Gutted. Shocked. Embarrassed. Depressed. Frustrated. These are the words that pulsated round my head following the 5-1 pummelling by the Canaries. As I reflect on that awful night, I can still feel the humiliation and the shame... and those awful yellow songs are still ringing in my ears, as they did for 78 too-many-minutes of the match.

For me, that local derby match put Town’s weaknesses under the spotlight for a full 90 minutes and it was agonising to watch: A dodgy keeper. Two thoroughly promising, but young and inexperienced goal getters. A slow and uninterested striker. A midfield full of inconsistency (with one shining light in the form of Bullard) and some shaky defending in between the strength we have seen for a good part of the season from McAuley and Delaney. Still a team of individuals rather than a solid unit working together, no matter what.

From the stands I counted six players who were on secure permanent contracts, with the rest on loan or still contemplating their future. The familiar truth is that on that fateful night, some of our players just did not turn up to play. Yes, Norwich looked stronger and more confident, but yet again we did not take enough of our plentiful chances and some of the team just did not feature. Admittedly, others were marked right out off the pitch but for all of us (fans included), our heads dropped once the first goal went in, maybe because we all had an idea of what was coming.

Why is it so hard for our team to play at home? It occurs to me that when Town are playing well, we enjoy the mystery of having Marcus Evans as our owner - we appreciate his investment and quite like the fact that he has ‘chosen‘ us and pretty much rescued our club, albeit financially. But things haven’t gone that well this season, or last. In fact this season has not been one for the faint-hearted and is definitely one to forget.

In such a climate, we wonder who Marcus Evans really is and what our club has become. Who is the chief executive he has appointed and why have things gone so far adrift from their original plan, which was so full of optimism? We don’t know either Clegg or Evans and it doesn’t feel as if they go out of their way to reassure us as to their intentions - either through their communication with us or through their actions.

Promises of financial backing and a commitment to Premiership football are not borne out in new permanent signings that would give us the faith that we are moving away from mid table Championship football. The whole contract saga has damaged the confidence in the worried-looking Clegg and gives a feeling of amateurism at our great club. This is why the crowd is so quiet- and the Team can feel it.

OK, this week is a bad week to write a blog. I’m not always so negative; we are where we are and we have to be positive about the future and support those in charge of our beloved ITFC. The crazy chop-change days of Keane are well and truly over and PJ is doing well, with the resources available to him; he’s making decisions about his squad and certain players have definitely improved during his time so far. We have two young starlets in Wickham and Carson and Bullard has been awesome. If we can keep him, this will do so much to help mend some of the frailty that is present.

To state the obvious, we need more good news off the pitch (including positive news about new or existing contract offers) and more consistency on it. We need a captain who can properly inspire and encourage his players, leading by consistent example. But we also must have better communication from those right at the top to help repair our confidence following the dire local derby match and a poor season all round. We need help to renew our desire to get behind the lads rather then get on their backs because during matches because we are feeling frustrated and jittery from so much uncertainty ourselves.

To be such a successful businessman, Marcus Evans must understand people and leadership and how dangerous it is for those in charge to appear so remote. Maybe ITFC has become one of Marcus Evans’s less predictable ventures. We will look forward to next season because it’s what us true football fans do, but Evans and Clegg must also promise to step up and play their part in pulling all the elements of our football club together. It hurts me to say it, but this is what they appear to have achieved 40 miles up the road.

Ipswich24 added 08:10 - Apr 24 Good blog! Evans needs to get rid of Clegg and bring in a football man to replace him
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SouperJim added 11:12 - Apr 24 A good read and put into words many of my own doubts about the people running our club. Looking beyond the desperate need for a board-level scapegoat that many fans appear to need, there is clear and justified question mark over Simon Clegg's head. To sit on the fence a little with the contracts whilst we are unsure of which division we might be playing in next season is one thing, but to let the situation drag on for so long and well beyond the point where safety appeared assured seems amateurish. We can only speculate as to the reasons why, or who if anybody is to blame, but Clegg's lack of decent PR doesn't do him any favours. To compare him to Bowden is perhaps a little unfair as the structure of the club has changed, but he could learn a lot from the way his predecessor handled the media and the fans at least. The fanbase is crying out for someone within the management structure of the club that they can identify with and so far Simon Clegg is doing a very poor job of filling the gap.

