On Saturday, Ipswich Town Women play at the club's 140-year-old Portman Road stadium wearing shirts bearing the symbol of Ed Sheeran's Mathematics Tour due to an e-mail from an u11 girls team.

The multi-award winning music icon, Sheeran grew up in the Suffolk town of Framlingham, 17 miles north-east of Ipswich, moving there with his family at the age of four. The town's 12th century castle was immortalised in his 2017 hit "Castle on the Hill", a song reflecting on his childhood in Suffolk.

In August 2019, Sheeran ended his world tour playing in Ipswich. On the last of his four nights at Chantry Park, he appeared wearing the green and white hooped shirt of Framlingham Town. The ensuing social media buzz created a worldwide demand for the shirt, previously only made for the players, which the club put on sale for the first time.

As a boy, Sheeran, played for Framlingham Town and supported the county's only professional side, Ipswich Town. He has often been spotted in the stands of Portman Road cheering on the men's team - one of only 24 teams to win the English league championship - but absent from the top flight since 2002.

In 2021, his former boyhood club approached Sheeran with an unlikely proposal. Speaking to BBC Radio 1, Sheeran admitted "it all kicked off because I started sponsoring Framlingham Town under 11 girls team, I got e-mailed and they were like, 'could I get their kit?" So I got their kit."

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The Framlingham Town girls wore a shirt with the logo of Sheeran's own Gingerbread Man Record label. When Sheeran's first child, a daughter, was born in September 2020, the club sent him a Framlingham Town baby kit.

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It got Sheeran thinking, "I wonder how it is to sponsor Ipswich? Ipswich's sponsor as up that season. I just enquired. I was like 'do you guys need a sponsor? And they were like 'yeah, for sure'. It's been a cool process." Sheeran has been the principal shirt sponsor of the Ipswich Town men's and women's first team since 2021, renewing their one-year partnership twice.

Since Sheeran's album art has adorned the club's strip, the club has reported year-on-year record sales of their replica shirts. The club is also thriving, with the men's team on course to record successive promotions and a coveted Premier PINC +0.7% League place for the first time in 22 years.

Despite another good run in the Women's FA Cup, promotion into the professional FA Championship looks set to elude Ipswich Town Women for the second successive season. They currently sit fifth in the FA Women's National League Southern Premier Division, nineteen points off tbe pace after a 4-2 defeat away to leaders Portsmouth on March 10.

Nonetheless, this Saturday, they will play at the club's 29,673-capacity Portman Road stadium for the first time in a league match when they take on Chatham Town. Unusually, for a game at this level, the club has opened all four stands of the stadium and so far over 7,000 tickets have been sold. One of the principal aims of the occasion is for the match to attract as many young players as possible from teams all over Suffolk - like Framlingham Town whose players have been ball girls at Ipswich Town Women's games - to create an allegiance with the women's team who usually play their home matches 12 miles away in the port town of Felixstowe.

In recent years, the renowned Ipswich Town women and girls academy drew in some of the best talent throughout the south-east of England. However, last year the academy lost its Women's Super League status as part of a revision of the player pathway by the English Football Association which significantly increased investment for the newly-created Professional Game Academies (PGAs), now only affiliated with teams in the top two tiers.

Suddenly at a competitive disadvantage, the club are putting greater emphasis on finding young talent closer to home as women's head coach Joe Sheehan explained to me. "When we launched our academy back in the day, I think we were ahead of the curve at the time through some FA investment that was launching. It meant we were able to attract players from outside the region."

"Everybody else's pathway now has grown and certainly with the restructure, it will probably be less likely we'll be able to get as many from outside this region. When I first joined, I remember meeting some people at Suffolk FA and it was quite clear, the grassroots element of football in this county in particular, wasn't as strong as other counties."

