Ipswich Town Women To Play Outside Suffolk To Meet WSL2 Regulations

Newly-promoted Ipswich Town Women have been forced to relocate home matches outside of their county of Suffolk in order to meet the minimum standards of playing in WSL2.

From next season – their first in the second tier of the English women’s game – they will play their home games at the JobServe Stadium, the home of Colchester United FC. The city in northern Essex is 26 miles from their previous home in Felixstowe.

With an all-seated capacity of 10,105, the stadium is no stranger to women’s games. Since its opening in 2008, it has staged two England Women’s internationals – against Iceland in 2009, and more recently a FIFA Women’s World Cup qualifier against Kazakhstan in 2017. It also hosted the BBC Essex Women’s Cup Final earlier this year.

The Essex city has also has a women’s team of its own. Founded in 2023, a decade after the previous team had folded, Colchester United Women has been just been promoted into the Eastern Region Women’s Football League from the Essex County Women’s Football League.

In a statement, Colchester United Women said they “welcome the news” of the thr groundshare. “We are determined to continue developing our programme to reach the level where hosting top-tier fixtures at the JobServe Community Stadium becomes part of our future too. Our commitment to building a successful, sustainable and community-focused women’s team remains as strong as ever.”

The Colchester United men’s team play in EFL 2, the fourth tier of the English professional game. It appears that over the course of the two-year agreement, Ipswich Town will invest money into their local rivals ground to improve the quality of the playing surface. Colchester United said “while we fully recognise the traditional rivalry between the two clubs, this is a practical facility-sharing agreement, with no wider implications for either club’s identity or independence.”

Ipswich Town Women finished as champions of the FA Women’s National League Southern Division at the end of the season earning them promotion into the fully-professional, and newly rebranded, WSL2. The league is made up of twelve teams but for the second successive season, one of the clubs have withdrawn ahead of the campaign.

Last month, Blackburn Rovers informed the league they “would not be able to meet the ongoing compliance requirements needed to continue to operate in the Barclays WSL2”. They followed Reading FC Women the previous summer, leaving WSL2 once more left with eleven teams. To compensate for the shortfall, last season’s bottom side, Sheffield United, were reprived from relegation and remain in the division.

In order to ensure this does not happen in future, the league have imposed more rigorous entry requirements for the teams competing in the division. The newly-named organisation of the women’s professional game in England, Women’s Super League Football told me that “every club is asked to comply with the minimum standards as part of their membership of the leagues and a compliance and development review is carried out as standard ahead of each season and monitored throughout.”

Ipswich Town Women have played for the last 12 years at Dellwood Avenue (formerly the Martello Ground), the home of Felixstowe & Walton United Football Club. Ahead of their last game of the season, which was watched by a record crowd of 2,150, coach Joe Sheehan praised everyone at the stadium who made the team feel so welcome.

“The staff and supporters at Felixstowe have been incredible hosts for us, that have also been there when there have been 40 supporters, when there are 400 supporters and now there will be a sell-out crowd on what, hopefully, will be a really celebratory occasion.”

Felixstowe & Walton United Football Club said today “while we are naturally sad to see them leave our ground, we are immensely proud of what they have achieved and fully support their recently announced move to Colchester United’s JobServe Community Stadium. This move represents an exciting new chapter for Ipswich Town Women as they continue their ambitious journey and we wish them every success as they take this next step forward.”

“The demands of WSL football dictate the standards required and whilst much work has been done to the Martello over the last decade, with more improvements to come, we were always aware that the time would come when the team would outgrow our facilities.”

With a total capacity of 2,160 it would have been the smallest ground in WSL2, slightly less than the 2,500-capacity of the Eppleton Colliery Welfare Ground, the home of Sunderland AFC Women. Dellwood Avenue also has just 200 seats and limited media facilities.

Ipswich Town could have followed the lead of six of the other teams in WSL2 – Brmingham City, Bristol City, Charlton Athletic, Nottingham Forest, Sheffield United and Southampton – by playing their matches at the club’s main stadium. Ipswich Town Women have played two games at Portman Road, each time attracting five-figure attendances.

However, concerns over the overuse of Portman Road, set to stage a minimum of 23 home games in the men’s Championship, meant this was not seen to be a viable option for the club. They did confirm however that they will once more arrange for the women’s team to play certain games at the main club stadium.

Nevertheless, the move will leave Ipswich Town as the only women’s team in WSL2 playing outside their county. The club stated that it “will be working towards securing a permanent home for the women’s team within the Ipswich area.”