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Players Awards Evening 2013
The 2013 Players Awards evening was held at Legends bar on Saturday 27th April 2013. Approximately 170 supporters attended the event, which was hosted by the Supporters Club. BBC Radio Suffolk's Terry Baxter was the MC for the awards ceremony.
The player who received the most votes, and indeed a massive percentage of the total votes for the 2012 / 2013 Player of the Season was Tommy Smith. Runner up was Luke Chambers, with last season's winner Aaron Cresswell in third place.
In addition to awards for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place, made by main supporters club officials Irene Davey, Martin Swallow, Liz Edwards, and Rita MacKenzie, each permanent player who made their debut during the season was awarded with a tankard and loanees a salver by representatives of supporters club branches who were in attendance. Players who picked up a tankard were Scott Loach, Elliott Hewitt, Luke Chambers, Richard Stearman, Patrick Kisnorbo, Guirane N'Daw, Anthony Wordsworth, David McGoldrick, Jay Tabb, Paul Taylor, and Frank Nouble.
All debutants who were not in attendance will have their awards sent to them shortly.
Mention was made to previous loan players who had contributed to Ipswich maintaining their Championship place after a tricky start - in particular DJ Campbell, Richie Wellens, and Bradley Orr.
The Academy player of the year was Jack Marriott, who has impressed hugely during this season with his goals and ability. His award was received by Simon Milton. June Stroud, who presented the award to Simon, has been invited to the training ground to present Jack with his award.
The evening included a fine and very generous buffet, a disco, and the chance for fans to meet the players, obtain autographs, and to have their photo taken with players.The players were very happy to mingle with the fans and this made for an hugely enjoyable evening.
Mick McCarthy made a great speech, and answered many interesting questions put to him by Terry Baxter.
The legend that is Kevin Beattie also answered questions from Terry Baxter and heaped praise on the performance of the Ipswich defence in recent times - deserved praise from the best defender ever to represent Ipswich and one of England's finest defenders too.
The mood of the players and coaching staff was very upbeat after what has been a fantastic season since Mick McCarthy became Ipswich Town manager early in November 2012 - we have much to look forward to in the 2013/2014 season.
All in all it was a massively enjoyable evening.
Thanks go to Terry Baxter, the staff of Legends Bar, Simon Milton and Tim Edwards for their excellent MC duties, and Franc MacKenzie who took many excellent photographs for the Supporters Club during the evening.
Below are a few more photographs taken during the evening. These include Terry Baxter interviewing Tommy Smith, the awards table with the various trophies, a delighted Aaron Cresswell collecting his 3rd place award from Rita, and Mick McCarthy pictured with committee member and website editor Nigel Cole.
Smith, Edwards, Brown, MD Ian Milne, and Milts attend Supporters Club’s East Suffolk event - at Brantham Bull
The Supporters Club took ITFC “on the road” again to the Brantham Bull, near Manningtree on Monday 8th April. The club was really well represented, with captain Carlos Edwards, plus Tommy Smith and goalkeeper Jason Brown answering questions, posing for photos and signing autographs.
Managing Director Ian Milne joined the second half of the Q&A, which was compered, expertly of course, by Simon Milton.
The evening raised nearly £700 for the Academy, through an auction of boots, shirt and gloves from the players, plus a raffle. There was a quiz, devised by Supporters Club webmaster Nigel Cole, who tested our knowledge of obscure goalkeepers (most of whom Milts had played with) and Town ephemera.
The Q&A saw fans really put the players on the spot. Tommy took a wee bit of stick from both Carlos and Jason for insisting that Mick McCarthy is his best-ever manager. Carlos explained how Leo Beenhakker – who steered Trinidad & Tobago to the 2006 World Cup finals – was his hero manager. Jason invited ridicule – which we didn’t give him, as we’re Town fans and too polite – when he nominated Sam Allardyce as his best-ever manager.
We also got an early insight into the possible destination of this year’s Players’ Player of the Year award, with Tommy giving a name-check to Luke Chambers, but both Tommy and Carlos talking about the huge influence that Luke Hyam has had on the second half of the season.
Thanks are due to Rita MacKenzie and the rest of the Manningtree branch of the Supporters Club, plus Paul and Gemma Chenery (and their children) at the Brantham Bull, who are totally committed Town fans and who made every effort to make us all welcome. Their hog roast was memorably wonderful too!
