It’s not easy going against the herd on the issue of the takeover of our football club, particularly when big money has been injected for player acquisitions. Even if you take the view the jury is still out on this one, some healthy scepticism in the meantime is not a bad thing.

A number of fans felt I had strayed too far and pointed me to the Marcus Evans website, specifically the page on Ipswich Town, as though it contained the teachings of the Messiah. I’m grateful to them - not because I was able to see the error of my ways and convert to the faith - but because the vacuous, cliché-ridden, corporate-speak that littered the page provided great entertainment value.

It contains such beauties as: “The purchase of Ipswich Town Football club by the Marcus Evans Group is a natural extension of its activities considering the nature of it’s (sic) business portfolio”.

It gets even better: “This innovative approach of adding a highly recognised sports franchise to the companies (sic) brands signifies an exciting and ambitious expansion for the company”.

I have to confess my ignorance here. I was unaware our club had gone the American way and adopted the sports franchise model. Like everyone else, I’m very excited Marcus Evans has now come along to take the Ipswich Town franchise to another level.

Later on, the highly newsworthy statement is made that Ipswich Town “just missed out on entering the Premiership play-offs on the last day of the season but are in great shape with their brand of attractive attacking football to mount a successful campaign into the Premiership next season”.

I suspect our owner is in denial about the decline in the club’s league position since the takeover or it could be that he has spent so much money on the sports franchise part of the portfolio (Ipswich Town in other words) that he can’t afford to pay someone to update the site.

I was also bemused at the very end with the description of the “Marcus Evans brand as the world’s leading business information and hospitality company”. Wow! Bigger than Bloomberg? Dun & Bradstreet? IBIS World?

It’s a bit over the top when you consider that the Marcus Evans Group is essentially an army of cold callers on commission. The sort of people who call just as you’re about to sit down for dinner and try to get you to sign up for self-development seminars, except in this case the targets of the calls are office workers sitting at their desks.

There are two possible explanations for this piece of hyperbole: our Dear Leader suffers from delusional tendencies or the group communications junior assigned this spin job got a bit over-excited.

Despite the amateurism of the website and other more significant criticisms that one could make, I can’t allow myself to be entirely one-eyed. Under the current regime the administration of the club appears to be efficient, the youth academy has been maintained, in keeping with the club’s traditions support was given to Roy Keane despite his nightmare start as manager, and most importantly, significant funds were made available to the club.

We all know the money could have been better spent and it’s likely the blow-out to a £48 million pound debt (on my estimates) will act as a financial straitjacket in the longer term. But that is a separate matter. As it currently stands, Marcus Evans has largely delivered on what he promised when many owners of other clubs haven’t, so on that basis, credit must be given.

My argument is one of principle: the damage caused by the trend towards corporate ownership of football clubs. Those whose thinking is similar to mine are usually pitied as simple-minded idealists or pilloried for being unable to come to grips with the ways of the modern world.

I’m not financially illiterate nor am I a wide-eyed idealist. I just haven’t seen anything to convince me that private ownership will benefit Ipswich Town or football generally in the long run. Even the immediate signs since the takeover of the club haven’t been promising: significantly higher ticket prices, slightly lower attendances and a ballooning debt. It might be intra-group debt but let’s not bury our heads in the sand and pretend it will never have to be serviced.

There has been no net benefit to football from private owners pumping money into clubs. Most of it is borrowed money and to use Alan Sugar’s colourful language has been “like the prune juice – in one end and out the other” in higher player salaries. We could have stayed above this unsustainable mess. Now we’re another junky club relying on the injection of funds from one man.

We’re not a big club and so our fortunes will always swing more wildly than those of clubs with greater resources. However, we are capable of punching above our weight even as a stand alone entity. We have a large supporter base relative to the size of the Ipswich catchment area and our brand name is sufficiently strong to generate a decent income stream through matchday and commercial revenues.

In the long run we’ll have more respect as a club if we stand on our own two feet. But if our own means aren’t enough to get us to where we want to be, we’ll just have to learn to live with it. No one owes us a Premiership existence.

LincsBluebelly added 13:10 - Jan 14 This blog eventually makes its point clear, however, long after it had lost its credibility with nonsense comments such as "...the Marcus Evans Group is essentially an army of cold callers on commission". For what it’s worth, I think that Marcus Evans' involvement and intentions with our beloved club are honourable and, until such a time as there is evidence to the contrary, I'm going to continue to trust him and to support his involvement with Ipswich Town FC. You know what disappoints me though…I think that a lot of our supporters try really hard to find a negative at every given opportunity and this blog is just another example of that!

