Bowthorpe's walking football club are over-70s national champions again, their third WFA title after 2021 and 2022. How to join, and what it costs.

Norwich Soca Seniors are the over-70s national walking football champions for 2026. The Bowthorpe club now lists itself on its own website as “70+ WFA Cup Winners 2026”.

It is the club’s third over-70s title in the Walking Football Association’s National Cup. The WFA’s roll of honour records Norwich Soca Seniors as winners in 2021 and 2022. The three years in between went elsewhere: Blackburn in 2023, then Kingston in 2024 and 2025. So this year’s win takes the cup back from a club that had held it for two seasons.

The WFA calls the National Cup the oldest and largest walking football tournament in the world. Men’s teams play four rounds between April and August, and the WFA gives the grand finals as 5 and 6 September, at Nottingham University.

Neither the club nor the WFA had published the final’s opponent or score when we checked on 17 September, so we have not reported one.

A club that keeps winning

The over-70s cup is the latest in a run the club records on its own site:

  • 2021: WFA National Cup winners, over-70s, played at Watford. The over-65s were runners-up the same year, at Barnsley.
  • 2022: WFA National Cup winners again, over-70s, played at Lilleshall. The WFA also named it Club of the Year.
  • 2025: FA Walking Football Cup winners, over-50s.
  • 2026: WFA National Cup winners, over-70s.
Timeline of Norwich Soca Seniors' national titles: over-70s WFA National Cup winners in 2021, 2022 and 2026, FA Walking Football Cup over-50s winners in 2025
The club's national record, from its own website and the WFA roll of honour.

From a taster session to 160 members

The club’s own history starts with a walking football taster session at the Football Development Centre (FDC) in Bowthorpe in 2015. Seven or eight players turned up. Players from the FDC and from sessions at the UEA Sportspark formed Norwich Soca Seniors late that year, loosely naming it after Boca Juniors.

By its July 2026 update, the club had 160 members. That same post describes its annual charity tournament at the FDC on 19 July:

  • 33 teams and more than 250 players, across over-50s, over-60s and over-70s
  • two teams travelling from Malta
  • referees who were, all but one, trained by the club itself
  • money raised for the British Heart Foundation and Age UK Norwich

The club says its tournaments have raised some £30,000 for good causes in total. It believes the July event is the biggest one-day walking football tournament in the country. That is the club’s own claim, and we have not found a count to check it against.

What it means for you

Walking football is football without running, and with strict limits on contact. It is built for people who stopped playing years ago, and this club plays on the city’s western edge.

If you want to try it, here is what the club’s website sets out:

  • Where: The FDC, Bowthorpe Park, Norwich NR5 9ED
  • When: Mondays and Fridays, 10am to 12 noon
  • Cost: £1 for a month’s membership, then £5.50 a session
  • Who: people who have played football or walking football before, and who have their doctor’s permission to play a physically demanding sport
  • New to the game? The club says it can point newcomers, and anyone advised to take something gentler, towards affiliated sessions at a suitable level

Visiting players from other clubs on holiday in Norfolk are welcome, with contact at least two days ahead. Contact details are on the club’s website.

Sources