| We have never played in the third division in its current format 09:40 - Apr 12 with 1770 views | WarkTheWarkITFC |
On 1 May 1957, Ipswich Town travelled to Southampton. A 2-0 win against the Saints completed a wonderful season for Town that saw them crowned champions over Torquay United on 'goal ratio' with both sides on 59 points, just a point ahead of third placed Colchester United.
Sir Alf Ramsey was in charge, almost a decade before he would lead the nation to glory. Ted Phillips scored a magnificent 42 goals and Town never looked back. Lonnie Doneghan was number 1 in the charts. It was a long, long time ago.
Think of the generations that have passed since then. Phillips was replaced 20 years later by Mariner, Mariner 20 years later by Mathie, Mathie 20 years later by Murphy.
62 years have come and gone, by which time England have won the World Cup, Ipswich Town have been champions of England and Europe and Norwich City have still won absolutely nothing of any real significance.
Over half a century has passed and just look at the names in those top division back then. Manchester United, Spurs, Arsenal and Wolves all making the top 7. Only nowadays Liverpool, Chelsea and Man City have replaced Preston, Blackpool and Burnley.
A look below the top two divisions reveals many of the same teams stuck there now. A look at the top two divisions reveals many of the same teams cemented there now.
Football changes. Swansea and Hull rise through the divisions, Pompey and Luton crash down them. But generally speaking these are anomalies.
No matter what owners come and go, no matter what players come and go, teams generally end up where you'd expect them to be based on the last 50 or 100 years.
Ipswich Town is a great. Not the greatest, not the richest, not the most well supported. But we will be back.
When we last played in the third tier it was Division Three South. We have never played Northern teams in a third tier match before. Next year is a new experience. Only a small percentage of us can even remember being below the top two divisions.
We may be stuck there for 5 years or 10 years, but make no mistake we will be back and we will be stronger for it.
For all the doom and gloom on here about other clubs over the last few years - 'we could become a Portsmouth'. Indeed. A Premier League club that went right down to League Two and are ON THE VERGE of the Championship again.
'We could become a Luton'. A team that went from the old Division One down to the Conference and are now all but CERTAIN to return to the Championship again.
'We could be a Coventry'. 'We could be a Blackpool'. Two teams that went down into League Two, but were not a million miles away from the playoffs for the Championship this season.
We may fall my friends. We may continue to fall. But it only goes so far before we become that big team, the one all the players at that level want to join, the one every manager at that level wants to buy, the one every businessman has an eye on to return to its former glories because of the massive potential.
Tomorrow is not the beginning of the end. It is the end of the end and the beginning of the beginning.
We will be back. We will be stronger. And I bet that we'll actually enjoy the ride!
COYB!
[Post edited 12 Apr 2019 9:40]
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| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 10:08 - Apr 12 with 1711 views | Superblue95 |
I like the positivity even if I don’t feel it fully myself.
The thing I find comforting is the fact that the teams who have gone down to the lower leagues in recent years and stayed down there are teams who have either had serious off field issues (Coventry, Blackpool, Portsmouth, Luton, Charlton) or are smaller clubs more at their level (Yeovil, MK Dons, Scunthorpe, Doncaster)
Gives me hope that we could bounce back within a season or two as the majority of clubs our size do if stable behind the scenes |  |
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| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 14:49 - Apr 12 with 1618 views | patrickswell |
If we drop to the National League, there will still be people on here saying, “Well you buy the club then” if Evans is criticised. |  | | |
| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 14:57 - Apr 12 with 1606 views | WarkTheWarkITFC |
| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 14:49 - Apr 12 by patrickswell |
If we drop to the National League, there will still be people on here saying, “Well you buy the club then” if Evans is criticised. |
We are not going to drop into the National League.
I don't think some people that post here understand football, the economics of it or fan bases.
We are a poor Championship side with a small budget. Yes we lose £7m if we go down but none of the clubs in the division below us have that £7m either and none of them have any real money either, Sunderland aside and to a degree Portsmouth.
We will be one of the biggest clubs in League One, one of the biggest budgets and one of the best squads, with one of the biggest average attendances.
So why are we going to struggle exactly? People need to stop flouncing. Evans is not going to start selling off all of our players and replacing them with Conference players.
The lower league players strategy in the Championship was the only way we could compete with the top clubs without spending an insane amount of money that would put us level with 12 other clubs fighting for 3 places!
