"Ipswich, my old home and up and coming... " a Ipswich Travel Page by shizzler

I lived in Ipswich for 12 years and when i first moved there it was very different than it is now. In the land of the farmers and fields there was little old Ipswich with it's small town centre and endless housing and industrial estates. Now 12 years on there's huge luxury apartments in blocks near the docks, thriving buisinesses and a built up town with everything on offer. You can have good nights out, plenty of places to find a lovely meal and some great bars and clubs. There's plenty of shops and a great choice of warehouses around the outskirts of the town, but once in the town centre a huge choice on offer in an ever expanding town and community. Also home to Ipswich town football club at Portman rd stadium. Hear you can go and see the blues play their football in the coca cola league championship against teams like West Bromich albion, Southampton, Preston north end and arch rivals Norwich city, all bidding for a return to the top flight in the premiership. With the stadiums capacity being a newly re built 30,300 not only do you get a great atmosphere for the football but lots of close season events and music gigs. Over the past few years we've had the likes of Red hot chilli peppers, Elton John, Neil Diamond and R.E.M. playing live at the stadium. Around Ipswich you'll find that you're not too far away from the rural side of life with endless little villages and fields for miles around. Huge estates and holiday homes galore and a beautiful setting in the countryside. There's loads of places close by to visit like Felixstowe, home to the docks and pier etc. Aldeburgh, with it's excellent sea side town and the best fish n chips you'll ever taste and Framlingham where you can go and visit the castle and various ancient sites. There's also the sailing town of Woodbridge set on the river Deben with it's take a step back in time lifestyle.

My beloved team and club are one of the best things about Ipswich. There is such a passionate fan base in Ipswich. Everywhere you go you'll see the replica shirts and banners in pubs etc. A club steeped in history. Sir Alf Ramsey and Sir Bobby Robson, both former Ipswich and England managers, and Alf winning the world cup the only time with England in 1966. In the late seventies and early eighties was where the most success came for the club. Winning the FA cup against Arsenal in 1978 and winning the uefa cup under Bobby Robson. Players such as Kevin Beattie, John Wark, Mick Mills, George Burley, Paul Mariner to name a few. In recent years some of the highlites have been beating Norwich 5-0 in the league derby with goals from Alex Mathie, an Ipswich hero for tearing the city defence apart. Later still and our building of a team that produced many big names that unfortunately moved on to bigger clubs. Players such as Kieron Dyer, Titus Bramble and Richard Wright, who moved to Newcastle and Arsenal respectively. Town got promoted via Wembley in a play off final never to forget. After years of failures in the play offs, town managed to beat Bolton Wanderers over 2 legs in a thrilling encounter, with stunning goals and emotion. Then on to Wembley to face Barnsley who town secured a 4-2 win in front of the 79,000 crowd to send us up to the premiership. The match was the last competetive league match to be played at the old Wembley stadium. On towns first season back in the prem. they finished 5th, narrowly missing out on 4th place and a spot in the champions league. Players like Marcus Stewart, Matt Holland and Jim Magilton made it a pleasure to watch the football on display. The following season town were relegated back down to the championship, and the toll of travelling in the uefa cup was dere. Some memorable momemts from the prem. though, like drawing with Manchester utd, beating Liverpool at Anfield and nearly claiming victory over my other great team Arsenal, for them to get a late equaliser. In the uefa cup beating Inter Milan at home 1-0 was great. Now we are getting over losing our next crop of talent, some from our youth academy and some bought in. Darren Bent(moved to Tottenham for 16 million) Shefki Kuqi, Kelvin Davis and Tommy Miller etc. On the re build with ex player as manager Jim Magilton, who's brought some good players to the squad and things look good for the future.

You can expect to pay £22.00 per adult to a match for the cheaper tickets ranging to £40.00 or so. The best stand to go on is the north stand if you like the atmosphere and the noise. Cobbold stand is for the family and away fans, Britannia stand's for the up market fans and quiter people and Greene King stand is for something in between noisy and quiet. North stand lower tier is the noisiest and cheapest tickets in the ground, but no child tickets available on the lower tier. There's a club shop, which is a 3 floor shop for all merchandise and loads of bars in and around the stadium. There's also the centre spot restaurant and other restaurants inside the ground. Around the rest of the town the nightlife is pretty good with Cardinal park being the best place to go. Cineworld cinemas, 11 screen cinema, Liquid/Envy nightclub with Liquid being over 18's and Envy being over 21's, both linked to each other so the older clubbers can go through into Liquid but if you're younger than 21 you can't get through to Envy. Punch and judy and Golden dragon restaurants, Old Orleans cocktail bar plus more. In the town centre you've got lots of smaller clubs and bars and you can pretty much just walk around until you stumble across something that takes your fancy, wether that be Yates's, Edwards or smaller low key bars. Plenty of restaurants and eateries, reccomending the places down the docks, any of them, they're all lovely.