Layer Road

Layer Road was a Football League stadium in Colchester, England. It was only used for football matches and was the home ground of Colchester United before being replaced by the Colchester Community Stadium. 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 fixture against Reading in November 1948, a match that was abandoned. The ground was also used to host Sudbury Town's FA Cup match against Brentford 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 match at Layer Road took place on 26 April 2008, when Colchester lost 1-0 to Stoke City, with Richard Cresswell scoring the last goal at the stadium.