{"id":633192,"date":"2026-06-11T14:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T14:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/633192\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T14:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T14:26:10","slug":"how-kieran-mckenna-leaving-ipswich-town-unfolded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/633192\/","title":{"rendered":"How Kieran McKenna leaving Ipswich Town unfolded"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ipswich Town fans and former players have expressed their sadness and gratitude after manager Kieran McKenna announced he would be stepping down.<\/p>\n

McKenna said on Wednesday<\/a> night he would be leaving so he could spend time with his family after managing the team for four-and-a-half years.<\/p>\n

He is one of the club’s most successful managers, having taken it through three successful promotions in four seasons.<\/p>\n

Fan Sandra Cunningham told the BBC she believed McKenna was one of the best managers Town ever had.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, McKenna took the club through a successful promotion<\/a> back up to the Premier League for the second time.<\/p>\n

Fans celebrating the promotion spoke of their excitement to return to the top flight for the 2026-2027 season with<\/a> him at the helm.<\/p>\n

However, the rumour mill recently began to swirl, and there had been talk of leaving Town to head over to Fulham<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, it was confirmed he would not be making that move, but Town announced he would be instead taking a step back from football altogether.<\/p>\n

In a statement, McKenna said he was ready to spend some time with his family.<\/p>\n

“I feel this is the right time for me to step aside,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I do so with great pride at the incredible progress we have made and with huge hope and optimism for the future of the club.<\/p>\n

“After giving so much to the role over the previous five seasons, I now look forward to taking a break from management and dedicating some time to my family, who have been with me every step of my career so far.”<\/p>\n

Immediately, reactions started pouring in from the fans, some of which were very emotional.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ipswich Town fans and former players have expressed their sadness and gratitude after manager Kieran McKenna announced he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-633192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}