Getting Started with the Brentford-Ipswich Project
Alright, decided to dive deep into the whole Brentford vs Ipswich Town history thing today. Fan forums kept buzzing about their classic clashes, so figured it was time to map it all out myself. Pulled up a big ol’ spreadsheet on my laptop – yeah, I’m old school like that sometimes – and cracked open a fizzy drink. Started simple: headings like Year, Competition, Score, Venue. Felt ready.
First stop? Wikipedia, obviously. Scrolled through both clubs’ pages, digging into the “Matches” sections. Wasted a whole hour just copying basic data across. Got sticky fingers from the fizzy drink right when I found their first meeting way back in the late 1800s. Spilled some pop on my keyboard – perfect start. Cleaning that up took longer than finding the first ten results! Started filling rows: 1896 FA Cup, Ipswich win 2-1. Clickety-clack. Got lazy and tried copy-pasting a table straight in. Mistake. Huge mistake. The formatting went completely bonkers. Columns mashed together, numbers everywhere. Spent another 20 minutes untangling that mess. Shoulda just typed it slow.
Hitting the Research Wall
Soon hit a brick wall. Wikipedia got spotty after the 1960s. Missing scores, competitions not listed… total mess. Frustrated, I slammed my laptop shut maybe a bit too hard. Bad idea. The screen flickered. Panicked for a second! Then remembered this ancient football stats book gathering dust on my shelf. Blew the dust off – coughed like crazy – and started flipping pages. Fingers got all grimy. Found a few more games scribbled in the margins. Had to squint at the tiny print. Added another row: 1971 Division Three, 1-1 draw. Progress felt slow.
Later, hopped online again, stumbling into these weirdly specific fan club forums. People arguing about goal scorers from like 1978. One user swore it was a penalty, another said it was an own goal. Spent way too long reading that drama instead of working! Finally found a fan-run stats site that wasn’t totally sketchy. Cross-referenced dates and scores like some kind of detective. Still gaps everywhere. Decided “Unknown Scorer” or “Score Missing” was gonna have to do for some entries. Perfection is overrated anyway.
Putting It All Together
By this point, my spreadsheet looked like a toddler scribbled on it. Highlights:
- Ugly color codes for home wins, away wins, draws (green, red, yellow – looked like traffic lights!).
- Random notes everywhere like “CONTROVERSIAL REFEREE DECISION!!” next to a 1999 match.
- My cat walked on the keyboard – added a mysterious entry titled ;lfkjasd that I had to delete.
Started compiling the final list chronologically. The oldest games felt dusty, like handling old photos. Found myself muttering “Wow, that’s gotta sting” when seeing a last-minute winner against Brentford back in ’65. Got weirdly invested.
Finished the timeline, stared at the wall of dates and scores. It wasn’t glamorous. Tons of blanks. But man, seeing the sheer number of times these teams bashed heads – from Victorian times to championship playoffs – felt pretty cool. Final step? Slapped the timeline into a blog post draft. Added a whiny paragraph about missing data and how my laptop almost died. Hit save. Done. Kinda pointless exercise? Maybe. Satisfying? Weirdly, yeah. Like finally organizing that junk drawer.