Saturday 28th September 1974
Layer Road Stadium
Ground Capacity:- 19,000
Kick Off:- 15:00
Entry Fee:- £0.30p
Programme:- £0.10p
Venue #5
Layer Road was built in 1907 originally to stage home games for Colchester Town who were dissolved in 1937 and Colchester United were formed to take their place and play as a professional outfit.
The U's spent the first 13 years playing in the Southern league finally being elected to play in division 3 south for the 1950/51 season. Their first game at layer Road that season ended in a 0-0 draw against Bristol Rovers on the 26th August.
Colchester United's biggest attendance at Layer Road was 19,072 against Reading in a F.A. cup first round match on 27th November 1948, the match was abandoned with the score at 4-2 to Reading.
The ground was sold in 2008 to create a housing estate after being the venue for Colchester's football for 101 years. Colchester United now play their home games at Colchester Community Stadium which opened in August 2008 at a cost of £14 million. The Community stadium has a capacity of just over 10,000 and is approximately 6 miles north of where the old Layer Road ground used to be.
COLCHESTER UNITED ... 1 WALSALL ... 2
The talk before this game was the rivalry between Colchester and Walsall's top marksmen, Bobby Svarc was the u's main man although his first season at Layer Road was marred by injury he was starting to show signs of why Jim Smith paid £6,000 for him from Boston utd. Steve Leslie was top goal scorer at the time with four goals three of them of which were penalties while Svarc scored the only goal of the game away at Aldershot the weekend before bringing another much needed two points.
Alan Buckley was Saddlers star man with nine goals from twelve games three braces included in the tally and looking one of Walsall's best buys ever in the goal scoring department. With scouts from top clubs following his progress there were fears that the Saddlers would not be able to keep hold of the Mansfield born striker.
And as the result shows both these marksmen had a say in the outcome with all three goals coming in the space of eight minutes early in the second half, Buckley opened in the 50th minute with his tenth of the season but Svarc levelled for the U's six minutes later only for Buckley to have the final say in the 58th minute with his fourth brace of the campaign and taking his tally to eleven.
Walsall's defence were well spoken of in the press after the game with the Saddlers keeper Mick Kearns named as the official man of the match.
MATCH DETAILS
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