<![CDATA[100 YEARS OF COCONUTS

<![CDATA[100 YEARS OF COCONUTS - News]]>Wed, 06 May 2026 14:05:16 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[The Pioneers Of Abbey United]]>Mon, 27 Apr 2026 11:54:33 GMThttps://www.100yearsofcoconuts.co.uk/news/the-pioneers-of-abbey-united7941890

Throughout this season, the Pioneers series has been uncovering the lives of the teenage lads who played in 1913-14 for Abbey United, as the U’s were then known. For the first time, we’ve been able to identify most of them, although the identities of a frustrating few remain unestablished.

As the pioneers’ lives have gone under the microscope, some interesting characteristics of the group have emerged, perhaps the most conspicuous being how close to the Abbey Church the players lived.

Legend has it that Abbey United, named after the church more formally known as St Andrew the Less, was founded in 1912 for the boys of the church choir, or perhaps those attending Sunday school.

That idea is strengthened when you look at the map on this page. Amber blobs mark the homes of Abbey United players, strongly clustered around the church (pinpointed by the red cross) on Newmarket Road and in the Abbey Estate.

Most would have had a stroll of a couple of minutes or less to get to the church, and even players who lived further afield, in Stanley Road, Norfolk Terrace or Sturton Street, would only have walked about half a mile. To paraphrase the League of Gentlemen, this was a local club for local people.

Another argument for the ‘boys’ choir’ theory is evident in the players’ ages: a couple of them were only 14 at the time of the first game of 1913-14, on November 6. The oldest players were 19, and the average age of all players was a little under 17 years.

The last game of the club’s first season took place just two months before the outbreak of the First World War, and Abbey United players were evidently keen to enrol in the armed forces. As we’ve seen, some lied about their age in order to do so.

Remarkably, every single player of the 20 we’ve identified saw some form of military service between 1914 and 1918. A majority served with the Cambridgeshire Regiment.

The club experienced its share of casualties: four players died as a result of hostilities, and of the 16 who survived, only six did not suffer war-related wounds, disability or disease.

We welcomed more than a dozen descendants of Abbey United pioneers to the game against Barrow on April 25, but we’re still looking for family connections to the young football club. If you believe your ancestor played for Abbey United, in 1913/14 or in the 1920s, please get in touch: danb@cambridgeunited.com.

]]><![CDATA[The Pioneers of Abbey United - Harry Furness]]>Sat, 18 Apr 2026 08:33:34 GMThttps://www.100yearsofcoconuts.co.uk/news/the-pioneers-of-abbey-united-harry-furness

On this season’s journey of discovery through the lives of Abbey United pioneers – the lads who played for the newly founded club in the 1913-14 season – we’ve uncovered a great deal of misfortune. Some of the young men perished in the Great War; others were forever scarred by that nightmarish conflict; none came through the war years unchanged.

Into the last category falls Harry Furness (sometimes spelt Furniss), who played at least twice for the club: in a 3-2 loss to Watts & Sons in November 1913 and in a 4-1 defeat to Saint’s Building Works two months later.

A native of Cherry Hinton, Harry was born in 1894. In 1901 he was living in the village’s Church End with his Irish mother Maggie, father Thomas, who worked as an “attendant” at Fulbourn mental hospital, three sisters and a brother.

Thomas died aged 49 in 1907, and around that time the family moved to Newmarket Road, near the Stanley Road turn. In 1911 Harry was working as a general labourer at the Cambridge Brick Company’s works on the opposite side of the road.

He anticipated the First World War by attesting for the Cambridgeshire Regiment in January 1914, 18 days before that match against Saint’s. His military career did not follow a typical path.

An initial medical inspection concluded that Harry was fit for service. He stood five feet five inches tall and his vision and physical development were pronounced good.

But a further check in August 1914 revealed that Private Furness was temporarily unfit, and he was told to be ready to rejoin when he was in better shape. He duly reported for duty in February 1915, only to be declared unfit for service. The medical officer’s report mentioned syphilis, and Harry was discharged from the army.

He spent time – we don’t know how much – in the Welsh Metropolitan War Hospital (pictured), a psychiatric facility in Cardiff. Its medical lead, Lieutenant-Colonel Edwin Goodall, was made CBE in 1919 in recognition of the hospital’s work with wounded and shell-shocked troops.

By July 1919, Harry was still undergoing treatment but had been transferred to the very same Fulbourn hospital where his father had worked, about a mile from his old Cherry Hinton stamping ground.

It appears that Harry never emerged from Fulbourn. It was there that he died, at the age of 40, in 1935.

If you believe you are a descendant of Harry’s, or if you know someone who is, please get in touch: danb@cambridgeunited.com..

