Right-back Kyle Hammond says he and his U18s team-mates can’t wait to take on Sunderland in the FA Youth Cup at Portman Road this evening (KO 7pm). But the 18-year-old says it's important that they treat the tie just like any other fixture.
"Everyone can’t wait,” he said. "It’s a big thing for everyone with their families, friends and girlfriends coming down.
"It’s a big game but we’ve just got to treat it as a normal game and prepare normally like we have done. It’s just a little bit different being in the stadium, it’ll be the first game in the stadium for the U18s for a couple of years.
"Everyone will be a bit nervous but that’s normal. You get over that, when you’re out there playing you don’t feel nervous, just when you’re walking out.
"It’s big feeling, you get shivers down your back, you’re walking out at Portman Road, thinking that in a couple of years you could be doing that in front of 15,000 or 20,000 supporters. You have to treat it as a normal game.”
Former Westbourne High School pupil Hammond has already played at Portman Road for the U21s and in any case is familiar with the stadium having been brought up as a Town fan.
He was there to watch the Blues win the Youth Cup in 2005 as a nine-year-old, although his memories are mainly from a later era.
"I had a season ticket for a year and a bit and a half-season ticket as well. I’ve grown up with all my family supporting Ipswich, I’m a massive fan myself.
"I had a seat in the Britannia Stand, near the North Stand, right in the corner. Diehards sit there, so I was trying to be one of them really!
"I can’t remember my first game, but the one I can remember the most was Roy Keane’s first game against Coventry. We won, it was the last game of the season and the players did their lap of honour.”
He’s been with his hometown club for four years and quickly made an impression: "I was 14 when I joined the academy.
"I was in the U14s and I kicked on straight from there because by the November I was with the U16s and went to play a game at Southampton.
"I’d only been there three months, so that was a boost for me. From then I just kicked on and I always seemed to play in a team a year older than I was.
"I was playing for the U18s while I was an U16 and now I’m playing for the U21s more than the U18s, which I don’t mind but I’ll always know my roots are and I’m with the U18s boys every day in their dressing room.”
He says the U18s are a decent squad: "They’re all good players, if they weren’t they wouldn’t be here, but obviously there’s Byron Lawrence and Amir Berkane, who have been with the first team.
"Teddy Bishop’s a very good player, Joe Robinson, Jack Willbye, they’re all good players, our keeper Michael Crowe, he’s got a pro contract."
Hammond recently returned to action after a spell out with a knee injury - "I’m fully back and flying now” — which briefly halted his progress after breaking into the first team squad in pre-season.
"You can’t do anything about it but it came right at the wrong time, I was out for 12 weeks,” he said.
"I was in Ireland for a week in pre-season, played the game [against Shelbourne] and was part of the first team in every pre-season game.
"I went to Reading [on the opening day of the season], was on the bench at Stevenage and the weekend that the first team played QPR we played Brighton on the Monday and that was when I did it.”
He says he thoroughly enjoyed the pre-season training camp at Carton House in County Kildare: "It was quality, just the experience you get from being out there, more experience than you’d get in six months just being in the U18s all the time, with the manager and TC with us every day training.
"When I came back and I played in the games I felt a much better player, then the injury came about.
"But that’s football, it’s how you come back from little things like that, your attitude towards it, work hard in the gym, do all the rehab and when you’re out there with the fitness coach work hard with him.”
While in Ireland Hammond had to sing the now traditional song in front of the rest of the squad: "I was nervous as hell but you’ve just got to belt it out and the players take to you more.
"They want you to come out of your shell, you’ve just got to be yourself. They’re a great bunch of lads.
"Sometimes I look back, four years ago I wouldn’t have thought I’d be here with all these professional players, it’s surreal.
"At Charlton I was rooming with Stephen Hunt, he’s a mad man! He’s good with us young boys though, he talks to us a lot along with the other players like Skuse, Chambo, Frank.
"Being with them every day, you get experience from them because they’ve played 100 or 200 games and that’s where you want to be, or even better.
"My benchmark’s not the Championship, it’s trying to be in the Premier League. I want to be in the Premier League with Ipswich if I can.”
Although yet to be offered professional terms, his scholarship is up at the end of the season, Hammond is now very much a part of the first team squad.
"When I was coming back from the injury I was running with Andy Liddell, the first team fitness coach,” he said.
"From there I knew I was still going to be back with them and I got to full fitness, had a week training normally and then after that I was with the first team and I’ve been with them more than I’ve been with anyone else.
"For Charlton and all the games last week I was in the squads. Just to be part of that is unbelievably good, travelling away.
"Just sitting there next to the dug-out, just to see what happens when you’re there. At the end of the year, I just want to try and be around that area or on the bench.”
A senior debut before the end of the season isn’t unlikely and he says he’d be interested in following Jack Marriott’s lead and going out on loan: "Everyone needs to play games because you can show the manager bits and bobs in training but to be fighting for points like Jack is at Woking, that’s that extra little bit that the manager will see and that’ll pull him into the first team.
"I wouldn’t mind going out on loan, it’s not something I’m going to turn down. But I’ll see after Christmas, I’ll see where that takes me.
"If I have to go out and play games and I want to go, that’s what I’ll suggest and we’ll see if there is a club out there that will come in for me. I’d take it with both hands.”
But first there’s the small matter of Sunderland tonight: "That’s all I’ve been thinking about for a couple of weeks, all the boys have been thinking about it.
"But it’s just a normal game, treat it as a normal game, concentrate on your own performance, then the team performance will come. If we play well as a team we’ll win the game, simple as that.”
Admission costs £3 for adults and £1 for concessions with only the Cobbold Stand open.
U18s: Michael Crowe, Kyle Hammond, Joe Robinson, Jack Willbye, George Fowler, Omar Sowunmi, Byron Lawrence, Amir Berkane, George Clarke, Teddy Bishop, Matthew Clarke, Ronaldo Jones, Jacob Marsden, Edward Ellis, Cemal Ramadan, Sam Ford.