Leicester City’s Official Supporters Club is planning to write to the Football League to complain about the staging of Saturday’s game at Portman Road. The match, which the Blues won 3-0, was played in heavy snow with the Midlands club unhappy that it was played to its completion.
Foxes Supporters Club chairman Cliff Ginnetta was one of 550 away fans making the trip to Suffolk and says his organisation will be contacting the football authorities to make their feelings known: "We will be sitting down in the next few days to write a letter to the Football League, after we have all calmed down a bit.
"We didn't pay £30 each to basically watch a snowstorm, and it seems the fans are the last consideration in these situations.
"In 50 years of watching City I have never seen anything like that. It was horrendous. Whatever possessed the referee to start, and then carry on with that game, it was ridiculous. It beggared belief.”
Leicester first team coach Chris Powell is the latest member of the Foxes camp to claim the game should never have got under way: "From when we warmed up you could see it was extremely hard and dangerous, especially along the flanks. Obviously anyone who was here and watching on TV would have seen that the weather got progressively worse.
"For me, it shouldn't have started. I'm sure Ipswich Town fans and players will say 'you're only saying that because you were 3-0 down after 25 minutes’. I'm more interested in watching a good game of football between two teams that are trying to win a proper football match."
However, former Premier League and World Cup ref Graham Poll backed Attwell’s decision: "Stuart Attwell was right to start the game, sensible to take a 15-minute break to ensure pitch markings were visible and right again to complete the fixture.
"He needed self-belief to withstand massive pressure to abandon the game once the snow started. Perhaps Ipswich taking a 3-0 lead helped him. Leicester might complain, but snow does not automatically mean pitches are unplayable."
Another ex-top flight official, Jeff Winter, concurred: "The conditions did not seem to be affecting the players that much. The only problem was that quite a lot of the pitch markings were not visible.”
Sky Sports, who screened the match live, have dismissed claims that they put Attwell under pressure to keep the game going: "It was entirely the referee's decision."