Colchester United U21

When Colchester Town folded in December 1937, a dozen directors and a handful of enthusiasts had already split professional football away from the town's amateur side that March, and it was this new venture that absorbed them. Ted Davis took the manager's job at the outset, with Walter Clarke and Maurice Pye steering the boardroom through those first years. Within two seasons the U's, as the shortened form of United had them known, were champions of the Southern League.

Money trouble shaped the club more than any run of form. By 1990 the debts had grown heavy enough that Layer Road itself, home for 71 years, had to be sold to the city council for £1.2 million just to keep the accounts straight. The ground stayed in use until 2008, when Colchester moved to what is now the JobServe Community Stadium, a 10,105-seat arena on the edge of town.

The finest season came earlier, in 1991–92, when the U's won the Football Conference to climb straight back into the Football League and beat Witton Albion 3-1 at Wembley to lift the FA Trophy in the same campaign. It remains the closest thing the club has to a golden year.

Essex still frames how the season is judged. Southend United bring the Essex derby, while the trip up the A12 to face Ipswich Town carries its own name and its own weight among supporters, a fixture that matters more than the league table sometimes suggests.