Russell Osman was the latest Blues legend to be welcomed to Playford Road by manager Paul Lambert and his staff earlier today, while the Town boss has been discovering more about one of his illustrious predecessors in the Portman Road hotseat.
Terry Butcher, George Burley and John Wark have been visitors to the training ground for lunch with Lambert on a couple of occasions now, while Mick Mills joined them last week.
Osman, who has been working as pundit on the Indian Super League, is back in the UK and earlier today returned to the club where he was a player in the late 1970s and 1980s and an academy coach more recently. He will be joining his old central defensive partner Butcher on Life’s a Pitch on Radio Suffolk on Saturday.
"Brilliant, we invited him down right at the beginning and he couldn’t do it due to his other commitments,” Lambert said.
"Russell came in today, brilliant. As I said before, along with Terry Butcher and Mick Mills and John Wark, people from the era when I was growing up and who are important to the club and I’ll always say that to the day I leave the club.
"Those people are really important to the club and should never, ever have been left out of it. They should be close to it because of what they did for the football club.”
Regarding the campaign for a statue in tribute to Kevin Beattie, which was kicked-off on Tuesday, Lambert added: "I think when you’ve iconic players and managers and they do incredible [things] - didn’t he get voted the greatest ever player at Ipswich? - it’s a normal [progression]. I don’t see why not because the type of player he was.
I had a wonderful time meeting Paul, his staff and all the players this morning,,,great feeling about the place again, thanks also to all the players for making me feel so welcome,, classyðŸ‘ðŸ‘ðŸ‘👠https://t.co/NbwKHsepj0– Russell Osman (@RussellOs5) December 20, 2018
"There’s one of Bobby Robson. I watched the documentary about Bobby Robson [More Than a Manager] the other night, it was absolutely brilliant. It just shows you how well he done here and for the rest of his career.
"I love the past because I think it’s really important, you’re respecting what people have done.
"But we’ll never be as good as that, that’s the bottom line but we have got a chance to have our own little hit at it but that era was a special era.”
Did he find the film inspiring? "It was brilliant because the success the man had, not just in this country but Holland, Portugal, Spain, incredible. And he won titles everywhere he went.
"And I think going and doing that in different countries and trying to learn different languages and different cultures was incredible.
"It wasn’t anything other than I wanted to [learn about] the career of the guy and how it went. I thought it was fascinating.
"And the success the man had, dear oh dear, to do it in other countries, that takes some going.”
Lambert is well aware that Robson’s success wasn’t an overnight thing: "I had it, of course, not far from here, so I know what success is like. I know what success is like as a footballer.
"People automatically think because I won the Champions League I must just have started there. I started at St Mirren.
"I had to start somewhere, but I had a great upbringing at St Mirren, great parents who helped me and great players at St Mirren when I was growing up who made me battle-hardened and then I went to Motherwell. Everybody’s got to start somewhere.
"You’re very fortunate if you can walk into something that’s booming at the time. I certainly know what hard work is, that’s for sure.”