If you live outside of the Anglia TV region and have your local news from the London transmitters, you will be regularly told about the Olympic ‘legacy.’

The report will probably include some Super Saturday footage of Mo, Jessica and Greg strutting their stuff in the Olympic Stadium. It could be just guff. That report will probably come back to you like Groundhog Day during every July for probably the rest of your life.

I always feel that British people are a bit uneasy about the Olympics after the event. Memories have dimmed and the stresses of life have taken over minds. The 2012 Olympics could become a nice national historical event but nothing much more.

Olympic sports realise that the sun is setting, or set for some people, on the Olympic parade and they are making a big effort to reach out to people to try their sport for the first time to try and keep the Olympic flame alight.

The monolith of football dominates the national sporting conscience. It is a tough battle but triathlon are trying their best with the World Series recently staged in London. It helped with the Brownlee brothers becoming national sporting figures. I was down at Hyde Park a couple of weeks ago enjoying the atmosphere and celebrating sport - the same week when Portman Road’s attendance hovers around the 15,000 mark.

For those of you who got down to the Yeovil game on 17th September, I salute you. If Town get in to the Premier League next season, it is those nights which can make you proudly say that you are a true Town fan. A promotion push can bring many fans out of the woodwork who probably gave up on the Blues when the club were relegated in 2002.

“I went to every Town game since my birth,” they will say. You can ask them where they were v Yeovil in 2013. If they are truly honest, they should say that they were watching Holby City. However, the cost of football, the incessant slog of the Championship season, the feeling of one dawn being shattered after the last false dawn, and the general feeling that football, the wider media, or your club itself does not quite seem to care if you turn up at a game, makes your love of the game sorely tested.

OK, there was a big advantage for the triathlon. Apart from the cost of a return Underground journey, watching the triathlon participants shoot past Buckingham Palace on their bikes and walking around Hyde Park did not cost a penny. Walking around the exhibition at Trafalgar Square was free too, and I could have even had the chance to swim, cycle and run through the transition areas with full sports and swimming gear provided.

It was a festival of triathlon and people had the chance to actually have a go at some aspects of the discipline. You could also pick up a load of free gear such as water flasks for the gym, and sign up to free sporting related holidays advertised by scarily happy families with ivory-tusked teeth and a real ‘jolly’ sense of get up and go.

The whole experience did make me think that I would at least consider the sport in the future. I did wonder whether it was possible to swim in Ipswich’s Wet Dock, cycle up into the Shotley Peninsula and power run around Holbrook and Manningtree. Sport is meant to enthuse you and since the Olympics, sport has realised that it has to keep on attracting new people and discovering potential champions. Triathlon did it for me that Sunday afternoon.

So I turn to Ipswich Town Football Club and football. I would never want to suggest that triathlon, or any other sport has the power to take over the national game. However, when we talk about football taking over the world, it is probable the Premier League is taking over the world, and to be more specific, around four to five teams are taking over the world of sport.

As much as I would like to think is the case, I am not sure that screaming Indonesian fans would greet a Town team to their country for a pre-season friendly. I also wonder how many children, who live in Ipswich, actually say that they support Ipswich Town rather than profess to be a Manchester United fan, or support a team such as Chelsea or Arsenal.

I also wonder how many people of my age group (early thirties) actually go on a regular basis to watch Town play. It was 15 years ago when I was going along to Portman Road and taking advantage of young adult or student prices, and I was watching a range of teams playing some desperately average Town sides at disturbingly miserable football.

The late nineties always had the draw that Town would potentially be in the play-offs but it was just fun and enjoyable to go and watch Town - and not that expensive either. Since then, my friends and I have reached adult prices. I would love to know how many of my old school friends now go to watch Town on a regular basis. My best friend would not even countenance going to Town at the moment. Any slight penny towards a ticket is a waste of money in his opinion and he enjoyed a game in the past.

