Clacton-on-Sea possible invasion beach-head for Napoleon and his Dutch allies. There was a large army and militia camp where Holland-on-Sea now stands. In 1810 5 Martello Towers were built there to guard the beaches between Jaywick and Holland. Clacton was still a small village and a few outlying hamlets when the Essex railway engineer Peter Bruff, the steamboat owner William Jackson, and a group of businessmen built a pier and hotel there in the 1871. In the 1880s the Great Eastern Railway reached it, and it grew into the largest seaside resort between Southend and Yarmouth, with some 10,000 people by
F.C. Clacton clubs left the Premier Division and only two clubs were promoted from Division One. Old Clactonians initially played on a pitch behind the Queen's Head pub in Great Clacton, before moving to a ground behind the National Schools in 1903. In 1906 they were invited to share the Old Road Ground by Clacton Cricket Club. The ground had a wooden stand purchased from Barnardo's Homes. The ground was reorganised in 1935 when a car park was built on around a third of its area and a new wooden stand was erected; the original stand was later dismantled as it was