On 11 May 2002, when relegation was confirmed by a 5-0 defeat at LiverpoolAn Ipswich fan held up a homemade banner in the away section.
“We’ll be back,” was the defiant message scribbled on cardboard.
Having qualified for Europe by finishing fifth in the Premier League the previous season and having made the play-offs four seasons before that, the decision was based on logic rather than blind faith.
But as we now know, that statement was completely off the mark. More than two decades have passed since that flag was flown in Merseyside, and for most of that time we were a long way from returning to it.
George Burley, Joe Royle, Jim Magilton, Roy Keane, Paul Jewell, Mick McCarthy, Paul Hurst, Paul Lambert and Paul Cook. They all tried to get us back on our feet but the closest we came to that were three play-off semi-finals.
The play-off failures were followed by years of stagnation and then decline.
Loan players we could never afford came and went. Attendances dropped from an average of almost 26,000 under Joe Royle to under 20,000 as the 2010s dragged on.
Mould grew on the roof of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand. Younger fans had to be bribed with the promise of fast food on the way home to stay for the duration of matches. An update from the club said the turnstiles had been repainted, as if that was news we should celebrate.
Marcus Evans, who bought the club in 2007, was initially generous with budgets, but over the years the belt has become increasingly tightened.
Keane spent millions. Jewell too. We got worse. McCarthy seemed to pay for their excesses and was asked to fight for promotion with loan players, cheap buys – and his own wits.
He left under a bad star, despite saving us from relegation in his first season and giving us our only chance of promotion in 2015. As he walked out the door, he casually said to the fans who had been calling for him to leave for months: “Be careful what you wish for.”
The desire was for a younger manager with new ideas, not someone from the Allardyce/Pulis/Warnock merry-go-round. The board thought Paul Hurst was the man, but if we thought being stuck in the middle of the Championship was bad, then worse was to come.
Part two comes at noon
