GAME CHANGER

LIFELONG IPSWICH TOWN FAN JON COUCH, WHO WORKS FOR OUR SISTER PUBLICATION THE NON-LEAGUE PAPER, REFLECTS ON THE JOURNEY BACK TO THE TOP FLIGHT...

- JON COUCH

IT'S been 22 years since lpswich Town last graced the Premier League. But ask any long-suffering fan and they'll tell you it feels more like 62!

It's fair to say the Tractor Boys haven't had a great deal to cheer about over the last two decades.

After back-to-back Championship play-off semi-final defeats in 2004 and 2005, it took another 10 years before Mick McCarthy led them into the endof-season knock-outs once again, only to be beaten by bitter rivals Norwich City.

A steady decline inevitably led to relegation to League One in 2018-19 when Ipswich sunk to their lowest ebb in over 60 years with neither Paul Lambert nor Paul Cook able to arrest the slide.

But, on April 7, 2021, all that changed when an American consortium - containing three board members of US club Phoenix Rising - agreed a £40m deal to take over at Portman Road from unpopular owner Marcus Evans after 13 years at the helm.

The group were named Gamechanger 20 and they proved to be just that for the boys in blue.

Working alongside them was Mark Ashton, former CEO at Bristol City, and between them they set about bringing the glory days back to Suffolk following the legacies of the great Sir Alf Ramsey and Sir Bobby Robson.

Despite a summer overhaul of players, Cook's reign came to an end on December 4, 2021 and along came 35-year-old rookie boss Kieran McKenna to take over the hotseat and become the youngest manager in all four top divisions of English football.

The softly-spoken Northern Irishman was fast earning a glowing reputation as a coach, working under Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at Manchester United having seen his playing career come to a premature end at Tottenham Hotspur through injury.