Your posts: Town fan Paul Plant has been following the club since 1970.... Here’s his take on the current situation
I read Amy Downes' open letter to Marcus Evans and would like to add the following:-
My first game at Portman Road was a 0-0 draw with Everton in season 1970-71, at the start of a decade that is unlikely ever to be surpassed, at least in my lifetime.
The past decade however, has seen the club deteriorate into a rudderless, mediocre team, and it saddens me to say that the current team is by far the worst team in my living memory, devoid of leadership both on and off the field in terms of the playing side of the club, and totally lacking in direction and forward-thinking strategy at board level.
It is a proven fact that organisational failure, in the vast majority of cases, can be directly attributable to the leadership.
An entity that is going nowhere will usually succeed in getting precisely there - nowhere. In my opinion, that is another apt description of ITFC right now - going nowhere.
Ipswich Town FC is more than just a football club.
To echo Amy Downes, the club is an integral piece of the community. When the club does well, there is a feel good factor around the town, and in the clubs, pubs and businesses around the wider county.
Equally, when the club does badly, it brings sadness, despair, and negativity.
When one looks back to the days of the Cobbolds and the Sheepshanks eras, they understood this aspect of 'added responsibility' and the impact the club had both on and off the pitch. For me, we have lost that under the Evans regime, and people are now starting to question if it can ever be retrieved.
The fans are right to question, and right to demand more - after all they invest their hard-earned wages, along with a ton of immeasurable emotional capital, into their beloved team.
The least they can ask is to see some tangible evidence that the players, the management, and most of all the owners, genuinely care, and what's more, are prepared to do something meaningful to take the actions necessary to bring about sustainable change.
Amy Downes is right - many people are getting close to the end of their tether, and for many the time is nigh that they will stop banging their heads against the wall - for only then will the headache go away.
Paul Plant
- We welcome your posts... e: mike.bacon@archant.co.uk
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