Annual Supporters Day - biggest yet
The annual Supporters Day is now a fixture in the Supporters Club diary and this year’s was the biggest and best yet, taking place on Saturday 16th March 2013, around the home game against Bolton. We had begun to plan the event at the very start of the season, to give as many fans as possible a chance to organise travel to Ipswich.
There have been a few changes at the club in the meantime – new players, management and executive staff, so we ended with a rather different line-up and agenda to that expected. ITFC were immensely supportive, and we owe huge thanks to Sally Webb, Lynn Warner, Rosie Richardson, Clare Morley, Jade Cole and Steve Pearce, in addition to our more famous guests.
The first half was a lunchtime event. A huge crowd took over the Mulberry Tree pub, welcoming first teamers Frank Nouble and Anthony Wordsworth, together with new Managing Director Ian Milne, all chaperoned expertly by Simon Milton. There was a Q&A for 45 minutes, with questions ranging from the owner’s vision for the club and his commitment, through to the coaching techniques of Terry Connor and the difference between playing for ColU and Ipswich.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the pub, Mark Murphy hosted a live outside broadcast of Radio Suffolk’s “Life’s a Pitch” magazine programme, ably supported by Phil Ham and Tractorboy. Mark is a consummate professional, effortlessly drawing in conversations with fans from Norway, Italy, Bulgaria and Orkney, as well as Frank Nouble, Ian Milne, Simon Milton plus Rita Mackenzie and Liz Edwards from the Supporters Club.
By 2pm, we were ready for a half-time break, so our focus moved to the other end of town, to Portman Road. The team did not let us down, grinding out a performance that restricted the league’s form team, Bolton, to very few chances, whilst we came pretty close ourselves a number of times. Then, in the 88th minute, Carlos Edwards had a couple of bites at the end of a cross that followed great work by JET, burying the ball low in the corner of the net. A sign of how things have changed was the ease with which we defended out the 1-0 lead for the last five minutes.
The second half of the social agenda took place immediately post-match in Legends Bar. Hundreds of fans turned out to meet first teamers Carlos Edwards, Aaron Cresswell, Luke Hyam and Michael Chopra - and Legends John Wark, Bryan Hamilton, Jason Dozzell and James Scowcroft. Photos were taken and autographs collected. Our Italian branch were delighted to be able to present their Player of the Year award in person to Carlos Edwards – though they did get a wee bit distracted when John Wark showed up at the same time.
The Charitable Trust’s Archive Project had some amazing artefacts on display from across many decades of Town’s history, organised by Peter Funnell, and we were delighted that both Dave Muller, Chair and Terry Baxter, CEO, of the Trust joined in the post-match chat. Fans had crowded around the rarely-if-ever displayed cups, trophies and other memorabilia. Club legend Pat Godbold was also telling stories from the insider’s perspective – she was secretary to Sir Alf and Sir Bobby, and is still so closely involved with maintaining and promoting the club’s heritage.
It’s not just about heritage – many of our younger fans took part in a football game on a Nintendo WII, with prizes awarded to many. But for me a highlight was seeing a dad, with his young son, pointing out the players from the 1981 team on a poster, and talking about his own heroes. It proves to me that our heritage is as much about our future as our past.
There are still major Supporters Club events to come at Brantham on Monday 8th April, and our annual Player Awards Evening in Legends Bar following the Birmingham home game on Saturday 27th April – but already we are trying to work out how to top this year's Supporters Day next season. The photographs above were taken during the day. More photographs can be found on the ITFC Italy Branch blog - which can be found at http://itfcitalianbranch.blogspot.it/2013/03/supporters-day-13032013.html
Ipswich Town Football Archive
Since its launch on 18 August 2012 at the home game against Blackburn Rovers the Ipswich Town football archive project has made outstanding progress. This was clear when the team brought items from the archive to our supporters’ event on 16 March 2013. Supporters enjoyed the opportunity to get up close to rarely seen items including trophies from the 1970’s and an old style leather T ball signed by the 1938/39 team in fountain pen!
