Ipswich Town players don't grieve!

IT’S been a while what with Christmas and everything. I hope you all survived the pleasantries and wish you all a healthy and peaceful 2009.

And a successful one as well.

Me, well it was great to be honest with not too much travelling over the festive period with no Ipswich Town game on January 1 this year.

The old fella clad in a red suit and carrying a huge sack did me proud and Rudolph and his mates must have been relieved when they reached the King household to deposit my load.

Despite reaching a reasonably good age I have never had so many parcels to open, and there was some great stuff to enjoy.

The New Year was not so great with eldest daughter spending time in Oxford hospital and the sad death of a close family member.

Said daughter is off travelling next week and with youngest daughter at univ and sons working away in Auckland and Chobham respectively Mandy and myself will be ‘empty nesters’.

A new phrase to live through - after many years of having children around the place.

But anyway, going back to what 2009 might bring I had a lengthy debate the other day on the merits or otherwise of being a winner.

We should all be competitive. To not be so reduces ones impact on life.

You must want to win, and however talented a footballer might be he will not go any further than a local league if he does not want to succeed in every game – be it football or snap.

You have to accept losing (this is important) but you do not have to enjoy losing.

If part of a team your weekend should be ‘ruined’ if you lose, while it should be made if you win.

I hasten to add that this is does not follow if you are a supporter.

To have your weekend ruined if Ipswich Town lose – and the nearest you get to the outcome of the game is by watching from the stands – is silly.

Okay, if you are unable to play on Saturday afternoons then support others by any means. But don’t go into one if they lose.

You had no control over it!

And however much they want to win – and they have to be winners to get this far in the game – to professional players the glamour soon goes and it becomes a job of work to them.

If you have a bad day at work it doesn’t ruin your weekend – so why should it ruin a professional footballers’?

They hurt but they don’t grieve.

Which brings me on to Saturday’s trip to Selhurst Park. Can anybody out there let me know the most fail-safe way of getting there from the A12?

Apart from a couple of years travelling with Mick Mills – he knew the complicated route spot on – the journey has always turned into a nightmare. Roll on a midlands team as far away from London as possible.

E-mail elvin.king@archant.co.uk with your route to Selhurst Park and as navigator of Her Majesty’s Press (Ipswich branch) pressmobile I shall be eternally grateful. And so will John Wark who is a travelling companion on this occasion.