24/25 Season Preview 20 in 20 - Ipswich Town

19 of 20 - The Tractor Boys

Author

nick lochner
August 13, 2024

The 2024/25 Season kicks off Friday August 16 when Fulham travel to Man United.

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1878

Ipswich Town

“The Blues”

2023/24 Finish - 2nd Place in The Championship - automatically promoted to PL

Back In the Mix. Founded as an amateur side in 1878 Ipswich stayed amateur until 1938. It took until 1961 to make the highest level in the English Football League and in their first attempt in 1962 won the league. Fast forward to the start of the PL in 1992 when Ipswich were 1 of the 22 founding members. It’s been 22 years since their last match played at the top level. In 2001 Ipswich finished 5th in the PL yet the following season were relegated with just 36 points.

Back-to-Back-to-Back. In 2022/23 Ipswich was promoted from League 1 (level 3) to The Championship (Level 2). In 2023/24 Ipswich was promoted from The Championship to the Premier League. Staying up this year will be the goal.

Expansive and attacking. This style of soccer has served The Blues well, but will they be out of their depth this year in the PL? Burnley brought their attacking, ball control style with them to the PL last year and they are heading back to The Championship. Ipswich have added several players but on paper their squad would be ranked last in the PL and that’s where the bookmakers project The Tractor Boys to finish.

Home Cooking. Here’s an interesting stat - Ipswich Town have never lost a European Match at home, including matches against Real Madrid, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Lazio, and Barcelona. In reality, they haven’t had many European matches but maybe that kind of inspired home performance could be enough to avoid relegation.

The Club

Located in Ipswich, Suffolk (East Coast, 80 miles NE of London)

Portman Road, 30,000 capacity

Rough estimates

$85M Annual Revenue (lowest in PL)

$25M Player Payroll

History on the Pitch

  • 1 Title, 1962, 2x runners-up 1981 and 1982

  • 1 FA Cup, 1978

  • 1 Europe Cups, Europa 1981

Sponsorship

Home Shirt

Away Shirt

Third Kit

Ownership

ONE FAMILY for 130 years. The Cobbold family. In the 17/1800’s Cobbold & Co were master brewers, The Cliff Brewery stood for 256 years, finally closing in 2002. Thomas Cobbold, a diplomat MP (member of parliament) started the FC as an amateur club and was president between 1878 and 1883.

In 1936 a local businessman threatened to lead a breakaway from the amateur club and create a separate professional club, Ipswich United. John Cobbold, the club President, called a meeting and it was agreed that Ipswich Town should turn professional. In 1938 both John Cobbold and Robert Cobbold were killed in WWII and John Cavendish Cobbold became President. Fast forward 60-years and in 1995, the family handed the club chairmanship over to John Kerr with Philip William Hope-Cobbold added to the board. In 2007 the club agreed to sell a $50M stake to UK businessman Marcus Evans Group who became majority owner. In 2021 Gamechanger, a US-based venture company bought 80% of the club for $50M. Three Americans co-own the club - Brett Johnson, Berke Bakay, Mark Detmer - who have soccer experience with Phoenix Rising FC.

Gamechanger is part of investment fund ORG who manages a large US pension fund. 

In 2021, the club was $125M in debt and as part of the sale Gamechanger agreed to cover an additional $25M of the debt and Evans waived off $100M of what the club owed him.

Gamechanger does not lack for confidence. Mark Steed, a Chief Investment Officer for ORG shared this sentiment on X:

“God have mercy on League One, because we won’t. COYB!!!”

And when asked if ORG is committed to investing in the club, his response:

“Our fund is $13B and we’re holding $700m in cash. So, yeah.”

Biggest Rival - Norwich City- East Anglian Derby

  • Suffolk County is fairly rural, and there are only professional clubs in the area. Each time the clubs play it represents the entire County. The clubs are 40 miles apart and the fans don’t hang out or support the other side. It’s a fierce rivalry.

  • Former referee Keith Hackett put it this way - “There are certain derby fixtures that you always know are going to be highly charged, but the East Anglian derby tops the lot. The players came out of the tunnel as if they were ready for a boxing match. The noise was intense and aggressive."

