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Cook: Fans Will Be Allowed to Come and Watch Training - Ipswich Town News

Blues boss Paul Cook says Town’s Playford Road training ground will be open to supporters next season as he feels the distance between players and fans is too great in the modern game.

Previously, Roy Keane invited supporters to come and watch the Blues train but with his successor Paul Jewell less keen.

"The training ground will be an open place for people, the supporters,” Cook said.

"They will be allowed to come in and watch training. We want that feel-good factor to go around our town and our community because we want people to see how hard we’re working in pursuit of being successful for them.

Is that something he has done at his previous sides? "At all my clubs. At Portsmouth at times I used to get letters of criticism regarding certain stuff. Like I try and do at Ipswich, I try phoning people up who have written letters in, I try and speak to everyone about what we’re trying to do.

"And then the most important thing, the gates of the club are open. When you watch clubs train and you watch the physicality that they’re putting in and the workloads and the effort, I think you leave then a lot more satisfied with what’s going on.

"Listen, as football’s moved on, I’ve never agreed with how players have become off limits and clubs have become off limits for supporters. In my mind, that’s not how football clubs should be.

"We’re a massive part of our community, so to say that nowadays we can’t meet people, we don’t get to know players [isn’t something I agree with].

"And I know there’s great work that goes on in the community at all football clubs, including our own, it’s something I’m very much aligned with.

"We shouldn’t be strangers to the people of Ipswich, that’s the players, the staff and our training facilities.”

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