Ipswich TownTwo of the managers who shaped Ipswich Town went on to manage England, and both are commemorated with statues outside Portman Road. Sir Alf Ramsey led the club from the Third Division to the English championship in 1961/62, and Sir Bobby Robson, in charge from 1969 to 1982, brought the FA Cup in 1978 and the UEFA Cup in 1981. The two great eras of the club are therefore the work of different men, twenty years apart, and a club from a Suffolk town with one league title has built a place in English football history on them.
Ipswich was founded on 16 October 1878 as an amateur side, Ipswich A.F.C., and did not turn professional until 1936. It won the Southern League at the first attempt, was elected to the Football League in May 1938 and has played at Portman Road since 1884. The club plays in blue and white and is known as the Tractor Boys. Ramsey took charge in August 1955, and in six years he took the team from the Third Division to the top of English football. Ipswich won the First Division title in 1961/62 at its first attempt in the top flight, which remains its only league championship. As champions it entered the 1962/63 European Cup, beating Floriana of Malta 14–1 on aggregate before losing to AC Milan.
Under Robson the club returned to the elite of the English game after a modest start. For ten years Ipswich finished in the top six of the First Division, and many of the players who made its name had been developed at Portman Road, among them Terry Butcher, Eric Gates and Roger Osborne. In 1978 Osborne scored the only goal of the FA Cup final against Arsenal at Wembley, giving the club its first and only FA Cup. Robson then signed the Dutch midfielders Arnold Mühren and Frans Thijssen from Twente, a move that Russell Osman later called a masterstroke. The core of the side also included Mick Mills, the captain and the club's record appearance holder, Kevin Beattie, John Wark and the forward Paul Mariner.
The 1980/81 season brought the club's greatest night. On the way to the UEFA Cup final Ipswich knocked out Aris Thessaloniki, Bohemians of Prague, Widzew Łódź, who were beaten 5–0 at Portman Road, Saint-Étienne and 1. FC Köln. The final against AZ Alkmaar was played over two legs. On 6 May 1981 Ipswich won 3–0 at home with goals from Wark, who scored a penalty after 28 minutes, Thijssen and Mariner. Two weeks later, in Amsterdam, Thijssen scored after four minutes and Wark added a second, but AZ won the match 4–2 and Ipswich kept the trophy 5–4 on aggregate. It was the 66th match of a season in which the club also finished as league runners-up behind Aston Villa, a season that had left Ipswich with far more fixtures than its rival.
The club's later history has been uneven. Ipswich played in the first season of the Premier League in 1992/93 and, after winning the 2000 play-off final against Barnsley at Wembley, finished fifth in its first season back and returned to the UEFA Cup, where it beat Inter 1–0 at home before losing in Milan. Relegation to League One came in 2019, and in April 2021 the club was taken over by Gamechanger 20 Ltd. Kieran McKenna, in charge since December 2021, won promotion from League One in 2022/23 and then finished second in the Championship in 2023/24, one point behind Leicester City. After relegation from the Premier League in 2024/25, Ipswich again finished second in the Championship in 2025/26, one point ahead of Millwall, and secured automatic promotion on the final day. It returns to the Premier League in 2026/27.