Sponsor and minority shareholder Ed Sheeran has been speaking about seeing Town shirts at his concerts all over the world and Suffolk’s close-knit community.
Sheeran, 34, spotted regularly at Portman Road and at away games, is in his final season as the club’s shirt sponsor, having taken on the role in 2021, and last year acquired a minority stake in the Blues.
His involvement in the club, as well as Town’s on-field success over the last few years, has led to a surge in shirt sales with the Blues anticipating hitting a record 100,000 mark this season.
Speaking alongside Town chairman and CEO Mark Ashton in the Men in Blazers podcast, Sheeran was asked about wearing a Blues shirt when playing venues in far-flung parts of the globe.
"It’s less about me pulling it on and more looking out,” he said. "When I was playing China, I’d never been to that city before ever and I looked out in the crowd and every single night, I only see probably the first 10 rows with the lights, and there were at least 10 Ipswich shirts worn by people who don’t speak English as their first language.
"There’s the pink shirt, the blue shirt, people have the goalie shirt and wherever you go around the world now there’s always someone in an Ipswich at a gig.
"Because I am a Suffolk boy and Suffolk is not somewhere that is glitz, glam, sexy, it’s not anywhere that anyone really ever talks about, so when you go to places, like when I was playing cities in India where it takes hours and hours and hours to get to even from a main city and you see Ipswich shirts pop up there, it’s nice seeing a glimpse of Suffolk.”
Reflecting on what makes Suffolk so special, Framlingham-raised Sheeran added: "I think if you live here you think it’s the best place on the planet and if you don’t live here, you’re confused why people live here. It’s one of those sorts of places.
"We’re quite a close-knit community. I think this is why I love being an Ipswich fan and why I was drawn back.
"I had a point in my life where I drifted, I was an Ipswich fan up until I was 10 or 11 and then I picked up the guitar and didn’t care about anything else at all, so I was just pure music, music, music, guitar, didn’t even watch movies, TV shows, football, I was just completely centred and focused on music.
"And it wasn’t really until having a great deal of success internationally and moving to Los Angeles, thinking that was the thing I wanted to do and all of that not going that well mentally for me and then moving back to Suffolk and then finding a community, this was probably when I was about 23/24, finding a community where I wasn’t treated as a pop star.
"I’m an Ipswich fan when I’m at the stadium, it’s very much like I am one of the crowd rather than someone that sticks out.
"Suffolk is very much like that as a county for me as well. I went to the Co-op yesterday to pick up food and not a single selfie, you just walk in and go and get the milk and veg and go to the counter and it’s normal because I am part of the furniture here and I feel like that is why Suffolk is special, for me anyway.
"Normal is the wrong word, I feel part of something here rather than apart from it, I guess.”
Earlier in the season, Sheeran was immortalised in mural form in Sir Alf Ramsey Way, which he joked he is amazed still remains intact.
"I’m surprised it hasn’t been defaced by now,” he laughed. "I thought there would be a cock drawn on it at some point!”
Sheeran has also been disappointed by the quality of chants aimed in his direction by opposition fans.
"The one thing I will say, anyone who is watching this who isn’t an Ipswich fan, the chants haven’t been funny enough, I need better chants when we’re going away,” he said.
"I see so much thought and preparation going into some of the rude chants and I just feel like I haven’t got the humour.
"We were at Wolves and there was just a chant saying ‘Ed Sheeran’s a c***’ and I was like, at least have a bit of imagination!”