New Ipswich Town book captures happy memories of club’s heyday
A new book charting the rise of Ipswich Town under Alf Ramsey and the later revival sparked by Bobby Robson is reviewed by Eric Brown…
BY ERIC BROWN
Around 50 years ago, national newspaper football writers welcomed assignments at Ipswich Town matches like snowmen welcome winter.
Ipswich was on the London writers’ beat, and some of the best-known scribes of the 1970s and 1980s competed for trips there to cover a club clearly on the up again.
A short period in the doldrums followed championship winner Alf Ramsey’s departure to manage England, but Bobby Robson’s appointment in 1969 signalled the approach of a revival.
It wasn’t just the silky football that lured in the scribes. For a start, journalists could obtain a pass that allowed them to drive into the ground and park on the practice pitch behind the main stand.
Get it right, and it would be just a dozen or so steps from your car door to the stairs leading to the press room.
Then there was the hospitality. This kicked off at half-time and continued for hours afterwards. Post-match invitations to the boardroom opened the way for major drinking sessions with the Cobbold brothers, who not only owned Ipswich but also, appropriately, a local brewery.
Their philosophy was that being beaten 5-0 was not a crisis, but running out of champagne in the boardroom definitely was. Many an unwary scribe needed to abandon plans about driving home and make a hasty hotel booking after slurping with the Cobbolds. Either that, or pretend to be teetotal.
Ipswich found plenty to celebrate. In 1973-74, they finished fourth in Division One and in the next eight years won the FA Cup, only finished below sixth in the League once, and won the UEFA Cup.
In 1982, it was Robson’s turn to leave for the England job, and nothing has quite matched those Portman Road glory years since.
East Anglian historian Susan Gardiner has produced an excellent book recalling the rise, fall and revival of the small town provincial club which rose to shoot down the era’s big guns.
From Ramsey’s arrival at a rather dilapidated club, through Jackie Milburn’s undistinguished reign, to Bill McGarry sewing seeds of revival and Bobby Robson building two great teams, the club’s fluctuating fortunes over three decades are faithfully recorded in ‘Ipswich Town: The Glory Years 1960 to 1982‘.
Alas, there’s no more parking on the practice pitch or multi-hour sessions with the long-gone Cobbolds, but Ipswich remain a team fondly regarded by fans and journalists alike as a result of what they achieved over the 1970s.
The SJA is interested in your sports media industry news and views. Keen to reach an engaged audience, including over 70,000 followers across social media? We welcome your enquiries – contact us here. We also offer advertising and sponsorship opportunities.
For information on how to apply as a Full or Associate Member of the SJA, plus details of our free-to-enter SJA Academy, click here.
