I’M not sure which of the following is the greatest understatement.

That Ipswich Town are in desperate need of a fillip, during their season of abject disappointment and failure.

Or that they’re long overdue an FA Cup adventure, having failed to win a game in the competition – and get beyond the third round – since 2010.

Both, sadly, ring depressingly true but they have a chance to rectify matters (or at least provide a crumb of comfort, in the midst of their dismal league campaign) by winning at Accrington Stanley on Saturday.

Town are a Championship side (I’m going to say that as often as possible while I still can) while the Lancastrians are mid-table in League One.

However, the Blues don’t have history on their side when it comes to the FA Cup.

In fact, it’s been a barren three decades with early exits, upsets and anti-climax reigning supreme.

My earliest Ipswich memory in the competition is an emphatic 3-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest at the start of 1989.

Thirty years have therefore slithered by since and, in that time, Town have unceremoniously crashed out at the third-round hurdle 16 times.

They’ve won a game and got to the fourth round nine times and the fifth round on four occasions.

But only once in my lifetime have they cobbled together a proper run and reached the quarter-finals – and that was back in 1993 when they eliminated Plymouth, Tranmere and Grimsby before being booted out by mighty Arsenal (I can still see Paul Merson now, goading home fans by swigging from an imaginary champagne bottle).

I can count on one hand – or both thumbs – the genuine highlights in those 30 years.

The first, and best, was a tumultuous match at Anfield in the 1991-92 promotion season, when Town pushed eventual winners Liverpool all the way to extra time before losing 3-2.

The sides had drawn 0-0 at a windswept Portman Road and when Ray Houghton put the Reds ahead, I feared the worst for John Lyall’s men.

However, they equalised through Gavin Johnson’s bullet header and then, amazingly, nosed ahead in the first period of extra time through Jason Dozzell.

Alas, it wasn’t to be.

Goals from Jan Molby and a young Steve McManaman turned the tie on its head and continued Liverpool’s march to the final, in which they eventually toppled Sunderland.

My other great FA Cup memory came four years later, when Town won their third-round replay at Blackburn.

Rovers' cup of woe was filled to overflowing by a patched-up Blues side that relied on the brilliance of 18-year-old goalkeeper Richard Wright and 38-year-old veteran John Wark.

Boss George Burley had warned that despite their problems that season, his side were not travelling north to be cannon fodder for the reigning Premier League champions.

And his defiant words rang true.

Wright performed heroics with a catalogue of top-class saves to thwart Alan Shearer before Paul Mason popped up with a dramatic winner to silence Ewood Park.

There have been a couple of other memorable moments down the years - winning at Elland Road in 1990 and thumping Spurs 3-0 in 94.

But the lowlights have undoubtedly dominated, including a couple of upsets (against Wrexham in 95 and Lincoln in 2017) and a 7-0 mauling at Chelsea in 2011.

Town’s recent record is especially catastrophic - more the misery of the cup, rather than the magic - and it seems an age since goals from Jack Colback and Owen Garvan handed them a 2-1 victory at Blackpool in January 2010. Their last FA Cup victory.

Let’s hope they provide some much-needed and long-overdue cheer 30-odd miles east of Bloomfield Road, at Accrington’s Crown Ground, on Saturday.