The archive project, which has been generously supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has catalogued and will use the Club's unique collection of football artefacts, programmes, trophies, historic documents, visual images, audio recordings and other memorabilia as a source of inspiration. In particular it will support the ITFC Charitable Trust develop new materials to support its teaching programmes and a range of learning initiatives, particularly in numeracy and literacy where the stories that surround items from the archive offer a strong and exciting motivation to learn. The project is also capturing oral histories on topics and themes thrown up by the archive, researching local history and staging exhibitions from the archive on-line, within the Portman Road stadium and elsewhere.
Overall the project aims to enable local people to explore the links between the development of Ipswich as an urban centre within a predominantly rural county during the 20th century and the inter-related development of the football club from its amateur beginnings in 1878, its progression to professional status in 1936 and its more recent periods of national and international success.
The project is being lead for the ITFC Charitable Trust by Suffolk-based heritage experts Oakmere Solutions Ltd and will run until September 2013.
To find out more about the Archive project visit: http://www.itfccharitabletrust.org.uk/football-activities/25-what-we-do/180-ipswich-town-football-archive
Can you help the project?: learn more about the Club’s heritage and its place in the local community? Do you have stories or artefacts to contribute and share? If so please let the project know by emailing us at trustarchive@itfc.co.uk. The project team will get back to you. The project is particularly interested to discover more about the history of Portman Road just before and after the two world wars, including match programmes for the period 1936 – 1939, and stories around the move towards professional football in Ipswich during the 1930’s.
Chambers, Murphy, Klug and Milts attend Supporters Club’s West Suffolk event
Monday 11th February 2013 saw this season’s first “On the Road” event, with 100 Town fans coming along to Bury Town FC to meet first team players Luke Chambers and Daryl Murphy, as well as Academy supremo Bryan Klug and Town (oh, and Bury) legend Simon Milton.
The main part of the evening was an informal Q&A with fans able to ask questions ranging from tactics to performances, to the attractions of living in Suffolk, and attitudes to social media. A half-time interval gave opportunities for 
autographs and photos, as well as a chance to browse some of the latest offerings from Planet Blue. Bryan Klug provided some great insights into the running of the Academy, the recent success in achieving Category 2 status, and his future plans to bring players through into the first team.
It wasn’t just about Q&A though. There was a picture quiz (featuring photos sourced from Tim Edwards’ phone), featuring football grounds around the world, and Town players past, present and future. A series of spot questions left everyone in no doubt that Milts did actually score more goals for Town (56) than either James Scowcroft or Darren Bent (each 55).
A raffle and auction (of a Daryl Murphy shirt and Luke Chambers boots, plus match tickets in the Directors Box) raised around £400 for the academy.
It was a really good chance to get to meet ITFC players and staff, as well as to get a good look at Bury Town FC, who are one of the top non-league clubs in Suffolk.
Look out for the next “On the Road” event, which is going to be held in the Manningtree area on Monday 8th April. We will be sticking with a similar format, though the quiz questions might be a little easier next time around!
Here are a few more of the photographs taken during the evening:-
Huge turnout at Supporters Club AGM
I guess we should not pretend that the business of the Supporters Club AGM was the big draw for most fans on the evening of 24th October 2012. After all, it was the day that Paul Jewell left the club, and we had Simon Clegg, Bryan Klug and Simon Milton taking questions from an audience of well over 100 fans.
Liz Edwards led the AGM, thanking retiring committee members Barry Calver (who is doing a huge job for the ITFC Charitable Trust) and Tammy Denny (with new family responsibilities as well as a demanding day job). Liz also especially remembered our friend, Gary Mullenger, who tragically died during the year aged just 44. Nigel Cole has joined the committee, having done a superb job redesigning our website, www.itfcsupporters.co.uk. Continuing committee members are Irene Davey, Rita McKenzie (Secretary), Stephen Doe (Treasurer), Paul Voller and Martin Swallow.
As a reminder, Liz Edwards is always to be found in Legends Bar after every daytime home game, and is also at every away game, so do contact her in person to raise any issues.
The minutes of the 2011 AGM, in PDF format, can be downloaded by clicking HERE.
The Chair's report, delivered at the 2012 AGM, in PDF format, can be downloaded by clicking HERE.
The accounts for 2011-2012 season, in PDF format, can be downloaded by clicking HERE.
