Then or Now?

Blog written by essexccc
Published: 6th May 2023 19:45

There has been considerable discussion recently about the relative merits of today’s club and team compared with the club and teams in what I will call 'the golden era' of Sir Bobby Robson, which I was fortunate enough to have experienced.

I have read with interest what various contributors have said on this subject but had no intention of joining the debate personally until having a conversation recently with a neighbour who lives round the corner from me, in the village where I live.

He is the brother of a member of one of the golden era teams in the mid to late seventies. And what he said made me consider the debate in greater detail.

“Did well again Saturday,” said the brother after the Peterborough match. I readily agreed. Then he said, “But it's upset my brother a bit”. “Why is that”? I said. “People are coming up to him in the street and saying this is the best team we’ve ever had!”. His brother had replied to such comments, “So they’d beat Real Madrid, like we did, would they?”

I think the reposte put an end to the debate. We have a team which has improved beyond recognition but they have won promotion from League One and are a long way from playing Real Madrid, let alone beating them, or from winning the FA Cup or a European trophy.

Although football styles have changed and I am as delighted as anyone at the way our current team play and at the results this has brought, culminating in a richly deserved promotion, this does not compare with the golden era achievements and my neighbour’s brother was justifiably indignant at the suggestion that it might. The golden era teams were certainly better.

But this debate is around club as well as teams. Indeed, for much of the Marcus Evans era, it was the club, probably more than any of the teams, which caused so much angst and dissatisfaction among supporters â€" not just because investment in players and facilities was at a low ebb but also because there was a very small team at the top, headed by a man who refused to engage with supporters generally and, I believe, even the Supporters’ Club. The performances of club and team in the modern era are inextricably linked.

Poor performances by the teams were blamed, almost certainly correctly, on the club. Paul Lambert, whilst mostly loyal to his employer, did remark that there was so much which needed changing at the club.

This was relatively recently but how did we, the supporters, view
'the club' in the golden era? It is difficult to compare as so much has changed and that must always be considered. However, the club owners, the Cobbold dynasty, whilst quirky, eccentric and benign, were not known for their interaction with supporters and, of course, they had no social media to get across their messages. Even if they had it, I doubt they would have used it.

Even the great Sir Bobby had a mixed relationship with fans. Perhaps he remembered the early days of his reign, when fans called for his head, when, much later, he labelled the Town crowd as 'zombies' for being too quiet.

You can’t imagine Kieran McKenna ever coming out with something similar. We rightly loved Sir Bobby for what he achieved on the pitch, not for his close relationship with the support.

I have never lived in Ipswich and so I don’t really know how the players of the golden era when out and about interacted with supporters but I doubt that they went to the lengths that our current squad go to in order to engage with their support.

For example, I’ve read Alan Brazil’s autobiography and, whilst he enjoyed his time at the club, I don’t recall him saying much, if anything, about the support â€" our current squad go out of their way to acknowledge the backing they’ve had. Whilst I am sure they have been told it is part of their job to do so, they all do it with great ease and apparent willingness.

This does work both ways of course. Even in much of the golden era our support, away from home in particular, was relatively quiet and compared with today, smaller in numbers.

In my view a reason for this is that in the golden era there was, unfortunately, a far greater risk of being involved in violence than now, and Town fans have seldom warranted the description of being 'hard'. It's a reputation we’re rightly proud of but in those days it put people off away games, I’m certain. There were far fewer opportunities for players to show appreciation to their support at away games.

It is too simplistic to say that times have changed and social media has made communication between club and fans easier and better than it was. Evans had social media, as did the people the put in charge of running his club, including its managers.

I am not a lover of many things American but I shall always be grateful to the individuals associated with, or appointed by, our current owners for the way they run our club.

Let’s remember that before things were turned round on the pitch they were determined to engage with the community and support and they’ve been good as their word. The club now is better than the club then - even allowing for all the changes that 40 years-plus have brought.

Therefore in summary, the golden era teams were undoubtedly better than the current team but the club, which so many have acknowledged we now 'have back', is better than any previous one, including that of the golden era.

So to refer to my title, the final score is Then 1, Now 1 but, with this regime in charge of our club, we can dream that we are on the way to having a 2-0 score in favour of Now.

It's good to be able to dream again.

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