Following the start of the football leagues this month, hopefully many of you are looking forward to a good season, although apprehensive if you are a Tractor Boy supporter!

Here is a brief history for you on how Ipswich School was instrumental in the formation of ITFC.

At the end of the 19th century, Ipswich School were playing Association Football. In 1878, George Sherrington OI (aged 17 at the time) loved football but realised he would no longer be able to play the game after he left school. So, he and other Ipswichians, including brothers William OI and Sir Charles Sherrington OI, Nobel prize winner and President of the Royal Society, formed the Ipswich Association Football Club. Exactly 100 years later Ipswich Town won the FA Cup at Wembley. At the time rugby was played at Portman Road, so the club played at Broom Hill on land owned by the Sherrington family, which is why the road from there to Norwich Road is called Sherrington Road. The club’s changing rooms were the Inkerman Public House on Norwich Road, which later became Sir Alf Ramsey’s local when he lived on Valley Road. Sir Alf’s house was but a stone throw from where Sir Charles Sherrington lived on Valley Road. In 1888, the football and rugby clubs merged to become Ipswich Town Football Club.

C’mon you Blues!

Robert Porter OI (1953-1960)