Bent penalty melts steelworkers

Marcus Bent's ninth-minute penalty proved sufficient to hand Ipswich Town victory in Yugoslavia yesterday and send them into the second round of the Uefa Cup.

With George Burley's side needing to score at least once to progress, Bent kept his nerve after he had been pushed in the area to give them what was to prove a decisive advantage. The win should have been by a much greater margin.

Despite a run of six First Division matches without victory, Ipswich played with poise and discipline to deserve their fourth away success in European competition in the past two seasons. "We enjoy being in Europe and we want more," said the Ipswich manager, who was forced to make six changes to his side through injuries. "I said after the first leg it would be evenly balanced and I was thankful we got the first goal.

"The league is, of course, our priority," Burley added. "We have two or three games in hand on other teams in the First Division and hopefully this will be a springboard to get some consistency in our results."

A near capacity crowd of 16,500 turned out for the biggest match in the history of Sartid, a steelworks company team in Smederevo, 35 miles outside Belgrade.

Ipswich were given a scare as early as the fourth minute when Boris Vaskovic's tame shot somehow found its way through a crowd of bodies, past the goalkeeper Andy Marshall and back off the post.

Having survived that spell of defensive indecision, however, the Suffolk side grabbed the decisive goal in the ninth minute. Finidi George managed to deliver a deep cross from the right flank and the Spanish referee Luis Medina spotted Slavoljub Kizic's shove on Bent in the area. Ipswich's top scorer last season picked himself up to drill the ball past the home goalkeeper, Dragan Zilic.

They might have had an even firmer grasp on the tie in the 16th minute when Bent hit the post with a spectacular scissor-kick. Yet Sartid twice went close around the half-hour as Nebojsa Savic's glancing header was nodded on to the bar by Jamie Clapham. The vociferous Sartid supporters, nicknamed "the Despots", screamed that the ball had crossed the line and they were incensed again as home pressure built and Jermaine Wright appeared to block a centre with his arm inside the area.

After the resumption, however, Ipswich squandered numerous chances, with the veteran Jim Magilton guilty of the worst miss.

Although Sartid looked inventive throughout, Milorad Zecevic's tame effort 10 minutes from time, which Marshall held well low to his right, proved a rare incision. Almost immediately, Tommy Miller fashioned another chance at the other end with a ball over the top, but Pablo Couñago's effort on the turn was blocked by Zilic's legs.

Sartid Smederevo: Zilic; Socanac, Paunovic, Spasic, Kizic (Kulic, 46), Bogdanovic (Djokic, 25), Vaskovic, Savic (Kocic, 56), Radosavljevic, Mirosavljevic, Zecevic. Substitutes not used: Rankovic (gk), Panic, Ramovic, Zivanovic.

Ipswich Town: Marshall; Makin, McGreal, Brown, Clapham, Wright, Holland, Magilton, George (T Miller, 64), M Bent, Couñago (D Bent, 84). Substitutes not used: Pullen (gk), Armstrong, Gaardsoe, Richards, Westlake.

Referee: L M Cantalejo (Spain).