]]><![CDATA[Matt Cooke - Story of his career at Cambridge United]]>Tue, 14 Apr 2026 12:48:25 GMThttps://www.100yearsofcoconuts.co.uk/news/matt-cooke-story-of-his-career-at-cambridge-united

At the Notts County match we welcomed back Matt Cooke, former CUFC player, 3 seasons, 1992-1994, and whilst Matt didn't make the 1st team, he went on to play and coach in the USA & thanks CUFC for helping to shape his career

Read his story below

Matt was an apprentice at the club during the mid-nineties when John Beck was manager and Dion Dublin was a player. He is returning for his first time having moved to America. The words below are Matts and describe his time at Cambridge United and what followed

My football journey began in Bishop’s Stortford, where I played for local youth side Grange Jets. A defining moment came during a cup final at Rhodes Avenue, home of Bishop's Stortford FC. We won convincingly 5–1but more importantly for me, it caught the attention of U’s scouts.

Following that match, two of my teammates and I were invited to trials at Coldham’s Common, just behind the Abbey Stadium. It was an intimidating experience, with around 70 young players competing for just a few places. When the dust settled, only two were selected—and I was fortunate enough to be one of them.
That initial success led to a further series of demanding trials and matches, each testing not just ability but resilience and character.

Thankfully, I did enough to earn my place and went on to represent Cambridge United’s youth team as a striker for the next few seasons.

During that time, I had the privilege of developing in a professional environment, working under the youth coaching staff while also gaining exposure to the first team under manager John Beck. I was fortunate enough to occasionally train alongside players such as Dion Dublin—experiences that greatly shaped my understanding of the game.

I also played alongside Michael Kyd, a fantastic player and friend who went on to make over 140 first-team appearances. Together with the squad, we enjoyed a remarkable 17-match unbeaten run, including a memorable victory over Arsenal.

These experiences led to selection for England U19 Schoolboys. Although injury prevented me from playing, it remains a proud milestone and a testament to the foundation built at Cambridge United.

That platform led to a fulfilling football career, including playing and coaching in the USA. Today, I’m here with my wife Clare and our two children, James and Annie. Come on the U’s!

If you were played in the Youth Team alongside Matt. Please contact me davem@cambridgeunited.com

]]><![CDATA[The Pioneers of Abbey United - H Blunt and Sainty]]>Tue, 14 Apr 2026 12:20:25 GMThttps://www.100yearsofcoconuts.co.uk/news/the-pioneers-of-abbey-united-h-blunt-and-sainty

Pinpointing the identities of the lads who played for Abbey United in the 1913-14 season is sometimes fairly straightforward. In other cases, it’s pretty much impossible.

That’s the experience in the cases of two young men named in the local press as H Blunt and Sainty, who between them played at least five times for Abbey in that pre-First World War season.

We might know the initial letter of Blunt’s first name but we can only guess what it was – Harold, Herbert, Henry? In any case, public records don’t reveal any obvious contenders who were of a likely age in 1913 and 1914.

Perhaps there was an error in the local newspaper's reading of a handwritten teamsheet, and it’s possible “H Blunt” should have been printed as “H Brunt”. Now we might be getting somewhere. Maybe Harry Brunt, born in 1895, is our man.

Harry attended the Abbey and Brunswick Boys’ Schools and in 1911 was living in Beche Road – just round the corner from the Abbey Church, cradle of our club – while working as an errand boy. At the time of his enrolment in the East Yorkshire Regiment in December 1915, he was said to be a “brewer’s man”.

Joining the expeditionary force in France the following year, he suffered the unpleasant experience of being gassed and was discharged due to bronchitis a few months from the end of the war.

The 1921 census found Harry living in Godesdone Road and working as a labourer, and he was still there in 1939. He died in Cambridge in 1960.

Now we turn to the young man apparently called Sainty who played for Abbey against Watts & Sons in November 1913. No likely candidates of that spelling of the name can be found in genealogical and newspaper records, but if we add an “e” we’re in business.

In April 1915, a letter home from the Western Front, from Sergeant HC Clarke of the 1st Cambridgeshire Regiment, revealed that a Private Saintey, an ex-“Abbey” man, took part in a match in France between No 5 Platoon, “B” Company and a Royal Field Artillery team.

Is this the Robert Saintey who was born in 1897, attended Barnwell Boys’ School and lived in River Lane?

We know next to nothing else about Robert, but it’s intriguing to speculate that he was an Abbey United pioneer.

If you believe you are a descendant of the Blunt/Brunt or Sainty/Saintey families, or if you know someone who is, please get in touch: danb@cambridgeunited.comdit.