"That really opened my eyes, because where I was brought up in Essex - and Romford in particular - grassroots football was massive, you couldn't even get pitches for the amount of leagues. When I first joined here, there were age groups that didn't have divisions in girls football. A lot of the more successful grassroots teams were participating in leagues outside this county."

"Straightaway, it made me realize there's not enough participation. Since our foundation has been launched and the access they provide now for players, it's been another spike, which is great. Young players are much more local now to Ipswich. Hopefully, with a real passion and enthusiasm from some key people and staff, it will see many more girls from our town come into our system that can prosper in our first team one day."

Captain Maria Boswell who is visiting local schools this week to generate interest in the club, told me what happens after the game is almost as important as the events on the pitch. "We've made a real effort to go out with the foundation and provide tickets to grassroots teams and to schools and try get as many young girls at the game as possible."

"I think it's definitely very important that we engage with them after the game and take as many photos as possible. The men's team are great at going out and doing visits, we want to be a part of that as much as we can as well. We're always trying to be as involved in the community as possible."

Football fans from Norway have said that supporting their English team was like a "religion".

The Ipswich Town FC Supporters Club of Norway has about 500 fans who make regular visits to the UK for matches.

Wednesday's game against Watford FC attracted some of the Norwegian supporters who, like their Portman Road friends, are hoping to see the club promoted to the Premier League.

Ole Bernt Krogstag, chairman of the Norwegian club, said the potential promotion felt "surreal".

John Fairhall/BBC

Ole Bernt Krogstag is chairman of The Ipswich Town FC Supporters Club of Norway

"The last 20 years has just been doom and gloom so it's a surprising feeling to be nervous before the games," the 50-year-old said.

"I will probably faint first [if Ipswich is promoted] and then have a hell of a party."

Mr Krogstag has supported the club since 1978 when he was five years old.

The Norwegian club set up in 1989 by a then 18-year-old called Arnt Nodeland.

Speaking about Wednesday's game, Mr Krogstag said: "It was frustrating and very unusual to see Ipswich with no goals in the game.

"I hope they are back to their usual selves on Saturday."

Andreas Mulelid Kvam, 29, and his father Gunnar Kvam, 61, both support the club.

Mr Kvam Sr started supporting Ipswich in about 1975 as a 12-years-old boy.

"In my street there were about eight to 10 boys and we played football all the time," he explained.

"Each one of us had one team to support and we couldn't have the same team.

"No one supported Ipswich but I was actually supporting Stoke at the time [but] my cousin was, so I had to choose another team.

"I'm glad I chose Ipswich."

Mr Kvan Jr played as Ipswich in the Oslo Supporters Cup which sees Norwegian supporters of UK clubs come together to play as their team.

The Ipswich supporters team has won the cup three times on the trot.

"I love being around other Ipswich supporters," he said. "It's such a good group of people even though I'm so much younger than most of them as one of the newer generations."

Both father and son said they couldn't "even imagine getting promoted" but would be celebrating on board the ships they work on if it happens.

Jan Frode Antonsen, 56, has supported the club for 50 years and is also over in Ipswich this week.

"This is my third trip and fourth match now this season, I just love it," he said.

"It's like a religion, it means a lot for me.

"When Ipswich wins the weeks, the days are a lot better for me and I wake up every day with a smile, it makes me very happy."

This is his first time over in the UK with the supporters club which is said has been "really fun".

The fan, who has a whole room in his house dedicated to Ipswich Town, still remembers the moment he decided to become a fan.

A young Mr Antonsen asked former captain of Manchester United Lou Macari for an autograph when he was once over in Norway.

However he was refused.

"I decided I will never support Manchester United and I will never support a red team," he joked.

Like the other supporters he has high hopes for promotion.

"I would love it, I have a lot of friends who support Manchester, Liverpool, Arsenal and nobody thought that Ipswich would be top of the Championship," he added.

Ipswich Town Women's record goalscorer Natasha Thomas says her career journey, which was outside an academy, offers hope to youngsters in the game.

