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Bill

A lone voice in the farmyard

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Interesting read and some of it relevant.

However, the first half of that piece is in my mind why they will always have issues there. The Piece sets the scene for what the author really wants to write about:- their exploits from yesteryear. A proud history non the less, but old history in footballing terms it certainly is.

You would have to be a supporter probably 55years old or over to have any real actual memory and understanding of the meaning of those times. I do remember them wining the F.A cup and vaguely remember the euro win, but such was the poor coverage in those days it was forgotten in a matter of days, hardly mentioned at school, and rarely mentioned again unless you were a town fan.

Compare that to the Wigan win a few years ago, it is fixed in my memory in part due to the follow on coverage with world wide media available at the touch of a button.

The repeated problem they have as a club is recognised by some town fans I know. The older group there will not let go of the past allowing the club to move on. Every manager is compared to yesteryear, players are never good enough or allowed to develop because of the past perceived greats. Any flag or placard reminds the current team that they are not worthy, despite three quarters plus of their supporters never seeing this time.

Of course it is amusing to see them dwelling in the past and disrespecting their current team in doing so, but it does make you feel a little bit sad for them...………………………..lol  

  

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I am not so sure it is about wanting to live in the past - or what they were issued with eiether come to that.

My thought is that it is almost the opposite, by pointing out how ipswich like many other clubs cling to one part of their past as if they were always like that. In fact it is the younger binners who seem to be endlessly whining about their glorious history.

What is pointed out is the total mismanagement by Sheepshanks, something that is just not accepted in the land of bin. A club who tried to recapture old glories by a reckless borrowing spree.  Also much is made of the wider social and economic conditions that have acted upon the club's demise.

It also highlights how much Leeds Utd have mirrored the binner's failings. A club who were prominent in the late 60'/70s then blew themselves out of the water through reckless borrowing a couple of decades later.

For me there is little (if any to disagree with) and much to welcome, in a piece that should be mandatory reading for all binners under 30.

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Sticks in the craw, but a good article. They’ve long needed the home truths to come from within, because when the likes of us say it, they can’t accept it. (Not that we’re trying to help, admittedly!)

Edited by GenerationA47
Typo

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Not sure about the Rabble photos.

However, there is this one, which is beleived to be one of the earlier pictures submitted by a keen town fan of the secretive saviour and asset stripper backer down there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image result for people waving money

 

Made me laugh anyway.

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An interesting read with a fair helping of truth in it. Judging from the comments below there are still many with blinkers over their eyes.

 

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Very true.....mostly.

The predictions for Cambridge becoming then pre eminent town in East Anglia are fanciful and although  there is a lot of praise for Norwich and NCFC the statement :

 "Back in the Robson era, Ipswich was perhaps the pre-eminent town in East Anglia – or at least it seemed so with all those gleaming new insurance buildings."

Is clearly nonsense. Never has been remotely true or ever will be.

Briefly the capital of England, prosperous with a larger population, a tourist attraction(Cathedral, airport, Elm Hill etc., market,)  Attractive city. Anglia Television among others didn't  see it that way. Norwich has always been the pre-eminent town (CITY) in East Anglia.

I moved away from Norwich for work and business reasons.I would love to move back to the "Fine City." if circumstances permitted.

I would never  have longed to return  to Ipswich

 

Edited by BroadstairsR

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What is most noticeably is that here is someone prepared to go against the relieved wisdom (wisdom?) and pint out how it really is, and has been.

Sheepshanks has been the real villain of the peace, from his invented association with the club to his reckless borrowing on the strength of one season in the PL. That borrowing was used not only to upgrade a worn out stadium but to cover hefty borrowing that got them into the PL. Worth checking as no one seems to be aware of that.

The writer (as I have) challenges th eclaim about Evans handing over large sums in his early days, and suggests Evans saw the damage Sheepshanks had wrecked and merely picked over the carcass - he did not kill it as the binners would like to have. jJust as Hurst is held up as the cause of their current problems, not merely another step in the downward tumble that has been their lot for a couple of decades and more.

Life, society and football all have changed, as they always will do. The paupers just failed to keep up, much as the big names on the High Street have discovered most recently.

 

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Finally! Someone telling it as it is.  Amazingly, the first response challenges him and, as usual, is in complete denial. Aligning 1p5wich's plight with the economic downturn in the area gives credence and goes some way to support the argument that there are more than just football factors at work here. 

Driving through Suffolk earlier this year felt like the land that time forgot, anyone on the road seemed to be in a hurry to get to somewhere else. 

As for the Club, the had a 20 year hiatus, nothing more nothing less, they achieved nothing before 61 and by 82 it was all over, it would seem that they are now returning to their rightful place in the football pyramid, based on performances over the last 35 years. 

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I got a bit bored half way through but it is worth mentioning that from an objective geographical point of view, Norwich is the leading city of East Anglia. Conflating Ipswich with the actual cultural centres of this part of the country is rather sad.

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8 minutes ago, splendidrush said:

Finally! Someone telling it as it is.  Amazingly, the first response challenges him and, as usual, is in complete denial. Aligning 1p5wich's plight with the economic downturn in the area gives credence and goes some way to support the argument that there are more than just football factors at work here. 