Clegg, Klug and Milton face the fans
You can’t accuse the club’s management of ducking a challenge. On the night of 24th October 2012, we were bottom of the league, only one win all season, we had parted company with Paul Jewell that very day, and the mood amongst the fans was pretty grim. Yet Simon Clegg, ably assisted by Academy Manager Bryan Klug and Town legend Simon Milton, turned up, avoided prepared scripts and fielded questions from well over 100 fans for almost two hours.
Most of the questions of course concentrated on our appalling start to the season. Our form, team selections, transfer policy and the available budget for players . Clegg explained that neither he nor club owner Marcus Evans interfere with the decisions of the manager. As you would expect, many people wanted to know why Paul Jewell had been given so long, Clegg’s the response being Marcus Evans’ insistence of respecting the Town tradition of giving managers every chance to succeed).
You didn’t need to be at the event to take part – dozens of questions had been sent in by email and via websites (most of which were addressed during the Q&A), and the East Anglian Daily Times ran a live weblog of the event, followed by fans across the world. Praise also to Phil Ham, who posted an excellent summary of proceedings on http://www.twtd.co.uk/ at 0400 the next day.
Events
All our these events are widely advertised in print, radio and online media (including twtd), in the ITFC matchday programme, and of course on our website.
See the Events page for more details.
Australasia Branch Newsletters
Volume 7, Issue 3 of the newsletter "The Punch Downunder", produced by the Australasia branch, can be downloaded by clicking HERE
Volume 7, Issue 4 of the newsletter "The Punch Downunder", produced by the Australasia branch, can be downloaded by clicking HERE
Volume 7, Issue 5 of the newsletter "The Punch Downunder", produced by the Australasia branch, can be downloaded by clicking HERE
Volume 7, Issue 6 of the newsletter "The Punch Downunder", produced by the Australasia branch, can be downloaded by clicking HERE
Volume 7, Issue 7 of the newsletter "The Punch Downunder", produced by the Australasia branch, can be downloaded by clicking HERE
Volume 7, Issue 8 of the newsletter "The Punch Downunder", produced by the Australasia branch, can be downloaded by clicking HERE
Volume 7, Issue 9 of the newsletter "The Punch Downunder", produced by the Australasia branch, can be downloaded by clicking HERE
Current Account Plus
ITFC have recently launched a new financial affinity product - Current Account Plus – which is being offered by Britannia, part of the Co-operative Bank. There is a £100 cashback offer in place for fans who transfer their current account and this runs through to 7th January – plus there’s a prize draw competition. The winner will receive hospitality in the Sir Bobby Robson Suite for a future game plus receive a behind the scenes stadium tour, the chance to lay out the kit with the kit manager and toss the coin on the pitch.
Below is a link giving further information. If you or any of your branch members are interested in this or any of the other ITFC financial affinity products, they simply need to visit their nearest branch and let the staff know that they are a Town fan or visit the website.
http://www.itfc.co.uk/news/article/britannia-transfer-423613.aspx
Please note that branches in a Britannia / Co-operative Bank region may receive further information on this direct from your local branch for circulation to your members.
ITFC Supporters Forum
A supporters forum has been set up by the football club, the aim of which is to help the Club to improve its performance in a range of areas including retail, ticketing, match entertainment, communications, programmes, safety, security and catering (not a forum for the debate of either on-field/player issues or the Club's finances).
The group which consists of 13 members plus Football Club representatives will meet at Portman Road prior to home fixtures.
If you would like to raise any specific issues for discussion please email itsc78@btinternet.com
Radio Suffolk is after your views on Town matches.
So if your a follower of the Super Blues home or away why not give your view of the game on the Breakfast Show.
If your interested in becoming a fan on the phone then contact Kate Arkell via email or call 01473 340707
Lift Sharing
If you'd really like to save some petrol money, why not consider lift sharing to matches? Apart from saving on fuel, you'll reduce wear and tear on your car as well as helping to ease congestion. ITFC have a group on the web-site to promote this activity. Not only would this save money for people but also help towards the saveyourenergyfortheblues campaign.
If you don't know anyone locally to share with, why not sign up with Liftshare.org - they can put you in touch with other drivers and passengers willing to car share.