If you’re a long-standing football fan, there are dates you can look at and identify as turning points in your team’s history which either led onto a period of achievement and glory, or a period of decline and failure. As an Ipswich Town fan, writing this blog has allowed me to relive the memories of the glorious period in the club’s history which began on Saturday 23 November 1991, when a 2-1 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux heralded the start of a run of a form which would see Ipswich win the 1991/92 Second Division Championship and with it, promotion to become one of the founding teams in the FA Premier League. It was a journey which John Peel and various members of his family had witnessed at close quarters. If I took my going from school to college as symbolic of a fresh start and exciting new surroundings, there is a parallel to be drawn with Ipswich’s early season form as they returned to the top-flight of English football after a gap of 6 years. For the first two-thirds of the season, Town carried over the momentum gained from their promotion. They were fiercely hard to break down and gained a reputation as draw specialists, but crucially, on the weeks they didn’t draw, they won. By the time Saturday 30 January rolled around, Ipswich’s league record for the season looked like this:
Played 25
Won 9
Drawn 12
Lost 4
They were in the top 6 of the Premier League and in both domestic cup competitions. Life was like an ongoing happy dream if you were an Ipswich fan, and their fine form reflected my own happy stroll through life in the winter of 1992 as I made new friends and enjoyed new experiences.
Contrast that with Peel’s beloved Liverpool, who had gone from perennial English champions to a fading force as many of those players whose success the club had been built on began to age out or were moved on as the club began the process of rebuilding. Always a tricky task and one which becomes much harder if your transfer business starts bringing in more flops than successes. Liverpool had struggled over the first two-thirds of the season and went into the weekend sitting 10 points behind Ipswich in the league table. On this show, Peel gloomily previewed their Sunday game at Arsenal by sarcastically warning any Arsenal fans who were listening that Liverpool haven’t lost for two weeks, you know. In the event, a goal from John Barnes gained Liverpool a 1-0 win and topped off a happy footballing weekend for the Ravenscrofts and for me, as goals from Chris Kiwomya and Frank Yallop secured a 2-1 win for Ipswich over Manchester United at Portman Road. The win took Ipswich to 4th place in the table behind United, Aston Villa and Norwich City. I can’t remember if I thought that we had a chance of winning the league after that game, but I do know that I recognised it as the peak of the seven years I’d been following the club. I’m glad that I had that awareness, because the following week Ipswich lost 2-0 at Aston Villa and began a dreadful run which saw them lose 10 of the final 16 games, winning just two. They plummeted down the table to finish 16th, seven points behind Liverpool who finished 6th. And if we want to look at parallels, through the spring and early summer of 1993, I saw so many of the friends I’d made on my performing arts course drop out, until only a hardcore remained. It started to become less fun and the grind had started to set in.
That Saturday at the end of January 1993 was both an apotheosis and the end of era. Over their next 100 league games, up to the end of the 1994/95 season, Ipswich registered only 18 wins over a 2 and a half year period. The second half of the 90s would see the club rebuild in the second tier, but I must confess that listening to the selections from this 30/1/93 Peel show has brought memories of how unaware I, and all the other Ipswich fans probably were of the slow, curdling eclipse our club would suffer after reaching such a high.
Meanwhile, Datblygu continued with their attempt to get back into Peel’s good graces after their self-indulgently shoddy Peel Session of 6 months’ previous by writing to ask him for information on those who had tried to fix a place for Pop Peth on the 1992 Festive Fifty. Peel reassured David Edwards that the campaign wouldn’t have worked anyway given that Pop Peth was released in 1991, and anyway, he’d thrown the addresses away in a fit of pique. The Phantom Fifty had reached Number 41, So What About It by The Fall.
The other session guests on this programme were Dr. Oloh and his Milo Jazz Band, popping into Maida Vale from Sierra Leone. And of that sounds a flippant way of summing it up, well according to Peel, it wasn’t too far from the truth: I never know anything about Dr. Oloh. I mean, I know nothing at all actually. He just suddenly appears in the studio, records a session, and then just disappears again. Whether he’s doing gigs or not, nobody tells us and nobody warns us that he’s coming, except a couple of weeks in advance. I should like to have more information to pass onto you, but I do not.
The show featured a track from the Gallon Drunk album, From the Heart of Town. It didn’t do anything for me, but Peel really got it, feeling that, You know how sometimes there are tracks included on LPs just for you? That’s one of those. And it has to be said that Paying for Pleasure does feel like a perfect fit for John Peel’s ear-heart.
Peel also played Psycho Tavern by Zuzu’s Petals. The single included their cover of Brand New Key. Peel had been tempted to play this but demurred as he felt that most of his audience may not have heard of Melanie and that this was probably an instance where ignorance would be bliss.
The Little Richard Cover Search not only caused Peel to play Hell and Fire, but also Easier to Say Than Do by Charles Hodges - not that one.
The selections from this show were taken from a complete 3 hour recording. I was pretty fortunate in that virtually everything I wanted to share for my selections was available, though Mass by Calvin Party is still unavailable. Also missing was Source of Possible Ignition by Medicine Ball, the opening track from their LP, Sandwich Full of Lies. Peel passed on his thanks to Rustic Rod, for sending him a copy.
There were two tracks which fell from favour:
Eggs - The Obliviist: I’ll always have time for this band after the brilliance of Ocelot, and my notes are quite positive about it, particularly “the jazzy trombone”, but I think it ended up being too impenetrable either to write about or ultimately enjoy.
Mambo Taxi - Prom Queen: On first hearing, there’s much to laugh about and enjoy here. But as I listened to it again, I began to see it as a record which the 17 year old me would like more than the 47 year old me. Which is fine, I’ve included tracks which would have charmed me 30 years ago, which I now can’t abide here before. But it dawned on me that, even 30 years ago, I would have recognised the shooting fish in a barrel limitations of Prom Queen soon enough, and passed on it.
Full tracklisting to celebrate the apex of the Lyall/McGiven era at ITFC.
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