Category: Cambridgeshire FA

Bobby Moore pulled my shorts down

1/22/2019

It was great to hear from our old friend Vic Phillips recently, writing about another of his brushes with greatness.

As Vic is always quick – a bit too quick if you ask me – to point out, he wasn’t quite good enough to make it as a professional footballer, but he did make seven first-team appearances for the U’s between 1957/58 and 1961/62.

He was a star of the highly successful United youth side of the late 1950s, and good enough to be selected to represent Cambridgeshire in a youth challenge match against West Ham’s youngsters at the Abbey Stadium on 1 October 1958.

Among the young Hammers, wearing the number four shirt that night, was a certain 17-year-old by the name of R Moore. He had made his senior team debut about three weeks before, against Manchester United.

‘It’s interesting to note,’ writes Vic, ‘that as our Brian Moore was leaving West Ham to join Cambridge United, Bobby Moore was showing Hammers scouts that he was worth another look. You might find this piece of history interesting.’

You bet your sweet bippy we do. Vic continues:

‘It was a big night for us lads of Cambs County. Bobby Moore, the kid who was going to stun the football world, was coming to town, with other young Hammers of some note.

'There were five of us from Cambridge United playing that night and one of them (Tony Willson) is still my mucker. I suppose we all hoped we would make it but it wasn’t to be.’

Here I should point out that Brian Hart, the first United player to be selected for international honours when he played for England Youth in May 1959, signed for West Brom a few months later. He spent several years at the Hawthorns before moving on to the Southern League clubs Nuneaton Borough, Cambridge City and Wellington Town, and played at Wembley in two FA Trophy finals. Watch Brian on Coconuts TV here.

Carry on, Vic.

‘However, to play against Bobby Moore and have him pull my shorts down was a privilege and I have dined out on the story a few times.’

I never made professional
First of October (would I forget?) 1958,
The Hammers youth – Newmarket Road – Cambs County lads await.

Yes we’re out there, kicking in, Bobby leads them out.
The Golden Boy from Barking! Would this be a rout?

It didn’t go well: we lost 1-5 and midway through the game,
Bobby pulled my shorts down – no accident; his blame!

I didn’t like it – lost my rag but waited for my chance,
Minutes later, the ref’s blind side, I caught him a side glance.

Never made it, short of skill, but memories I store.
I never turned professional, but I did kick Bobby Moore!

Vic Phillips

Vic is a poet, wouldn’t you know it, as well as a decent bowls player. He describes the shorts-lowering incident and his careful retaliation in the verse at the top of this post.

‘The Cambs side went on to play London Youth at Stamford Bridge, where another star played – one Terry Venables.

‘It’s such a long time ago now, and sometimes when my knees give me gyp I wish I had never seen a football. Hey-ho, but it was a great time for us and Cambs County.’

Pages from the Cambs v West Ham programme, reproduced above, show that the United Five were Vic, Tony, Brian, Roger Tailby and Dave Stocker.

The West Ham side is bristling with future pros like Harry Cripps, Jack Burkett, Bobby Keetch, Eddie Bovington, Derek Woodley, Andy Smillie, John Cartwright and Tony Scott.

Oh, and shorts-puller Bobby Moore.

Cheerio
Harry

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In the master's footsteps

8/25/2018

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George Alsop with the Cambs Challenge Cup, Milton Road, 18 April 1925. Photo: Cambridge Chronicle/Cambridgeshire Collection at Cambridge Central Library

An edited version of this article appeared in the Cambridge United matchday programme for the game against Cheltenham Town on Saturday, 25 August 2018.

In February of this year, 100 Years of Coconuts lost its greatest asset: a one-man information storehouse and author extraordinaire in the person of Andrew Bennett.

It was a tragically heavy blow for Andrew’s family and for his legions of friends and admirers. And for a while, Coconuts people wondered how they could carry on researching and communicating the story of our club.

Moves are afoot to ensure his name and achievements endure: stand by for the unveiling of a memorial plaque in the Habbin, for news of the Andrew Bennett Award and for the autumn publication of the third volume of his peerless Celery & Coconuts history of the club.

But how could we hope to carry on Andrew’s work – his tireless ferreting out of information in libraries and archives, his compilation of stats, facts and info in dozens of databases, his cheerful and speedy answering of queries from football fans far and wide – in short, his work as Cambridge United’s club historian?

The short answer is that we couldn’t. But what we can do is have a bash at providing a second-best service – a sort of Andrew Bennett Lite, if you like.

Luckily for us and you, Andrew bequeathed to Coconuts his entire, vast archive of U’s-related stuff.

When I say ‘vast’, I mean ‘flipping ginormous’. If you chopped down all the forests in Scandinavia to provide enough paper, printed everything out and laid the sheets end to end, the result would stretch seven times around the world and then on as far as Godalming.

The size of the task of bringing order to the archive, and coming close to understanding it, is gut-grippingly terrifying. Merely opening a folder at random, to reveal thousands upon thousands of sub-folders and individual files, would be enough to induce panic in the most placid of Zen practitioners.

I was browsing idly the other day, clicking on files here and there, when I came across the photograph on this page.

Although not in the best of nick – Andrew downloaded it from a microfiche reader (always a hit-and-miss procedure) during one of his countless visits to the Cambridgeshire Collection – it does provide a priceless snapshot of a precious moment in the early days of Abbey United. And I hadn’t seen it before.

Can you make out the object in George Alsop’s hands? It’s the Cambridgeshire Challenge Cup, and the Abbey team that Alsop captained had just won it.

The date is 18 April 1925, the venue is Cambridge Town’s Milton Road ground and the day’s events – Abbey’s trouncing of Girton United by six goals to one – are being reported by the long-gone Cambridge Chronicle.

The bearded gent to Alsop’s right is Major Oliver Papworth, who presented the cup, and to his left is Cambs FA secretary Charles Dennant.

The Wasps had lined up: R ‘Percy’ Wilson; Joe Livermore, Bill Walker; Jim Self, Alsop, Bill ‘Pim’ Stearn; Fred Stevens, Frank Luff, Harvey Cornwell, Tom Langford, William ‘Fanny’ Freeman (kids: teams played in the 2-3-5 formation in those days). Cornwell had scored a hat-trick and the other goals had come from Walker, Langford and Freeman.

The Challenge Cup was just one of three trophies claimed by Abbey United that season – and they shared a fourth. Read Andrew's Newmarket Road Roughs for the full detail.

Cheerio
Harry

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Bobby Moore pulled my shorts down

In the master's footsteps

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