Town officially opened the new 3G pitch at their Playford Road training ground at an academy open day last night.
Academy sponsors were among those invited to watch the youngsters from various age groups put the new £650,000 surface, which was laid over 12 weeks during the summer along with a new similar half-size pitch in the dome, through its paces and also have their official team photographs taken.
Current first-teamers Tommy Smith, Teddy Bishop and Luke Hyam, all academy alumni, were joined by, among others, Jason Dozzell, Titus Bramble, Scott Mitchell, James Scowcroft and Adem Atay, who all came through the Blues’ youth system and now work at the academy, as well as another Playford Road graduate, Darren Ambrose, academy sponsorship manager Simon Milton, ex-boss George Burley - also a one-time Town youth player - and Blues MD Ian Milne to cut the ribbon.
"It’s a big investment it’s all on time, waiting to be audited for the categorisation, which I’m sure is going to be fine,” Milne told TWTD.
"We’re very pleased with it, as we can see now the boys are playing on it. It’s a big investment for the club, for the owner, £650,000. We’ve got the full size pitch outside and the half-pitch in the dome.”
The surface is to Category Two standard but also fits the requirements for Category One, which Milne says remains in the club’s sights.
"It’s still the long-term aim to get up there,” he confirmed. "As we’ve said before, it’s quite a huge investment to get to Category One and the cost of keeping up with Category Two has increased.
"We don’t think it has affected our recruitment, we don’t think it’s affected the players we’re getting through, an example of that is the three or four international youth players we’ve got at the moment.”
He says Town will consider whether to be audited for Category One status in 2017: "We’ll look at that, absolutely. It’s a case that we’ll look at it in detail, look at the cost, look at where we are. If we’re in the Premier League it’s a no-brainer.
"It’s currently costing £2.5 million or there or thereabouts a year, the new pitch is on top of that.
"Just on its own it’s a sizeable investment, but it’s worth it when you see it. Many of these kids will go on to other clubs or just enjoy it and decide not to continue playing, but it’s nice when you see the numbers that are coming through to the first team squad, people like Luke Hyam, Teddy Bishop and Tommy Smith.
"It’s nice to see them develop from the start to the end, so to speak. That makes it all worth it.”
Central defender Tommy Smith was impressed by the new facility: "It’s brilliant, it’s fantastic for the kids. It allows the kids a bigger space to play in when the weather’s not great.
"They’ve been in the dome over the last few years and it’s a tight space. It’s a brilliant facility, top of the range and what you’d expect from a football club of our stature.
"Ipswich has always been known to have good facilities. Technology changes, there are advancements and it looks like we’re keeping up with that.”
Smith says a club’s facilities are part of what a young player and his family weigh up when deciding whether to join a club, although for him there were bigger factors.
"The first time I came here I came on my own as a 14-year-old, I came all the way over from New Zealand on my own,” the 26-year-old recalled. "But my sister, who still lives up north, she came down and met me and brought me to the club the first time.
"I remember the first time I walked in through the doors, meeting Sally [Williams] on reception, very nervous but the club welcomed me with open arms and it was very much a family-orientated club then, as it is now.
"There were a couple of other clubs who looked at me and the facilities were a massive part in my decision, but the biggest factor for me was the way I was treated as a person and as a player, I was looked after from day one. And I wanted to repay that faith that the club had shown in me, making me feel so at home.”
The new pitch will get up to 25 hours of use over the course of a week by the more than 150 players now involved with the academy from U8 level upwards.