Driving through Suffolk earlier this year felt like the land that time forgot, anyone on the road seemed to be in a hurry to get to somewhere else. 

As for the Club, the had a 20 year hiatus, nothing more nothing less, they achieved nothing before 61 and by 82 it was all over, it would seem that they are now returning to their rightful place in the football pyramid, based on performances over the last 35 years. 

Which part did you drive through?, because Cromer, Yarmouth, Kings Lynn, Downham Market and Swaffham are petty poor examples!°°!!

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18 minutes ago, JUBWICKS75 said:

Which part did you drive through?, because Cromer, Yarmouth, Kings Lynn, Downham Market and Swaffham are petty poor examples!°°!!

I've been away a long time JUBS, but I don't remember Cromer,Yarmouth etc being in Suffolk. Not to mention the fact that when I lived there none of those had a professional football team. 

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It is an interesting piece. I don’t know whether his (her?) beatification of John Cobbold is well-founded. But the real question is whether his main argument stands up. Which is that Ipswich Town are – and will continue to be - in decline in large part because of economic and demographic factors. And he certainly produces some valid statistics, albeit allied to some rosy thinking:

BUT – there is more to Town’s decline than blaming managers, chairmen and owners. It’s an unfortunate fact that Town committed financial suicide and attracted chancers at the very moment both football and the playing field of the real world tilted against them. Back in the Robson era, Ipswich was perhaps the pre-eminent town in East Anglia – or at least it seemed so with all those gleaming new insurance buildings.

Meanwhile East Anglia has moved on. Norwich is thriving on and off the pitch. It has improved road connections, an airport. And Cambridge? The changes here are astonishing. Against this background, Ipswich Town, teetering on the edge of the third division and mouldering on the edge of growing East Anglian prosperity ,does not look an attractive buying proposition. Or a credible footballing force any time soon.

Analysis of East Anglia’s recent development backs this up. Ipswich is in relative decline. In the last decade it has been moribund, the slowest growing part of East Anglia, with the Bury area also in the bottom five. Suffolk is the slowest growing county in East Anglia, up just 0.6% in the last decade. Suffolk is an aging population too – average age 40. In Cambridge it’s 31. In Norwich it’s 33. Granted those figures are skewed by a student population – but students watch football too. The population demographic difference between Norwich, Cambridge and Ipswich is now huge.

The lure of Premier League millions and the poor regulation of lower league football clubs and their owners are still attractive to dubious investors. If there is a pretend Russian oligarch, an unknown Indian steel magnate, a rumoured Far East billionaire of no known provenance or a bored Arab Prince out there making a preferred list of East Anglian targets, where would they go? If it were me, I’d land my helicopter at Cambridge.  So don’t blame Evans. Blame Sheepshanks. Blame geography. Blame economy. Blame life.


The main point he misses, in emphasising economic decline as a factor, is that the big shift in English football was exactly away from the local economy being important. I did a piece on this some years back:

There is a “but” coming.  The second game-changing shift.  The sexification of football.  TV money. The internationalisation of the English game.  Not just players but owners too. Clubs as status symbols for the mega-rich. And this produced another re-ordering, based on how much spare cash there was in the owner’s back pocket, or, more often, their numbered offshore account. So the Big Five were generally still there; as for the rest, it was a question of money.

 Take Blackburn. A founder member of the League, and champions twice before world war one and not since. They dropped out of the top flight in 1966 and stayed out for 26 years.  A classic case of industrial and footballing decline intermingled. Bounced around the second and third tiers. Then got back to the top flight in ’92 and won the Premier League just two years  later. And have been in the top flight for all but one year since. How?  Jack Walker’s piggy bank. Wigan was a Rugby League town until Dave Whelan decided to change that. An oligarch''s dream turned Chelsea from a music hall joke as The Pensioners into one of the world''s mega-clubs.

No time to do the research but I don’t imagine that economically Leicester is particularly better off than, say, Nottingham, or Leeds, or Sheffield.  Yet their club won the Premier League while the clubs in those other cities are not even in the top flight.

The answer to Ipswich Town’s problems may be a mega-rich magnate/sheikh/oligarch – although there is an argument that football is moving away from that solution towards a more self-sustaining model anyway.

But if it the answer, leaving aside the other point, that Evans was supposed to be just that mega-rich saviour, then Ipswich’s poor economy should not be much of a factor. It will be trumped by shedloads of cash. Provided. Provided good-decision-making goes along with the shedloads of cash.

Edited by PurpleCanary

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While what you say may be true Purple,  the big difference between the Premiership and the Championship is TV rights. In the Prem, even small attendances don't matter (Bournemouth) whereas in the Championship without a major sponsor you're totally reliant on turnover. In 1p5wich's case there attendances have dropped year on year for over a decade. Yes, Evans threw some money at it when he first arrived but successive Managers squandered the chance. Now he's just covering the losses, up to around 90 million as things stand. Next season, with even less TV money, smaller crowds and half the squad out of contract or loans coming to an end they're going to be totally reliant on their youth policy and despite Lambert's claims they can't take a swift return for granted. 

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