]]><![CDATA[The Pioneers of Abbey United -Walter Huntlea]]>Sun, 12 Apr 2026 18:14:00 GMThttps://www.100yearsofcoconuts.co.uk/news/the-pioneers-of-abbey-united-walter-huntleaThis season’s Pioneers articles have shown us that the First World War took a heavy toll of the teenage lads who turned out for Abbey United in the club’s first full season of 1913-14.

Walter Huntlea was one such: although he survived the war, his life was turned upside down on 13 November 1916, when the Cambridgeshire Regiment was taking part in the Battle of the Ancre, the last big British attack of the Somme offensive (casualty pictured). As the exhausted men of the Cambs attacked from high ground into the valley of the river Ancre, 19-year-old Walter was wounded so severely that one of his legs had to be amputated.

Let it not be forgotten that of the three million-plus men who fought in the Somme, more than a million were either wounded or killed.

Walter had signed up for war service two years before, when he was employed in the machine room at the Cambridge University Press printing works, and not long after he had played at centre forward for both Abbey United and CUP’s football team.

Born in 1897, he was the son of Henry, a musician who turned his hand to billiard table repairs and lived in Newmarket Road and, from around 1911, Sturton Street.

Walter wasn’t officially discharged from the army until July 1918, and, with his lifelong disability, he joined hundreds of thousands of men seeking work in a world that had been changed for ever.

The 1921 census found him living in Sturton Street and eking out a living as a self-employed poultry farmer. Perhaps he followed that livelihood in the house’s small back yard; we don’t know for sure.

By 1931 he had moved over the Mill Road railway bridge to live with his sister Mabel and her husband Stephen Tingey in Suez Road. By the time of the 1939 register, the Tingey family had moved back to more familiar territory in Eden Street, and Walter was listed as incapacitated.

The post-Second World War years brought a move over the river Cam to the Victoria Road area: Walter married widow Gladys Charles in 1946 and the couple lived in Gladys’s Searle Street house.

He was still living there at the time of his death, at the age of nearly 85, in 1982. Gladys lived on for five more years.

If you believe you are a descendant of Walter’s, or if you know someone who is, please get in touch: danb@cambridgeunited.com.

]]><![CDATA[The Pioneers of Abbey United - Bob Patman]]>Mon, 16 Mar 2026 16:36:31 GMThttps://www.100yearsofcoconuts.co.uk/news/the-pioneers-of-abbey-united-bob-patman

Unlike most of his teammates in Abbey United’s first full season, immediately before the First World War, Bob Patman’s finest moment in black and amber possibly came in the late 1920s.

Playing at right back in a 2-0 loss to Cambridge Town Reserves in a Creake Charity Shield final on 28 April 1928, Bob put on a display that drew praise from the local press. “Perhaps the best man of the side was Patman, who broke up many attacks,” said the report.

Bob was one of very few pre-war Abbey players who continued their association with the club when it re-formed in 1919, making upwards of 74 appearances and scoring at least 12 goals between 1921 and 1929. He’s pictured second from the left in the middle row in that 1928 Creake Charity Shield line-up, and in 1925.

He was born in 1895 but, unlike most of the 1913-14 cohort, not in Barnwell. His birthplace was Mitre Yard – the alley between the Baron of Beef and Mitre pubs in Bridge Street is a reminder of that locale – and in 1901 he was living with labourer father George, mother Eliza and eight siblings in nearby Thompsons Lane.

But by 1907 he was attending Barnwell Boys’ School, and the 1911 census locates the family in Stanley Road.After playing at least four times for Abbey United in 1914, Bob enlisted in the Cambridgeshire Regiment in November of that year. During his time in France he was listed as wounded twice – in 1916 and 1917 – and in 1918 he was admitted to a field ambulance suffering from urticaria,perhaps caused by psychological stress. By the following year, Bob had been declared no longer fit for service and in 1921, still living in Stanley Road, he was described as disabled.

Better health in subsequent years saw him playing quoits for the Dog & Pheasant pub in Newmarket Road (now the site of a specialised Jimmy’s hostel) and pursuing that Abbey United career. He even had a trial for Town, the biggest club in Cambridge, in 1927.

In that same year Bob married Elsie Cornwell from nearby Garlic Row. The couple, who moved to Vinery Road and then back to Stanley Road, had one daughter and at least three grandchildren. In 1939 Bob was labouring for the town corporation.

He died in 1969 and Elsie followed him to the grave in 1983.

If you believe you are a descendant of Bob’s, or if you know someone who is, please get in touch: danb@cambridgeunited.com.

