The Big Show

I wonder when it will really sink in. On the way to the ground, walking past the enormous phalanx of TV vans? Watching the most famous African footballer to ever live running drills on the Portman Road pitch? Just before 12.30pm when Virgil Van Dijk trots forward for the coin toss? Perhaps after kick off, when Luke Woolfenden looks to nick in and steal possession from Diogo Jota. Maybe a few minutes later when Sam Morsy fouls Alexis MacAllister then snarls in the world-cup winner’s face, with "Trent" then standing over the free kick. At some point on Saturday the reality that we're back in the big time is going to slap us all in the face.

Scanning the Liverpool line-up for their 4-1 friendly win against Sevilla last Saturday is enough to drain the colour from the most optimistic Ipswich fan's face. I can certainly rationalise my hopes - they have a new manager, their players had a busy Summer, you can sometimes catch big teams cold in August, Salah and Van Dijk are not the players they were - but sometimes you do also have to prepare your heart for reality. Our start to the season is brutal.

Liverpool then Manchester City is the kind of "hiding to nothing" that makes you question why you wanted this whole promotion thing in the first place. Do I really want to see how imperious Van Dijk is live, when the poor sucker who can't escape him is playing in blue and white? Will it be exciting to see how clinical Erling Haaland's finishing is next week?

What do I even want from this season? What was it all for? I'm always an optimist but I'm not delusional, I know there's a significant possibility that we spend the season getting kicked around, bullied not just by Goliaths, but also by Davids with more finely constructed catapults. Jonathan Liew already warned us that last season was “the good bit”, as did David Squires in his always masterful comic strip for The Guardian. 

Yet, even with this near impossible challenge I want something. I suppose I want the same thing as always - something to feel proud of. On the pitch, it surely won’t be as expansive as the last two seasons. That attritional version of Ipswich Town, which we tended to only see away from Portman Road, is going to become a much more familiar sight. Yet, I hope we'll be brave, we'll be aggressive, we'll not leave ourselves wondering what we're truly capable of. I want to be proud that our man, the man, Kieran McKenna, has shown everyone what he's about.

I want some famous days and some joyful moments. Our trips to Highbury and Old Trafford in 2000-01, where we barely touched the ball and were comfortably beaten, left little trace in my memory (apparently Thierry Henry scored?), but outplaying Manchester United at Portman Road, Fabian Wilnis’ low drive to give us the lead, the atmosphere that Alex Ferguson told us felt like forty thousand not twenty… that, that runs through my veins. Marcus Stewart dancing round the goalkeeper at Anfield, Titus Bramble bulldozing his way through half of Sunderland, Martijn Reuser’s diving header to relegate Man City, Hermann Hreidarsson diving into the crowd, unlike the bad year that followed, that’s all still clear as day to me.  

I want legends. I've gradually come to accept that "reinforcements" will displace some of our "promotion babies"1 and I'm looking forward to seeing the new faces. However, I've never been one to take much pride from the club just spending money. For me, a football club is an educational establishment, a place that people learn and develop, where you see people become more than they were, as their connection to club, supporters and community deepens. It would give me incredible satisfaction to see the players who've taken us on this journey hit new heights. Sam Morsy, Leif Davis and Omari Hutchinson are nailed on starters and I can’t wait to see how high they fly, but I hope some of the other mainstays of the 2023-24 class – Woolfenden, Burns, Chaplin, Burgess, Luongo, Broadhead, Hirst - get their shot too.

Beyond that, soppy idealist that I am, I want us as a community to remember where we’ve come from and embrace with joy where we’ve got to. Nothing that happens this year takes away from the last two seasons. Not the overwhelming resources of our competitors, nor any mistakes we might have made in preparing for the season. One way or another this is the only year this will feel special. If we go down, we go back to our everyday, if we stay up, the Premier League will increasingly feel like drudgery. Now is the time to revel.

So for this season, I desperately want us to embody every bit of Sir Bobby's words, the ones we emblazoned on our stadium.

Not just the well-known bit about the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging (and the love!) but the bit about ignoring the television contracts, get-out clauses and marketing departments too. I don’t want to get bogged down in the Premier League stuff that boggles the mind – the money, the Financial Fair Play, the Profit and Sustainability Rules, the billions on players, the points deductions, the VAR, the PGMOL, the circus.

We’re a town with a football club, that’s it. I've no doubt our players and staff will push themselves right to their absolute limits to compete with opponents from another galaxy. From us, I want the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging. I want us to bring it unconditionally, whether the other team's players are far better than ours or not. To bring it irrespective of who we can and cannot sign, irrespective of the relative depth of our owners' pockets, irrespective of our players' strengths and weaknesses. I want it there regardless of PSR or VAR, regardless of patronising Sky Sports pundits, regardless of betting odds, lazy pundits and supercomputer predictions, up or down, when we’re shit and get embarrassed, in good times and bad. I want every home game to be like that Tuesday Night against Manchester United in August 2000.

No moaning, no getting on their backs, even when we’re outclassed, even when we go a few without a good result. Just joy, energy, community and love, relentlessly, all season, come what may. In the end, I want The Big Show to be us.