My first blog and it is my attempt at making a reasoned argument against some people who are currently not happy with the club for the renaming of the old Britannia Stand.

There has been no large scale outrage from any particular group of Town fans, however from some TWTDers as well as other Blues fans I know there has been some dislike towards a rather long-winded and not particularly attractive new stand name in the from of the ‘East of England Co-operative Stand’.

Yes, I will agree that this is not exactly the best name a football stand has ever been given, however, I believe the club has done nothing wrong and am going to argue in their defence.

The football circles in which ITFC currently circulate (the Football League) are now entering the world of Financial Fair Play (FFP) and if we are going to try and remain (or in some people's opinion become) competitive then we must bring in as much revenue as possible to allow us to work within the new regulations and still compete with clubs such as Leicester, who may try and throw money at promotion in the hope of escaping before the FFP introduce sanctions. Given FFP, I have no problems with the club looking for new revenue streams as long as it doesn’t compromise the club's history or integrity. The club have already been brilliant in my eyes by renaming the North and South Stands after two legends of our club in Sir Bobby and Sir Alf and I believe that unless they need to expand the stadium in the future then the Cobbold Stand probably won’t be renamed. This means that three of the four sides of the ground will be named after historic figures of our club, which is better than most club's grounds can boast.

With the three named stands we have (two named by this apparently unpopular regime), surely the club are allowed to have one stand named by a sponsor for financial reasons?

Also, as well as only having one of the four stands named after a corporate sponsor, that sponsor has ties with the old sponsor seeing as the Britannia group are now owned by the Co-op ‘federation’ which is the same group which the East of England Co-op are a member of. Surely this local and ethical business with some sort of ties to our previous sponsor is the kind of image and continuity we want our club to be promoting rather than the sponsor with the most appealing name?

We really don’t have it that bad in terms of company sponsorship, we only have one stand now named after a local business and our shirt sponsored by our owner. Norwich have a Norwich and Peterborough Stand and Colchester have an (in my opinion) awful stadium name in the Weston Homes Community Stadium, so surely we can’t complain when the club get new sponsorship for one of our stands in an attempt to help push the club forward.

Bottom line, if the new revenue helps buy a couple of players that push the club on towards entertaining football and the play-offs, then surely we can all put up with one dodgy name and since when do we call our stands by their official names?

Let's just call it the Co-op Stand and move on towards hopefully more prosperous times for our club.

StortfordBlue added 17:25 - Jul 11 Good blog, and agree with you totally. Not sure some of the moaning muppets who post on here will, though :o)
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eaii added 17:25 - Jul 11 Reading that article I get the impression that if I said jumping off a cliff was good then over you would go, people are not happy with the way this club is being run. Some of us can think outside the box and do not swallow all the cr,p that is thrown at us by the people who are running this club!!! I get sick to death listening to people explain how ME has spent a fortune and invested heavily? Yes he has staved off liquidation with the securing of 28 million pounds of debt when he took over this club (how much he payed for it I dont know and with the price plus what the club has spent it has all been stacked up against ITFC and the debt is now 66 million pounds. I wanted a rich chairman who was in love with this club and would burn some money because he was filthy rich but instead we have a seedy chairman and a complete goon as a CEO spewing out cr,p to keep the spending down (which obviously has some logic) and keep the season tickets flowing to help get this club back to the premiership (which would be nice) but some want the premiership not for the love of football and the club but for the love of a financial profit!! Perhaps football in general has gone this way but here is to dreaming of a Abramovich owning Ipswich rather than the current mob. I will change my tune if we become successful but with the sh,te I have seen over the last three years and the predicament this club is in, signing Chambers is not enough for me !!!!!!!!!!! EVANS SELL UP and ..............

