We’ve all seen the pictures from down the road this week – an outpouring of relief, disbelief and then pandemonium that accompanied Ipswich Town’s return to the Premier League after a 22-year hiatus. Here’s why that could be good for Norfolk too.

For full disclosure, I’m a Tractor Boy, and I’ve been gleefully letting the world know “what we think of Norwich” for the last week – but I come in peace. If there’s one thing canaries and blues have in common, it’s a mutual recognition of how isolating and quarantined a life on the easterly bump can feel at times. While it feels more welcoming and comforting than anywhere else in the world on a good day, there’s no getting away from the fact that it is economically peripheral at best, and those with dreams of opulence and grandeur normally depart fairly quickly once they get the chance. The Cambridge Econometrics Economic Strategy for the East of England concedes that its peripherality comes with inherent patchy infrastructure provision, low levels of innovation, a severe lack of pull for young professionals and graduates, and a lack of diverse or exciting conurbations to attract new ones.

Despite our footballing polarity, Norfolk and Suffolk actually work very closely together on a number of economic fronts. The Norfolk and Suffolk Economic Strategy involves joint investment from both into transport, education, business funds, and recently, a joint trade partnership with Dutch province Drenthe, to trade research and development ideas as well as food trade deals. Generally, when a cash injection comes into any East Anglian location, the whole region benefits.

As far as cash injections go, the one that comes with Ipswich’s return to the top flight is quite possibly the zenith. The intricacies and conditional factors are myriad, but as an estimate, one year in the Premier League could feasibly be worth around ​​£600 million to the area, according to football finance expert Kieran Maguire – if Norwich squeeze past Leeds and win the play-offs, this number will ostensibly double. A £1.2 billion injection into East Anglia will quickly see our “sleepy” peripheral home rise in GVA (Gross Value Added) and, if invested well, could be the final straw before we see the East of England overtake the North West in this metric, according to Cambridge Econometrics. That means closer ties to London, so better transport infrastructure. Closer ties to North-West Europe, so more locally beneficial trade deals. Better investment in scientific research and development, so more investment in UEA, and more young graduates and professionals settling in the area. And, of course, an Old Farm derby in the Premier League.

There are, admittedly, a lot of dominoes to be knocked over before our GVA exceeds that of Greater Manchester and the North West, but Suffolk having a Premier League club may provide just enough wind to knock over the first one. If Norwich keep up their end of the bargain and triumph at Wembley on May 26, it could be a rather exciting time to be an East Anglian.

Image: Unsplash