Manchester U 2 Ipswich 1

Mickey Thomas

Man­chester Uni­ted 2 Ips­wich To­wn 1, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish Foot­ball Lea­gue Fir­st Di­vi­sion, Mar­ch 21, 1981. Af­ter fail­ing to win any of their pre­vi­ous five mat­ches, Dave Sexton´s Man­chester Uni­ted edged out Ips­wich To­wn 2-1 thro­ugh goals from wing­er Mickey Tho­mas and de­fender Jim­my Nicholl. 

Af­ter pick­ing up just two points in their pre­vi­ous five ga­mes, Man­chester Uni­ted got their fir­st win since beat­ing Birm­ing­ham City 2-0 at Old Traf­ford on the last day of Jan­uary. The Reds star­ted on the wrong foot, tho­ugh, as they con­ceded an early goal in the sev­enth min­ute of the con­test when Eric Gates con­ver­ted a well-taken cor­ner-kick by Ar­nold Muh­ren. The ho­me te­am gradu­ally grew in the ga­me and lev­elled the score ten min­utes la­ter as Mickey Tho­mas took ad­vant­age of some hes­it­ancy in the vis­it­ing de­fence to fire pa­st Paul Cooper and in­to the goal. Man­chester Uni­ted began the sec­ond ha­lf the strong­est and they were re­war­ded in the 53rd min­ute of the mat­ch when a poor clear­ance from a cor­ner fell to the feet of Jim­my Nich­oll who pla­ced his shot bey­ond the reach of Cooper and in­to the back of the net to hand the hosts a nar­row, but de­served, 2-1 tri­umph. Des­pite de­feat­ing lead­ers Ips­wich To­wn, Man­chester Uni­ted re­mained in a dis­ap­point­ing ninth po­s­i­tion in the Fir­st Di­vi­sion stand­ings wi­th 36 points won from 36 fix­tures, 14 points be­hind The Blues in top spot. And as it turned out, Dave Sex­ton would leave Old Traf­ford in the near fu­ture, and so would Mickey Tho­mas and Jim­my Nich­oll. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Ga­ry Bai­ley, Ar­thur Al­bis­ton, Jim­my Nich­oll, Kev­in Mor­an, Gor­don Mc­Queen, Mar­tin Bu­chan, Ste­ve Cop­pell, Mi­ke Dux­bury, Garry Birtles, Joe Jor­dan, Mickey Tho­mas. Sub­stitutes: No­ne. Ips­wich To­wn Te­am: Paul Cooper, Kev­in Steggles, Rus­sell Os­man, Ste­ve Mc­Call, Terry Butcher, John Wark, Ar­nold Muh­ren, Eric Gates, Paul Mar­iner, Frans Thijssen, Kev­in O’C­allaghan. Sub­stitutes: None.

UNITED FEATURES UNITED REPORTS UNITED REVIEWS UNITED STORIES

Front Page