Layer Road was a

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

stadium A stadium ( : stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand o ...

Colchester, England Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colchest ...

. It was only used for

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

matches and was the home ground of

Colchester United Colchester United Football Club is a professional association football club based in the city of Colchester, Essex, England. The team competes in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1937, the club spent its earl ...

before being replaced by the

Colchester Community Stadium Colchester Community Stadium, known for sponsorship reasons as the JobServe Community Stadium, is a football stadium in Colchester, England. It is the home of Colchester United Football Club. It has a capacity of 10,105 and opened in August 200 ...

. The stadium held spectators and was built in 1907, originally for use by Colchester Town Football Club. Layer Road has often had up to packed into the ground, when Colchester had been on a good FA Cup run, before the capacity was reduced to . The record attendance at Layer Road is for an

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

fixture against

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

in November 1948, a match that was abandoned. The ground was also used to host Sudbury Town's

match against

Brentford Brentford is a suburban town in West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the Thames, west of Charing Cross. Its economy has diverse company headquarters buildings whi ...

in 1996, as their Priory Stadium was deemed unfit. One of the unusual features of the ground was at the Layer Road End, where the back of the goal and the netting actually cut back into the stand. The most recent development to the ground was the construction of a small, temporary seating stand for housing away supporters. It held 143 supporters and was similar to the ''chocolate boxes'' at The Dell. The last first team match at Layer Road took place on 26 April 2008, when Colchester lost 1–0 to

Stoke City Stoke City Football Club is a professional football club based in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, which competes in the . Founded as Stoke Ramblers in 1863, it changed its name to Stoke in 1878 and then to Stoke City in 1925 after Stoke ...

, with

Richard Cresswell Richard Paul Wesley Cresswell (born 20 September 1977) is an English football coach and former professional player who played as a striker. He played in the Premier League and Football League for York City, Mansfield Town, Sheffield Wednesda ...

scoring the last goal at the stadium. Just three days after the first team farewell, Layer Road hosted a Pontins Holiday Combination reserve league fixture on Tuesday 29 April 2008 when 471 witnessed Colchester United beat Peterborough United 3-0 in the last competitive game at the ground with the floodlights being used for the final time. Dulwich Hamlet youth team were invited to a behind closed doors friendly on 11 July 2008 where Colcheter won 7-0 in what became the final game of football ever played at Layer Road. The stadium was locked for the last time on 17 July 2008 after 101 years in use (71 of them as the home of Colchester United), being demolished by the end of the year. In 2011 a deal was signed to build flats and houses on the site, with a central open grassed space to reflect its history as a football ground.Colchester: Layer Road’s future finally announced
East Anglian Daily Times, 30 July 2011 In mid-2012, Layer Road was demolished with the construction of houses commencing immediately. In 2015 a bronze statue of Peter Wright (Colchester United's Player of the Century) was unveiled by his widow Lindsey and Sir Bob Russell MP to commemorate Peter Wright, the fact that the site was home to Colchester United for seventy years and the supporters' ashes which had been scattered on the pitch as an expression of their love for the club. The statue was made by local artist Mandy Pratt and cast at Butterfly Bronze Foundry in Romford by Will Hayes

References

External links

Colchester United F.C. {{Colchester United F.C. Defunct football venues in England Colchester United F.C. Sports venues completed in 1910 Sports venues demolished in 2012 Sports venues in Colchester Football venues in Essex Defunct sports venues in Essex English Football League venues Demolished sports venues in the United Kingdom