What impact did the Premier League have on Ipswich?

When Ipswich Town were promoted to the Premier League after 22 years, the wider town had high hopes for the benefits this top tier status could bring.

Pubs were ready to welcome fans of the biggest clubs and shops were looking forward to a surge of customers.

It was hoped the promotion could bring in millions of pounds to the town based on how other towns had fared when similarly being promoted in the past.

A year later, Town have been relegated back to the Championship. What did the year in the top flight mean for the town?

James Langan is the owner of The Station Hotel – the away fans pub on Burrell Road – as well as The Falcon on Falcon Street.

He said both pubs had fared differently this past year with the Station Hotel seeing a 30% increase in business.

“Generally there’s a drop in sales when a Championship team goes up,” he said.

“The home pubs normally drop about 20% worth of sales.

“The other pub I’ve got in the town, The Falcon, we’ve seen a 20, 30% drop and that is because people aren’t celebrating as much because they’re not winning as much.”

Bartolome Bisbal is the owner of The Grazing Sheep pub on Key Street at the Neptune Marina.

He similarly had seen a boost from the promotion.

“It definitely boosted the economy immensely,” he said.

“People started coming in earlier so we ended up starting earlier breakfast.

“A typical breakfast starts at 08:30, we 1748312056 have people in here at 07:00, 07:30.

“All the away supporters coming in here brought a lot of colour, brought a lot of different accents, brought a lot of different cultures, it was just fabulous.”

Chloe Dozzle is the owner of Another Bowl coffee shop on St Peters Street, which moved to this site just before Town’s promotion.

She said they immediately saw growth in business and match days were always busy for them.

“Initially the spirit was really high and it was really nice and exciting to see customers just generally walking down the street were in good vibes,” she explained.

“We’re open to both home and away fans and we love that because we often get asked to open in their towns, or we get messages like, ‘We love you, come to us’.

“It’s really nice and it’s actually made me think about even expanding just from that basis.”

While the hospitality industry saw big benefits from the promotion, other businesses did not see the economic benefits they were hoping for.

Andrew Marsh, owner of Dial Lane Books on Dial Lane, said the “buzz” from the football had been “great”, but it had not “translated into an influx of customers” for him.

“Two years ago I was surprised because I used to get a lot of blokes come in on match days and they were buying books,” he said.

“The first time it happened I thought this was the most peculiar thing in the world, I didn’t think blokes on the way to a game would being buying books, but they did.

“I got lulled into that false sense of security thinking, ‘Great, it’s going to be like that every game’, and it wasn’t.”

Lawra Stubbs owns Miss Quirky Kicks on Tacket Street and similarly said she had not felt the season had had any effect on her.

“I either thought it would go one way or the other, either in a bad way or a good way,” she said.

“But I think things have pretty much stayed the same.

“Maybe we’ve had some different customers when people have travelled down here for football which is great.

“Other than that I wouldn’t say much has changed.”

Following Town’s promotion, tattoo shops across the town were rushed off their feet as fans rushed to ink their skin in dedication to the team.

“We’ve done over 200 I believe in that time, the lady upstairs Dagmara did hundreds of them, she was fully booked for a month,” Jamie Hart, owner of Lucky Tattoo 13 on St Margeret’s Street said.

“That was a big deal. When they went up and there was the parade, that was amazing, but it just didn’t pay off.”

The Hot Sausage Company stand is a prominent feature on Ipswich’s High Street and loved by football fans and non-fans alike.

Joshua Bavington-Barber runs it and said while match days had always been good for business, being in the Premier League had made a “noticeable” difference.

“Weirdly for us it’s almost better that they’re not in the Premier League because there’s more home games that fall on a Saturday and there’s more games full stop,” he added.

“It’s good for the business, but I’d always rather they’d be in Premier League.”

Grassroots football clubs similarly felt some impact from the promotion.

Carl Chittock is chairman of Kesgrave Kestrels and runs the adult Saturday first team.

He said demand to play for the club had always been high regardless of how Town performed, but the promotion did lead to some challenges within teams.

“Where I have seen an impact and I think we started to see it with Ipswich’s success over the last couple of seasons with getting promotion and subsequently getting into the Premier League, we’ve seen the adults’ availability a lot more hit and miss,” he explained.

“I think the adult Saturday afternoon game in particular has suffered quite a lot with people not playing as much and wanting to get season tickets.

“It’s not all down to Ipswich’s success, but it certainly had an impact.”

Leader of Ipswich Borough Council, Neil MacDonald, said the promotion had had a “great impact on the town” and they “did us proud”.

“There has also been more footfall in the town centre – we’ve had more people coming in to enjoy the hospitality and the hotels in Ipswich.

“Footfall is up 6% on last year, that’s a good amount of people.

“The pubs have seen more trade and on some weekend the hotels across the town have been fully booked.”

MacDonald added that the club had already helped bring economic benefits when in the Championship previously.

He similarly praised the women’s squad and their recent promotion which he believed could bring in different visitors to Ipswich.

Ipswich Central Business Improvement District’s chief executive, Lee Walker, echoed that footfall had been up in the town, which he believed was partly due to the football and the “big moments it creates”.

“Some of the learnings we have found from that is that it definitely brings people in in a slightly differing way and maybe there is some fear among locals of when the football is on,” he said.

“There’s work to do to sell that message as the club hopefully bounces back again, but against that sits the chance to be showcased across the globe.”