For fans under 45 or so

Ipswich aren't really local rivals, are they?

Us oldies remember them being quite good at one point but no-one younger than mid-forties at least remembers that from their own lived experience. Fans in their early-mid twenties will barely recall them ever beating us even once let alone winning anything. They did finish above us in the league that one time on goal difference or whatever it was but their whole life, that's all.

Promising youngsters in the town itself let alone surrounding areas are trained by Norwich coaches and wear Norwich kit. For those whole generations there's only one big club in the area and it's Norwich. Ipswich can, for now, claim to be the biggest of the others but Peterborough are not only above them in the table but better at football than them (the one doesn't necessarily imply the other). People my age and above will enjoy seeing Lynn and Colchester climb above the scum as the years go on but for people my kids' age Ipswich are simply not on the radar.

It's undeniably true their trophy cabinet has better things in it than ours does (or ever might, as clubs our size are frozen out of those things in a way we simply weren't in the 70s/early 80s) but very few of those poor bastards who ever show up at Portman Road these days (when there isn't a pandemic on) remember any of it.

Posted By: Old Man, Nov 26, 14:43:40