Allan Hunter

Hunter spent the majority of his professional career with Ipswich, making over 350 appearances in his eleven years at the club. As a central defender, Hunter played for Coleraine (alongside his brother Victor), Oldham Athletic and Blackburn Rovers before making a £60,000 move to Ipswich Town in September 1971, in a transfer that saw Bobby Bell heading to Blackburn. Despite interest from Everton and Leeds, Hunter chose Ipswich when he met Bobby Robson – "...within five minutes I had no doubt that Ipswich was where I wanted to go." He replaced Billy Baxter who had left earlier in the year and played every game in his first season. The following year, he was paired with Kevin Beattie and they played together for many years including in the 1978 FA Cup Final in which Ipswich defeated Arsenal 1–0 at Wembley. He was named Ipswich Town Player of the Year in 1975–1976. After the FA Cup final, he only made 26 more appearances in four seasons with Terry Butcher and Russell Osman taking over at the back. He left in 1982 to become player-manager at Colchester United. Robson claimed that Hunter was his best ever signing. Fellow Ipswich player Terry Butcher wrote of Hunter in his autobiography, describing an incident where Butcher had "crossed himself" before a reserve match:

Big Allan Hunter was sitting in the stand and after the game he grabbed me and asked me if I was a Catholic. I told him I wasn't. I was an English Protestant. Why, then, he asked, did I cross myself? I told him it…

Hunter made 53 appearances for Northern Ireland and is Ipswich Town's most capped international player (47 appearances while at Ipswich). He was initially paired with Terry Neill. He scored his only international goal in a Euro 1976 qualifying game against Sweden in September 1975. He also played alongside such notables as Alan Ball, Colin Bell, Bobby Charlton, Bobby Moore and Emlyn Hughes for the "New European Common Market" against the "Old ECM" in a match at Wembley celebrating the admission to the European Common Market of the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark in January 1973.

In 1982, Hunter accepted the role of player-manager at Colchester United where he appointed former Ipswich coach Cyril Lea as his assistant. Hunter did not last long in the position, and following the suicide of John Lyons in November 1982, he resigned from the club, leaving Lea in charge.

Ipswich Town

FA Cup: 1977–78 Individual

Ipswich Town Player of the Year: 1975–76 Ipswich Town Hall of Fame: Inducted 2009