It has been 40 years since Ipswich last beat Aston Villa in the top flight at Portman Road. Alan Sunderland had put Ipswich ahead early, but the game turned on the dismissals of Villa’s Peter Withe and Colin Gibson in the first 10 minutes of the second half. Russell Osman and Eric Gates rounded off a 3-0 win for Ipswich.
You don’t have to know that the opener stemmed from fine approach play from Gates and Kevin O’Callaghan, who played the Allied goalkeeper Tony Lewis in Escape to Victory – “Make it a clean break, skipper” – to feel a frisson of nostalgia; you just have to be about 50 years old.
