Ranking the 7 best players to ever play for both Ipswich Town and Norwich City | OneFootball

There are numerous players who've played for both Ipswich Town and Norwich City. Here are the seven best to have crossed the Norfolk-Suffolk divide.

Although their rivalry can be as fierce as any other, there's no shortage of players who've crossed the Norfolk-Suffolk county lines to play for both Ipswich Town and Norwich City.

Ipswich Town's relegation from the Premier League at the end of last season means that the East Anglian Derby between them and Norwich City will resume again in the 2025-26 season.

The two clubs have strikingly similar histories. Both have had occasional moments in the sun and European football, but for the majority of their histories both have bounced between the top two divisions, with very occasional spells in the third.

As for the players, well, there aren't that many who've directly made the switch from one to the other, but there are plenty who have played for both, so here are the seven best players to have turned out in both the blue and white of Ipswich and the yellow and green of Norwich.

Goalkeeper Andy Marshall's transfer from Norwich to Ipswich was probably the most contentious on this list. Marshall was a product of the Norwich youth academy and made 206 appearances for the club, but at the end of the 2000-01 season he ran down his Norwich contract and left for Portman Road, sparking outrage at Carrow Road.

But Ipswich fans never really took to Marshall, partly because of the identity of his former club and partly because he never quite set Portman Road alight himself. Marshall left Ipswich for Millwall in 2004, and upon returning to Ipswich with Millwall in 2006 the Ipswich Star described him as "arguably the footballer Ipswich Town fans dislike the most".

6 Alan Lee

The amount of time that a player spends at each club isn't always important, when it comes to the influence that they can have. Irish striker Alan Lee had been of interest to Norwich when he still played for Cardiff City, but in 2006 he transferred to Ipswich for £100,000.

Lee made 110 appearances for Ipswich and scored 34 goals, but in August 2008 he signed for Crystal Palace. The bombshell moment came in March of the following year when, unable to tie down a place in the Palace team he went on loan to Norwich until the end of the season.

Lee's time at Carrow Road was brief but impactful. He scored two goals in seven appearances for the Canaries and was publicly praised by the Norwich captain Gary Doherty for his troubles. He returned to Portman Road in 2013 to finish his career with Ipswich, and, according to the East Anglian Daily Times, "has since apologised to Town fans for his spell with the Canaries, insisting his heart has always been in Suffolk".

Winger Louie Donowa was born in Ipswich, but started his career in the academy at Norwich, making his debut for them in 1982, winning the FA Youth Cup in 1983, and picking up England under-21 caps while at Carrow Road. He was even in their starting eleven on the right wing when they beat Sunderland 1-0 to win the 1985 League Cup.

Donowa left England for Spain in 1986, when he joined Deportivo La Coruna, playing for them for three years before going on to have a brief spell in the Netherlands with Willem II, but when he returned to England it was at Portman Road to play for Ipswich Town. His time in his hometown didn't last for very long, though. Just one season and 23 appearances later he was on his way to Ashton Gate to join Bristol City.

4 John Deehan

John "Dixie" Deehan had already jumped from one local rivalry to another by the time he arrived at Norwich City in 1981. Having started his career at Aston Villa in 1975, he transferred to West Bromwich Albion in 1979 before going to Carrow Road two years later.

Deehan, a battering ram of a striker, was hugely successful at Norwich. He was, along with Louie Donowa, part of the 1985 League Cup-winning team and part of the Norwich team that was promoted back into the top flight the following year. He scored 62 goals in his five years at Carrow Road, but in the summer of 1986 he went to Portman Road, but his form at Ipswich was less impressive than Norwich, and in 1988 he moved on to Manchester City in a player-coaching role.

The curiosity of John Deehan's 1986 move to Ipswich was that it was a swap deal, with midfielder Trevor Putney going in the opposite direction. Having been signed from non-league Brentwood Town in 1980, Putney had made just over 100 appearances for Ipswich and in 1984 he was voted their Player of the Year.

And Putney shone at Carrow Road, just as he had at Portman Road. In 1987, Norwich finished 5th in the First Division, which would have been good enough for European football were it not for the post-Heysel ban, and in 1989 he was in the Norwich team that was narrowly beaten in the FA Cup semi-finals by Everton on the day of the Hillsborough disaster. By this time, Putney was being linked with a move away from Carrow Road, and in the summer of 1989 he transferred to MIddlesbrough for £300,000.

2 Keith Bertschin

Of all the players on this list, Keith Bertschin probably had the worst timing. Bertschin started his career at Ipswich, marking his debut for them in 1976 by scoring the winning goal on his debut in a 2-1 win away to Arsenal. But when Bertschin left Ipswich for Birmingham City in July 1977, it was shortly before the start of a season that would end with Ipswich winning the FA Cup for the first time.

He joined Norwich in 1981, and helped them to get promotion back to the First Division at the end of his first season there. But again, he left the club at a bad time, going to Stoke City in November 1984, six months before Norwich won the 1985 League Cup. Stoke were relegated at the end of that season with just 17 points, and it just so happened that Norwich were relegated too. Bertschin would go on to finally win the only silverware of his playing career three years later, as part of the Sunderland team that won the Second Division title in 1988.

Although born in Norwich, Clive Woods became an Ipswich legend after joining the club from the non-league club Norwich Gothic FC in 1969. He played at Portman Road for 11 years under the legendary Bobby Robson, running up 267 appearances and playing in their team that won the 1978 FA Cup, as well as winning the Texaco Cup with them in 1973.

By 1980, Ipswich were looking like serious contenders for the League title, but in March of that year, after eleven years at Portman Road, he left to join Norwich City. He stayed only a year at Carrow Road, making 32 appearances, but again the timing of the transfer was somewhat Bertschin-esque. Ipswich were beaten to the 1981 Football League Championship by Aston Villa, but they did end that season by winning the UEFA Cup, while Woods retired from playing at the end of the 1980-81 season.