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MBG added 13:59 - Apr 24 We have to seriously question the direction of the club since the Marcus Evans takeover. We signed a number of new players immediately after the takeover but there have been very few permanent signings recently. The wages bill at Portman Road has ballooned in the last few years. They say if you pay peanuts you get monkeys. But we are paying top dollar and getting mediocrity. There is all this talk about how much money ME is pumping into the club but he’s doing it to cover an inflated wages bill, not in improving the squad. It’s also of concern that our attendances are sliding. It cannot just be explained by poor performances on the field. Ticket pricing policies and the perception that the club is being run by people who do not really care about the fans are contributing factors.

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Daleyitfc added 16:21 - Apr 24 The difference between Evans and Clegg is that only one of them actually exists, and a lot of us wishes he didn't! I find the continued pretence from club, and local media, that Marcus Evans is a real person, really annoying now. It is a faceless corporation that has invested in the club, and supplies senior management to the club to run the financial side : there is no more a person called Marcus Evans than there is one called Mr Asda.

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Blue041273 added 22:31 - Apr 26 In this environment a supporter is 'a consumer'. A 'product' is put to us and we 'consumers' are encouraged to buy. When the product is Barcelona, Real Madrid or Manchester United consumers are queuing up. When the product is a parochial club like Ipswich who now have a track record of serving up bland, artless and tasteless football you have a completely different situation. But the Marketing Department at ITFC have come up with a masterstroke. Increase the price of season tickets. That will pack 'em in. BUT football supporters are not 'consumers'; they are the faithful. Some may fall by the wayside but the apostolic hunger for more of the ITFC experience will ensure that suits in the Boardroom can sleep easily. We may moan but they know we will be back for more of the same year in year out in the hope that maybe, just maybe, this will be our turn.

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Blue041273 added 22:55 - Apr 28 Sorry Dan, I seem to have killed off this discussion.
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BecclesBlue500 added 17:18 - May 3 Don't think you've killed it Blue041273 - not often you get intelligent comments on here. Therein lies part of the issue - picking you up on the use of the word parochial; that's just it. Combined with your comments about consumerism I'd have to agree that the club is up against it. I always wear a wry smile when I hear the less intelligent amongst us kick-off with the whole 'scum' thing; fact remains that the last two Chief Execs of NCFC have proven to be astute businessmen - filling Carrow Road using clever, arguably deceptive sales campaigns - successfully 'selling the dream' and twisting fans arms into buying 20,000 season tickets before a ball has been kicked. Fair do's it looked like Gunn was an unmitigated cock-up but their leadership (Owner/Chief Exec/Manager) very quickly did something about it and the rest is history. What have we go to offer??? Evans, Clegg and Keane will sadly go down in our history as something of a joke; years from now we'll (hopefully) laugh at the bare facts of the matter - our closing league positions, our gates during the period and the net outflow of cash on players who most of us armchair supporters have all but forgotten already. We've now still got 2 out of the 3 and just not sure that 'Porno Paul' is the right man; this is a man who was on (and I shudder to think what ME is paying him) a reputed £1.5m per year whilst with Derby - who achieved, what was it again?? abject failure. The guy is likeable; but must count his lucky blessings every time he leaves his mansion; in his first two seasons at Bradford he finished 21st and 13th - then fair pay he got them promoted and survived - then it went wrong and he left under a cloud. He was then spectacularly unsuccessful with Sheff Wed and got sacked. Then 6 great years with Wigan - two promotions; but lived at the foot of the table and having been spared on the last day of the 2006/7 season he quit. Then the Derby affair; 11 points, one win (which was under Billy Davies) and humiliation. Then the Championship where he was sacked when Derby were 18th; and now he's landed at us. I don't accept that he has 'saved us' - we are a dead cat bouncing; whoever came in and was, by default obviously not Roy Keane was going to get the benefit, the relief of the whole squad is evident that the nasty, arrogant little man had gone back to Cheshire to count his money (how much settlement did he get?). But we can't vote these people out; we don't own the club so we can't sack them; so what do we do??? Go through it all again next season I guess............

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