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SWBlue86 added 18:00 - Jul 11 How does the name of one stand make any difference to the supporters? eaii you are talking absolute nonesense, if you want to see the likes of Abramovich own the club you support I suggest you go and support Chelsea, Man City might also be a good option for you.
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IpswichFan26 added 18:01 - Jul 11 A person who is FILTHY RICH and LOVES Ipswich Town? Who's that then???(Maybe Will Ferell I suppose...) Your asking for too much there. Marcus Evans has done an alright job IMO. He got us out of administration AND splashed the cash for Roy Keane to spend. I'm glad we've still got ME 'cause without him, we are going straight back probably to administration
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IpswichFan26 added 18:02 - Jul 11 Good blog by the way!
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stonojnr added 20:11 - Jul 11 I prefer the "Eec stand" or "Eek" myself :)
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LittleMissDaredevil added 21:46 - Jul 11 Do we get divvie on ticket purchases?! :D
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irishtim added 07:21 - Jul 12 Good blog mate. Any extra revenue is welcome imo.
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BillBlue added 08:14 - Jul 12 A good blog and I agree about the ridiculously long name which reminds me of the new name of the Colchester ground when I hear it read out on Sky. The Co-op always used to be just that 'the Co-op' what is wrong with that and, in all probability that is what it will become known as eventually. COYB
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naa added 09:51 - Jul 12 Surely everyone will just call it the co-op stand, so what's wrong with that? The stand has always been named after the main sponsor, ever since it was built. I don't get the hate. Some people on here really need to lighten up.
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50yearsablue added 10:04 - Jul 12 Good blog but the comments section spoiled by the idiocy of eaii
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rayman_10 added 10:15 - Jul 12 Although I am not particularly fond of the the name, I agree with the points you have made. Good blog :)
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Andy32Cracknell added 10:35 - Jul 12 Good blog, unfortunately your always gunna get people who cry like babies and spit there dummy out there pram. People need to wake up and smell the coffee. Yes we have a multi-million pound owner, but the we need a club that pays for itself through its own income. A club that is built from bottom to top and not top to bottom as in the past. Maybe, when we have built a team with younger players who are full of passion and we get promoted to the premiership, maybe Mr Evans might pump another 30-40-50 million pounds in.

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commuterblue added 11:29 - Jul 12 good blog
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eaii added 14:51 - Jul 12 Andy32Cracknel l- "maybe Mr Evans might pump another 30-40-50 million pounds in." ANOTHER?????? we got to see the first lot before we get to another??????? SWBlue86 - Talking or dreaming nonsense? before you give it the 'big one' read the comment properly you IDIOT!!!!!!!!!! 50yearsablue - Idiocy or fact? give an alternative to what I say before you call me names m8 otherwise expect to get the same treatment back C..T!

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Andy32Cracknell added 15:51 - Jul 12 well if im not mistaken mr evans bought a controlling stake in ipswich for £6million in 2007. and if im also not mistaken mr evans has been pumping in £5-6 million a season to keep us afloat. so if my maths serves me correct, thats a minimum of £31 million, NO?
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50yearsablue added 16:21 - Jul 12 eaii, when you can put a literate sentence together and avoid abusive names, I might enter into a constructive debate. Clearly by the comments above, you are out on a limb so maybe some inward introspection needed.
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Kropotkin123 added 19:43 - Jul 12 I didn't realise there was an issue with this... surely those who are annoyed with the length of the name could use their limited imagination and shorten it to the EEC. Example of a phone conversation below... Friend one: "Hey, where are you?" Friend two: "I'm by Sir bobby" Friend one: "Get yourself to the EEC, I'm already there" Friend two: "okay, see you soon" Notice how friend one, found it easy to say EEC, and friend two knew what they meant. NB: Nice read, despite the fact it will be lost on those that actually need convincing. The clubs finances show we need to do more stuff like this... we can't operate at a loss forever, nor should we.

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SouperJim added 10:11 - Jul 13 What? The stand was named after Brtiannia Building Society, now it's named after the Co-op. What's the bleeding difference? Some people need to get a grip. People getting touchy about renaming the ground I can understand, but it's just a move from one sponsor to another.
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SouperJim added 10:12 - Jul 13 What? The stand was named after Brtiannia Building Society, now it's named after the Co-op. What's the bleeding difference? Some people need to get a grip. People getting touchy about renaming the ground I can understand, but it's just a move from one sponsor to another.
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eaii added 13:32 - Jul 13 @Andy32Cracknell - Yes that all adds up but what about the increase in debt from 28 mill approx to 66 mill approx? add 28 and 31 together and the figure is close? so how much has Evans spent? pull your head out of the sand and see what has happened. I am sorry to moan and not be as happy (name of the stand I dont care) it is the myth that Evans has spent fortunes? @50yearsablue - treat others as you want to be treated yourself? if you dont agree then say so! dont call me names and then spurt out more sh,te on top of it. I retract calling you a name and perhaps if you dont call people names then it wont happen to you, so before you start with the education bit about grammmar etc learn how to behave!!!!!

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wideblue added 16:05 - Jul 16 Good blog, big foot blue, ultimately people will choose their own name for the stand. Hint for eaii: placing multiple exclamation or question marks at the end of a sentence doesn't actually enhance the point made, generally the opposite is true.
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