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Surco72 added 13:12 - Jan 14 Sanity a very well written blog ,which i whole heartedly agree with unfortunately the world and football has changed and without Mr Evans we could well be i dire trouble where as now even if the season hasnt gone quite as planned the future in the short term looks good compared to a large number of clubs . Injured a good response to your first flippant comment ,maybe what irks some is that you will never accept any critiscism of the club,manager at all even though some maybe constructive which is very healthy in any aspect of business . Everyone makes mistakes and people will have their own views on these Roys buys ,selections etc it doesnt make anyone less an Ipswich supporter ,we all want Ipswich to suceed or we wouldnt waste time on a site like this ,surely

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Tractorog added 13:23 - Jan 14 I agree that there is truth in much of what you write - but what is the alternative? You say you are not an idealist... but I can't see any evidence that you are doing anything but rant against the state of the world. Weren't player wages always putting the club on a knife edge. We've all seen what local grandees do to the local clubs they own and it is not always pretty. Usually their hearts are bigger than their wallets and you end in a right old mess. Or you end up with clubs that bring on young talent and sell them every year to balance the books... sound familiar? Marcus Evans may not be the new Messiah... he may be a very naughty boy, but you are not going to change anything.

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TractorRoyNo1 added 13:25 - Jan 14 Get real! The choice was and probably still is; Marcus Evans or going bust. People who think - don't know if you are one of those - that running the club as some kind of co-operative, live in cloud cuckoo-land. Ipswich Town have the ambition to be a premiership club not Ebsfleet. Evans is not ideal, but in my mind no better or worse than the Cobbolds (ie a business man who owns the club). I may well be part of the herd, but I know for a FACT that my club would be much worse off today if he hadn't have stepped in, or have sold out to a couple of pornographers. As for "espite the amateurism of the website and other more significant criticisms that one could make" WOW what arrogance, I would expect a call from them, becasue obviously their multi-million pound very successful international business obvioulsy needs your help (or not!).

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AJblue added 13:29 - Jan 14 Surco, yes i find it practically impossible to accept criticism of ITFC, from any quarter, i find it especially difficult to accept it from our own fans. Fans or supporters, the clue is in the name. As Lincsbluebelly quite rightly puts,our supporters seem to find something negative to say at every opportunity,i felt, rightly or wrongly, that this blog was one of those occassions. Criticism, i am told, can be constructive. I feel in this case, unless we all band together and buy the club from ME, that this piece, undoubtedly well written, was not constructive, as i have previously said, we are owned by ME, so best we get on with what we have. If i though that writing such a piece could change the way things are, perhaps i would be with Sanity, as i do not feel that way, i am happy to follow wherever this odyssey takes us (there you go a literary reference for you highbrow types). I also know,Surco that to bother to post on this site we all must be Town fans,sometimes, though, i find very little evidence of this, and it is this that gets my goat! The world,in my opinion,is a much better place when there are differing opinions,i just feel that a site for Ipswich fans should perhaps not concentrate on knocking Ipswich. Thanks superblueflude, i cannot help the way i feel about the club,and excited is that feeling at the moment, and i feel perhaps that is your main overiding feeling too.

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brockleyblueboy added 13:34 - Jan 14 Can't say I like your blog but you do put some half decent points forward. Bottom line if you don't like what football is now-a-days sod off and support AFC Wimbledon or that other manchester united team they have put together. Unless there is a massive fan protest from all leagues, this is what football has become. What happens on the pitch is a small fraction of the owners "business". We need to put a wage in the game and proper due diilligence on who is buying the clubs. PS ME isn't the largest hospitality and conference business I believe it is way back in second to IIR

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62WasBest added 13:35 - Jan 14 Injured: Well, now you have put something reasoned that we can weigh up rather than a sarcastic jibe that doesn't add to the debate one jot. All that's required is a debate. Everyone has different viewpoints but unless the reasoning is shown things often don't rise above a Ya boo! level. You say that you think the writer wrote this was "thinking how clever am i." That is just how your initial comment came across. You suggest I belittled you. Don't you think that your post tried to belittled him? I was only judging you on you smarta... retort. Now you have gone somewhat further it is obvious you have more about you than it suggested so I apologise for causing you offence. Just get so fed up with dismissive one-liners when people try to argue a perspective - whether we agree with them or not. You wouldn't think we are want the same thing at times.

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superblueflude added 13:37 - Jan 14 I am one of these two that hates the moan and groaners - I accept their views and i'm happy for them to write them - its gives us other views a chance to express ours, it is what banters all about what worries me is whether the majority of the moaners do eventually end up being the booers at games - and im not saying anyone is before you shout at me, im saying some could be, I hate booers. Anway back to the blog and comments following, I agree that with each news storyer more and more nagative comments flow, but seriosulyt where would we be without the financial boost? where would we be if Mags was still in charge - being totally honest everyone? For me, i really can't see any problems at town, yes terrible start to the season, but that is in the PAST it's the future we look at and I see a rosey one.

