It was arguably Ipswich’s best footballing achievement for years: an historic clock town in Norwich undergoing repair work was draped in blue and white sheeting.

Ipswich Star: Norwich City Hall clock tower surrounded by yellow and green safety netting. Picture : ANTONY KELLYNorwich City Hall clock tower surrounded by yellow and green safety netting. Picture : ANTONY KELLY

For weeks, the famous colours of the Blues stood tall in the city centre. The clock tower of City Hall, cocooned in scaffolding for £200,000 repair work, became a social media hit among both sets of fans.

The appearance of the blue and white sheeting triggered rumours on social media that an Ipswich-based scaffolding company had played a cunning joke on Norwich fans.

Norwich City Council later cleared up the situation. Blue and white are in fact the company colours of Narford Scaffolding, based in Swaffham.

But today, Ipswich are no longer flying high in Norwich. The blue and white debris netting have been replaced with green and yellow, the colours of Norwich City.

Narfold Scaffolding contractor JB Specialist Refurbishments, based in Huntingdon, near Cambridge, which is working on the clock tower, changed the sheeting to yellow and green as the next stage of repairs gets under way.

Joe Brown tweeted: “Norwich City Hall clock tower scaffolding draped in more Norwich-appropriate colours.”

Norwich City finished 8th in the Championship for the 2016/17 season, eight places above their rivals.

JB Specialist Refurbishments have been contacted and we are waiting for comment.

Four long vertical pieces of metal which sit on each corner at clock level, known as finials, need to be taken away for repairs.

Those finials, and a fifth, right at the top of the tower, need to be removed, cleaned and recoated before they are re-fixed.

The 14-week work is being carried out in conjunction with the city council’s conservation team and Historic England.

Due to the scaffolding accounting for at least half the cost of the work, the city council is also taking the opportunity to carry out other repair work, including repointing some of the brickwork.