A Marcus Bent penalty after just nine minutes was enough for Ipswich to book their place in the Uefa Cup second round.

Ipswich qualified with a 2-1 aggregate win over their Sartid Smederevo after they drew the first leg at Portman Road two weeks ago.

A full house of 16,500 turned out for the biggest match in the history of the Yugoslav club, a steelworks' company team in Smederevo.

Ipswich should have won by a greater margin as their performance belied their domestic form, where they have failed to win in six Division One matches.

Manager George Burley was forced into six changes, four because of injury, and Ipswich started on the defensive.

In the fourth minute, Sartid captain Goran Bogdanovic's trickery in the area set up Boris Vaskovic, whose shot struck the post.

But just five minutes later, Ipswich got the decisive breakthrough.

Finidi George sent a deep cross from the right and the referee ruled Slavoljub Kizic had shoved Bent in the area.

Bent took the penalty himself and stroked it powerfully past goalkeeper Dragan Zilic.

The Blues might have had an even firmer grasp on the tie in the 16th minute when Bent's spectacular scissor-kick hit an upright.

On the half hour, Sartid cam close to an equaliser when Nebojsa Savic's header was cleared off the line and onto the bar by Jamie Clapham.