It is not all doom and gloom. There is an age group here in Buckinghamshire who will wax lyrical about Town in the seventies and eighties, when I talk about football. Town still go to Heath Road Hospital at Christmas, run a training ground event in the summer, are involved in various youth football events and a Junior Blues club is still in operation.

However, when did Town last do an event in the Cornhill for the Saturday lunchtime shoppers, when was the last meaningful ticket deal for people, whether season ticket, or non-season ticket holders? On a non-match day, Portman Road can sometimes resemble Fort Knox, surrounded by soulless and empty car parks. I worry that nothing much changes on a matchday. Town cannot afford to be like this.

I enjoyed my day at the triathlon. The Olympic Legacy has not really done much for me during the last year or so, but visiting these events has helped me to realise that there are other interesting sports in the UK as well as football. Maybe Town should learn from some of these events. Positive press releases can go so far, but the club cannot survive without the community of its fans whether longstanding or new.

SouperJim added 11:16 - Sep 23 Glory hunter. I'm early thirties and a 15 year season ticket holder. In my teens I was spoiled by the Burley years, but I don't regret the slog through to today. Without the lows you can't truely appreciate the highs. Pablo's injury time reverse sucker punch against Coventry in 2010. The five second half goals at Barnsley the season before last to come from 2-0 down and end a run of 7 straight losses. Supporting a football club is about far more than just turning up when the going is good. You seem to have missed that, which is a shame.

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gazzmac4 added 12:35 - Sep 23 I wouldnt call TimS a gloryhunter but i can understand why you would think that. I live just south of MK these days and the fact of the matter is to go to a home game (something i try to do 8 or so times a season) can prove a heavy expense. And given that expense it is hard to think its money well spent when we continue to hover around the mid table mark. I enjoy a day out at FPR but the away games have more draw for me these days. The point you make about matchday experiences is an excellent one though Tim. I remember all kinds of activities on Portman road when i was younger. This is something that has certainly gone missing in recent years. A good example is the International NFL series at Wembley every year (twice this year) to which i will make my way this coming sunday. There is so much to do in and around the ground that i know a few guys who will be popping along to the activities who arent even going to the game! Im aware a lot of you will go "its not real football" etc etc but the americans really do know how to host an event and i see no reason why ITFC couldnt learn from these events and make attending FPR for games much more of a day out like it used to be! The club takes £40 of my money per game and i genuinely believe this money could be reinvested into some additional matchday things to give us the feeling of a big day out. Some of it may be annoying but keeping the fan base intact is essential to a clubs development. Especially in the region that Town are based when many fans have to come from far and wide to make the game. Its a shame as always that debates on this site come down to the money factor but thats the modern world we live in. I can appreciate that people are labelled as fair weather fans when they dont attend games unless the team is doing well but when the club is doing only a fair job of giving value for money, who can really blame these fans?

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SouperJim added 13:38 - Sep 23 My Glory Hunter comment was intended to be tongue in cheek, but my suspicions were first aroused by his description of the 90s Portman Road experience as "playing some desperately average Town sides at disturbingly miserable football". That doesn't marry up with my memories of that era at all. Football isn't cheap and the club could certainly do more to attract fans. But if you only go when the team are playing at their absolute best, you miss out on much of the perspective that makes the experience relevant.

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Shotleytractor added 15:16 - Sep 23 Late 90's & early 00's were great years went to quite a few games, sadly we got relegated & we moved to wales. Cardiff & Swansea getting promoted to the premiership how selfish of them ;) I've not been to any match this season, last one I went to was Swansea 2011 & we got thumped 4-1. Swansea were playing the Burley era style, real good stuff. Hopefully we can get it together & get back up to the premiership with work not getting in the way of local away games(for me) would be a bonus.

