With the welcome relaunch of the ITFC Community Trust, Stephen Skeet looks at what ITFC has missed in its absence.
It was way back in Issue Four of Turnstile Blues in February 2014 that I wrote lamenting ITFC’s decision to sever links with the Charitable Trust, an organisation that had undertaken so much vital work in our local community. That move, announced in November 2013 by then Managing Director Ian Milne, was wrapped up with the promise of launching a new advanced coaching programme and a commitment to players continuing to attend community based events. As I wrote at the time, the Trust was so much more than this: providing opportunities to those that did not have them, reducing loneliness, bringing communities together, growing a fan base, providing role models and positive activities, delivering messages others couldn’t and building civic identity. The move, like so many of the Marcus Evans’ era, was nonsensical and was compounded over the next few years by numerous poor customer relation decisions from the club hierarchy such as the increase to child and senior season ticket pricing at the end of the disappointing 2016-17 season, walk up ticket costs increasing by £2.50 on the day, accusations of child seats being abused to site plastic bags and the club not backing the FA Cup 40th anniversary celebrations at the Wolsey Theatre. Whilst great people at the club continued to try their best to facilitate community requests where possible, there appeared to be no overarching strategy and insufficient infrastructure to allow this vital work to happen. So, it was with great delight that Turnstile Blues read the news this week from General Manager of Footballing Operations, Lee O’Neill, that the Charitable Trust will be relaunched.
How have we got back here? Well it is probably too simplistic to cite relegation to League One and the need to rebuild the club again but for the last 10 months that outcome has been a real possibility, indeed a certainty for at least six months, and that has undoubtedly provided an opportunity for reflection, if not an existential re-think, on what the club is and needs to be. In fairness, the work of Liz Edwards and Dan Palfrey on ‘ITFC in the Community’ over the last two years has been vital in continuing to evidence the importance of community based initiatives. Certainly schemes such as the ‘Community Champion’ launched a couple of seasons ago and last season’s ‘First Time Fans’ showed that, when built around existing operations, the club could still deliver a high quality community impact. Also very welcome last year was the link up with charities such as MIND through the EFL, the Samaritans and EACH, with monies raised by those paying to have the logo of the latter on the replica shirt going to the charity. This year that honour goes to East Anglian Air Ambulance.
It has been in the last eight months however, that the momentum has really gathered. The arrival of Paul Lambert ushered a reconnection between fans and the wider club as well as the team. A new manager, who was very successful playing for clubs with deep community identities in Celtic and Dortmund and who had managed a one county club to the Premier League at Norwich, recognised immediately what many of us had seen for some time. Lambert began to speak of a club drifting, without urgency and acceptance, of his annoyance at past misdemeanours in the way that club had evolved, and in a piece for the Observer with journalist and ITFC fan Nick Ames of a club “so down, so detached from the town.” Lambert set about meeting supporters groups such as Blue Action, funded travel for fans to a match at Blackburn and almost immediately welcomed notable past players back to the training ground to speak to the players.
Lambert’s arrival seemed to act as a catalyst for another significant change at the club with Ian Milne stepping down as MD and Lee O’Neill moving from Academy Manager to General Manager of Footballing Operations in December last year. Although a broad brief, Marcus Evans stated that O’Neill would oversee “the club’s long-term strategy and principles”. The language was changing. O’Neill was in an informed position to understand why the principles of a football club was important to the community that watched them, having had a broader life perspective than many in leadership positions. This included being released as a youth team player, embarking on life away from football working in local government and teaching before returning back to football through the ITFC Academy where he worked his way from coach to running the whole enterprise. Since his appointment a raft of welcome initiatives have been launched which include ‘School of the Day’ through which a local school receives 100 adult and junior tickets to a game at Portman Road, Sensory Packs for SEND (Special educational needs and disabilities) children and young people to increase the accessibility of football and most recently a partnership with Ipswich Borough Council’s Ipswich Fit programme which will see Ipswich Town activities for young people added to the Borough’s ICard Scheme. The Ipswich Fit collaboration kicks off this summer with 13 free-to-access summer multi-sport camps available to young people, including a free healthy meal.
These schemes are well thought through but will require time to build with local partners, in whom the club has to show genuine engagement and long term commitment. Lambert may have provided the frame of reference, relegation may have prompted the reflection but it seems O’Neill may well be the architect. The Charitable Trust should be the vehicle and structure through which the club reconnects with the town, the county and thus contributes to the rebuilding of the club’s identity. Turnstile Blues look forward to seeing the current management team build on this momentum and wish them all the very best with their ambitions for the Charitable Trust.
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