Blog Archives - 100 Years Of Coconuts

100 Years Of Coconuts

Ken Shellito 1940-2018

10/31/2018

Coconuts was sorry to hear of the death early today in Kota Kinabulu, Malaysia, at the age of 78, of former Cambridge United manager Ken Shellito.

A former player and manager with Chelsea, and the possessor of one England cap, east Londoner Shellito followed his brief spell at the Abbey Stadium with a successful coaching career in Malaysia, where he spent the latter part of his life.

Born in East Ham, he featured as a full back in Chelsea's FA Youth Cup-winning squad of 1958 and made his league debut a year later. He was part of the Tommy Docherty-managed Chelsea side of the early 60s that won promotion to Division One, and played for England against Czechoslovakia in 1963.

National manager Alf Ramsey had Shellito in mind for his 1966 World Cup squad, but a serious knee injury forced him into retirement at the age of 28. He had made 123 appearances and scored two goals for the Pensioners.

He became youth team coach, then youth manager, at Chelsea before being appointed first-team manager in 1977. He resigned in December 1978 after a 23-year stay at Stamford Bridge.

Ken Shellito: full back who featured in Alf Ramsey's 1966 World Cup plans

He worked as assistant to Docherty at QPR and Preston and to Alan Mullery at Crystal Palace before spending a year running a coaching school in Dallas, Texas. He then turned down the chance of rejoining Docherty at Wolves because he wanted a manager’s job of his own.

Shellito succeeded John Ryan as U’s manager on 15 March 1985, at a time when the club was in the middle of a rapid descent through the divisions from Two to Four. Chairman David Ruston said he believed the board had appointed a man who could stabilise the club.

Ken Shellito, centre front, with his 1985/86 Cambridge United first-team squad. Click on image to enlarge

Sadly, that proved not to be the case. United, who were working under severe financial constraints, won more games under Shellito than they had under Ryan, but his record of six wins and five draws from 35 League games is the second worst of any U's manager.

He resigned on 6 December 1985, saying he had become disillusioned with football. ‘I’ve been in soccer as a player and manager for 30 years, but now I’m turning my back on it,’ he added. ‘I have no plans at the moment, but it will be a different way of life. There is a big cloud over football. There is no bubble and bounce any more.’

Happily, his subsequent career in Malaysia restored Shellito’s enjoyment of the game. He coached at Kuala Lumpur, Perak and Sabah, served as Selangor's coaching director and also worked as a match analyst for the Asian Football Confederation.

He died on 31 October 2018 following hospital treatment for a lung infection and kidney complications. He leaves wife Jeany and two daughters.

Clouds over Cambridge

10/27/2018

An edited version of this article appeared in the Cambridge match day programme for the game against Macclesfield Town on 27 October 2018.

It won’t have escaped your notice that the UK is marking two 100th anniversaries of great historic significance this year: the end of World War I and the first acknowledgment of women’s right to vote.

Only some women, mind: following the passing of the Representation of the People Act 1918, it would take another ten years for Parliament to decree that they should be able to vote on the same terms as men.

I’ll examine how women have always been crucial to the success of our club in a future programme. For now, with November 11 approaching, it’s an appropriate time to focus on the Great War and what it meant for Abbey United.

The easy answer is ‘not a lot’. As far as we know, the young club, formed in 1912, stopped playing at the end of the 1913/14 season and didn’t resume until September 1919 – ten months after the cessation of hostilities – with a 6-3 friendly spanking of Ditton Rovers.

If you think the Abbey were unlucky to have their fledgling career halted by the outbreak of war, though, spare a thought for Harrogate AFC who, newly founded and enrolled in the Northern League, were scheduled to play their first ever match in September 1914. The outbreak of war put the kibosh on that plan.

Deprived of their football, the young men of Abbey United turned their attentions to other matters. Did they sign up and march off to the front? If so, did they ever come home? Or did they do their bit for the war effort by keeping the wheels of industry, commerce and education turning?

We wish we knew. A recent Coconuts research project, carried out with Wolfson College and the University of Hertfordshire’s First World War Engagement Centre, and funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council, aimed to find out. Sadly, it failed.

We came very, very close to identifying the Abbey United players who represented the club in 1913/14, but we weren’t close enough. Hampered by the absence of players’ first names in the records, we just couldn’t pin them down with sufficient certainty.

