Identity & place
What this club is really about
Colchester United are not best understood through a trophy count. Their identity comes from the break with the old amateur Colchester Town in 1937, seven decades at an eccentric and intimate Layer Road, and a sequence of moments when a modest club suddenly occupied a much bigger football stage: Leeds in 1971, the non-league double and Football League return in 1992, Wembley promotion in 1998, then a first rise to the Championship and a 10th-place finish in 2006/07. The club's most durable figures tend to combine longevity, local connection or improbable ascent: Peter Wright, Roy McDonough, Karl Duguid, Jamie Cureton and others.
Place, industry & identity