]]><![CDATA[The Pioneers of Abbey United - Charles Pink]]>Mon, 02 Mar 2026 13:28:33 GMThttps://www.100yearsofcoconuts.co.uk/news/the-pioneers-of-abbey-united-charles-pink

In this series of articles profiling the boys who played for Abbey United before the First World War, the church of St Andrew on Newmarket Road – better known as the Abbey Church – is mentioned frequently.
That’s appropriate, of course: the church is accepted as our club’s birthplace. The story is that its curate organised games for lads who either sang in the church’s choir or attended its Sunday school.

The tale is embellished by the legend that tells of night-time games under the gaslights of a nearby street – perhaps Stanley Road. ChatGPT has had a bash at depicting such a kick-about in the illustration on this page.

All of the youngsters lived within spitting distance of the church, but none lived nearer than Charles Pink.
His dad, also called Charles, was a horse dealer who also kept the Bird Bolt pub on Newmarket Road – slap bang opposite the church. Cambridge Refrigeration Technology now occupies the site.

The younger Charles, who played at least twice for Abbey United in the 1913-14 season, was born in 1897 and baptised in his local church in 1904. He attended Brunswick Boys’ School and in 1916 enlisted in the Worcestershire Regiment.

He was attached to the Machine Gun Corps on the Western Front when he was wounded in October 1917, and he was discharged the following year.

By 1921 Charles, still living at the Bird Bolt, was working as an assistant miller at the Norman cement works at the far end of Coldhams Lane. Getting to work would have entailed either a brisk 35-minute walk or a more leisurely pushbike ride.

His younger brother Rundle worked a little nearer, at the Saxon cement works, part of whose site now forms a piece of Sainsbury’s car park, and sister Edith was a factory hand at the ARC Knitting Company in Abbey Walk.

Charles married widow Hilda Day in 1926, and they went on to have two children. In 1930 the family moved to Horningsea – they would have been neighbours of future U’s starlet Brian Hart as he grew up in the village in the 1940s – but Charles was described as incapacitated in the 1939 Register. We don’t know the nature or cause of his disability; perhaps it stemmed from that old war wound.

He was just 52 years old when he died in 1950.

If you believe you are a descendant of Charles, or if you know someone who is, please get in touch: danb@cambridgeunited.com.

]]><![CDATA[The Pioneers of Abbey United - Wilderspin brothers]]>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 12:24:30 GMThttps://www.100yearsofcoconuts.co.uk/news/the-pioneers-of-abbey-united-wilderspin-brothers

Working out which of the Wilderspin brothers played for Abbey United in the 1913-14 season was a tricky task until Carole Hillen got in touch.

Carole, a daughter of Ernest Wilderspin, recalls that her uncles Len and Reg were both keen football followers. But while Reg became a Cambridge City supporter, Len lived for decades on Newmarket Road and was a diehard U’s fan.

So it was probably Len who played for Abbey in at least two matches, against Watts & Sons and Saint’s Building Works, but there remains the tantalising possibility that both brothers turned out for the newly born club. One Wilderspin appearance was as goalkeeper while the other was on the right wing, and we know that Reg played in goal for his employer’s team.

Len was born in 1895 and baptised the following year at the Abbey Church, a stone’s throw from the Wilderspins’ Saxon Road home, to Henry, a carpenter born in Cambridge who became a picture-frame maker, and Hauxton-born mother Mary Jane.

Len attended Brunswick Boys’ School and by 1911 was working as a porter in a chemist’s shop. Reg was later to follow a lifelong career in the printing trade with Heffers.

Len and Reg both enlisted in the Cambridgeshire Regiment when the First World War raised its ugly head; younger brother Ernest was too young to engage in the conflict. From military records we learn that the older Wilderspins both had blue eyes and dark hair.

While Len seems to have come through the war unscathed, Reg suffered a shattered right wrist at Ypres and, according to family members, thenceforth always wore a bandage on the injured part.

In 1921, when he was back living in Saxon Road (pictured) and working as a water gas operator at the nearby gas works, Len married Petersfield woman Daisy Elvin at Christ Church. Brother Reg acted as best man and the happy couple spent their honeymoon in Hove.

At first they lived in Beche Road, just round the corner from Len’s birthplace, but in 1937 they moved to a detached house on Newmarket Road, beyond Ivett & Reed’s stonemasonry business but within a short walk of Len’s beloved Abbey Stadium.

Len died at the age of 85 in 1980 – five years after the death of Reg and three years after Daisy’s decease.

