What a moment. What a goal. What remarkable scenes as celebrated taking the lead away at with a superb, incisively flowing counter attack finished off by Sammie Szmodcis.
started it off, stealing the ball from on the edge of the Ipswich box. On it was moved to , who sprinted forward, tapping a pass to Ben Johnson who found the impeccably timed late run of , the new signing from Blackburn Rovers. The sweet icing came in the finish, the ball hitting the inside of goalkeeper ’s leg, trickling slowly across the line as the home crowd watched on aghast.
The noise that followed from the away end was like an explosion. There were limbs everywhere. A writhing mass of bodies leaping and jumping, arms pumping, strangers hugging.
It was a beautiful thing to witness, let alone experience for those who had made the trip across from Suffolk who were in the thick of it. Supporters, young and old, united in delirious celebration. Back in the Premier League after a 22 year absence, this is what Ipswich had been looking forward to, this is what they wanted.
Dreams are made of moments like these. Dreams, though, are fragile things. They are easily broken and there is not a team in who are more adept at shattering them than Manchester City.
What followed was, even by their standards, utterly brutal. It was a masterclass in destruction; a muscle flex that almost cruelly overpowered a newly promoted team from the Championship who, like so many before them, were torn apart. It was an awesome disp.