Ipswich Town fans will be praying that their stay in the Premier League isn’t a short one that unfortunately peters out after just one season in the big time, with the Tractor Boys currently occupying a spot in the league’s relegation zone.
Of course, the fact the Suffolk side are even in the top flight is a mammoth achievement in itself, considering they finished in a dire 11th place in League One during 2021/22, before their unbelievable rise then took shape.
Kieran McKenna was the main instigator from the dug-out that kickstarted Ipswich’s rise all the way up to the top division of English football again, but not everything was bleak when the Tractor Boys were struggling in the EFL prior to his arrival, with many star players fondly remembered by supporters in these lowly leagues.
Ipswich's top performers in the EFL
Daryl Murphy is a name that Ipswich fans will still hold dear to their hearts, even when cheering on Liam Delap in the here and now, with the Republic of Ireland international a deadly goal machine for the Tractor Boys when they once routinely aspired for a play-off spot in the Championship.
Murphy amassed an impressive 67 goals from 225 appearances at Portman Road, with 27 of those strikes coming during the 2014/15 season in the second tier, as the sharpshooter won himself a Golden Boot accolade.
Other potent strikers come to mind in the form of Martyn Waghorn and David McGoldrick, with the latter helping himself to 14 league goals in 2013/14, whilst Waghorn bowed out from his short but sweet stint in Suffolk with a stunning goal return of 16 from 46 overall games.
Whilst these Ipswich stars are etched into the Tractor Boys hall-of-fame as dependable performers from yesteryear – when a return to the Premier League felt like a distant dream – there are other examples where players fizzled out after a promising start to life donning Ipswich blue.
One example will definitely hurt those at Ipswich looking back, with the player in question scoring an unbelievable hat-trick on his debut, only to then have a disrupted time at the club.
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Grant Ward's time at Ipswich
The best place to start with the ex-Tottenham Hotspur youngster is that aforementioned hat-trick, with Grant Ward firing home three strikes as a stunning second-half substitute in August 2016, managing to steer his side to a 4-2 win over Barnsley as a result of his mad 38-minute burst of goals.
Ipswich boss at the time Mick McCarthy would rightfully wax lyrical about Ward after the game, stating that everyone at the second-tier club was “delighted” with how quickly the winger had managed to impress and settle in after a summer move from Spurs.
Ward would only go on to score five more strikes for the Tractor Boys across the next couple of seasons though, with his final campaign in Suffolk largely disrupted by injury setbacks, with a cruciate ligament tear in December 2018 cutting short his action and ultimately would end up being the final nail in the coffin for his Ipswich career.
18/19
14
0
2
17/18
37
2
6
16/17
43
6
3
He has bounced back since this serious injury, with the 29-year-old going on to play for Blackpool directly after leaving Ipswich, whilst the one-time £600k Ipswich buy now finds himself on the books of League One side Bristol Rovers.
The Rovers number eight even scored this sumptuous strike last time out for the Gas in FA Cup action, showing the flickers of quality that once saw him be tipped for great things at Portman Road.
Ward will no doubt see his time at Ipswich now as a part of his career that could have gone differently, with the hat-trick he picked up on his debut actually working against him in the long run, as he couldn’t quite ever live up to this electric start across his up-and-down three-season stay in Suffolk.
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