future manager) George Burley to illustrate the point.
‘Flashback’ looks at Ipswich’s fortunes in fixtures held 5, 10, and 20 years ago, while ‘Foreign File’ gathers football news from around the world, including the arrival in Spain of Terry Venables as manager of Barcelona. ‘Girl Talk’ is a profile of one Ipswich player’s wife and ‘Around Town’ gathers together more news from on and off the field.
The issue also features a profile of new signing, Canadian goalkeeper Craig Forrest and a ‘Soap Box’ article that gives an Ipswich fan the chance to air their views. ‘Season Spotlight’ is a statistical history of the club, here featuring all the key figures from Ipswich’s 1966/67 season. The club content is rounded off with the familiar two-page record of the current season’s results, line-ups, and tables.
Opponents Manchester United are given two pages, which are used to provide an introduction that focuses on recent transfer activity, before offering brief notes on the visiting players. These sit alongside a team picture, a list of home and away results between Ipswich and United, and a ‘Great Game’ article that recalls United’s 7-2 win at Portman Road in 1963 – a game that featured a hat-trick from Denis Law.
Ipswich certainly packed plenty of content into their 24-page programme for the 1984/85 season, with an interesting mix of club news and reflections on the game away from Portman Road, offering supporters some worthwhile reading for their 50p outlay.