When Ipswich won the title as a newly promoted club under Alf Ramsey

Suffolk’s reputation as a sedate, humble sort of a place is mostly well founded. Its countryside is soothing rather than spectacular; the locals’ sense of regional pride is expressed with modesty rather than flamboyance. Accordingly, the Ipswich Town Supporters’ Association handbook for 1962-63 – the season following the club’s only Football League championship – commences by offering “the highest praise and congratulations to all our players, management, etc”, before moving straight on to the important business of reminding members about their entitlement to accident insurance.

Sixty years on from that title in the 1961-62 season, it’s surprising that it doesn’t have a more prominent place in the history books. Ipswich won the league in the season after their first ever promotion to the top flight – something never achieved before or since – only 24 years after joining the Football League. Remember Wigan reaching the Premier League in 2005? Imagine if they had won it straight away. That’s what Ipswich managed six decades ago.

In 1955, Town’s long-serving manager Scott Duncan had stepped down and his replacement was 35-year-old former Spurs and England full-back Alf Ramsey. “I sincerely hope that our association will be a happy and successful one,” Ramsey wrote to supporters on his appointment. He could hardly have guessed how successful it would be.

Ramsey joined with Ipswich having just been relegated back into the Third Division South after their first, brief taste of life in the second tier. Within two seasons, Ramsey had got the club back up into the Second Division, where they spent three seasons consolidating before finishing above Sheffield United and Liverpool to win the division in 1961, and reach the top level