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WarkonWater added 13:43 - Jan 14 LincBluebelly and TractorRoyNo1, why don’t you lighten up and give a bit of credit to this blogger. Why don’t you read the article again. Where does he say that Marcus Evans is dishonourable? He goes out of his way to say that the club is well run and that ME has done everything he promised to do and that he deserves credit for this. The blogger is just making a philosophical point about what will happen in the long run given the takeover frenzy in football. To call someone negative just for trying to lift the debate reflect pretty poorly on you. Surco, good post. At least you’re balanced. But how do you know we would have been stuffed had ME not come along? The debt at the time was LOWER than it is now and we were doing BETTER in the league and drawing bigger crowds. Yes, it’s true the high debt isn’t having an impact because ME is not charging interest but how long will this go on for? The blogger made a great point when he said we would have more respect as a club if we stood on our own two feet. I agree with those who said Arsenal are admired for how they do things on and off the field. They pay higher player salaries than most clubs but they only pay what they can afford and everything they spend they raise themselves. They don’t rely on a sugar daddy because that’s just unsustainable.

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AJblue added 13:48 - Jan 14 62wasbest. This is in no way a jibe,please do not think it is. I can only assume you have not been a contributor to this site all that long. I can assure you that if you thought my comment was a glib one liner retort, you should see some of the sh*t that gets written on here!!!! My point was,admittedly not very well put,that this debate has been entered into so many times on here already, and nothing we do or say can change things, that yet another blog was, and in my opinion, a wate of time. I think you last sentence sums up this site. We all are Town fans, yet when someone like myself stands up against what many see as Town bashing, we are the ones that, amazingly, that get the abuse. Surely standing up for your team should be applauded, not belittled. My deepest fear, is that any other clubs fan that should venture on to here, would be left with the impression that we dont like our own team!

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brogansnose added 16:08 - Jan 14 Firstly i believe that if ME hadnt have come along to add us to his exciting business portfolio we would have been in a much worse situation than we are now and lets face it so far he has been a respectful, responsible owner.At the other extreme to freefall could have been us ending up with one of the incompetant , self seeking donkeys that pawn the club to a hedge fund. Unfortunately as has been intimated above, football has drastically changed in its make-up and organisation and the unsustainable financial aspect will surely at some point implode.Hopefully ME will ,as it seems he is,maintain a sensible business model.As Sanity says , it is something that we have to live with. For my part i just want to see attractive , entertaining football now that i am a consumer. Finally, is it just me, but does that corporate speak remind anyone of the football fan from the Fast Show?

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jayessess added 17:20 - Jan 14 I think my biggest worry is that people are kidding themselves that ME is in it for anything other than the bottom line. He showed no indication of being a supporter prior to buying the club, certainly not to the tune of the money he's invested in the club. So sooner or later he's planning to get his money back somehow. So, the absolute best we can hope for is that his means of doing that is a sustainable business model for the club. I have an uneasy feeling that the only way the model can possibly work is with sustained premier league football. Something which in the short-term that is far from guaranteed and in the long-term is unrealistic given the size of the club and the resources normally available to us. Not to criticise Evans too much, who at the moment seems to be more Randy Lerner than Eggert Magnussen (but who knows what goes on inside football clubs ...), but lets not pretend he's something he isn't - a Jack Walker style sugar daddy, who's throwing money at the club just because.

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OrkneyBlue added 18:45 - Jan 14 dobbie73 somes it up well for me in his last paragraph. If we like it or not, football as a whole has taken this route and if it had'nt happened to us and ME took his money elsewhere somebody else may have taken the reigns or as dobbie suggests we may have been in a Southampton scenario or worse still Luton. I suppose we'll never actually know as ME did come in with his 'masterplan'. I'm happy with the current set up at the moment, although at first a bitty sceptical. I don't particularly like the fact that we don't know who ME is, although i suppose it does'nt really make a difference to running the club. My main grumble, which struck me at the weekend is the ticket pricing and grading. I was looking at prices for my trip down to see Town play M'boro and QPR away. How the hell is the M'boro game a 'Grade A' match and how can they justify charging £28 in the current climate? I'm not a member of mensa, but surely they are pricing joe bloggs out of the game? I reckon there'll be 20,000ish at that game, so would it not make sense to charge a lower admission and potentially have a fuller stadium? But it isn't just us, QPR on a tuesday night....tickets are £30! I realise things don't stay the same and prices will rise, it just seems that ours have gone up unrealistically quick, i may be wrong though. Sorry all, grumble over!

