So yesterday I got this idea stuck in my head – gotta map out the entire history between Aston Villa and Ipswich Town. Seemed straightforward, right? Just grab all the scores from every time they ever played each other. Man, was I wrong.
The Research Mess Begins
First thing, I hit the books. Well, actually my laptop. Hopped online thinking I’d knock this out before lunch. Found some sites listing Villa results season by season. Scrolled through pages and pages of league tables, squinting at tiny fonts trying to spot the Ipswich matches. Neck started hurting after like, half an hour. Realized I was missing a ton of cup games. Typical.
Dug deeper, found some random forums where old blokes argue about 70s football. Spotted a comment about a League Cup tie in 1975. Cross-referenced it. Yeah! Missing data! Started copying scores into this huge messy text file. Dates, competition, scoreline. Looked like alphabet soup.
Trying to Make Sense of It All
Got smarter. Made a blank spreadsheet. Columns: Date, Competition, Villa Goals, Ipswich Goals, Venue. Started feeding data in, row by row. Found myself yelling at the screen – “1978 First Division? Seriously?” – cause they met loads back then. Remembered checking the Villa archives buried on their site. Took ages scrolling through decade dropdown menus like it was 1995. Fingers cramped up.
Kept stumbling upon gaps. Like this one Tuesday night League Cup match in ’92 everyone seems to have forgotten except some Ipswich fan blog. Had to triple-check dates cause folks back then couldn’t date stuff properly online. Nearly lost the 1981 FA Cup replay in the mess. Spent two whole hours just trying to confirm the score for a random match in March ’74. Blimey.
Building the Actual Timeline
Eventually had this massive spreadsheet filled up. Still looked rubbish. Needed to make it readable. Started grouping stuff by decades first. Then bolded the big ones – promotions, relegation deciders, cup ties that went crazy long. Like that mental FA Cup semi-final replay back in ’81 where Villa somehow squeezed through. Remembered Villa Park rocking that night.
Felt like a detective piecing together why some seasons they met four times, others not at all (hello, Ipswich getting relegated… again). Saw patterns – Villa usually winning at home in the 80s, Ipswich being proper pests at Portman Road sometimes. Finished it by adding the latest Championship playoff final from last May. Villa winning, obviously. Relief washed over me like a pint after a derby win.
What a Pain
Honest truth? This took WAY longer than expected. Digging up those old records? Like pulling teeth. Websites contradicting each other? Maddening. My notes looked like a toddler attacked them with crayons at one point. But hey, now I’ve got this full history locked down from the first meeting to the last kick. Next time someone asks me “What’s the deal with Villa and Ipswich?”, I can just point ’em here and go grab a brew.