Immediately next season we will be one of the 5 or 6 biggest clubs and the ones below us won't have any prospect of spending anything like the sort of money needed to catch even us up. We will be one of 5 or 6 clubs fighting for 3 places.
We have no players in our side apart from Bart and Judge who would get into a Top 6 or even Top 12 Championship side and that is questionable.
Next season there will probably be one or two players combined from the bottom half clubs that would get into our side.
People need to relax and realise that there is no guarantee of promotion but we have a hell of a chance next season and even in 5 years at that level we would still be a massive club down there. We won't suddenly turn into Rochdale getting 3,000 every week or Fleetwood.
We have everything in place to come back up with the right manager and a couple of shrewd signings. People need to stop assuming wildly that our place in this division will be similar to that of the one below! | |
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| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 15:44 - Apr 12 with 1568 views | J2BLUE |
Last time we were out of the second division I checked the scores on Teletext. |  |
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| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 16:06 - Apr 12 with 1548 views | Benters2 |
| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 15:44 - Apr 12 by J2BLUE |
Last time we were out of the second division I checked the scores on Teletext. |
Lol!
I love all this 'we will come back stronger' bolox.
erm what happens if we dont come back up next season?
A load of people think its a done deal,we will win the league or something?
I wouldnt put money on it. | | | |
| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 16:08 - Apr 12 with 1545 views | GlasgowBlue |
| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 16:06 - Apr 12 by Benters2 |
Lol!
I love all this 'we will come back stronger' bolox.
erm what happens if we dont come back up next season?
A load of people think its a done deal,we will win the league or something?
I wouldnt put money on it. |
We will come back the better for it imo. |  |
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| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 16:11 - Apr 12 with 1541 views | WarkTheWarkITFC |
| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 16:06 - Apr 12 by Benters2 |
Lol!
I love all this 'we will come back stronger' bolox.
erm what happens if we dont come back up next season?
A load of people think its a done deal,we will win the league or something?
I wouldnt put money on it. |
If we don't come back up next season or the season after we will STILL be one of the biggest clubs in the division.
If season ticket prices are reasonable we will be getting 18,000 to 20,000 next season. There are clubs in League One that get 4,000, 5,000, 6,000.
Honestly. There are people on this forum that think we would struggle to compete if we were put into the Conference South.
We have no right to be promoted. But it would take years and years in League One for us not to one of the biggest clubs and guess what happens. The top players in League One want to come and play in a 30,000 stadium for a team that won the UEFA Cup instead of staying at a team with zero history watched by 4,000 every week. | |
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| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 16:17 - Apr 12 with 1524 views | Benters2 |
| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 16:11 - Apr 12 by WarkTheWarkITFC |
If we don't come back up next season or the season after we will STILL be one of the biggest clubs in the division.
If season ticket prices are reasonable we will be getting 18,000 to 20,000 next season. There are clubs in League One that get 4,000, 5,000, 6,000.
Honestly. There are people on this forum that think we would struggle to compete if we were put into the Conference South.
We have no right to be promoted. But it would take years and years in League One for us not to one of the biggest clubs and guess what happens. The top players in League One want to come and play in a 30,000 stadium for a team that won the UEFA Cup instead of staying at a team with zero history watched by 4,000 every week. |
18-20k are you on drugs or something?
Next thing you will be telling us we should be thankful for having Evans in charge. | | | |
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| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 16:18 - Apr 12 with 1521 views | Benters2 |
| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 16:08 - Apr 12 by GlasgowBlue |
We will come back the better for it imo. |
Up in 1 season? | | | |
| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 16:31 - Apr 12 with 1497 views | GlasgowBlue |
| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 16:18 - Apr 12 by Benters2 |
Up in 1 season? |
Hopefully. Certainly challenging for a top two place. | |
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| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 17:12 - Apr 12 with 1468 views | WarkTheWarkITFC |
| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 16:17 - Apr 12 by Benters2 |
18-20k are you on drugs or something?
Next thing you will be telling us we should be thankful for having Evans in charge. |
We had 16,000 for Hull, 17,000 for Forest and 23,000 for Reading with a ticket offer.
You think these people are turning up to see us the might of the opposition? They are here because they are Town fans.
If we are in the top 6 next season, winning games, in with a chance of promotion and tickets are a fair bit cheaper do you honestly think we won't be exceed 18,000?
