Boss Mick McCarthy says he has fond memories of his time with his hometown club Barnsley. The 54-year-old made his senior debut in 1977 and helped the Tykes to climb from the Fourth to the Second Division before moving on to Manchester City in 1983.
"I’ve been left a long time, but it is a club close to my heart,” he said. "I don’t know how many people I know there given the turnover of staff, but just the club and because of the amount of times I’ve played there, it’s my home town.
"But I’ve been moved on for a long time and I’m here at Ipswich and I want to get the three points.”
McCarthy says his recruitment came about in a very different manner to the way players join clubs these days: "I just walked down and asked. Keith Steele, the manager of the Barnsley Boys Club team, his father Johnny used to play for Barnsley.
"Keith said to me one day, and I was actually playing in the reserves team at Barnsley at the time, he said if you go down and ask they’ll sign you on as an apprentice. So I went down and asked, and the rest is history, as they say. I knocked and asked for Johnny Steele and they signed me on.
"These days we’re chasing them at eight years of age! I’m playing in the reserves and keeping people out and nobody’s even said to me ‘Do you fancy joining us?’. Kind of a bonkers way to start to it all.
"Then when I did sign, everybody told me ‘You’ll never make a footballer!’. To all those, thank you for the inspiration!”
Favourite game for Barnsley? "Scoring on my debut against Chesterfield. We’d lost 4-1 and we won 3-0 and I scored. Still remember that and lots of others. I played 272 league games for them, so in six or seven years.
"Happy memories. Nothing other than happy memories, actually. It was my hometown club and I loved it, every bit.”