John Wark burst unto the scene in 1975. The 18-year-old was a part of Ipswich Town’s hugely successful youth team and although he began his career as a centre-half and fifth choice at the beginning of the season, by the end of it, he was an integral part of the first team.
He later developed into a free-scoring midfielder playing 384 matches and scoring 136 goals in his first spell at the club and is still regarded as one of the best players to have worn the club colours.
John Wark was born on the 4th August 1957 and coming as he did from Glasgow meant that he could seriously have only supported one of two teams as a child and Rangers was his first love.
He was in fact offered schoolboy trials with Celtic but when both Manchester City and Ipswich started to take an interest north of the border he did not feel the need to get involved with the arch- rivals from the other side of the city!
When Manchester City could not make their minds up, he choose Ipswich and how grateful we all are that he did!
This was the beginning of a long and lasting relationship with the blues which is still alive today. I bumped into him with his wife and his brother, enjoying a drink in a Town centre pub, as a new generation of fans burst into song in recognition of one of the blues all time greats and what a player he was!
He signed professional terms when he was just 17 and made his first-team debut on 27 March 1975 in the 3-2 victory over Leeds United, which had gone to a third replay in the 6th round of the F.A. Cup!
That day he replaced another Town great in Kevin Beattie and he recalls what Sir Bobby Robson had said at the time. ‘I wouldn’t put you in the team if I didn’t think you were good enough’. Wark said that he was a father figure as well because he was homesick. ‘If it hadn’t been for the boss, I would have been straight back to Glasgow,’ Wark explained.
In his early days in the Town team he played as a defender, occupying both the left back and right back roles and then as a make-shift central half. Wherever the gaffer played him he adapted to it well and let let the side down.
In the 1975-76 season he won Town’s Young Player OF The Year award – although most of his games in those days were in the reserves.
But in 1976 he was moved into midfield and suddenly supporters could see he had an eye for goal and that season he got into double figures, as well as being selected for Scotland and taking over penalty duties at the club.
Wark went from strength to strength and we all know what happened the following season when Ipswich won the F.A. Cup for the first time in their history and the Scotsman was outstanding hitting the post twice in the second half.
Two times in the three seasons that followed, Ipswich came within one game of winning the League; missing out to Liverpool and Aston Villa respectively and I still believe that if only Kevin Beattie had have stayed fit we would have won it! Let us hope Leicester City down suffer the same fate and lose either Varney or Mahrez?
In the Uefa cup of 1980/81 Wark set a competition record by scoring 14 goals?including two, one in each leg?in the final as Ipswich overcame Dutch side AZ Alkmaar 5-4 and he went on to represent Scotland on 29 occasions.
He won four Player of the Year awards with Town, along with the European Young Player Of The Year award, after his extraordinary exploits on the continent with the blues.
He also got an acting part in the film Escape to Victory and his success both on and off the field was to continue when he joined Liverpool in 1988 where he scored 28 times in just 70 games.
Wark was never too long away from the Town and returned in 1990 before moving onto Middlesborough and then back to the blues in 1991 until the end of his playing career back in the heart of the defence in 1997.
Wark is a living legend and how grateful I am to be able to say that I saw him play on so many wonderful occasions when Ipswich really did have a good team!
Frank Weston – editor of Vital Ipswich
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