Pop superstar Ed Sheeran celebrated Ipswich Town's return to the Premier League by singing along to his 2011 hit "The A Team" with head coach Kieran McKenna and the rest of the team in their changing room.
Sheeran, a minority stakeholder and Ipswich shirt sponsor between 2021-22 and 2024-25, is regularly seen at Portman Road. He was unable to see their last promotion to the top flight in person as he was in Miami as part of his world tour at the time.
Ipswich sealed second spot in the Championship and an automatic promotion spot after swatting aside QPR 3-0 on Saturday.
Goals from George Hirst and Jaden Philogene in a devastating opening nine minutes put the home side in control, with Kasey McAteer scoring a third five minutes from time to start the promotion party.
Ipswich had to win the Championship clash with mid-table QPR as both Millwall and Middlesbrough were hot on their heels. The Lions beat Oxford while Boro could only draw at Wrexham, leaving Ipswich a point clear in second place.
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The A Team. 🥲 pic.twitter.com/4vPeLpW1tK
— Ipswich Town (@IpswichTown) May 2, 2026
Meanwhile, McKenna hailed his success at getting Ipswich back into the Premier League at the first time of asking as a "great achievement."
"It's hard to enjoy to be honest. You just really want it for everyone else, the lads who haven't had it in the group and for the supporters and your family, it means so much," McKenna said.
"I really enjoyed winning 3-0. I'm really proud of my family for again the support they give me, really proud of the staff and the group.
"It's not been easy for that group of players but they've really stuck at it and you can't ever understand how hard it is to get into the Premier League. It's a great achievement.
"What was done before will never be repeated, it was special to do it, back-to-back from League One with basically the same group I don't think it will be repeated again.
"This one has been more difficult in some ways. This has been a completely different challenge and has been a big challenge, so I know how hard we've had to work at it and I know it could have gone in a completely different direction, so I'm really proud that we've kept it together and got it over the line."
Opposite number Julien Stephan said his team failed to find "a way to respond" to Ipswich's blistering start when they conceded two goals early on.
Stephan felt QPR came back stronger in the second half, and said: "We didn't have enough in the first half to hurt them. The second half was a little bit different and we saw in the balance of power it was important to have some players who could run behind the defence line, that's why we created more.
"But when you are 2-0 down it's difficult.
"It was season with a lot of ups and downs, I think like many, many teams in this league, but the main thing is I don't know which is the level of this group.
"So it was a strong experience and it's really important now to think about the future.
"It's a good project, good fans, good management, good mentality into the dressing room, so we have some good foundations.
"I said to the players before the game it will probably be a wild 15-20 minutes on the pitch and they started as expected, very strongly, but we didn't find a way to respond in terms of intensity and they killed us in the first 15 minutes.
"After we found a way to respond it was better in the second half, but we didn't find a way to score."
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Information from PA contributed to this story.