Mick McCarthy has fondly recalled the time he spent with Sir Bobby Robson, one of his legendary predecessors in the Town hotseat. Robson, who lost his long battle with cancer in July 2009, would have celebrated his 80th birthday last Monday.
McCarthy says he remembers him as a great football man but also from an event he staged away from the pitch: "He’s is one of the great coaches, one of the great managers for what he did here, what he did abroad, in Portugal, in Holland, with the England team and with Newcastle. He was just so highly thought of.
"Despite all that, my abiding memory is from his golf day which I play in every year in Portugal, it’s for the Refugio [Aboim Ascensão], an orphanage down there.
"The way he went about that and conducted himself there and got everybody to put their hands in their pockets to raise money for it.
"He didn’t just turn up, he turned up and was part of it and it was the year in which he died or the last year he was there and he was quite clearly struggling.
"But he was there at half-eight on the teebox, cracking funnies and he was there when you came round at halfway.
"And he was there at the end and he was still there at one o’clock. I know he would have gone off and had a kip but he was there at one o’clock, last thing at night.
"I just thought he was amazing, the guy’s energy and zest for life when quite clearly his own was ebbing out of him. He was a really good guy, a lovely man.”
While admitting he’s no expert on Town in years gone by, he says he knows that team well: "I don’t completely know the history, I just know the team he built and how people thought of it with Thijssen, Muhren, Russell Osman, who’s here, Terry Butcher, Alan Brazil, all the names.
"I don’t study the history of Ipswich, I’m from Barnsley, I’m a Barnsley fan, a Leeds fan as a kid growing up.
"I didn’t know the Sunderland or Wolves histories but you know the ones who have been there, the good players and the good teams. And he had the best team, didn’t he? It was remarkable what he did.”