Club History
About Us 1 of 2

1. Club History


Wokingham & Emmbrook Football Club was formed in the summer of 2004 by the merger of 2 long established clubs from Wokingham. After a somewhat nomadic existence in recent years last season we re-established senior football back in Wokingham for the 2019/20 season at Lowther Road Emmbrook almost 20 years since Wokingham Town moved from their Finchampstead Road Ground in 1999.

In our first season as Wokingham & Emmbrook, as the merger ‘bedded-in’ and the restructuring took shape, under the guidance of Glenn Duggleby as manager and Dave Evans as his coach, we finished in 11th position in the Hellenic League, Division 1 East. In the season 2005/06 we finished in 3rd place, our highest ever placing in the league, having been in contention for the championship for most of the season, under the experienced guidance of Tony Calvert, as 1st team player-manager and Dave Evans as his coach. The season 2006/07 started with the managerial partnership of Jez Lynch and Danny Humphries under the chairmanship of Kearon Brown. Despite the three’s best efforts both on and off the pitch they parted company with the club leaving a legacy of some excellent players who would go on and serve the club well. In November 2007 the experienced Allied Counties manager, Wayne Wanklyn, was appointed. Wayne appointed existing reserve team boss, Roger Herridge as his assistant & Sam Page, from the Allied Counties set-up as his coach. During his tenure Wayne secured promotion to the Hellenic Premier Division and won the Reading Challenge Cup at the Madjeski Stadium in May beating Woodley Town. In 2010 Wayne stepped down as First Team Manager and the club again looked internally, promoting Roger Herridge to First Team Manager and Dan Bateman to Assistant Manager and enjoyed a strong finish to their first season in the Hellenic Premier League finishing 11th.

Season 2011/12 saw more young local players progress through the Allied Counties team into the first team and saw the clubs first matches in the FA Cup in over ten years. A successful season saw the Sumas finish tenth in the league, reach the quarter final of the League Cup and win the Reading Challenge Cup at the Madjeski Stadium in May. In Season 2012/13 the Sumas were able to go a step further on the previous season, because, as well as retaining the Reading Senior Cup beating Marlow United 2-1 in the final, the Satsumas finished in 8th place in the Hellenic Premier League.

The 2013/14 season saw Wokingham & Emmbrook FC returning back home to Lowther Road, but having to drop down a division, playing in the Hellenic Division One East. Dan Bateman and Matt Eggleston took over the reigns as joint-managers, in a season that ended up with Wokingham continuously climbing the table and ending up runners-up in the league. The Sumas also retained the Reading Senior Cup for the third season running, beating local rivals Finchampstead 5-0 at Madjeski Stadium in the final. The 2014/15 season saw the Sumas determined to challenge for League honours and promotion from D1 to the Premier League. Again managed by Dan Bateman and Matt Eggleston this turned out to be one of the most successful seasons since forming Wokingham & Emmbrook, not only winning promotion as League Champions, but also retaining the Reading Senior Cup with a hard fought extra time victory over local rivals Binfield and also just missing out on the County Cup losing in the final to Reading YMCA . Based on the FA / Hellenic ground requirements the team moved into a ground share for the second half of the season with Henley Town but the 2015/16 season saw the demands of ground sharing take its toll as the team struggled to retain their League position and being relegated. For the 2016/17 season a management change saw Clive McNelly step up as first team manager & John Austin take on the reserves mantle. Playing out of Lowther Road, Emmbrook, unfortunately, the season did not pan out as expected with a number of player changes during the season, leaving the Sumas close to the bottom of Hellenic D1 east at the end of the season and the reserves in a similar position in D2.

In the 2017/18 season there were a number of changes within the senior section, with the thriving youth section taking over the running of the senior teams under the existing youth section committee. Steve Williams took over as Club Chairman, Bob Good, an ex Wokingham player himself, Club Secretary and a full set of committee members involved in every aspect of running the club. The new committee appointed Dan Bateman as 1st team manager, with a support team of Clive McNelly and Jamie Shepherd from the previous season. The reserves, who moved to the Thames Valley Premier league were managed by Ian Narraway (Naz) and Mark Best. As a result of these changes both teams challenged well in their respective divisions in Hellenic and TVPL leagues. The 2018/2019 season saw Dan Bateman look to youth introducing several of the successful U17s players into the team and whilst there was no silverware the team finished 6th.In addition to youth, there was also the welcome return of Matt Eggleston to First Team Management with Jamie Shepherd and Ben Winship as First Team Coaches .The reserves continued to progress again managed by Ian Narraway and Mark Best finishing a creditable 10th especially bearing in mind the amount of young players who featured regularly.

2020 /2021 - Following the opportunity to play Step 5/6 Football with our new facilities at Lowther Road in 2019 that included floodlights, a 100 seater stand and associated works we were disappointed that the season finished prematurely with us in 4th with the cessation of the season due COVID 19 .However for this season we are delighted to retain the Management & Coaching team and also we are pleased to retain almost all of our 2019/2020-season squad plus a few additions and this season also brings along fresh new young talent into the squads, many of who have played within the WEFC youth section for many years as well as from the Allied Counties U18 team.

The club has over 500 members, and operates 40+ teams across the youth section, playing across Saturdays and Sundays in the Berkshire Youth Development League, East Berks Football Alliance, Surrey Primary League and Berkshire County Girls Football League.

Our highly successful Sunday morning Football Fun programme sees on average 60 children attend, developing the fundamentals of the game. This is the first step of our player pathway for the move to organised football, and the success of this programme is illustrated by the fact that we are consistently fielding up to 5 sides in the U7/8 age-groups. Girls football is gathering great momentum at the club, with teams at most age-groups from U10 upwards, and an U18 team competing in the Thames Valley County Women’s Football League. We are a sister club with Reading FC Ladies and look forward to developing this partnership further going forward.

In recognition of good practice Wokingham & Emmbrook FC was awarded Charter Standard Community Club status – the highest level of grassroots accreditation - in June 2015, and in 2017/18 were named as Berks & Bucks Charter Standard Club of the Year.