[Ipswich 5 - Chelsea 2]

Action from Portman Road as Ipswich beat Chelsea 5 - 2.

Anglia Television report showing highlights of Ipswich Town FC's match against Chelsea FC, with the Suffolk team picking up two points on the way to winning their first Division One title in the 1961/62 season. Tight interplay from the Ipswich forwards forces a save from the Chelsea goalkeeper, as the Portman Road crowd cheer on their team. Later, good control from Ipswich striker Ray Crawford - fresh from his international debut for England - allows him to slot the ball past the 'keeper. A fumble by the same 'keeper sees Dixie Moran bundle the ball over the line to poach a second goal for Ipswich. Excellent control from Ipswich winger Roy Stephenson leads to a perfect cross into the box, where Crawford is on hand to head home his second and Ipswich's third. Dominating up front, Crawford powers home from ten yards to seal a well-deserved hat-trick in front of a jubilant Portman Road crowd, before Stephenson seals the points with an excellent strike from the top of the six-yard box.

Featured Buildings

Portman Road Stadium, Ipswich

Keywords

Football; Sport

Background Information

This clash, in the old Division One, was the first time Ipswich had met Chelsea, who finished the 61/62 season anchored to the bottom of the table. Ipswich won their first Division One title that year, on the back of having won the Second Division title in 1959/60. Ray Crawford's hat-trick helped him to become the leagues joint-leading scorer that season. Despite this win, and the relative success of Ipswich going forward, they wouldn't record another win over Chelsea until 1972. Regarding Anglia Television's coverage of football, from ITV Football 1968-83 [http://homepage.ntlworld.com/carousel/ITV/Anglia.html]: "Encouraged by Ipswich Town's league title winning campaign of 1961/62, the three year old Anglia Television service reached a special agreement with the Football League to begin screening a 30 minute highlights programme during the 1962/63 season, thus Anglia became the 2nd ITV station in England to broadcast regular weekly coverage of League football (Tyne Tees began screening a local highlights programme two weeks earlier). The fee was just £1,000 for exclusive rights to 30 games that season involving four East Anglian clubs. Len Caynes, who went on to become a Match of the Week director and then Anglia's 'Head of Sport', was a cameraman at the very first match along with Stuart McConahie, later editor of ITV's World of Sport. Caynes recalled; "Everyone on the outside broadcast crew at that time was crazy about football. We couldn't believe our luck, getting paid for watching football - something we would have been doing anyway." The regular director in the 1960's was Bob Gardam who went on to direct The Big Match (one of the camera positions at Wembley later became known as "Gardam's Pit"), he couldn't have enjoyed covering games at Norwich in the early days as the camera gantry at Carrow Road was behind one of the goals, the problem was eventually rectified following City's promotion to the top flight in 1972, but colour proved to be another headache as many grounds in the region did not have sufficient floodlight power for the camera's to capture satisfactory colour pictures, for a time viewers would watch the first half of a winter match in colour but the 2nd half would be in black & white!"