Ipswich Town v Wolves, 10th October 1981

Highlights of a First Division encounter between Ipswich Town and Wolves at Portman Road on 10th October 1981.

The beginning of the 1981-82 season began well for Wolves with a 1-0 home defeat of Liverpool at Molineux. However, a run of just one win in seven games followed and, ahead of their match against Ipswich Town, Wolves were languishing in 21st place in the First Division.

With finances at the club greatly impacted following the completion of a new stand at Molineux, there had been little investment in the Wolves team for a couple of seasons. Despite a lowly 18th finish in the league the previous season, Wolves failed to substantially strengthen an ageing and declining team. Just two players were added to John Barnwell's squad in the close season: centre-half Joe Gallagher, a £350,000 signing from Birmingham City, and winger Alan Birch, a £180,000 capture from Chesterfield. Both players had been signed following the collapse in transfers of PSV Eindhonen's René van de Kerkhof and Ally McCoist from St Johnstone. Against Bobby Robson's Ipswich team, Birch was absent through an ankle injury while Gallagher partnered Uruguayan international Rafael Villazan in the centre of the Wolves defence.

Against Ipswich, Barnwell dropped three players who had featured in the 1980 League Cup Final defeat of Nottingham Forest; George Berry, Peter Daniel and John Richards were all omitted following a 5-0 defeat at Manchester United in the preceding match. However, the Wolves team still contained five players who'd figured against Forest at Wembley, including the scorer of the winning goal Andy Gray.

In complete contrast to the struggles of Wolves, Ipswich were early league leaders after suffering just one defeat in their opening eight matches. Ipswich's defence of the UEFA Cup had ended prematurely in the first round with a second leg defeat to Aberdeen at the end of September and their subsequent return to league competition saw a defeat at Southampton. However, Robson's team returned to winning ways with a narrow victory at Leeds United in the League Cup a few days ahead of their match against Wolves.

Originally broadcast by BBC Match of the Day with commentary provided by John Motson.