Today marks the 10th anniversary of Marcus Evans completing his takeover of Ipswich Town. STUART WATSON looks back at the key quotes and statistics.
Who is Marcus Evans?
A self-made entrepreneur who founded his first company – focussed on corporate
hospitality – aged 20 in 1983.
The Marcus Evans Group is a ‘global, multifaceted media, corporate marketing and information company, employing 3000 professionals in 59 worldwide locations’.
The latest Sunday Times Rich List estimated his fortune to be £765m.
In the beginning
On December 18, 2007, Marcus Evans completes his takeover of Ipswich Town Football Club.
He purchases the club’s £32million debts with Norwich Union and Barclays Bank for a reported 20p in the pound and injects £12m in exchange for an issue of new shares, which gave him an 87.5% stake.
“We believe Marcus Evans’ investment provides the best opportunity for this football club to move forward, return to the Premier League and stay there,” said outgoing chairman David Sheepshanks.
Evans, a boyhood Chelsea fan, explained his decision to buy the club in an interview with this newspaper back in August 2015.
He said: “Buying a football club is something I had been thinking about for a while. Ipswich was in an understandable financial state, while I had a closer affinity to Ipswich than any of the other clubs that I was looking at because I had a period of time that I’d lived fairly close to Ipswich, albeit a weekend cottage.
“And really, any football fan who grew up in the 70s, whoever you supported, Ipswich was always the Cinderella club back then.”
Finances
Season Profit/loss Debt
07/08 –£5.8m £28.5m
08/09 –£12.7m £45.5m
09/10 –£14.2m £57m
10/11 –£3.2m £66.6m
11/12 –£16m £72.5m
12/13 –£9.8m £82.4m
13/14 –£7.2m £86m
14/15 +£5.3m £87.2m
15/16 –£6.6m £86.5m
16/17 –£4.3m £89m
Managers
Jim Magilton
When: (from takeover - Apr ‘09) Games: P74 W26 D25 L23 Win% 35
Roy Keane
When: (Apr ‘09 - Jan ‘11)
Games: P81 W28 D25 L28 Win% 35
Paul Jewell
When: (Jan ‘11-Oct ‘12)
Games: P86 W30 D18 L38 Win% 35
Mick McCarthy
When: (Nov ‘12 - present)
Games: P258 W100 D72 L86 Win% 39
Position/crowds
Season Pos Pts Average crowd
07/08 8th 69 21,934
08/09 9th 66 20,960
09/10 15th 56 20,840
10/11 13th 62 19,614
11/12 15th 61 18,266
12/13 14th 60 17,526
13/14 9th 68 16,654
14/15 6th 78 19,606
15/16 7th 69 18,989
16/17 16th 55 16,981
17/18* 8th 35 16,393
* After 22 games
Most expensive signings
Magilton: David Norris (£2m), Luciano Civelli (£1m), Damien Delaney (£750k).
Keane: Grant Leadbitter (£2.6m), Tamas Priskin (£1.7m), Lee Martin (£1.6m), Carlos Edwards (£1.3m).
Jewell: Michael Chopra (£1.5m), Paul Taylor (£1.5m), Jay Emmanuel-Thomas (£1.1m).
McCarthy: Emyr Huws (£1m), Joe Garner (£750k), Jonas Knudsen (£300k), Martyn Waghorn (£250k).
Most expensive sales
Conor Wickham (£8.1m), Tyrone Mings (£8.1m), Aaron Cresswell (£3.75m), Daryl Murphy (£3m), Jon Walters (£2.75m).
In it for the long haul...
Speaking in August 2015, he said: “I always looked at the club as a long-term investment. From an emotional point of view you want to get promoted immediately. From a financial point of view, as the Premier League monies were getting greater and greater, the time over which you could actually get a return on your investment actually lengthened.
“If we get promoted within 15 to 20 years I think there would still be an opportunity to get one’s money back.
“It’s never been a case of me feeling that I need to change tack completely from what I was trying to achieve. It wasn’t that I thought ‘if this doesn’t work now, I don’t want to do this’.
“I’ve always felt that I will continue to be around for as long as I can invest to get us promoted. There is a long-term plan in my mind for that.”
Five-year plan
In January this year, Evans outlines a five-point strategy in a 2,000 word self-penned programme article.
1 – ‘To provide a significant ongoing financial commitment to the club’s academy, enabling a steady flow of players into the first-team’
2 – ‘To provide a sustainable and competitive squad salary budget’
3 – ‘To make annual investment funds available to purchase players in the early stages of their career and to assist in their development’
4 – ‘Maintaining a stable management and coaching team’
5 – ‘To develop a team to play attractive and exciting football’
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