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Thread | David Walsh - The Sunday Times
at 23:15 4 May 2024
Ipswich’s bright blue day that would make Sir Alf Ramsey so proud
The ‘long-neglected’ town is flooded with renewed hope as the club’s fans celebrate their return to the Premier League after a painful 22-year exile
David Walsh
Saturday May 04 2024, 8.30pm, The Sunday Times
Early in the morning, before hordes of blue-clad followers descended on Portman Road, someone walked purposefully towards the statue of Sir Alf Ramsey outside the stadium. You know how seriously this person felt about what they were about to do, because of the way the blue-and-white scarf was wrapped around Sir Alf’s neck. Meticulous. Not easily pleased, Alf himself would have approved.
Ramsey came to Ipswich Town in August 1955. They were then an ordinary club, languishing in the third tier of English football, without much of a past and with not a lot of hope for the future. Spending £30,000 on the rebuilding of the team, Ramsey led them from the old third division to England’s champion club in 1962. That was also their first season in the top flight.
Outside the Curve bar on Princes Street at 10.30am, Colin Beer shoots the breeze with his son Rory, his grandson Rhys and Rory’s partner, Laura. “I went to my first game here in 1966,” Colin says. “Coventry, we won 1-0. That was the year Ipswich won the World Cup.” Ramsey, you see, was Ipswich, taken from their club in his prime so that he could lead his country. Around here, people believe Ipswich did as much as any club to win the ’66 World Cup.
Rory has been a season-ticket holder for 29 years. These past two seasons have been the most fun he’s had in that time. By far. Something has happened, he says, that’s hard to explain. “Somehow the club bought into the town, and the town bought into the club.” The American owner, he adds, has been clever. It has helped to improve the club without claiming to have invented Ipswich Town.
If there’s any one person that deserves credit, they say, it’s Kieran McKenna. They admit that when they first heard his name they asked, “Who?” They were then in the third tier and knew not to expect that they would know the name of their next manager. What they’ve learnt about McKenna they love.
“He’s honest, down to earth, calm and level-headed. You never see him losing his head or haranguing referees,” Rory says.
McKenna grew up in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh. His parents, Liam and Mary, run the prestigious Manor House Country Hotel on Lough Erne and, to help celebrate Ipswich’s expected promotion to the Premier League, the hotel gave a free pint of beer to every customer who turned up wearing an Ipswich shirt. Something like that could catch on.
The manager, who will turn 38 this month, spoke last week of the hours his dad worked at the hotel, from early morning to late at night pretty much every day of the week, and then, almost as a quiet aside, said, “A bit like me at this football club.”
It was a strange day because football, especially at this point in the season, is not meant to be joyous. Young men walk past in the replica shirts and suddenly there is a guttural shriek of “Blue Army”, but they’re going to a war that they know will be a picnic, heading off towards a contest that is actually a coronation. The paramedics, there in case of someone getting a heart attack, had the quietest afternoon.
Down at the far end of Sir Alf Ramsey Way, a man had driven a gleaming blue Ford TW-2 tractor, there for the titillation of all Tractor Boys. And sure enough, all around they cheered this impressive piece of agricultural engineering. Though it half-blocked the road, the police weren’t sure what to do. How could they ask the driver to move the tractor on without offending all those reassured by its presence?
Eventually the tractor driver was asked to swing round and head off. He did but the chorus of boos seemed more an expression of joy than disapproval. Matt Payne stood near by with his partner, Janet. Season-ticket holders, it seemed to them like the perfect way to end their campaign. At home to a team they should beat for the prize of rejoining the Premier League
Janet wonders if the destination can be anything like the journey of the past 20 years. “The football in this league has been really entertaining,” she said. “Now we’re going to a league that has VAR, too much money and too many foreign players.”
She has been a regular at Portman Road for 35 years. “I’ve always supported the Town. I used to go with my dad, Ken Kerry, he passed 12 years ago. We went to a lot of away games together, a 526-mile round trip to Middlesbrough. ‘I can do some of the driving,’ my dad said. ‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s OK, I’m fine.’
“On a midweek evening we went to Crewe Alexandra, a 406-mile round trip, and when we arrived at the ground, there was an awful fog. The game went ahead but we never saw a thing. After Dad died, I switched to his seat, block G, row B, seat 28. I am not lying when I say that, in his seat, I feel close to him.”
The game itself was the non-event that every Ipswich fan craved, their team far too good for Huddersfield Town, a side who came to fulfil a fixture in preference to scrapping for the win. After Omari Hutchinson scored Ipswich’s second goal in the 48th minute, the crowd chanted, “Stand up if you’re going up,” and everyone did. People hugged, kissed, shook hands. Job done. The remaining 40 minutes were more endured than enjoyed, the joy at the end was heavenly.
After the party on the pitch, Kevin and Paula Gleed stood by the statue of the great, late Kevin Beattie, who got only nine caps for England. It isn’t disrespectful to say he would have got 90 caps for the present England team. The inscription on the Beattie statue reads: “From the fans, for the fans.”
“I knew Kevin, was friends with his daughter,” Kevin Gleed says.
“I first came to Portman Road when I eight.”
“That’s 50 years,” Paula says.
“This is the best Ipswich team we’ve had since Bobby Robson’s team and I love the attitude that Kieran McKenna has instilled in the team: we’ll score more goals than you. Everyone tells me we’ll get slaughtered in the Premier League and we might get beaten every week. But being in the Premier League means more money into the club and there will be an influx of money into a town that needs it.”
The Gleeds live out by Needham Market but if they need to shop or want to spend a day in town, it is to Bury St Edmunds they go. “Ipswich has been neglected for a long time, the town centre especially. I heard the other day that Brighton getting into the Premier League has brought £600million into their city. This town needs investment and being in the top flight again can only help. What the team offers is hope to the community.
“And whatever happens in the future, no one can take away this day.”
Walking away from Portman Road, a dad sits with his perhaps six-year-old son by a car park. The boy is clad in Ipswich’s all-orange away kit. He is momentarily consumed by the burger he is eating. Dad wants to bring him back to he here and now. “Hey,” he says to the lad, “a good old day, eh?” |
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