If you believe you are a descendant of the Wilderspins, or if you know someone who is, please get in touch: danb@cambridgeunited.com

]]><![CDATA[The Pioneers of Abbey United -William Maltby]]>Mon, 16 Feb 2026 09:33:31 GMThttps://www.100yearsofcoconuts.co.uk/news/the-pioneers-of-abbey-united-william-maltby

We’ve discovered much about the lives of the lads who played for Abbey United in the months leading up to the First World War, but we don’t know what most of them looked like. We’ve found very few photographs, and descriptions of the young men are rare.

But thanks to military records we can have a stab at imagining the appearance of William Maltby, who played at least nine times and scored a minimum of seven goals for Abbey in 1913 and 1914.

Created when he was discharged from the Cambridgeshire Regiment in July 1916 because he was “no longer physically fit for war duty”, the document notes that, at 19 years old, William stood five feet seven inches tall and had a fresh complexion, brown eyes and dark brown hair.

The file also notes that William, who was wounded by shrapnel to the left forearm during the second Battle of Ypres in May 1915, sported a tattoo devoted to “Ethel” on that same forearm. It’s heartwarming to find that the young lovers married in the parish of St Andrew the Less in 1920 and went on to have two sons.

William was born in 1897 and was baptised in the Abbey Church the following year. His labourer father Harry and his mother Sarah lived, like so many Abbey United families, in Beche Road. Sadly, tragedy struck the family in May 1910 when Harry committed suicide.

After leaving Brunswick Boys’ School later that year, William began work as an errand boy for the shoe retailer Freeman Hardy & Willis (pictured). By 1911, all members of the Maltby family – the widowed Sarah, William and his four sisters – were working to make ends meet.

Staying in Beche Road after the war, William found work as a labourer for the Cambridge building contractor W Saint, but by 1924 he was making a living as a window and carpet cleaner in partnership with his mate Ernest Gill. The enterprising pair were happy to clear guttering and trim creepers, a newspaper ad (pictured) promised.

It’s possible that William resumed his football career in the 1920s, but not for Abbey United: a W Maltby played and scored for Barnwell United in 1928.

William and Ethel moved to Stourbridge Grove, off Coldhams Lane, in the 1930s. Ethel died in 1974 and William survived her by three years.

If you believe you are a descendant of William’s, or if you know someone who is, please get in touch: danb@cambridgeunited.com.

]]><![CDATA[The Pioneers of Abbey United - Alfred Bull]]>Fri, 30 Jan 2026 14:17:20 GMThttps://www.100yearsofcoconuts.co.uk/news/the-pioneers-of-abbey-united-alfred-bull

To our list of pre-First World War Abbey United players who didn’t survive the war years must be added the name of Alfred Bull.

But unlike several of his Abbey teammates who were killed in action on the Western Front, Alfred didn’t die as a result of enemy action.

He fell victim to tubercular peritonitis, a bacterial complication of tuberculosis, while he was serving in France and, having been invalided back to England, died at a military hospital in York at the age of 21 on 10 December 1918.

Reverend RF Wright, curate of the Abbey Church, conducted the funeral service at the borough cemetery, Newmarket Road four days later. At the graveside were his father – also called Alfred, a labourer at Watts & Son’s timber works (pictured) just along the road – his mother Emily, five brothers and two sisters.

Alfred was born in 1897 and lived his early life in Beche Road, where he was a close neighbour of several of the young men who played for Abbey United.

There is some evidence that he attended Brunswick Boys’ School, situated just round the corner in Walnut Tree Avenue (pictured at its junction with Newmarket Road). The avenue no longer exists, having been demolished to make way for the 1971 opening of the Elizabeth Way river crossing.

We know that by 1911 Alfred was apprenticed to a boot and shoe maker – a fairly common occupation in working-class Cambridge at the time.

On the other hand, we can’t be sure that he ever kicked a ball in anger for our young football club. He was named as a reserve for a fixture on Midsummer Common against his father’s employer’s works team in November 1913 (a match won 3-2 by Watts & Sons) but the records don’t reveal if he made an appearance.
Unusually for a Barnwell boy, Alfred didn’t enlist in the Cambridgeshire Regiment when war broke out a few months later. Instead, he signed up for the Queen’s Royal (West Surrey) Regiment – sometimes known rather unflatteringly as the Mutton Lancers after their ‘Lamb and Flag’ cap badge.

He found himself in France in August 1916 but it’s not known where he was serving when he fell ill.

We now know that early antibiotic treatment can relieve the symptoms of tubercular peritonitis, but Alfred was not to receive that succour.

If you believe you are a descendant of Alfred’s, or if you know someone who is, please get in touch: danb@cambridgeunited.com.

If you have any further information concerning the article above or related to Thomas Tyrrell
contact 100yearsofcoconuts@gmail.com

]]>