Lowestoft Town 1 Ipswich Town U21's 3

Teams:-
Lowestoft Town: Jessup (Swatman), Barker (Ainsley), Smith, Radomski (Eagle), Gleeson (Haynes-Brown), Edwards-King (Hutt), Marsden (Doddington), Okay (Lorenc), Zielonska (Main), Hodd, Clunan

Ipswich Town U21's: Crowe, Robinson (Emmanuel), Wyatt, Collinson (Guldbrandsen), Fowler, Clarke, Galvin, Bishop, McQueen, Pattison (McLoughlan), Hunt (Ramadan).

The scoreline was secondary to the benefits gained from this match for Lowestoft Town, with the management able to give minutes to players who have had little or no time so far this season, to look at some trialists and to also give a handful of Reserve/Youth team players a go.
For Ipswich Town they included Ex West Ham starlet Jack Collison, while on the wing they fielded Stephen Hunt who has previously played for Brentford, Reading and Wolves to name a few.

The first half saw a high tempo game of passing football by both sides but even though the sustained possession was coming from Ipswich, Lowestoft were very much in the game. A header that just went over the bar from Edwards-King was the closet Lowestoft came to scoring. While Ipswich saw a couple of chances go begging before scoring on the stroke of half time, as a free-kick from the left by Bishop was met at the far post by Clarke to head home for 1-0 (44 mins).

The second half continued on much of the same vein with a good, open and entertaining half of high tempo passing from both teams.
Jessup was called into action early on, as a one-two between Hunt and McLoughlan ended with the later seeing his deflected effort tipped onto the bar by Lowestoft keeper Jessup.
Jessup was in action yet again, this time making a good save from a Hunt free-kick, as Ipswich upped their threat on the Lowestoft defence.
Ipswich were certainly using their dead ball opportunities well and it was from one of these that they doubled their lead. As Hunt sent in another free-kick from the right, Clarke was on the end again to send a nicely placed header into the bottom corner for his and Ipswich's second goal of the night to make it 2-0 (60 mins).
Changes started to be made regularly by both as the games high tempo continued.
Two then became three for Ipswich, as a Wyatt through ball saw Edwards-King slip up and with McQueen latching onto the mistake and rolling it across the box, Ramadan was there to place it home with ease for 3-0 (66 mins).
The scoreline was a little harsh on Lowestoft, who had put some passing together themselves but it was also clear to see the quality on offer in a strong and promising Ipswich Town side.
Lowestoft finally got some reward for their persistence with just over ten minutes of the match remaining, as Ex Lowestoft Youth player Hodd was chopped down in the Ipswich area by Wyatt for a clear penalty. Up stepped Mr Cool from the penalty spot, Ainsley, to bang it home into the bottom corner for 3-1 (78 mins).
Ipswich came again but yet again Lowestoft keeper Jessup was in fine shot-stopping mood, as he got across well to deny Galvin from a free-kick and the followed that up moments later to deny Guldbrandsen a debut goal for Ipswich.
Another raft of changes were made by Lowestoft as the final ten minutes came and went and with the final whistle going it had been a very good and worthwhile run out for Lowestoft Town and also for a great bunch of promising Ipswich Town players.

The Lowestoft Town first team are next in competitive action this Saturday when they travel to Gainsborough Trinity and are then back in action shortly after on Bank Holiday Monday at home to Leamington.

Terry Bullen