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gazzmac4 added 16:12 - Sep 23 Fair comment Souper Jim. I watched us get thumped 6-0 by Leicester last year which gave me more than enough perspective to last me for this season too! I still have nightmares containing David Nugent and Lloyd Dyer! Haha.
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reaper added 17:00 - Sep 23 SouperJim I have no doubt that a fan that started coming to games as town are pushing up the table will enjoy 'the highs' of promotion. It may make you feel good about yourself if you were there at the 'lows' but time and money are not about in abundance and both can be spent better. I get to a few games a season and listen on the radio for a lot of the rest, if town were challenging at the top if the table I would go to more games but until then I completely understand why people would stop paying extortionate amounts to experience the 'lows'. As this blog points out, there's a lot more out there than just football!

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CambridgeBlue added 17:23 - Sep 23 I can see your point, but the Olympics isn't exactly a fair comparison. It was funded to a large extent by the taxpayer - I'm sure that if the council gave Ipswich a few million a year out of council taxes, they could afford all sorts of fun things for us to look at on match day.
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kozmik added 18:04 - Sep 23 Yaay for Buckinghamshire Blues!
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SouperJim added 18:08 - Sep 23 Reaper it's not about feeling "good about myself", I go because I love the club and I enjoy the experience, yes even through the times we were not playing so well. I am actively interested in the fortunes of this club which I identify with and as such they have my support through thick and thin. Of course I can understand the temptation not to go in there is less entertainment on offer, but my point is that if you only go when the side are playing well you will not enjoy the good times nearly as much as I will. The money arguement is a complicated one, as football is not like other forms of entertainment. If it simply about the entertainment value, then why support one club? You may as well pick exciting fixtures wherever and give up the whole "itfc supporter" lark.

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Blue041273 added 22:05 - Sep 23 There has been a lot of comment recently on the price of tickets at PR and of course this is important. The National game, the working mans game, should be affordable to the working man. However in the real world Football in general seems unable to grasp the fact that the working man has been priced out of the modern game and is not now really welcome. This is clear at ITFC as the matchday ticket purchasing policy deters fans rather than attracting them. Thus the question is: do we want to attract more fans or not? The sad fact is that we can really only attract additional support by offering tickets at deeply discounted prices, which, as well as upsetting season ticket holders, still incurs the full administration cost of stewarding the stadium, policing the perimeters, as well as staffing the bars etc within the stadium. In my view, there is probably no incentive to try to fill the stadium any more; the costs involved render the potential rise in revenues irrelevant. I read an article some years back which suggested that football should be free, or at purely a nominal charge as in most of Europe, with the main costs of the club being covered by sponsorship. The FFP rules are designed to level the playing field but don't go nearly far enough. For sure, currently, football has a less than nil chance of attracting truly casual spectators as with the triathlon or other Olympic sports. In essence football does not, and will not, enjoy an Olympic legacy; in truth fans are being sucked away into following other sports mainly through price. Of course people will still support the club from a distance, following the results with the same keenness as those who pay the required price to attend the matches firsthand. In one sense we are all of the same ilk, but as far as ITFC are concerned, the only fan is the paying fan, and, if the truth be known, the only fan is the season ticket holder. As for the club providing additional entertainment, I think you'll find that the average season ticket holder is not interested. The football is the reason for buying the ticket, not any side shows which might creep out of the woodwork. Therefore, while you can come up with plans and schemes to improve attendances, unless you have a magic plan to increase season ticket holder numbers (and this will only happen if we are successful and look like getting into the Premiership) I sense that price and on-field performances will be an impediment to increasing match attendances.

