Phil Yelland looks back on a previous meeting with Ipswich Town, connections between the two clubs and previous FA Cup Second Round action.
Wednesday night sees Ipswich Town make their first trip for a competitive match to The Dunes Hotel Stadium. However, unlike out first ever visit to Portman Road ten days ago, they have been here before – for a pre-season friendly in August 1966.
The FA Cup Second Round has brought us many highs and lows down the years. The most recent high took place on Sunday 4th December 2016 when, against all the odds, we came from behind to defeat Bristol Rovers of League One at the Memorial Stadium thanks to Byron Harrison’s double.
Four years earlier, arguably we should have made Round Three when we met Blue Square Premier rivals Macclesfield Town here. A bad-tempered affair ended 1-1 and we lost the replay at Moss Rose 4-1 with Adam Boyes – who is still scoring regularly for Marske Town in the Northern Premier League First Division East – getting our consolation goal.
Going back to 2008 and 2009, the Second Round brought two memorable games at Holker Street. In 2009, on a freezing December night, we defeated Blue Square title-chasing Oxford United 3-1 in a replay to set up a Third Round tie at the Stadium of Light against Premier League Sunderland. 12 months earlier, on a Friday night in front of the Setanta TV cameras, we had defeated Brentford of League. The 2-1 triumph was our first win over a Football League side in the cup since losing our Football League place in 1972. The winner came from promotion play-off hero Matt Henney.
Our first ever Round Two win came in December 1945 as the country came back to normal following World War Two. The ties that season were played over two legs – we defeated Carlisle United 4-2 at home and seven days later won 4-3 at Brunton Park to set up a two-legged Third Round tie with Manchester City. Irishman Kevin Clarke scored a hat-trick for us in both games against The Cumbrians.
Barrow and Ipswich Town don’t have many connections. Older supporters may remember one player to represent both clubs, whilst younger fans may be surprised by a second player to have featured for us both.
The first is Liverpool-born defender Larry Carberry who won a Division Three South title medal for the Tractor Boys in 1957. He then followed that up with Second Division and First Division title winners’ medals as Alf Ramsey, later to manage England, took Town to the top flight title in 1962. It was a shock win similar in scale to Leicester City’s Premier League triumph in recent years.
Carberry came to Holker Street in the summer of 1965 having been released after making 285 appearances for the Suffolk side over nine seasons. His time here was blighted by a knee injury, although he did play once in the promotion-winning side of 1966/67. He made 22 appearances over two seasons before being released.
Slightly more recently, England international striker David Johnson featured for both clubs. Born in Liverpool, Johnson moved to Portman Road in November 1972 from Everton in a swap deal involving Rod Belfitt and £40,000. Johnson fitted into Bobby Robson’s side as a partner for Trevor Whymark and he scored 35 times in 137 games for Town. In 1975, at the height of his powers with them, he won the first of his eight England caps – he scored four times.
In August 1976 he joined Liverpool and spent six seasons there before having spells back with Everton, Barnsley (on loan), Manchester City, Tulsa Roughnecks in the USA and Preston North End. He left Deepdale in the summer of 1985.
That summer Barrow had appointed former player Maurice Whittle as Manager and, with a very low budget, the team made a dreadful start to the season. It was therefore a real surprise when Johnson signed and made his debut in late September off the bench in a 1-1 draw with Wycombe wanderers in the Gola League (now the National League). His first goal came the following week in a 2-2 home draw with Cheltenham Town but his partnership with Colin Cowperthwaite never really took off.
Johnson took on the role of caretaker manager in mid-October following the departure of Whittle and he stayed in that role until he stood down after a 2-0 defeat at Whaddon Road against Cheltenham Town at the start of March 1986.
He netted a total of five goals for the Club in 25, the last of which came in a 3-0 defeat to Dagenham at Victoria Road just under two weeks after the Cheltenham game.
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