Leiston has a proud and significant history for such a small town. It’s a huge part of the town’s heritage and has close ties with Leiston Football Club.

The Club was, for many years, closely associated with the thriving Richard Garretts works in the town and the early fixtures were played within the land owned by Garretts.

Richard Garrett’s boasted the world’s first flow assembly line for the manufacture of portable steam engines and employed hundreds in the town. Richard Garrett had two rather famous daughters, Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett (GBE) a politician, writer and prominent suffragist and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the first woman doctor in England and first woman to create a medical school for women.
 
In 1888 Leiston Works Athletic Association was founded by the late Mr. Frank Garrett who had the forethought for Physical recreation and Social life for his employees this started at the Recreation Ground adjacent to Gas Hill, but he went on to ultimately control nine acres of grounds Called Leiston Works Athletic Association in Victory Road in the early 1918 (accommodating, football, hockey, cricket, bowls, tennis and croquet as well as a club house catering for the indoor activities which a wit summed up mass “billiards and booze”).

In the early days, Leiston Football played their games on the old Recreation Ground; players would change either at the White Horse Hotel or at the Work Hall.

The home ground was changed to the LWAA (Leiston Works Athletic Association) when Garrett's bought the ground in Victory Road in the early 1918's and has remained the home ground to this day.

1918 A 150ft long wooden hut was erected for use as a drill hall, on the north-east corner of a parcel of land occupied by the LWAA sports ground, and a small hut was provided as a canteen and billiards room. The picture below many years later is still indicative of the hut as it originally was constructed.