Miller: Brilliant Tie Personally and For the Club Tuesday, 8th Nov 2022 15:18 No one was more delighted when Town were paired with Buxton in last night’s FA Cup second round draw than former Blues midfielder and current Bucks assistant coach Tommy Miller, and TWTD caught up with him to get his thoughts on the upcoming tie. Town and Bracknell were drawn at home to Buxton in the second-round draw ahead of the Blues' 3-0 win at Bottom Meadow last night with the tie set to take place at Portman Road over the weekend of Saturday 26th November. Miller, 43, famously had three spells at Portman Road, first as a youth player between 1992 and 1994 without playing a senior game, before returning in 2001 under George Burley’s management following a successful spell with Hartlepool back in his native North-East. After Town had missed out on promotion back to the Premier League under Joe Royle in 2004/05, Miller moved to Sunderland before rejoining the Blues in 2007 for another two-year spell with former teammate Jim Magilton then in charge. “I was obviously delighted, it’s a great draw for the club,” Miller said while travelling down to this evening’s fixture at Gloucester City. “It’s nice for me to go back as well, but more for the club, for the players, the supporters and for the staff that are there. It’s a once in a lifetime game really. “We’re going to enjoy the day. It’s a free hit, we’re not expected to win. Ipswich are flying high and have got some good players. It’s a free hit for us, we’re going to enjoy the day out. “If you’d asked which team would we like, I think everyone at Buxton would have wanted a big one now. “We wanted Ipswich, Derby or Sheffield Wednesday, they were the big three that we were looking at and to get Ipswich was obviously brilliant personally, but also from a club point of view.” Miller joined Buxton, who were promoted as champions from the Northern Premier League Premier Division last season, at the start of this campaign having been recruited by manager Jamie Vermiglio, after leaving his previous role as boss at Spennymoor in December last year. “He was manager of Chorley before, then he left in the summer to go to Buxton,” Miller explained. “I was available and he rang me up and asked if I’d come in and help out. “I was looking for something else and that came up and I thought I’d jump on board and get involved. Although the travelling isn’t ideal for me, it gets me back in and I enjoy it.” Buxton are currently 18th in Vanarama National League North but with games in hand on most of those above them in the table. “It’s a good club, although we haven’t had a great start in the league, we’ve got a few games in hand and there are a lot of new players, there’s been a big turnover from the lads that were here last year to new lads this year, new staff, so it’s taken a little while to get going. “But we’ve picked up in the last six games, we’ve only had one defeat in our last six [one defeat in 10 including cup games], so we’ve been hard to beat, we’ve tightened up a little bit at the back. We’re struggling a little bit to score goals, even though we scored four the other week at Southport. “It’s just getting the balance right, but a lot of new players came in in the summer and staff as well with the manager and myself, it’s just gelling everyone together and hopefully we can kick on and start moving up the table. “It’s very tight, there’s not much in it between top and bottom. You win a couple of games and you suddenly find yourself in the play-off positions and we’ve played 14 games and some teams have played 17. “Hopefully the cup won’t be a distraction because that can sometimes be the case where you’re playing cup games here, there and everywhere and we’ve got the FA Trophy [at Blyth Spartans], which is going to be the week before we play Ipswich, which is a big competition for the non-league teams. But Ipswich is a welcome distraction, let’s be honest, it’s a fantastic draw for us.”
Miller, a hugely popular figure during his spells with the Blues, recently returned to Portman Road for the first time since his departure in 2009 to work as a pundit for iFollow Ipswich at the Friday night game against Derby County, which the Blues won 1-0. “They’d been asking me to go down for a while and with being involved with football still it was hard for me to get down on a Saturday and then midweek Tuesdays and Thursdays we train, so it was hard to get down for a Tuesday game,” he said. “So when they said come down for the Friday, we were playing Brackley the next day at Brackley, so I could catch that game on the way back from Ipswich. “It was great to be back, I hadn’t been back since I left. It was good to be back and there were still a couple of familiar faces. Pat Godbold is still there, it was great to see Pat, and George Burley was opening the bar named after him, so I saw George and a few old players who I hadn’t seen for a long time. “It was good, I enjoyed it and the game itself, the atmosphere, it was bouncing. For League One, it was unbelievable.” Miller was impressed by Kieran McKenna’s side: “They play really good football. He’s obviously got a way with them. He definitely seems to be the right man to move them forward and they certainly should get over the line this year, they’ve been in League One for too long. “This has got to be the season where they do it, they’ve got some very good players. I think they had some very good players last year, but I just think something was missing and it looks like Kieran McKenna was the missing link to getting them playing good football but also getting them to play winning football. “They’re not conceding many and they play a lot of football, they’ve got a game plan, they’ve got an identity to how they play and they’re good to watch.” As it turned out, that game will now serve as a scouting trip and he was already due back in Suffolk even before last night’s draw. “I think I’m down for the Fleetwood game as well, which is going to be on a Friday night, I think that’s the week after the FA Cup game, I’m pencilled to come down for that,” he said. “From not seeing Ipswich for a long time or not being down there for a long time, I could be down there three times within the space of eight weeks. It’s mad how football works.”
Buxton have already played four FA Cup matches to get to this stage. Alfreton were beaten 2-1 in the second qualifying round, then Bamber Bridge 3-0, Hyde United 2-1 in their only away tie up to now, before the 2-0 victory over Merthyr in round one at the weekend. “We might have wanted a big one in the last round but we were fortunate to get Merthyr, which no disrespect to them, we were expected to win, we were the favourites,” Miller said. “However, the game was very tricky and we got lucky on a few occasions in the first half and in the end we got there and won 2-0, but it was a lot harder than the scoreline suggested. “Even Hyde in the previous round, they gave us a good game. We’ve had a little bit of luck along the way, which you need in the FA Cup.” Regarding the squad, forward Harry Bunn might be familiar to Town fans having featured against the Blues for Huddersfield on a number of occasions and having been the subject of a rejected Blues offer in the summer of 2017. Coincidentally, another forward, Zak Dearnley, faced the Blues in last year’s FA Cup for Oldham Athletic. Miller says one or two other members of the squad have EFL pedigree, while there are also youngsters looking to climb the pyramid. “There are a few who played at lower levels, maybe League Two and National League,” he said. “We’ve got a lad called Sean Newton at the back, who has played a bit higher [briefly in League One with Notts County]. “Scott Bowden, who was a centre forward at Chesterfield, he’s done the rounds in the lower leagues of the Football League. “And we’ve got a few younger lads, who have got a chance, maybe who have been released from clubs and they’ve had to come back down the ladder to start their career and again and hopefully they can maybe get back up the ladder. “Whether that’s with Buxton or it’s someone keeping an eye on them and these are the games where they’ll be looking and thinking, ‘He’s got a chance that lad’.” Miller hopes the match might get picked for TV, adding to what’s already likely to be a significant financial windfall for the Derbyshire club, whose second-round tie against Morecambe at their Silverlands home last season, which they lost 1-0, was screened by the BBC. “I don’t know when that will get decided, it’ll probably be after the replays. It would be nice if it is on the TV, a bit more money for the club,” he said. “The club is well run, the chairman [David Hopkins] is very wealthy but the extra financial income would be brilliant for the club, a good boost. “The players are part-time, so depending on when the game is, lads might have to get an afternoon off work or a day off work. Who knows, it might be a Friday night or a Sunday. I’m sure we’ll make a weekend of it whenever it is and I’m looking forward to it.”
Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
You need to login in order to post your comments |
   Blogs 295 bloggersIpswich Town Polls[ Vote here ] |
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.We in turn value your personal details in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
