News

New club in Sudbury opens with help from some Layer Road legends

We were delighted to see our latest club was launched earlier this week, as our Sudbury club, hosted at Kingfisher Leisure Centre, opened its door to people from the local community in Suffolk.

The launch session saw locals come along to hear from two Colchester United legends in Micky Packer and Micky Cook. During the session, the audience heard from both Micky’s as they shared their experiences of playing football in the 1960s and their memories of playing at Layer Road, the former home of the U’s until they moved in 2008.

Both Micky’s played over 900 games for the Essex club and they detailed how they both came through the ranks of youth football before entering first-team football at Colchester, and also shared experience of playing at hostile venues such as Millwall’s Den ground.

Finally it was time for the audience to get their opportunity to ask the pair some further questions about their careers and what they thought about the modern game. The session seemed to go down very well with the audience in attendance with many agreeing to come back for the next session.

Speaking afterwards, Andy Read, the Facilitator of the new club in Sudbury, was delighted to get the club underway and is hopeful to encourage those at the first session and others to play their part in making the club a thriving part of the community.

“It was great to finally get the club underway and to have over 30 people come along to the first session was more than I expected. Someone has just said thanks to me on the way out and they’ll see me next week, which I think is a great sign!

“I’d like to see the participants guide the sessions as we move forward, as this club is really all about them and getting everyone to express themselves about sport, as well as hopefully making friends along the way. Today’s session was about football, but we hope to encourage those who love all sports to bring discussion points to the sessions. We also want a wide range of people to attend as this club is open to women and men.

“A big thank you also goes to Kingfisher Leisure Centre, who have kindly supported by providing us with the opportunity to host our club here. We hope we can continue to work together as the club progresses in the future.”

The club will be running every Wednesday at Kingfisher Leisure Centre starting at 2.15PM. If you’re interested in attending, or know of someone who would like to join, please contact Andy via andy.read@talk21.com or visit Together Group | Abbeycroft Leisure (acleisure.com).