Detmer: We Hope For a Lot of Cross-Pollination Friday, 14th May 2021 15:38 Blues new co-owner Mark Detmer envisages cross-pollination between Town and the Three Lions’ USL Championship side Phoenix Rising which could see friendlies played between the two, players perhaps moving from one club to the other, coaches sharing ideas and maybe even fans making transatlantic trips to lend their support. Detmer, speaking to TWTD and Blue Monday in the first podcast of what will be an ongoing collaboration, says players at Phoenix could potentially spend time at Town if they do well. “That’s right, and vice versa,” he said. “Training, international friendlies, coaching staff hopefully sharing ideas that they’ve created that have been successful. “We hope for a lot of cross-pollination and I think the play is fairly equal between the USL Championship and League One. “It may vary and everyone will have an opinion on that and I probably just sparked a thousand tweets, but I do think there are a lot of similarities. “From that perspective, we have work to do at Ipswich Town to do first, let me be very clear about that, and then we’ll look at how we add to the family of football clubs.” When it was suggested that a partnership with a transatlantic airline might help facilitate international friendlies, Detmer added: “That would help both clubs immensely. I’m with you on that. We may need to start inviting you to our board meetings to help us with some of these concepts.” Detmer also enthusiastically welcomed the idea that Town season tickets could give access to Phoenix matches and vice versa. “We’d love that! Wouldn’t that be fabulous?” he said. “Especially for a bigger play-off type of a match. That would be fabulous to try to set something up. “We at Phoenix Rising had a big Western Conference Championship game against Orange County Soccer Club and we took a tremendous number of buses so we have maybe a couple of thousand Phoenix Rising fans arrive at Orange County and it was overwhelming the energy that they brought with them. “Within the first couple of minutes we’d scored a goal already and the other club was sitting there dazed and confused at that point. “The same thing could happen, if we could bring some Rising fans over to Ipswich, change their red for blue, I think they could bring a lot of energy with them.” There has been talk about potentially formalising links between the clubs in which the Three Lions have a stake with Brett Johnson having shown interest in A-League side Central Coast Mariners along with Jordan Gardner, chairman of Danish side Helsingør where Johnson is a board member. However, Detmer says that type of arrangement is something for the longer rather than the shorter term. “I think you can create an eco-system, but at this point I want to be very clear that that could be more of a long-range goal,” he said. “I think initially for us it was getting our big toe in the water at Phoenix Rising, get that club to the right brand, the right location, the right fan engagement and experience and performance on the pitch. “[Then to] find another opportunity, which took us years to be able to sit here today with you fine gentlemen and talk about Ipswich Town Football Club. “I don’t think we’re going to be rushing in, we have work to do. We have to get Ipswich to the point where we’re comfortable that they are back to where they were in their former glory and then look at some other holes that we could fill possibly in other countries that might then continue to move this concept of a football eco-system forward.”
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