Swaffham Town FC (England)

Swaffham Town are one of many Norfolk clubs who play in the famous black and white striped kit. Quite why the strip is so popular up that way is unclear, but still very welcome. At this point in their development they play in the Eastern Counties League - the tenth level of English football - where they have been for most of the last decade - although they first reach this level back in 1990.

Known locally as The Pedlars, they were formed in the tiny Norfolk town of Swaffham in 1892 - a place perhaps most famous for being the location for Steven Fry's Norfolk-based legal drama Kingdom - although they changed the name of the place to Market Shipborough for the series.

Back in 1959 they splashed out and bought the one and a half acre site that they turned into their Shoemakers Lane Ground, for a princely sum of £250, and built their first proper clubhouse on the site in 1967 after getting a loan from a local brewery for the building work. Recent years have seen them improve the facilities greatly, in the hope that they will eventually be able to work their way up the leagues on the pitch. But with many of the clubs at this level, most of the work is done on a volunteer basis by the fans, committee and players themselves. Fan involvement plays such an important part at this level, and it's the foundations that grassroots are built on. Good on 'em all!

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Long Melford FC (England)

You may not have heard of them, but Long Melford are one of the oldest clubs in England, and indeed the world, having been first formed in 1868 in the village of Melford on Suffolk's southern border with Essex. At the time of writing they are about to start their seventh season in the Eastern Counties Football League Division One, the tenth step on the pyramid.

Their biggest successes have come in the Suffolk Senior Cup, having won the knock-out a total of six times right across their history. They started with a pair of quick wins in 1894 and 1895, waited until the fifties, when they held it three times off the bat starting in 1953, and then again more recently in 2003, when they hammered Stanton 5-0 in the final. They also have five Essex & Suffolk Border League titles, and three league cups from the same organisation under their belts.

They play their home matches at one of the best stadiums at this level in the modern and pretty well-appointed Stoneylands ground, where you can enjoy the delights of the local cult eatery, Sam's Snack Bar. Newly decked out for the 2010/11 season, they're noted for their bacon and egg bapss - in fact, they'll put bacon in pretty much anything you ask them too - but they'll also serve you with a rather more classy cappuccino too, and as such have perhaps the best catering in the entire tenth tier.

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Woodbridge Town FC (England)

Woodbridge Town started their footballing career with a bang when on 7th November 1885 they beat St Helens (Ipswich) a cool 10-0. The same year they became founder members of the Suffolk County Football Association, as well as the very first winners of the Suffolk Senior Cup, beating Ipswich Town 3-1 at Portman Road in a second replay, after draws of 2-2 and 0-0 in the first two games, under their original name of Woodbridge Combination.

The following years saw a string of trophy wins in a scattered variety of local and regional leagues and cups, and theirs is a pretty busy trophy cabinet, holding in total 29 portions of silverware. They play at Notcutts  Park in the town of Woodbridge, a tide harbour town on the River Debden. The area gained international notoriety in 1980 when unexplained lights let to a number of UFO sightings in what came to be known as the Rendlesham Forest Incident. It is unclear whether they were real UFOs, secret aircraft flying about at the nearby US Airforce base RAF Woodbridge or just the floodlights of Notcutts Park on a misty evening.

Many teams who play in black and white stripes have nicknames connected to the ainimal world. There are dozens of zebras, quite a few magpies and a good few assorted badgers, ravens, penguins and friesians. But Woodbridge's nickname is a little more unique and more related to their name than their colours. Come on you Woodpeckers!

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