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IamSpartacus added 23:11 - Sep 23 I do tend to agree with Blue041273, the benefit of reducing prices is apparently considered counter productive to the club at present. That said, it is also Myopic. I know several friends who either used to be regular supporters/season ticket holders/or several games a season fans that are no longer able to afford games. In those people not being able to go (around my age of 40), they aren't taking their children. In their children not going, the fan of 15 years time is not being produced.... and so it goes, as the attendances of the future dwindle.... I'd LOVE to go every game. It wouldn't stop me going if Ipswich were as poor as under Jewell- in fact I suffered all of the Duncan era which was almost as bad. Being fans, as we all know, is about more than just winning, but the suffering together as well as the odd good result. Unfortunately the cost is unjustifiable to my bank and my wife (and we both work, so it is even developing into a situation where going regularly is prohibitive to full time working families). My 2 children, the tickets, diesel, parking, programme, a drink and sweets for kids... then rinse and repeat 2-4 times a month. Just not realistically viable. When I speak to friends who are charged around £14 to even watch non-league football each week it does make you realise just how fans are being treated as mugs. This is nothing to do with fair-weather fans, it is deeper than that. Yes, when we are winning more (and I have faith McCarthy will produce that), the gates will go up a bit, but the myopically high ticket prices in the last 5-10 years ago are already slowly eroding the attendances. It makes no difference if Ipswich win every week and win the Prem.... *dreams*.... if you can't afford to go, you can't afford to go. I wonder if clubs will realise this before it causes permanent damage...

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SouperJim added 11:15 - Sep 24 Some good points there Spartacus and I agree with much of what you posted. The clubs first priority when it comes to ticketing has to be to maximise revenue. Greater revenue means greater investment in the playing squad and therefore greater success on the pitch (in theory at least). The biggest seam of ticket revenue is season ticket holders, so the club have to make a season ticket the most attractive option in terms of cost per game. It is also the only guaranteed ticket revenue for the whole season, your seat is bought and paid for regardless of our fortunes on the pitch. From there they have to maximise income by balancing the cost of the season ticket vs how many they can sell. The average season ticket cost is high because people are prepared to pay it. Could the cost be reduced and attendances increased without damaging income? Possibly, but the club are likely to see this as a gamble. Of course as you rightly pointed out, this is a rather short-term attitude and does nothing to consider the implications for the future if many fans and their families are being priced out of going to games. However, I can't help but come back to my point about fans staying away due to the quality of football on display. If fan X could afford to go 6 times a season 10 years ago, then (assuming his circumstances have changed) why can't he afford to come 4 times per season now? Because he is getting less for his money and the quality of the "entertainment" isn't as good. Fair weather fans. Whichever way you slice it, this is part of the picture. I am not intending to "bash" those fans, each to their own. But it seems somewhat hypercritical for fan X to whine that he can't afford to go to the football anymore when actually he can, just not as often. He simply chooses not to because we're not at least a top 6 championship side. Yes the club could make it more affordable for him, but would it really change the fact that they don't actually have his loyalty? Would you risk the financial stability of the club on 5000 extra bums on seats who will disappear again as soon as the going gets tough? As much as I would like to see cheaper tickets and football accessible to all, my answer has to be no.

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IamSpartacus added 17:06 - Sep 24 Going to football is a habit. I get frustrated when people refer to the MIA fans as 'fair-weather'. Some may be, but many just find it hard to justify throwing a large proportion of their family budget at something that is becoming more and more distant from the family club it used to be. You, from your high moral perch, call it hypercritical, I would suggest it is reality. Football is unlike other entertainment activities, it hooks you and keeps you for life. Clubs know this and take advantage. They charge more and more knowing fans will stump up, until there is a cut off point where it is too much, it isn't value, it just can't justify the expense. Anyone suggesting they are better or have more integrity because they are able to spend more than others are just fools. It is cost. Totally. If the tickets were free we would have full capacity- regardless of whether we were top of the league or not. There is a happy medium, and seeing as I don't remember so many people as unhappy with the ticket pricing quite like they are now, there is clearly an issue. Those that jump on the 'fair-weather supporter' bandwagon are blind to the realities, should stop their elitist views and return from Utopia- of course, unless you just want the stadium filled with glory hunters on the odd season we win more than we lose. If I wanted immediate success I wouldn't reduce the prices substantially.... but if I was worried about the long term future, I would consider more innovative ways to get younger fans in. We have around 14,000 seats empty EVERY game. Why not give 1000's away to schools. Why not have super special deals for people taking more than 2 or 3 children- that way we may even poach other club's fans (I know I could indoctrinate my son's friend towards Ipswich FROM Man U if he got to games). 'The clubs first priority when it comes to ticketing has to be to maximise revenue'- nope, it is to ensure the future of the club. Isn't that what we should all be concerned with?