  • In 153 Matches Ipswich Town has 60W 60L 32D.

  • Both sides have been in the Championship of late and Norwich have not been beaten by Ipswich since 2010 - in 14 matches Ipswich are 0W 8L 6D.

  • The Old Farm Derby. This is a joke, a reference to the Old Firm (contested between Glasgow and Celtic) and recognizes the prominence of agriculture in the East Anglia region of the UK.

Castle on the Hill

Want an idea of what Suffolk County might be like? This Ed Sheeran video (YT 4m) was filmed near Framlingham Castle, in County Suffolk UK about 15 miles from Ipswich Town.

Framlingham Castle

The Culture

Ipswich is a port town in the East of England about 80 miles northeast of London in the County of Suffolk. The metro area has about 180,000 residents and quite a history. Ipswich is considered one of the oldest towns established in England that is still standing in its original location - established in 500 AD.

England is, relatively, a small country with the thousands of FC’s in pretty close proximity to each other. For Ipswich, that is not the case. There are 2 clubs in Suffolk County, and they are 40 miles apart - Norwich and Ipswich. It’s an agricultural region and those two characteristics give you a feel for the fan bases.

The club was owned by the same family for 130 years (the first 50 being amateur status) and have played in the same stadium since 1884. 1981 saw several members of the club represented in the movie Escape to Victory. In 2001 the nickname “Tractor Boy’s” took hold, as mentioned above, when Leeds fans were chanting “We’re being beaten by a bunch of tractor drivers.”

But what may be having more influence than any other event is Ed Sheeran’s sponsorship of his boyhood club. If Sheeran hasn’t changed the culture, he has definitely brought more visibility to it in parallel to the Clubs recent success. Sheeran can often be seen at matches, celebrating wins and has helped design this year’s kits.

In 1981 several Ipswich Town players appeared alongside Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine, and Pele in the film Escape to Victory and at times stood in for the actors during soccer scenes.

Supporters You May Recognize

  • Ed Sheeran

  • Will Farrell

  • Charlie Simpson (band - Busted)

Ed & Will

Song

Composed by Melvin Endsley in 1956, the best-known recording was released by Guy Mitchel, here he is on the Ed Sullivan Show.

“I’ve never felt more like singing the Blues, When Ipswich win and Norwich lose, oh Ipswich you’ve got me singing the blues”

The Cliff Brewery

Game Day Pub Guide

The Greyhound

Fan Sites

According to the AI tool COPILOT - here is an image of an Ipswich Town fan at Portman Road, based on Wiki’s description of a Tractor Boy.

Official Twitter

@IpswichTown

High Follows on Twitter

@edsheeran (17M)

@ipswichTownFans (24k)

@TalkingTOwnITFC (5k)

@THeTractorBoye_ (16k)

@TractorBoysFC (10k)

@TTBITFC (7k)

The Team

The Gaffer

  • Kieran McKenna (N Ireland), 38yo.

  • Worked with Spurs and Man United in their youth teams, went directly to Ipswich Town as gaffer in 2021.

  • Turned the team around in first season, got them promoted in second season and again in third season.

  • Despite being approached by Chelsea and BHA, signed a four-year contract to stay at Ipswich.

Kieran McKenna

ODDS

  • To Win League +200,000

  • To Be Relegated -120

  • To Finish Top 4 +12,500

  • To Finish Top 10 +800

Roster Notes

Full Roster click link

Projected to finish 20th

Americans on the team (as of Aug 9)

  • None

Interested in playing Fantasy Soccer? Here are the basics. Typical teams have a budget of $100M and 15 players - $6.7M per player.

  • George Hirst (FWD) $5.5m

  • Conor Chaplin (MID) $5.5m

  • Omari Hutchinson (MID) $5.5m

  • Sam Morsy (MID) $5.0m

  • Leif Davis (DEF) $4.5m

  • Cameron Burgess (DEF) $4.0m

Goalkeeper

  • Arijanet Muric - Top 15 in PL.

Portman Road

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