[Blog] An Open Letter to Mr Evans, the Owner of Ipswich Town.
Written by BillBlue on Monday, 19th Dec 2011 18:54

Dear Mr Evans, I am an old man and can no longer go to football matches but that does not stop me from being a staunch, lifelong Ipswich Town supporter. This I have been, as an adult, since before the days of Sir Alf Ramsey.

Today, in fact since you took over or, to be generous, possibly, even before that, there has been one ingredient missing from the club and that is the word 'pride'.

I have many very vivid memories. Among them Ted Phillips and his sidekick, Ray Crawford, being signed from Colchester United, who were then a Southern League team, and them both setting, what was then called, the First Division alight and Ted being described, in one of the national newspapers, as being 'Like a carthorse running down the field to score goals for fun'.

Of George Burley as a young lad on his first appearance for the Town overlapping down the right wing with his hands flapping as he ran. Of Warky, the normal penalty taker, missing from the match so three penalties being missed on the day we stuck six goals past Manchester United.

Of beating the mighty Barcelona 3-0. Of Kevin Beattie on the balcony of the Town Hall waving a placard which a supporter had thrust into his hands which read 'Kevin Beattie walks on water'. Of over 38,000 ardent fans cheering the Town on to stick five goals past Norwich and even more past the much fancied West Bromwich Albion. Oh the pride and the pride of the players in being allowed to play for Ipswich! That is what is missing pride, pride in the Town.

Mr Evans, you have spent a great deal of money, most of it wasted. A pity, it has got us absolutely nowhere. 'Football is a funny old game', that is an old saying but a very true one. It is not like running any other type of business and you are not the first person to discover that.

In our early days Captain Cobbold took advice from the chairman of Arsenal Football Club who had a great deal of football know-how and it paid dividends. Unfortunately, you took the opposite route and got rid of every single person at Ipswich Town who had, among them, a vast reservoir of football know-how. Again a pity.

You appointed Mr. Clegg whose credentials were excellent but, unfortunately, his football knowledge was zilch! That was a major error of judgment and we are still paying for it. Any true Town supporter could have told you that appointing Roy Keane was a disaster waiting to happen and many people did try to tell you. The rest is history.

Today we have Paul Jewell. He seems to be a very likeable chap and his football knowledge should allow him to turn into an excellent manager for Ipswich Town. Given time!

Unfortunately Paul has not made a good start. His signing of all those 'old hands' with Premiership experience has been a disaster. What have they got to play for? They are no longer young and hungry, they do not care what colour shirt they pull on, why should they? They have a 'contract' and are paid (overpaid?) an enormous amount of money so, why worry? Most of them do a total disservice to the person who signed them.

Mr Evans, I invite you to look, carefully, at our most successful times. In the beginning we did it with a lot of hard working players but with the addition of two people brought in from the Southern League, into what is now called the Premiership. I ask you!

During Bobby Robson's era we twice won the FA Youth Cup and those players went on to become the backbone of a team which was voted as the best team in Europe (which of course meant the best team in the whole world of football), with the addition of, initially, Paul Mariner who came from lowly Plymouth Argyle for Â£200,000 (remember Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest spent Â£1m on a far less able striker) and later, of course, by the two Dutchmen who cost, if I remember correctly, Â£100,000 and Â£120,000 respectively.

That is what a manager and supporting team with footballing know-how can achieve for you, but the basics have to be right. Here at Town, right now, they are completely wrong.

Six years ago (time flies) we again won the FA Youth Cup and where are those players now, right now, there is not one of them on our teamsheet, why not? That is where our problems lie.

During that time we had an excellent young Irish keeper, Shane Supple was his name. He suddenly gave it all up and went home to play Gaelic football, for fun. One of his reasons for giving up a very promising career was that when he eventually got into the first team, to his horror, he found out that some of his colleagues did not care if they won or lost!

That is why I am not sure when the rot set in here at Ipswich Town. Now I would advise that you Google this young man and read some of the things he has recently been saying, it may pay you to and he has, recently, been saying quite a lot! That is where we need to start.

Mr Evans, if I may presume to advise you, this is what I would do. Firstly I would look carefully round the footballing world and bring in an experienced chief executive from the best run football club I could find outside the Premiership.

Next, I would have that person and Paul Jewell in and sit down with them and prepare a programme to run over a minimum of three years. Firstly, I would propose a Category One Academy (it will pay for itself many times over in the long run) and I would put Bryan Klug in charge of it.