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Blue041273 added 21:58 - Sep 24 Spartacus, Yes, it is myopic to adopt a ticketing policy such as we have at present but even I have to concede that given the state of our football over the last 10 years it is awesomely difficult to convert a casual fan into a committed one, ie one who will buy a season ticket. In reality only results will do that. Therefore I understand the club's policy to try to preserve the season ticket holder base by offering preferential deals in comparison with the matchday ticket market. But it is becoming increasingly clear that ticket saleswise we are failing on all fronts. The drive to increase season ticket sales has not worked and individual matchday tickets, being priced too high, are falling too. My children are proud to call themselves fans. My Grandchildren will be fans too when the time comes. But they do not attend games; they do not buy tickets and therefore do not 'support' the club as I do. The club do not treat them as 'customers', and therefore will not give them preferential treatment over cash cows like me. For that, I am grateful even if I do not agree with the club's current ticketing policy generally.

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SouperJim added 12:01 - Sep 25 Spartacus don't blame me for your wayward interpretation of my post. At no point have I said I am "better" than anyone else because I can afford to go to football. There is no bandwagon and I am not elitist, as I said I would like to see cheaper tickets and football accessible to all, but also I understand the position of the club. You don't have to agree with me, but amidst your slightly mud-slingy post you have neglected to comment on the fact that the quality of the football on display clearly influences attendances. Those complaining that cost is the only barrier to their attendance are quite frankly kidding themselves, go less often. If anyone is attempting to sit atop a high moral perch it is those who don't have the balls to admit their loyalty is tested by more than just cost. Yes, there are lots of people unhappy with the ticket pricing right now, but there are also lots of people unhappy with our 10 year mediocrity. The two groups are not mutually exclusive. If the football was the best in the land we would have full capacity, regardless of whether we were the most expensive day out or not. The club having a short-term attitude in just about every area is absolutely something which concerns me, it has defined the Marcus Evans era to date. However I am yet to see someone come up with a solution to improving attendance which would not be seen by the club as a major gamble in terms of income. Yes they've pushed ticket prices just about as high as they can go without tempting major mutiny, but obviously see this as a necessary evil as we attempt to compete with the rest of the division. If fans are serious about voicing their discontent and trying to change the club for the better, I would suggest banding together to shake up the official supporters clique and have a new chair elected at the next AGM.

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cooper4england added 20:40 - Sep 26 What league do Holby City play in?
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Pip50 added 21:00 - Sep 26 I wasn't at Yeovil does'nt make me any less a supporter. I was at Portman road in 1969 to see us draw nil nil with Coventry 1978 a particular 1 nil against Arsenal games aainst Barcalona where Roger Osborne marked A certain Dutchman out of the game Madrid Milan AZ cricket scores against Man U WBA bottle dogging at Millwall play off despair and elation Alex Mathie scoring for fun against the budgies Liverpool Lincoln Leeds the list goes on . I stood behind a Paul Power shot and thought sht that's in and watched us throw away the league and get relegated. This is what makes us all Blue boys.

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Blue041273 added 22:27 - Sep 26 Pip, you are a fan, no question. You have accumulated a lifetime of irreplaceable memories of which the younger generation of fans would be truly envious. But as far as the club is concerned you are no more than a 'casual customer'. They tend to classify everyone as 'customers' these days, but preference in terms of ticket prices is being given to the season ticket holders who do attend the games that the casual customer may elect to decline. We can all claim to be supporters but unless you 'pay for the privilege', as far as ITFC are concerned, you have no real voice. Is this right? Maybe, maybe not.

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Pip50 added 15:17 - Sep 27 Blue fair point....does my subscribing to Sky Sports and picking up the eye catching fixture verses Barnsley on 1st November count!!
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