Former Blues chairman David Sheepshanks said he left an hour-and-a-half meeting with new CEO Mark Ashton with his faith in the future of “our beloved club” restored in an emotional and passionate speech from the floor of tonight’s PLC EGM at Portman Road.

Ashton, manager Paul Cook, new chairman Mike O’Leary and Lee O’Neill, who remains in charge of the academy, took questions from shareholders at a more than usually well attended meeting in the Sir Bobby Robson Suite. TWTD wrote a live blog of proceedings on the Forum, which can be found here.

PLC chairman Roger Finbow chaired the meeting and was joined by fellow PLC board members Liz Edwards, Peter Over, Mark Andrews as well as the evening’s guests.

The new owners were enthusiastically welcomed by shareholders, who continue to own 12.5 per cent of the club following the takeover, but it was Sheepshanks’s words which drew the warmest applause, the man who led the club to promotion via the play-offs in 2000 drawing parallels with the situation he found the club in when he took over as chairman.

“I had an hour and a half with Mark very kindly a week and a half ago and I came away so excited and so having had my faith restored in the future of our beloved club,” he said.

“Mark said so many different things in the time that we had together and we had to cut it because he had to go and do more signings and more things that he’s trying to do so well.

“I’m not really going to say anything about the past. The first three years had lots of promise and there was huge amounts of promise, but for the last 10 years the club has really been in a pretty sorry state, and there have been so many bad decisions made, and we’re paying the price.

“The reason I’m saying this is that we’ve got to cut these guys so much slack and give them so much support.

“I remember in 1995 when I was appointed as chair having had nearly 10 years on the board and done my apprenticeship, as it were, we’d just been relegated from the Premier League.

“You may remember that we had no money and I think the gate went down to 7,000 in our first season.

“We had to restore, with your support, this club. But we were only one division down and we’d just come out of the Premier League.

“And listening to the tale of woe of the underinvestment in the stadium, the community, I remember I asked John Kerridge, who was chairman of Fisons, ‘if you were made chair what would you do?’

“He said ‘bring the loving feeling back to this club’. And I think that’s what’s going to happen. I’m convinced that Mark, Mike and all of you will bring the loving club feeling back to this club, and that the club will once again have a beating heart.

“Because football clubs are about people and real people and loves and dreams and we need a beating heart again, and I think we’ve got one. In fact I think we’ve got several. So I think it’s absolutely fantastic what you’ve heard tonight.

“But the problem is that we’re starting another division down. You’ve all heard this, you haven’t been as low as this since 1953 in the culture of this great club, so it’s a massive job to restore.

“What I thought was so clear tonight was the way Mark described his four pillars [football, commercial, operations and community] and it really, really makes sense and everybody can get their minds around that and everybody can believe in it and everybody can support it. But it’s going to be hard work.

“I’m coming on Saturday and I’m longing to see the team again and see the stadium full, like we remember it was, and it will be again, it will be a happy place.

“Firstly, thank you very much for coming because we are just thrilled. We didn’t know what we were getting, to be honest. We didn’t know you [Ashton]. You and I hadn’t met, Mike and I had met many years ago, I’d never even met Paul properly, amazingly, until this evening and we shook hands, but I knew all about you.

“I think we’ve got a leadership team here that we can really believe in. People have talked about the 12th man and so forth, I can’t wait for Saturday! Come on, whatever the score, let’s make a deafening noise and get behind this team.

“But not just Saturday, week-in, week-out, week-in, week-out and I think give them lots of time and lots of support and we’ll get our club back.”

Photo: Matchday Images

eaprw01 added 10:31 - Aug 3 I have been watching and supporting ITFC since the fifties in those earlier days the players played for the shirt tooth and nail the games were full on battles to win no mercenary players in those days, fast forward to the seventies we still had that grit and the will to win games, in the eighties we averaged over 24 thousand attendances and a team to be proud of, and then On the 27 May 1992, the Premier League was officially formed, with the first fixtures to be played on 15 August 1992. The new league would involve the 19 highest-placed teams in that season's First Division as well as the champions, runners-up and playoff winners from the Second Division. for me football was never really the same anymore we held our own to start with then in 2002 like many others we were relegated and like others we have struggled ever since to compete financially. We are where are and to get our club back to where we want it to be we need these financial backers and we need to get on board and play our part if we want to see the emergence once again of ITFC.

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JewellintheTown added 10:47 - Aug 3 I echo most of the things already said, especially the positive ones about the club moving forward with the current leadership and team. Few will fully understand the reasons behind the demise, and many good things will have gone unnoticed in the shadow of all the terrible things that have publicly happened under Evans governorship. If I can give the guy some credit though, I do think his parting last and underappreciated best effort was to hold off selling until he found the best possible leadership to take the club forward. We'll probably never know who he could have sold out to and for how much and under what terms, but for who and how his did pass over the mantle to, I do think we should be very grateful. Onwards and upwards! COYB!

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tractorboybig added 12:37 - Aug 3 micky1560 he was out of his depth running a top club. might have been a good chap and a supporter but its his decisions and that of his not fit for purpose board that have put us where we are today. How ever he went on to a nicely paid job with the FA
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AlanG296 added 12:41 - Aug 3 The man who was good at PR (couldn't be worse than his predecessors) but had as much substance as the stuff his food business sold. But the people fell for it, you could call him PRSheepshanks. He then got carried away with one great season in the PL and made lots of bad bad decisions that screwed the club for a generation. Still he's had a long career in football admin, got to hobnob with the FA, FL, UEFA, which would not have been possible without involvement with ITFC in the first place. Done alright for himself.

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HARRY10 added 13:25 - Aug 3 "It was the collapse of ITV Digital that ripped our financial model to bits. " ABSOLUTE NONSENSE ! Ans a lie which should no go unchallenged. ITV Digital cost clubs around £2m in lost income. We defaulted on £4.7m to HMRC alone, amongst millions elsewhere. We had run up around £8m in debt getting into the PL. Sheepshanks borrowed £25m to clear that and build/redevelop two stands. It was a reckless act, being based on a belief that we would remain in the PL for the following 25 years.

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Suffolkboy added 13:38 - Aug 3 Hindsight is wonderful : sadly recollections are not necessarily complete ,well attributed or maybe fully accurate ! We ought to be now looking forward , not regretting the past ,nor even attempting to apportion blame ! I have written correspondence from Sir Bobby and David Sheepshanks ,and treasure the possession : both were fanatical about football as it then was , the incredible sort of teams of which we all were so proud ,and it's the good we should remember and enjoy . Picking over sad events , becoming bitter and negative is NOT the way FORWARD – so positive hopes , positive support and enthusiasm from supporters which will be replicated on the pitch , please ! COYB

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AlanG296 added 13:45 - Aug 3 The great Sir Bobby and PRSheepshanks in the same sentence! Their legacies are like chalk and cheese.
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blueboy1981 added 16:20 - Aug 3 Unfortunately some will never understand what is heard and said - therefore there will always be adverse comments as always. Anyone who doesn't understand the positive authenticity of our Club, and what's now happening, should get a grip of logic and reality. We are on the first ‘stepping stones' of getting our ITFC back. Support is what everyone involved now needs, we can do nothing about what's behind us, but we can all be part of what's ahead. The Sun is just rising in our favour again - and we are on the way back ... !!!

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AlanG296 added 17:09 - Aug 3 If I had made the bad bad bad decisions twenty years ago that he had I wouldn't have the nerve to make any speech at a meeting. Expect the board and senior management to know better than to take any notice of old pink face.
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