Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna highlighted the importance of the club’s work in the community, having opened a furniture store at FIND Food Bank on Tuesday afternoon.
The charity, founded by Maureen Reynel MBE, has been running since 1990, supporting all those in need regardless of faith or circumstance. Their new furniture store, which was unveiled earlier this week, is situated on the same premises as the food bank on Braziers Wood Road in Gainsborough.
The Blues have worked hard to support FIND in a variety of different ways over the last two seasons, including food and warm clothing collections, and McKenna made sure that he was in attendance for the unveiling of the facility.
“It’s really nice to be invited and important to show our support,” he told the East Anglian Daily Times and Ipswich Star. "FIND is one of the many programmes that the club supports and they do fantastic work in the community, and very important work as well.
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“We’re proud to have this association and we’re proud to help out wherever we possibly can throughout the community. This is one of those really important initiatives.
“Maureen has done fantastic work here for 30 years, I think. The support that that give to people who really need it in the community is absolutely vital.
“The foundation and all the programmes that they support is such a massive part of the football club. It’s really nice, as manager, staff or players, to put our support behind that as well. That’s why it’s nice to be able to be here on an important day for the work that’s done here.
“The club is doing some excellent and really important work through the foundation. That’s grown exponentially over the last couple of years, and I know that the club really want to strive to continue to grow it and continue to increase our impact in the community and reach as many people as we can through the many different initiatives that we support.
“This is one really important one to us. That’s why it’s not just about today, it’s about the ongoing support that the club provides to this programme, to help the people in the community who need it the most.”
It really helps when key figures show up at events like this, be that McKenna or members of the first-team squad. They’ve all made sure to support local charities regularly, both to offer a helping hand and provide extra awareness within the community.
When signing a player, it’s important that they have all the right strengths on the pitch, but CEO Mark Ashton has stressed that they need to have the right type of personality as well. Doing work like this is often a big indication.
“For those of us who are in the more public positions, it’s important that we can put our support behind the cause as well,” McKenna said. “That can raise awareness for the work that’s being done, and increasing awareness can hopefully increase support from within the community.
“There’s so many people involved with the football club and involved with the foundation who are doing so much good work. For us on the football side, it’s important that we can put our names behind it and our time to it as well. Hopefully that can encourage others to do the same.
“As Mark has said previously, it’s a non-negotiable of coming to the football club, really. It’s a football club that rests at the heart of the community, so part of signing up for it isn’t just the things that you’re going to do on the pitch, but also trying your upmost to represent the community well, but also to support the community through initiatives like this.
“It’s something that I know the players, led by the leadership, are very proud of. They’re right behind it, there’s never a reluctance but a passion and a positivity towards getting involved in the programmes that they do. It’s something that the players enjoy and look forward to.
“I know all football clubs try to have some impact in the community, but for this football club, it’s something that’s absolutely fundamental and really vital to what we do on and off the pitch.”
It all ends up helping the club as well. The aim will be for Ipswich to continue growing as they look to establish themselves towards the top end of the English football pyramid, but to do that, the local community has to be right behind them.
With average attendances nearing 29,000, it’s clear that public interest has skyrocketed. Of course, on-field success plays a big part, but creating a squad and a club that people can relate to will continue to encourage people to come. McKenna knows that the supporters have something that they can be proud of.
“Coming to things like this and speaking to so many people about the impact that the football club, the team, the games and the performances are having on them is really heartwarming,” he explained. “It’s something that gives us great pride.
"The more reasons that we can give people to get behind us, support us and spread the love and the passion for the football club, we’ll try to do that everywhere we can.
"Supporting these sorts of initiatives does that, but also trying to do our best on the pitch as well to produce football and effort that people in the community can associate with and be right behind. That’s very important to us as well.
“I think the connection between the football club, the supporters and the wider community is absolutely massive for us. It’s continuing to grow and flourish, and we really want to keep going to in that direction.”
Going to these events and connecting with local supporters can often bring you back to reality when you’re totally engrossed in football and the Championship promotion race. The human element of football can get washed away if you're not careful.
By talking to those in the community, McKenna and the first-team squad get a clear picture of what it means to support the club, and the manager admitted that it provides an extra boost to be successful when they step out onto the pitch.
“We don’t speak about it loads with the players, but we speak about it at the start of the season and infrequently during the season, that we know how much this means to the community,” he revealed.
“Last year was a massively important year in the history of the football club because it was 20 plus years without a promotion, and it’s a football club that we feel doesn’t ever belong in the third tier of English football.
“To go on that run and that journey that we did, and to achieve that promotion, that was a massive moment for everybody involved.
“To be able to back that up again this year, we’ve given the people who care about the football club another season to be proud of to this point.
“There’s another team to be proud of, lots of games to enjoy, entertainment and matches at Portman Road that people who’ve been coming for so many years can enjoy. People coming for the first time can fall in love with the football club and hopefully start a lifelong passion for it.
“These things are absolutely vital, and the fact that we’re competing at the top end of the table is nice as well. It gives it an added boost, but that comes from trying to produce a team that represents the club well, a style or brand of football, effort and endeavour on the pitch that people in the stadium and the town can get behind.
“That’s what we’re trying to do, and if that leads to good results along the way, all the better.”
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