Leiston

Leiston go into the season in the Southern League Premier Division Central, and Victory Road again measures itself against the same run of Suffolk and Essex sides that have made up the division since.

The club grew out of the Richard Garrett Engineering Works, whose workers formed the team in 1880, and it carried that works identity through its early Suffolk & Ipswich League seasons, taking the title three years running from 1900–01 to 1902–03. Victory Road, known locally as the Flannery Stadium, has been home since 1921, when the club left the old Recreation Ground; it holds 2,250, with 250 of those seated.

The record crowd there dates to 2008–09, when Fleetwood Town came for a first-round FA Cup tie and left with a 0–0 draw in front of 1,250 people before winning the replay 2–0 — as far as Leiston have taken a cup run against Football League opposition. Promotion has come in pairs rather than singly: back-to-back titles in 2010–11 and 2011–12, the Eastern Counties League Premier Division followed by the Isthmian League Division One North, took the club from Suffolk football into the wider non-league pyramid inside two seasons, after decades in the 1980s and 90s spent going up and down the county leagues.

Darren Eadie and Chris Wigger, both of whom played for Norwich City, now share the manager's job, continuing a pipeline that has brought several Norwich and Colchester United academy graduates through Leiston's ranks. The derby against Lowestoft Town goes back to 1895 and remains the fixture the town measures its season by.

What the club has not managed, for all the cup runs and the 2011–12 double promotion, is a step into the National League system above Step 2.