'Please Mr Lambert, do not treat us fans as idiots'

I have supported the Town for more than 60 years and I'm afraid I will never see the glory days of the past again - but you live in hope.

I have never wanted a manager sacked, give them time I say - and that includes Paul Lambert.

But at the moment it's the style of football we are playing that annoys me. Sideways, backwards, then a boot upwards. It's the first time ever I do not enjoy watching Town play.

Even in the days of Jewell/Keane and McCarthy it was watchable at times.

More important it's some of the stuff that Mr Lambert comes out with after games.

I am 72 and may not have the know-how of football as all the 'experts. But I do know, as most fans do, when your team has played well or not.

I accept most managers have rose-tinted glasses on but its utter dross when Mr Lambert says we dominated games and were unlucky after a defeat or even late victory.

Please Mr Lambert, do not treat us fans as idiots. A bit more honesty with our performances and I would respect him more.

STUART ISAACS

We welcome you posts. E-mail mike.bacon@archant.co.uk

Sir Bobby Robson, who did so much for Ipswich Town Football Club (Image: (c) North News and Pictures)

PETER CLOKE remembers a chance meeting with the late Sir Bobby Robson

In these dark and dank winter days, I recall a walk in Christchurch Park, in Ipswich in the mid-80s at about this time of the year.

I was taking my cocker spaniel, Cara, for a walk, secretly bemoaning the fact that I had forgotten the dog's collar. Very few people were around when I saw a track-suited figure emerge from the mist jogging with another cocker spaniel.

The dogs played and the owner stopped to speak to me, we joked about the fact neither dog would be too impressed with their owners as he had forgotten his dog's lead.

I thought that I had recognised the stranger but ,when he called his spaniel Roger to heel, it had to be none other than Bobby Robson. (Roger was named after Roger Osborne who scored the winner in the 1978 Cup Final).

We must have spent some 10 minutes discussing the characteristics and behaviour of cocker spaniels and I deliberately avoided football topics since I guessed he must have been fed up with members of the public telling him how to run the England team, of which he was manager at the time.

Eventually the conversation was terminated when he told me he had a train to catch to Southampton to watch a game there in the evening.

What an absolutely charming and unassuming guy.

How we could do with his flair, enthusiasm and football knowledge at Portman Road now. The Club would certainly not be in the position it finds itself in at this moment of time.

PETER CLOKE

We welcome your posts: E-mail to mike.bacon@archant.co.uk