Great Wakering Rovers

Kestrel Printing Limited are proud to Sponsor Great Wakering Rovers Football Club.

We do this through various means from printing the match day programme to sponsoring individual players.

Check out their website at www.gwrovers.com

Club History.

The club was formed in 1919 by soldiers de-mobbed after World War 1 and finding employment in the local brickfields. Not much in memory remains of the early years of the club although the club does possess some wonderful pictures from around that period.

In 1985, The Rovers acquired a long lease from the local parish council on 104 disused allotments.  From the very start, volunteers came forward with their various professional skills to start the football club’s dream.  The help of local farmer, businessman and lifelong Rovers man, Roger Burroughs, was paramount in this plan as Roger provided the heavy machinery and equipment to clear the land, dig the drainage and remove any excess soil and rubbish.  He aided with the creation of the pitch area, which when laid, was seeded and left for two years to settle and grow.  The club of course were extremely grateful for this massive support that would otherwise have taken a number of years to achieve and in recognition of its gratitude, named it’s ground after Roger and ‘Burroughs Park’ was born.

In 1989 the pitch and clubhouse were ready to be used and so The Rovers stepped up from playing local league football to playing Intermediate level and joined the Essex Intermediate League.  Building and ground improvements continued and in 1992 the ground was graded and the club took it’s place in the Essex Senior League for the 1992-93 season.  Building continued further, extending the newly built clubhouse in order to provide bigger changing room facilities in accordance with senior status rules.
 After seven highly enjoyable years in the Essex Senior League, the club won promotion to the Ryman Isthmian Football League and competed in Division Three in 1999-2000.  This move saw the end of a feature that was much talked about by visitors to Great Wakering, and that was the hard standing area around the pitch, which was made of tons of crushed cockle shells obtained from the local shellfish industry at Leigh-On-Sea.  The shells were not accepted at our new playing level.  The main stand was improved by obtaining seats from Bolton Wanderers’ old ground of Burnden Park.  A new stand was also added in the summer of 2000, covered terracing, almost directly opposite the old seated stand.

In 2009-2010 season, The Rovers gained access to old allotment land next to Burroughs Park.  During the summer of 2009, a tall perimeter fence was erected, protecting gardens and allotments from wayward balls.  The land was stripped of old vegetation and de-stoned by volunteers, management and players, as well as the Chairman himself, and then seeded.
 Currently, players use the training ground for pre-match warm ups.

In 2010 the floodlights were transferred from generator to mains electric.

Further to this, Rovers erected a covered terrace covering a back portion of the clubhouse to protect those wanting cooked food from the elements.