We have been DEAD AND BURIED for months and we are still getting thousands of people turning up to see us have literally no chance of winning.
You're on drugs if you think we won't be heavily backed if we are doing well.
If you ever bothered to get off this forum long enough to visit Portman Road you'd have a sense of the feeling around the club. I know plenty of non-season ticket holders than can't wait to get one next year because of the optimism around a young side, starting again in a division we could do well in. | |
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| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 17:22 - Apr 12 with 1450 views | PJH |
| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 17:12 - Apr 12 by WarkTheWarkITFC |
We had 16,000 for Hull, 17,000 for Forest and 23,000 for Reading with a ticket offer.
You think these people are turning up to see us the might of the opposition? They are here because they are Town fans.
If we are in the top 6 next season, winning games, in with a chance of promotion and tickets are a fair bit cheaper do you honestly think we won't be exceed 18,000?
We have been DEAD AND BURIED for months and we are still getting thousands of people turning up to see us have literally no chance of winning.
You're on drugs if you think we won't be heavily backed if we are doing well.
If you ever bothered to get off this forum long enough to visit Portman Road you'd have a sense of the feeling around the club. I know plenty of non-season ticket holders than can't wait to get one next year because of the optimism around a young side, starting again in a division we could do well in. |
"have literally no chance of winning" is interesting.
As at the moment every game starts at 0-0 how do you come to the conclusion that we(or any other team)have literally no chance of winning? |  | | |
| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 17:23 - Apr 12 with 1445 views | Benters2 |
| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 17:12 - Apr 12 by WarkTheWarkITFC |
We had 16,000 for Hull, 17,000 for Forest and 23,000 for Reading with a ticket offer.
You think these people are turning up to see us the might of the opposition? They are here because they are Town fans.
If we are in the top 6 next season, winning games, in with a chance of promotion and tickets are a fair bit cheaper do you honestly think we won't be exceed 18,000?
We have been DEAD AND BURIED for months and we are still getting thousands of people turning up to see us have literally no chance of winning.
You're on drugs if you think we won't be heavily backed if we are doing well.
If you ever bothered to get off this forum long enough to visit Portman Road you'd have a sense of the feeling around the club. I know plenty of non-season ticket holders than can't wait to get one next year because of the optimism around a young side, starting again in a division we could do well in. |
Are the tickets going to be cheaper?
Also no need to get bitchy is there. [Post edited 12 Apr 2019 17:31]
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| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 17:25 - Apr 12 with 1441 views | WarkTheWarkITFC |
| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 17:22 - Apr 12 by PJH |
"have literally no chance of winning" is interesting.
As at the moment every game starts at 0-0 how do you come to the conclusion that we(or any other team)have literally no chance of winning? |
Don't be so pedantic.
4 wins in 42 mate.
The facts would suggest that we turn up every week knowing that we have next to no chance of winning over the course of 90 minutes due to a severe lack of quality and over 90% of the time we don't.
What percentage of our games should we have not won to cross the threshold of having literally no chance of winning?
Burton had literally no chance of winning against Manchester City in my books. I have literally no chance of becoming an American president. If you want to be pedantic about the use of language then perhaps you can start with anything Trump has said in the last two years. You'll have a field day. | |
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| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 17:30 - Apr 12 with 1432 views | PJH |
| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 17:25 - Apr 12 by WarkTheWarkITFC |
Don't be so pedantic.
4 wins in 42 mate.
The facts would suggest that we turn up every week knowing that we have next to no chance of winning over the course of 90 minutes due to a severe lack of quality and over 90% of the time we don't.
What percentage of our games should we have not won to cross the threshold of having literally no chance of winning?
Burton had literally no chance of winning against Manchester City in my books. I have literally no chance of becoming an American president. If you want to be pedantic about the use of language then perhaps you can start with anything Trump has said in the last two years. You'll have a field day. |
Right, you did not literally mean what you posted-all understood now.
Not sure that our chances of beating Birmingham(or anyone else) are on a par with Burton going to Man City. | | | |
| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 17:35 - Apr 12 with 1412 views | Benters2 |
| We have never played in the third division in its current format on 17:22 - Apr 12 by PJH |
"have literally no chance of winning" is interesting.
As at the moment every game starts at 0-0 how do you come to the conclusion that we(or any other team)have literally no chance of winning? |
Ha good point 😛 | | | |
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