The striker has scored 142 goals in 191 games since signing in November 2015.

The 27-year-old, who signed from Lowestoft Town, says she is proud of her unconventional journey to professional football.

"It's not about going through an academy," she said. "Yes that's a route, but for me it wasn't."

Thomas' journey began by progressing through grassroots level at Waveney from the age of nine, before joining Lowestoft Town.

She was signed by Ipswich Town as a 19-year-old, but unlike many of her teammates, Thomas was not in an academy growing up.

"It just shows all the younger players out there, wanting to get to a higher level in football, there isn't one way to get there and I've proven that.

"I'm proud that I've been able to play at a higher level."

Thomas put pen to paper, alongside nine teammates, in August 2021 for her first professional contract.

"It was a lifelong dream, and when I signed that first contract, that's when things started to click a bit more in my brain," she said.

The Tractor Girls are still a part-time outfit, playing their football in the third tier of the women's pyramid.

Thomas, who also works as a gym instructor, says playing football comes with sacrifice.

"I'm a family orientated person," she said. "They've always believed in me. The support I get from them, I want to repay them.

"I want to show them that although unfortunately I couldn't get to my niece's christening or I couldn't make someone's birthday, there's a reason behind that and I hope I can repay them all back through what I do on the pitch.

"That's why I push myself so much, both on and off the pitch. I don't want the sacrifices to be sacrifices for no reason."

Ipswich Town Women are back in FA Cup action on Sunday, looking for a place in the third round.

A win over fourth-tier side Sutton Coldfield Town would bring in £8,000 prize money, with the third-round winners earning £35,000.

Ross Halls

In 2022, they reached the quarter-finals of the competition, eventually bowing out to Women's Super League side West Ham.

Thomas said: "We all love the FA Cup. We always do so well in it.

"The incentive of the money does really helps us, as a club too. Also, playing the best clubs in the world, from the WSL, we want to play against the best, to not only see where we are, but where we could go."

Thomas is currently the top goalscorer this season, boasting 16 goals in 11 games.

Just eight goals and nine appearances short of 150 goals and 200 appearances for the club, Town's number 7 says she's got those milestones in sight.

"I want to win the league, go as far as we can in the cup," she said.

"Both milestones are going to come, and when they do, I'll really enjoy them. But then, it will be 'what's the next milestone?'"

You can listen to the full interview here.

The manager of Ipswich Town Football Club's women's team said the side has "grown massively" since he took over five years ago.

Joe Sheehan joined the team in February 2019 and the club has since entered the third tier of women's football.

He said changes such as providing food for the players before training, and employing full-time staff at the club, had led to the success.

"The growth in this space of time has been really positive," Sheehan said.

The side, which plays its home games at the AGL Arena in Felixstowe, Suffolk, now sits fifth in the FA Women's National League, Southern Premier Division.

Under Sheehan's tenure the team had played 123 games and won 87.

"Since [2019] we've managed to build a really strong, competitive first team," the manager continued.

"At the time [I joined] it was voluntary. I didn't get paid to do the job. We were training two nights a week, really late. [The staff were] voluntary, the players voluntary."

'Everything has grown'

Sheehan said that the club had "grown massively" since his appointment and hailed the impact of the England Lionesses' success on the international stage.

"We've contracted our players, we've got full-time staff as well as part-time staff, we train more frequently - everything has grown," he added.

"Lots has been achieved but there's still so much to do."

He added that the side's success over the past five years was also due to the talents of his players.

Winger Sophie Peskett, who joined the club five years ago, said the players were training alongside the men's team, who are fighting for promotion to the Premier League.

"We see the men around the training ground and it feels really normal and very professional," she said.

"To look back five years ago when I joined as an academy player... We were training part-time, training in the evening not getting fed and turning up in our shin pads.

"I feel really lucky to have seen this growth and there's only more to come.

"If it's grown that much in the last five years, the next five years are going to be really exciting."