Former Blues striker Michael Chopra has revealed just how low he felt during his time at Portman Road as his gambling addiction took over his life.
Chopra, now 40, was with Town between 2011 and 2013 with his gambling issues becoming public when he spent time in the Sporting Chance clinic a few months after he joined the club.
The club sought to help him with his problems, lending him £250,000 to pay off some of his debts as the Newcastle-born striker’s life spiralled out of control.
While at Town, Chopra was banned from race courses for 10 years by the British Horseracing Authority for race-fixing, while debt collectors even turned up at Playford Road to demand cash.
"When I was Ipswich when I borrowed money from people in Essex,” he said in a lengthy and at times emotional interview with the Cardiff City Central Club podcast. "A car full of Somalians turned up at the training ground and stuff like that.
"I didn’t borrow the money off the Somalians, they sent them to come up and see me.
"Even at Ipswich, I don’t know how I was playing because when I was training I was always looking about thinking [or worried about] getting a text.
"I did alright the first year at Ipswich, but I’d get a text saying, ‘Such and such is going to come and see you’ and stuff like that.
"It got to the point where somebody would be waiting pretending that they’re asking for an autograph and they [would say], ‘Listen, go and get the money sorted now’ sort of thing while they were pretending that I was signing a book.
"It got to a point where I’d just had enough, I’d had enough of my life. I remember coming, and I get upset about, I remember coming down from Newcastle to Ipswich on the train and I sent a message to a couple of my close mates and my mum and dad and I was like, ‘I’ve had enough’.
"I was ready to do something, do you know what I mean? That was the situation I’d got in.
"So then I spoke to my dad and he was like, ‘Give me the number, I’ll speak to them, how much is it?’ and all that.
"My dad paid it straight away and that was the final nail in the whole thing. It was only 30 grand, it wasn’t big amounts.
"I was going to sleep with chairs in front of the door just in case someone tried to get in. I was sleeping in my bed with kitchen knives and that sort of thing.
"Yet on a Saturday I’m scoring goals against Bristol City, Brighton and sides like that. People don’t realise what was going on.”
Chopra, who has now put gambling long behind him, says his problems started when he was an 18-year-old at Newcastle.
A teammate and former Town player sought to address the situation in his time with the Magpies.
"I asked Kieron [Dyer] to put me a bet on and Kieron says he’d put it on with his bookmaker,” Chopra recalled.
"I owed about 50 grand or something. Juventus were playing someone and I said to Kieron, put me 120 grand on and he was like, ‘Nah, I’m not doing it, Chops’. ‘Put it on!’. He said, ‘I can’t do it to you, if they lose you’re 170 grand in debt’.
"Juventus won and I came in and said, ‘Juventus won that, that would have cleared the balance on my debt’.
"Kieron said, ‘I was looking out for you, I’m not putting a bet on of that much for you’.
"I had the same agent as [Alan] Shearer, so Kieron told Shearer, ‘I think Chops has got a problem with gambling, he’s asked me to do this and that, he owes my bookmaker X amount of money, can you speak to your agent and have a chat with him.”
Chopra made 56 starts and 26 sub appearances for the Blues, scoring 19 goals.