Ipswich Town’s Championship run-in will live long in the memory of every single supporter, and manager Kieran McKenna feels the same way.
Speaking to Town TV, he discussed some of the biggest matches of the campaign which ended in promotion to the Premier League. Of course, the 3-2 win against Southampton immediately comes to mind.
The Blues took a 1-0 lead through Leif Davis’ thunderous strike, but goals from Adam Armstrong and Che Adams turned the game on its head as the Saints took control.
Nathan Broadhead came off the bench to equalise in the 68th minute, setting up for a grandstand finish. Former Town right-back James Bree saw red right at the end of the game before Jeremy Sarmiento bagged a stunning winner with the last kick of the game as Portman Road erupted in the seventh minute of stoppage time.
“Southampton here was a great game,” McKenna said. “It was really, really tough, they played well on the day and gave us problems. We gave them plenty of problems as well.
“We played some good football, we showed resilience, we kept going. The last-minute winner was maybe the latest goal we’ve scored. It felt like the biggest last-minute winner we’ve had here for many years.
“There were so many fans who came up and said they’d never heard stadium noise like that in their lifetimes. It certainly felt like that – that was a big moment.”
For many people associated with Ipswich, this was the game that made them believe that promotion was written in the stars. McKenna, however, enjoyed relishing in the moment.
“It wasn’t necessarily the word ‘promotion’, to be honest,” he admitted. “I didn’t feel like, ‘ah, one foot there, we’re virtually there now’. It just felt like a big moment of, ‘we’ve just beaten Southampton with a last-minute winner from 2-1 down’.
“I think it was the live Sky game, I remember reading some stuff after that it had one of the highest EFL viewership records ever, eyes of the nation were on it. I think there was hardly any football on that day in the world, so it felt like a game that everyone was watching.
“It just felt like a massive moment in a special season. We didn’t know how the season was going to end, but it felt like, whatever happened at the end of the season, that was going to be a day, a game, a finish to a game that people would remember for years to come.”
A defeat at arch-rivals Norwich City then preceded draws against Watford, Middlesbrough and Hull City, but Leeds United’s 4-0 defeat at QPR meant that Ipswich needed four points from their final two games to earn a place in the top flight. They took a big step in the right direction when they beat Coventry City in a crucial game at the CBS Arena.
Parallels were drawn with the 3-0 win at Barnsley in League One 12 months earlier, where Town had travelled to an in-form team for a midweek game and comfortably beat them.
They didn’t find it quite as easy against the Sky Blues, but a 2-1 victory put them on the brink and allowed the players and staff to share a special moment with the supporters after the full-time whistle.
“I think it’s moments like that where you have to stop, pause and take it in. They’re special moments in your lifetime, really,” McKenna explained. “We had Barnsley last season. We’ve had so many, we’ve been so blessed.
“We’ve worked so hard for it, and Barnsley away the season before felt like that and the away end that we had. It’ll live with me forever.
“I probably didn’t take as much time to pause in that one, but this was nothing premeditated. It was just a moment that people obviously took a few pictures of. We had the moment with the team, everyone was celebrating.
“We had players there that hadn’t played and players who were injured all season part of the celebrations. You do try to take time across the season to step back and reflect a little bit on what’s just happened, where you are, the support you’ve got and the incredible journey you’re on.
It set everything up for the final game of the season, home to all-but-relegated Huddersfield Town. Leeds, who hosted Southampton, knew they’d have to better the Blues’ result against the Terriers to pip them to promotion, and while the odds of that happening seemed slim to none, that lingering sense of paranoia was there throughout the build-up to the game.
McKenna knew that his team would deliver – which they did, winning 2-0 – but even he had those intrusive thoughts. One game in particular came into his mind as the team coach travelled down the A14 in the early hours of Wednesday, May 1st.
“I never had doubts that we’d deliver a good performance, do our jobs and stay focused, but it’s football,” he argued. “I don’t need to say it. We had Maidstone here this year, I remember after Coventry that it just came into my head on the bus home, if I’m honest. It can happen, it’s football.
“The Maidstone game, we played really well for large chunks of that game. It wouldn’t have mattered who we were playing against, the first 30 minutes of that game we were excellent with a whole-changed team.
“But sometimes the ball just doesn’t go in, it’s a random game and the other team can just go up the other end and do something incredible.
“Obviously this wasn’t on that scale. Huddersfield have got good players, a proud club, a proud team, a proud manager.
“I knew we’d go out and deliver a pretty good performance, hopefully a really good performance. I knew the players would stick to their jobs, I knew we’d have an incredible atmosphere.
“I know, with all those ingredients, 90 to 99 percent of the time, in that context, we’d have a great chance of winning the game because it meant more to us. We’d be well organised, the players knew their jobs, the supporters would be behind us.
“But there’s always there’s little bit where you don’t know, if they get an early goal, if they get a set play, if we get a red card, if we get a couple of big injuries.
“There’s always that little bit of trepidation, not around how we’d execute our jobs but around the randomness of football. Sometimes it can go against you.
“That feeling was there probably until the 93rd minute, to be honest, even at 1-0 up or 2-0 up. You’re still on guard because you know that crazy things can happen.
“We did our jobs really well. The supporters certainly did their jobs, the players were excellent in the composure they showed, the staff were excellent in the composure they showed and we delivered a really solid performance that was more than enough to get us what we needed.”
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