Ipswich Town
Also written as Ipswich.
The club
Ipswich Town were founded on 16 October 1878 and have played at Portman Road, in Ipswich, Suffolk, throughout their Football League history. The capacity is 30,056. They are the Blues, or the Tractor Boys, and play in blue shirts, white shorts and blue socks. The club is owned by Gamechanger 20 Ltd. In 2026/27 they are back in the Premier League.
Recent seasons
Ipswich spent four years stuck in League One before one of the fastest climbs in recent English football. They were ninth in 2020/21 with 69 points and eleventh in 2021/22 with 70. Kieran McKenna's first full season, 2022/23, produced 98 points from 28 wins, 14 draws and only 4 defeats, second in League One behind Plymouth Argyle and promotion. They went straight through the Championship in 2023/24, second again with 96 points, 28 wins, 12 draws and 6 defeats, and reached the Premier League for the first time since 2001/02.
The top flight was too much. Ipswich finished nineteenth in 2024/25 with 22 points, 4 wins, 10 draws and 24 defeats, relegation confirmed on 26 April 2025, though they did reach the fifth round of the FA Cup.
They came back at the first attempt. In 2025/26, still under McKenna, Ipswich were second in the Championship with 84 points, 23 wins, 15 draws and 8 defeats. Promotion was secured on the final day, 2 May 2026, with a 3-0 win over Queens Park Rangers at Portman Road. Jack Clarke was top scorer with 16 league goals. The biggest win was 5-0 against Sheffield United on 12 September 2025, the heaviest defeat 3-0 at Charlton Athletic on 21 October 2025. They went out of the FA Cup in the fourth round and the EFL Cup in the first. The average home league crowd was 28,303, the highest 29,809 against Norwich City on 5 October 2025.
That season was funded by two very large sales, Liam Delap to Chelsea for £30m and Omari Hutchinson to Nottingham Forest for £37.5m, the latter a club record, with Azor Matusiwa (£7.8m from Rennes), Sindre Walle Egeli (£17.5m from Nordsjaelland) and Marcelino Nunez (£7.5m from Norwich City) coming the other way.
Honours and landmarks
Ipswich have won the League championship once, in 1961/62, under Alf Ramsey, who had taken them from the Third Division South and who left the following year to manage England to the 1966 World Cup. They won the FA Cup in 1977/78 and the UEFA Cup in 1980/81, both under Bobby Robson, who managed the club from 1969 to 1982 and also went on to England. Divisional titles are the Southern League in 1936/37, Division Three South in 1953/54 and 1956/57, and Division Two in 1960/61, 1967/68 and 1991/92. They were UEFA Cup quarter-finalists in 1973/74 and Cup Winners' Cup quarter-finalists in 1978/79, and League Cup semi-finalists in 1981/82, 1984/85, 2000/01 and 2010/11.
Record attendance is 38,010 against Leeds United in the FA Cup sixth round on 8 March 1975. Mick Mills made 741 appearances between 1966 and 1982; Ray Crawford scored 203 goals between 1958 and 1969. Record fee received is £37.5m for Omari Hutchinson to Nottingham Forest in August 2025; record fee paid is £20m for the same player, from Chelsea, in June 2024.
Notable scorelines
Record win: 7-0, achieved three times, against Portsmouth in 1964, Southampton in 1974 and West Bromwich Albion in 1976. Record defeat: 0-9 against Manchester United in 1995, still the joint-heaviest defeat in Premier League history.
Head-to-head notes
The East Anglian derby with Norwich City is the one fixture with a published all-time record, and it is close to level: 122 competitive meetings, Norwich 48 wins, Ipswich 47, 27 draws. In the league it is Ipswich 41, Norwich 39, 23 draws from 103 games; in cup ties Norwich lead 8-6 with 3 draws; the two play-off meetings produced a win each way. Ipswich's biggest derby wins are three 5-0 results, on 7 September 1946, 15 February 1977 and 21 February 1998; Norwich's is 6-1 at Portman Road on 26 March 1904. Ipswich won both meetings last season, 3-1 at Portman Road on 5 October 2025 and 2-0 at Carrow Road on 11 April 2026. Norwich are not in the Premier League this season.
No published all-time head-to-head record was found for Ipswich's 2026/27 Premier League opponents. The fixtures established from sources are Sunderland at home on 22 August 2026, Manchester United away on 30 August, Liverpool at home on 4 September, Crystal Palace away on 12 September and Everton away on 19 September.
Right now (2026/27)
Kieran McKenna stepped down after four and a half years and Gary O'Neil was appointed manager on 23 June 2026, arriving from Strasbourg on a three-year deal. The promotion money was spent quickly and heavily. Centre-back Cedric Kipre came from Reims for £2.16m and striker Chuba Akpom from Ajax for £7m, both on 1 July. Brazilian forward Emersonn arrived from Toulouse for £24m on 8 July. On 21 July goalkeeper Kayne van Oevelen joined from Volendam for £3.4m and winger Abdul Fatawu from Leicester City for £20m; centre-back Issa Diop followed from Fulham for £8.5m on 22 July, forward Daizen Maeda from Celtic for £8m on 25 July, and goalkeeper Kjell Scherpen from Union Saint-Gilloise for £8.5m on 28 July.
Out went goalkeeper Arijanet Muric to Sassuolo for £6m on 1 June. Ashley Young retired on 30 June, the same day Conor Townsend left for West Bromwich Albion. Elkan Baggott joined Millwall for an undisclosed fee on 15 July, and long-serving forward Conor Chaplin went to Leicester City on 16 July.
Pre-season included a 2-1 defeat to Osasuna on 29 July 2026, Akpom scoring, with further friendlies against Oxford United, Wycombe Wanderers, Le Havre, Rayo Vallecano and Union Berlin. As a Premier League club Ipswich enter the EFL Cup at the second round. The league season begins at home to Sunderland on Saturday 22 August 2026 at 3pm.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipswich_Town_F.C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ipswich_Town_F.C._seasons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_Ipswich_Town_F.C._season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_Ipswich_Town_F.C._season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Anglian_derby https://fchd.info/IPSWICHT.HTM
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.