The FA have, today, completed the restructure of the National League System and the club allocations for the 2021/22 season has been completed, subject to FA Council Ratification.
This means we say goodbye to Stowmarket Town, who have been awarded a place at Step 4 in The Isthmian League.
Stanway Rovers and FC Clacton both move across to The Essex Senior League, while another Rovers, Godmanchester, will play in The United Counties League.
We welcome Fakenham Town, Lakenheath, March Town and Mulbarton Wanderers into the Premier Division and look forward to our fixtures next season.
It will be the first time that we play both Mulbarton and Lakenheath so 2 new grounds for the gound hoppers to tick off the list.
Fakenham have a superior head to head record against us, having won 13 of the 29 encounters but the most recent match, 17 years ago we came out on top 5-1 winners.
Our last meeting with March Town United at home was much more recent in December 2017. Macca (2), Tosh, Bowman and Keeble getting the goals in a 5-1 victory. We have to go back to 1996 for our biggest win where Simon Fryatt netted a hat trick in a 6-0 scoreline.
We lost 2 Essex clubs and now have an additional 2 sides from Norfolk. However we will still have 10 Suffolk away trips to enjoy in the new season.
We'll have to travel a total of 943 miles on the road this year with the average away game being just under 50 miles away. The furthest we have to travel is 86 miles to March Town, with Fakenham only a 3 mile shorter distance. After losing some relatively closer matches we'll have to travel an additional 87 miles this season.
Of course we still have some reasonably short journeys to Brantham and Hadleigh, and, of course, Whitton who we haven't visited for a while due to curtailed seasons.
The new league season will start on the 31st of July and the fixtures will come thick and fast as the leagues attempt to 'front load' the season to avoid fixture backlogs in the event of postponements.
Just one week later will be the extra preliminary round of The FA Cup on the 7th of August.
Pre-Season Fixtures will be announced over the coming weeks as Leon prepares his squad for the new season.
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