Ed Sheeran signs guitar made from Ipswich Town steel

An electric guitar built using old steel from a football stand has been signed by musician Ed Sheeran.

Ipswich Town's electrician, Christopher Rush, made it using conduit tubing that was due to be sent for scrap.

Town fan Sheeran wrote "play this guitar, love from Ed" on the instrument when he played his live-streamed gig at the Portman Road stadium last month.

It was hoped the sale of the guitar would raise funds for the club's Community Trust.

The conduit was used in the body of the guitar, where the tubing was shaped to resemble a section of floodlight pylon.

"We were just up rewiring some bits of the Cobbold [stand] and some old bits of electrical conduit came out and I made a guitar out of it," said Mr Rush.

He said the steel was "destined to be scrapped" so he decided to recycle it and created the six-stringer over the course of a year.

He had already made five other guitars, but this was the first time he used scrap metal from Portman Road, he said.

Sheeran, who is from Framlingham in Suffolk, was asked to sign it when he was playing his live-streamed, no-audience gig at the ground in June.

"We managed to leave it in his chill-out area and he signed it for us, luckily," Mr Rush said.

Mr Rush is modest about his own musical skills and told the BBC "I do play a little bit, but I tend to make them better than I play them".

"It's in the shape of a [Fender] Telecaster, so you can play it as easily as any Telecaster," he added.

He was finalising how the guitar will be sold but hoped it would make a lot of money for the Ipswich Town Football Club Community Trust.

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