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bluelass7 added 23:01 - Jan 14 THIS POST IS PROBABLY THE BIGGEST LOAD OF CRAP I HAVE EVER HAD THE MISFORTUNE TO READ - TOTAL B*LLOX
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bluelass7 added 23:03 - Jan 14 Oh and HAPPY BLUE YEAR ONE AND ALL!!!
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Nevadablue added 23:11 - Jan 14 Ultimately, the litmus test of this era in our history will be where it actually leads us and what happens when/if ME gets fed up with the most expensive of hobbies, that of running a football franchise, err... sorry I meant football club. I'm definitely of the view that, in spite of all the dramas and mistakes, the club was in steadier hands with Sheepy and co. It's very hard to buy into a club when its owner is the invisible man and its chief executive, though a well meaning and highly credible person with an impeccable background, so clearly hasn't much of a clue about the peculiar business of football. As I said in a previous blog, you can change the management and playing personnel in a heartbeat, but owners come with better adhesive and, yes, we're stuck with them until they tire of spending stupid amounts of money. Quite frankly, it's amazing anyone would see a football club as an attractive financial proposition, so the whole sport is effectively trading on the emotions of wealthy people, and emotions can be fickle.

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moyardmadman added 10:00 - Jan 15 couldnt be that much of a business man cause i read the business pages religiously and i have never heard of him !
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Bergholtblue added 12:52 - Jan 15 Had a peek at the Marcus Evans website. I liked the pentultimate paragraph of the ITFC section. "as well as helping to provide the basis of a global scouting structure." That will be Ireland then!
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NorthStand added 16:20 - Jan 15 What’s wrong Bluelass7? Can’t your 3 brain cells cope with such a blog. Ok, you think it is Boll*x. Tell us why. Or did it all go over your head? I don’t agree with all of the views expressed. But it’s well written and entertaining and looks at the big picture. I’m sick of all the morons on this site who never have anything constructive to say. I really laughed at the way Sanity stuck it into the Marcus Evans web site. Fair enough I say. If you pretend to be a global business you have to have a web site that looks professional. My uncle Ted isn’t a millionaire and he doesn’t pretend to be a global leader in his field but the web site for his lorry business looks better than what ME has put up. Loved it.

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bluelass7 added 16:52 - Jan 15 northstand - My 3 brain cells didn't understand all the big words. I'm sorry if I upset your boyfriend ! Still think it's a load of b*llox though so if you don't like my comments you can go swing. As for the childish "3 brain cells" comment. Isn't that a bit personal? I didn't actually say anything personal about the blogger just that it's waffle. As for "morons/constructive" - It's not so much "constructive" but whether it is absolutely relevant...I couldn't give a t*ss what ME's website looks like. As for the rest......Yaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnn! And I know you're thinking of replying. Don't bother I've heard it all before from people like you. PS - Also you state "I really laughed at the way Sanity stuck it into the Marcus Evans web site" - That just about sums you up - Now how childish is that? Pathetic, now......who has the 3 brain cells eh?!

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NorthStand added 07:36 - Jan 16 Ok bluelass7. I take back the comment about the 3 brain cells. But to me you denigrate when your only response is to say: b*llox! Did you think the blogger was too simplistic, too sarcastic towards ME……. how about saying something meaningful? This was an opinion piece. They don’t have to be about hot topics and they don’t have to spew out just facts. The idea is to satirize, take the piss, stimulate debate about some of the wider issues. Just saying b*llox! achieves nothing. To me it would be a real yawn if everything on this site was moanings about what a waste of money Roy Keane’s signings have been, how John Walters can’t hit a barn door with his finishing, how we need 10 more with the heart of Alex Bruce, blah blah. Oh, I also yawn when people use homosexual taunts. Grow up.

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bluelass7 added 09:20 - Jan 16 Yawn
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MBG added 13:41 - Jan 17 Great article. Need more of this stuff. Don’t agree with you at all bluelass and others who don’t give a toss about what is happening off the field. Just had a look at the Marcus Evans web site. The stupid spelling errors have been corrected. This must mean that in the corridors of power they are reading what fans are saying in forums which is a good thing I suppose. But the bit about missing out on the playoffs on the last day of the season is still there! Has time stood still for Marcus Evans since May 2008? Agree that the high level of debt is a concern and will be a millstone round our neck later on. But all we can do is go along for the ride.

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WadzillaBhoy added 20:44 - Mar 10 Every sport is franchising, its just evolution. What team doesn't want to make money, everybody knows how important money is for a football club to progress in the modern day game. You would have to be insane not to want to "sell your soul". Everyone that complains about ME is just annoyed that we havent been promoted instantly, but really thats a good thing just look at Derby. Do you really want our team to get promoted for us to become a laughing stock? I bet you any money the same thing happens to Notts Forrest. Back to back promotion up to the prem, they wont survive next season unless they spend big bucks to stay up. If any "fan" says we are already a laughing stock at least wait till the end of the season.

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