Ipswich Town: George Hirst on protecting the team's culture

Culture. It's at the core of club, from the training pitch to the boardroom and beyond. Ipswich Town Football Club is a collection of like-minded people all focused on the same thing - getting better each and every day.

It's been built over time, through boss Kieran McKenna and chairman Mark Ashton, and it's protected and enforced by the same players who have helped build it.

It was relatively easy to retain that band of brothers ethos in the Championship, given it was essentially the same group of players who escaped League One which then went on to rip through the second tier.

But as the club prepared for the huge step up to the Premier League, 12 new faces arrived in the summer. Many of the stars of last season have found their roles reduced this term.

Despite a number of new arrivals over the summer, George Hirst says the culture at Town remains the same (Image: Ross Halls) Indeed, only Leif Davis, Axel Tuanzebe, skipper Sam Morsy and Omari Hutchinson remain as nailed-on members of the starting XI - when fit - from last season's side.

It would be easy, then, for the culture to slip. But, according to striker George Hirst, that's where the 'old guard' come in.

He explained: "Any time you get new boys in the door, the massive thing that’s helped us out over the last 18 months or two years is the culture that we have here and the type of lads that we have in the building.

“The staff and the recruitment people did a great job in terms of the characters that they’ve brought in because everybody has gelled, everybody feels like they fit in and everyone gets along.

“And that doesn’t happen in most changing rooms. For us, we understood that there was going to be a lot of players coming in and rightly so – we wanted and needed the help after getting promoted.

“So for us it was a case of ‘right, when these boys come in we need to make sure that they know exactly what we are as a team, as people and the culture that we have created at this club.’

“It’s not a case of if you don’t like it, you’re not a part of it – it’s if you don’t like it, you need to change and you need to know that this is the way we do things around here, this is how we are as people."

Skipper Sam Morsy and summer signing Aro Muric are all smiles after the win at Spurs (Image: Ross Halls) And, to their credit, Hirst says all the new arrivals have taken that culture to heart.

“Every single one of them has bought into it and that’s a massive part of it," he enthused. 

"Then when we (the old guard) get out onto the pitch it’s – I don’t want to say easier – but we have these relationships already.

“I don’t need to speak to Chappers or Wes as much as I do the new lads, and that’s just part and parcel of it.

“We’re still early on in the season, we’re still forming these connections and all we can do is keep it going on the training pitch, help the new boys where they need help and if we can keep doing that then we’re going in the right direction.”

Of course, Hirst is among the old guard members to have lost his starting spot to a new face - and that new face, Liam Delap, is in red hot form.

The £15m signing from Manchester City has scored six goals in his first 11 games, putting him up there among the breakout stars of the Premier League season so far.

While he's hit the ground running, Hirst has had to battle through an injury suffered in pre-season to get back on the pitch, and impressed in his first-ever Premier League start at Brentford last month, scoring and setting up a goal for Sammie Szmodics.

As you'd expect from the Town dressing room though, Hirst says there is no animosity between the pair.

Liam Delap has taken Hirst's starting spot - but he insists there's 'no needle' between the pair (Image: Ross Halls) “He’s a top lad and great competition," Hirst said of his fellow striker. "We both want to play and there’s only one shirt that we both want to fill.

“There’s never any needle there. We want to beat each other, don’t get me wrong, and be better than each other – and I think that’s just another healthy thing that runs right throughout the squad.

“He’s had a great start to the season, but now I’ve had my chance to take the minutes and get the goal (at Brentford), I feel like that’s going to give him a push in the same way it did me when he was scoring - knowing there’s things that I need to do better and improve on to put myself in those positions.

“It’s healthy and as long as it continues it means we’re both doing something right and both helping the team.”

Hirst celebrates his first Premier League goal - on his first start - at Brentford