Next I would look at the existing team sheet and get rid of all players with the following exceptions: Richard Wright, Arran Lee-Barratt, Aaron Cresswell, Carlos Edwards, Keith Andrews (I would make him club captain, he cares, OK he was playing for his future when he came here but now give him something else to play for â€“ The Town), plus Jason Scotland and Danny Collins, if I could keep him, and any other fringe players who have come through the Academy.

I would entice Jordan Rhodes to come back home and build the team to feed him, and bring his father back in in his former role as well. I would then look carefully at all the maturing Academy players and those who are in the process of leaving plus those who have recently been allowed to leave and, those I wanted, I would offer each of them a minimum of a two-year contract and make them want to prove themselves and want to play for the club they obviously love. That is important and, for them, first team football is equally important.

In the beginning we would have sufficient 'old heads' to steady the youngsters and I am certain in year one we would, at least, hold our own but after that and, providing we enrol some real 'scouts' to bring in the occasional quality player to fill a niche, I am certain we would then be back to where we used to expect to be and then the stadium extension which Mr Clegg was speaking of would become a necessity and you would be able to recoup the many millions club debt which is owed to you. Happy days.

As a point of interest I was recently reading that Athletic Club Bilbao only recruit from their Academy and only people local to them can enter their Academy. Food for thought there.

I wish you well.

An Ipswich supporter who really cares.

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Facefacts added 15:30 - Dec 29

Thanks, this blog was an enjoyable read.

The Category A decision has indeed gone quiet, so here is a plea. I worry that the question has been 'kicked into the long grass'. Long term, the Category A academy investment is the classic question. This is the only decision that matters as a possible influence on the future, if you view the present time from the perspective of Ipswich Town through the decades, as this 'open letter' aims to do.

A 'yes' to Category A from Marcus Evans means he cares about the long term future of this once great club. There is room for nostalgia, occasionally, yes, but you also need to make suggestions for the future too, and the academy investment is key. Even if Category A investment is made, we just have to face it that Ipswich Town will never be a great team again. But Marcus Evans still needs to invest in Category A, just to keep pace with those teams around our level. Otherwise, the slow decline will accelerate.

Those of us who are over a certain age all have our favourite times and eras. I saw my first Town game at Filbert Street in November 1975, a 0-0 draw with Leicester City. That was the season after Town had played at that 'neutral' ground in an FA Cup 6th round replay, knocking out Leeds United. The 1974-75 season was a great season. I have a snapshot from the two-page typed 'programme' of Monday April 14th 1975, when my Dad was staying in Ipswich and went to Portman Road to watch Ipswich Town v. Huddersfield Town in the FA youth cup semi-final, second leg, with Ipswich leading 1-0 from the first leg played at Leeds Road. At that time we were 4th in the first division after 39 of 42 games with a game in hand on the leaders Derby County, 3rd in the Football Combination with three games in hand on the leaders Bristol City, and about to be crowned champions of the South East Counties League.

I also enjoyed the George Burley and Tony Mowbray era, very much. Exciting, pacey, winning, football, home and away, with the defence built around Mowbray who organized the three in the 3-5-2 formation of which he was the kingpin.

Football has changed a lot over the decades that I have been watching. The FA Cup has sadly declined in importance. There are no FA Cup second replays. There is hardly any meaningful reserve team football. A lot of the away grounds I visited have disappeared. I could list many other differences, but most changes have been for the worse, and have not benefited Ipswich Town.

Kevin Beattie and John Wark were mentioned in your blog as amazing players, about whom we can use the word 'great' and not be accused of exaggerating. They were not local boys, but products of what is now a bygone age of Ipswich Town being one of the best clubs in the country scouting for talent in every corner of England and Scotland. Those two would have been great players, whoever they played for. We are fortunate that they carved out their careers with Ipswich Town and England/Scotland, determined to maximise their potential. They are still local to the area. We all have our own favourites. It must have been great to watch those players week in, week out. The decision for Category A needs to be made to keep alive the remote possibility of once again building the kind of scouting network that brings great young talent to Ipswich Town.

Category A academy status is the bare minimum to arrest the slide down the leagues. As well as the investment itself, we would have to build the club from the bottom up, and bring back the back-room that was decimated on a whim by Roy Keane and Marcus Evans, who perhaps saw it as a 'soft' target to cut costs.