Letchworth Garden
City Eagles
Letchworth
Garden City Eagles
FOOTBALL CLUB
The Eagles were founded in 1978/9 as a junior club known as
Westbury United, based on the estate where most players lived. They
later changed their name to Letchworth Garden City Eagles and now
enter two adult sides in the Herts Senior County League as well as
junior teams from U7 to U18 in the Royston Crow Youth League and
Mid Herts Minors League.
Football Focus Magazine recently
caught up with their Chairman Tony
Eden who told us, “I first became
involved with the club in the early
1990’s when my young son started to
play football for the Eagles and I was
subsequently chairman of the club for
around twenty years in two spells before
handing over the reins to the current
chairman Paul Scott two seasons ago.”
“It is very challenging running a
junior club with some 500 registered
members from under 7 to under 18, as
well as the adult sides. Senior football
offers totally different challenges because
it has a different financial model, and it
is far less easy to enlist adult volunteers
than from parents of the juniors. Enticing
adult players to part with a playing
subscription is far harder than collecting
subs from willing parents.
“The whole financial structure of
running adult sides is different with
a need to attract more commercial
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sponsorship and higher outgoings in
terms of administration costs, and the
cost of match officials. However, our
first team has enjoyed considerable
success since 2008 in both league and
cup competitions, which has made the
experience very rewarding.
“Having successful adult teams
encourages young players to the club
and the opportunity for our talented
youngsters to progress within the club in
the hope that they will one day play for
one of the senior teams. The junior club
has an excellent record of producing
talented youngsters, many of whom
have progressed to professional clubs
such as Arsenal, Watford, Cambridge
and MK Dons.
“The current season has gone
particularly well for the first team,
enjoying success in both league and cup
competitions. The aim this season is to
get promotion to level 6 in the Spartan
South Midland League Division 1.
“Our reserve side has also had a
good season so far in league and cup
competitions and is a vital cog in the
club machine of producing players from
our youth section. Youth football is the
lifeblood of the club. We also want to
develop more girls teams, to feed players
from the juniors into our adult ladies
team. In this way we seek to achieve a
smooth transition from junior into senior
football.
“We are very much a community
club with many managers of youth teams
having played for the Eagles as children
themselves. We have close funding links
with the North Herts District Council,
Letchworth Civic Trust and North Herts
District Council, which has enabled us to
improve our facilities in recent years.
“The biggest challenge facing us
is to upgrade our facilities to the level
required in a higher standard of adult
football. In 2016 we added a new bar and
lounge to our clubhouse, and in 2017