Ed Sheeran's Ipswich Hit All the Right Notes as Tractor Boys Roll Back to Premier League
The Suffolk side sealed their immediate return to the top flight with a comprehensive 3-0 victory over QPR at Portman Road, leaving their celebrity supporter positively giddy with delight.
There's nothing quite like the sight of a global superstar losing his composure on a football pitch, and Ed Sheeran certainly didn't disappoint as Ipswich Town completed their remarkable bounce-back to the Premier League with a thoroughly professional 3-0 demolition of QPR at Portman Road.
The Suffolk outfit had the audacity to make their return to the top flight look almost embarrassingly straightforward, wrapping up promotion at the first time of asking following last season's relegation. It's the sort of immediate response that makes you wonder why more clubs don't simply choose to go straight back up – clearly they're just not trying hard enough.
Saturday afternoon's final day festivities saw the Tractor Boys put QPR to the sword with the kind of ruthless efficiency that suggests they might actually fancy their chances of staying up this time around. Three goals without reply was precisely the statement performance you'd want when the cameras are rolling and your most famous fan is watching from the stands.
Speaking of which, Sheeran's post-match pitch invasion was presumably slightly more coordinated than your average supporter's celebratory sprint, given his tendency to turn up at these sorts of occasions. The singer-songwriter was described as 'super happy' with proceedings, which in celebrity speak probably translates to something approaching genuine human emotion.
The beauty of Ipswich's promotion campaign has been its single-minded determination to prove that relegation was merely a minor inconvenience rather than the start of a prolonged exile in the Championship wilderness. While other clubs spend years perfecting the art of nearly-but-not-quite, Town simply rolled up their sleeves and got on with the business of winning football matches.
That they managed to seal the deal on home soil will only add to the satisfaction of supporters who had to endure the ignominy of watching Premier League football from afar for a whole season. The fact that it came via a comprehensive victory rather than some nail-biting affair will have been the cherry on top of what has clearly been a thoroughly enjoyable campaign.
With Sheeran already planning his next pitch-side celebration and the Premier League fixture list beckoning, Ipswich can now look forward to discovering whether their immediate promotion was the result of Championship mediocrity or genuine quality. Either way, Portman Road will be hosting top-flight football once again.