Former members of a once successful village football team are being invited to a reunion next month.

Eastern Daily Press: Reedham FC from 1948 to 1949Reedham FC from 1948 to 1949 (Image: Archant)

Keith Patterson and Malcolm Forder are seeking to bring together members of Reedham Football Club's former Saturday team.

The team, known as the Reedham Rats, experienced varying success in the Great Yarmouth District Football League, until its demise in the mid-1980s.

The club won six league titles, reached five Wiltshire Cup finals and eight league Cup finals, winning six.

The team also reached the Norfolk Junior Cup final, which was played at Carrow Road in front of more than 1,000 people, on three separate occasions.

Now, more than 30 years after the club folded, former players Mr Patterson and Mr Forder, are seeking to reunite the team.

Mr Patterson, 73, said: 'This club represented my entire sporting life and that was the same for a lot of people living here. But like everything else we have all drifted apart over the years.

'One of our long standing players, Albert Mallett, died a year ago and when we had his funeral all the old boys came along, so we thought about having a reunion.'

A dwindling supply of new players had led to the club's closure in the 1980s.

It returned for a brief spell a decade later, but failed to take off. There is now only a Sunday league football team based in the village.

Mr Patterson, who played for the club across four decades after joining in November 1958, aged 15, said: 'In the days long before TV, we used to get good crowds, but over the years the team started to dwindle and it faded like all local football in the area.'

The reunion is to take place at The Ship, in Reedham, on April 9 and people from as far away as Scotland are expected to come down for the event.

Mr Patterson added: 'It could have been at least 20 years since I have seen some of them to be honest.

'But It will be brilliant to see them again.'