Ipswich Town Football Club’s stadium at Portman Road underwent a huge transformation from 2000 to 2002. The new South Stand was opened in April 2001, and work began the following month on demolition of the North Stand, the roof of which had been home for many years to the stadium’s scoreboard.

The 2001-2002 season began with Premier League and UEFA Cup action at Portman Road, and the Club decided that a new, state-of-the-art scoreboard was required to match the impressive new stands. With the new North Stand still under construction, the Club turned to Technographic Displays for a scoreboard solution that would fit in with the building work.

The initial requirement was to erect the scoreboard shortly before each home match, and remove it immediately afterwards, so that the North Stand building programme would not be affected.

This proved to be no problem for the Technographic team. Arthur Jackson, MD of Technographic Displays explained, “we would arrive at Portman Road two hours before kick-off and erect the LED display panels on the lower tier of the partially-completed North Stand. This would take us about an hour, by which time spectators were beginning to arrive. I would then move into the stadium’s PA room, connect my laptop PC and start operating the scoreboard. At the end of the match, we would take the scoreboard away again”.

This process continued until the seats were installed in the lower tier, at which point the temporary scoreboard was moved to the upper tier. Again, Arthur explained, “rather than carry the display modules up and down the stairs to the upper tier, we rigged the panels to a lifting truss, and one of the tower cranes being used to build the new stand lifted them into place. It all went really smoothly”.

It wasn’t long before the seating was due to be installed in the upper tier, too. Having been delighted by the performance and reliability of the temporary system, the Club placed an order for a permanent set-up, the idea being to install the scoreboard on the fascia between the upper and lower tiers. Once again, the Technographic Displays team met the given timescale, and the new scoreboard was ready for the Boxing Day match against Leicester City. A second scoreboard was ordered for the South Stand the following summer.

See also ITFC scoreboards

ITFC temporary scoreboard rigged and operated by Technographic Displays during construction of the new North Stand in 2001

High-resolution images provided by full-colour LED panels

At the end of a memorable night - 22nd November 2001

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