Town manager Paul Jewell says he wants to see laps of honour ending future seasons at Portman Road rather than the lap of appreciation for the crowd which will follow today’s final home game of the campaign against Millwall.
Jewell said: "I think it’s a time where we as a club can show their appreciation to supporters, who have witnessed some really bad performances, but also some really good ones.
"We gave them a little bit of hope then dragged it away. It’s about the 10th year on the bounce that it’s happened at Ipswich, so it’s not something we want to continue to happen, we want to be having laps of honour rather than laps of appreciation for the supporters."
The Blues boss has been impressed with today's opponents' recent form: "They’ve done well. They were in a relegation fight but they’ve really got themselves out of it. It’s always a hard game and they beat us comfortably down there.
"But we’re at home, we want to take the game to them and hopefully it’ll be a decent game for the supporters. I think the other night was a terrific advert for the Championship and hopefully with no pressure of relegation or promotion both sides can go out and play good, attractive football.”
Today’s game could see 16-year-old Byron Lawrence make his first team debut and Jewell outlined what fans can expect from the one-time Histon youth player: "He can play in a number of positions. If we were to play a diamond, he’d be at the head of the diamond.
"He can play wide, he’s left-footed but he can play off the right. I don’t want to tar him with this brush but he’s like Jack Wilshere, he’s a left footer, a stocky type.
"We’ve got to be careful we don’t put too much expectation on his shoulders at a young age, but we think he’s got a chance.”
Lawrence has been named in the squad and is likely to be on the bench at the very least. Aged 16 years and 40 days, he will become Town’s second-youngest first team player, younger than Jason Dozzell was when he made his first team debut — and scored — as a sub against Coventry in February 1984 at 16 years and 57 days.
Connor Wickham became Town’s youngest-ever player when he came on as a sub in the 3-1 home defeat to Doncaster in April 2009 aged 16 years and 11 days.