Healy's eye for an opening allows old Alf to sleep slightly easier. Slightly.

Alf had tickets for the postponed match but unhappily work commitments prevented him from making the trip to Glanford Park for this bitterly cold, sleet-lashed re-arranged fixture.

Town warmed up with a game of one touch and a ladder. Alf warmed up with a late tea of fishcakes and roasted vegetables served up just in time for the pre-match build up on Radio Suffolk.

Alf pronged a moody forkful as Roy Keane announced that he wasn’t expecting a classic and Nigel Adkins promised his commitment to imposing Scunthorpe’s style of play onto Ipswich.

A dour, muddy, physical encounter was on the cards and a tight pitch didn’t really enhance Town’s prospects of playing keep ball in the middle of the park.

Scunthorpe sounded truly frightening on the radio.

Roy kept faith with his battling line up from Saturday which pleased most Town fans. At last, an unchanged side.

Alf is familiar with the layout of Glanford Park and normally you can visualise which end your team is attacking, but Alf had some difficulty following a radio commentary that went along the lines of, ‘Murphy to Murphy he’s robbed by Murphy and Murphy intercepts the cross…’

‘Which end is the bloody ball and which one is the Ipswich Murphy?’ cried the confused Alf.

Town edged the first-half possession stats and rattled the woodwork a few times for good measure.

With a driving wind latching on to anything that put its head above stand height the ball seemed to spend as much time in the car park as it did on the pitch and hard up Scunny were down to there last one at the stroke of half-time.

Sleet turned to snow and Town trudged off for a restorative cuppa, whilst Alf put the kettle on for a strong cup of coffee to calm the nerves as Town don’t currently do second halves.

The ground staff unleashed their whippets and terriers and some of the lost balls were retrieved in time for the restart.

Presumably someone told them that the game was off if another couple went over the stands so Scunthorpe kept the ball on the deck and threw all they could at the Blues defence. McAuley and Delaney like two Boys’ Brigaders were sure and steadfast.

‘Scunthorpe are the better side in this second half,’ Brenner Woolley agonised. How many times has Alf experienced that this season?

‘Scunthorpe’s corner swings in – Oh no it’s a goal to Scunthorpe! – poor defending.’ An all too familiar story thought Alf gloomily.

Alf has commented upon how sharp David Healy has looked in the pre-match warm-ups yet he has had little impact on the field of play. Not so tonight, David lived up to his ‘fox in the box’ tag with a tap in just four minutes after going behind.

David’s renewed goal scoring touch could be a plus point in Town’s bid for survival.

‘It was a positive point,’ suggested Roy Keane after the match.

Alf agrees and two wins and draw from four away games is a pretty good return – regardless of the opposition. If Town consolidate their seven-point haul with a win on Saturday, it will have been a good end to a month that started so precariously.

Town players could be forgiven if they celebrated with a magnum of the finest Cristal. Alf was satisfied with just a warm mug of sleep-inducing Ovaltine.