Supporters
During the 2008–09 season, Ipswich Town recorded an average attendance of 18,873, approximately 63% of available capacity, the seventh-highest attendance in The Championship. The highest attendance of the season was 28,274 in the local derby against Norwich City.
Locally, much is made of the informal title "Pride of Anglia". Fans claim the title for either winning the East Anglian Derby, finishing highest in the league, having the better current league position, having the more successful club history. The club's main local rival is Norwich City. When the two teams meet it is known as the 'East Anglian derby', or, informally, as the 'Old Farm derby', a comic reference to the 'Old Firm Derby' played between Scottish teams Celtic and Rangers.
A recent nickname for Town is "The Tractor Boys", which was coined during the club's brief period in the Premiership (2000–01) when the team regularly competed against more fashionable clubs. The nickname is an example of self-deprecating humour referring to Ipswich's agricultural heritage. The origins of the nickname are not certain, but the first generally-accepted use of the nickname appeared at a losing away game at Birmingham City late in the 1998–99 season, with the home fans chanting "no noise from the Tractor Boys", a name which stuck. Barracking by supporters of more established Premiership clubs during Town's spell in the Premiership lent the ironic chant: '1–0 to the Tractor Boys' increased potency and publicity, and the nickname is commonly used by the media. Former Town manager Jim Magilton commented in the local press that he disliked the nickname, saying that it conjured up, "images of carrot-crunching yokels"; while players such as Matt Holland accepted the chant with good humour.
Read more about this topic: Ipswich Town F.C.
Famous quotes containing the word supporters:
“No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be managed by the joint influences of fruition and hope. It offers vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the ambitious; and employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise may prove traitors in a division or assassins in a debate.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be managed by the joint influences of fruition and hope. It offers vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the ambitious; and employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise may prove traitors in a division or assassins in a debate.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)