A lot of good has come out of the effort, though: we haven’t given up trying to track these blokes down and, as recently as this week, Coconuts skivvies started to follow a new line of research on a particular player. We may be on the verge of a breakthrough.

What’s more, you will shortly be able to buy and read the fruits of the original research: a lovingly created 40-page booklet called Barnwell at War.

Priced at £4.99 and published by Coconuts offshoot Lovely Bunch (which also brings you Andrew Bennett’s Celery & Coconuts history series and has other titles in the works), it illuminates the everyday lives of the working-class people of east Cambridge during the Great War.

This is a facet of Cambridge history that, unlike WWI as experienced by the officer class supplied to the battlefields by the University’s students and dons, has received scant attention.

Lovely Bunch has gone some way towards putting that injustice right with this fascinating little read. It will be available soon from the CFU online store or caravan and several purchase points in town.

Cheerio
Harry

Geoff Scott 1956-2018

10/18/2018

Professional footballers in the UK and Ireland have lost an influential advocate and loyal friend with the death on October 17 of Geoff Scott.

Scott, who played 22 games for Cambridge United in the 1985/86 season following successful careers with Stoke, Leicester and Birmingham among other clubs, was chief executive of XPRO, a welfare organisation that works for former players.

A defender who could play at centre back or on the left, he died at the age of 61 following a battle with cancer.

Born in Birmingham, Scott moved through the Aston Villa youth system before dropping into non-League football with Kings Heath, Solihull Borough and Highgate United. He then joined Stoke in 1977 and was part of the team that was promoted to the First Division in 1978/79.

He spent two years at Leicester, playing in the side that won the Second Division in 1979/80, before spells with Birmingham, Charlton, Middlesbrough and Northampton.

He was 28 when he arrived at the Abbey Stadium in the summer of 1985, signed by manager Ken Shellito to help form the spine of his team.

His United career, which was punctuated by two red cards, ended in the mud of Plainmoor on December 12 when, during Chris Turner’s first match in charge, he fell awkwardly midway through the first half and was stretchered off.

Geoff Scott playing for Leicester City.

He was found to have severed knee ligaments, and on 1 March 1986 United announced that he (as well as fellow defender Keith Osgood) would have to retire from the game.

Scott told the Cambridge Evening News: ‘I have played nearly all over the world and in the First Division for ten years – then it had to end at a place like Torquay, on the worst pitch I have played on in my career. The boots were completely submerged in mud.'

He continued: 'Players are today being asked to play in such conditions because clubs desperately need the finances.’

Geoff Scott second from the right in the middle row in the 1985/86 Cambridge United squad photograph.

He was granted a testimonial match and the last home pre-season friendly of 1986/87 saw a strong QPR side visit the Abbey. Scott managed to play the first 15 minutes as United won 3-0.

Following his retirement, he took a degree in business studies and worked in telecommunications. He later became secretary of the Stoke City Old Boys’ Association, and joined XPRO.

The organisation estimates that two in five former professionals will experience serious financial difficulties within five years of retirement, and that a third will have separated from their partner within a year.

As well as helping with financial, health and welfare problems, Scott also made many prison visits to ex-players who had found themselves in trouble with the law.

Clock this

10/17/2018

An edited version of this article appeared in the Cambridge United match day programme for the League Two game against Swindon Town on 17 March 2018.

If you would like to witness a vision of almost unparalleled ugliness, pay a visit to the Abbey Arms, behind the main stand.

The clock hanging on the wall behind the bar is not, in my opinion, a thing of beauty. Some people disagree; I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.

Made somewhere in eastern Asia and imported specifically for the purpose I’m about to describe, it was scavenged from a bin by a gang of Coconuts mudlarks a couple of years ago and forms part of the organisation’s collection of U’s artefacts.

Although I recoil from the sight of it, I admit this hideous timepiece has two uses: telling the time (although not accurately) and throwing light on an often-overlooked aspect of United history.

The clock’s inscription tells its story: ‘Presented to the directors of Cambridge United by the manager and players in appreciation of their generous acts and support during the Southern League double season 1968/69.’

Everyone knows that United won the Southern League title two years running, in 1969 and 1970, helping to ease open the doors to the Football League. But the club’s 1960s exploits in the Southern League Cup receive far less attention.

Having already claimed the trophy in 1962 and 1965, the U’s set out to win it again on a Fenland summer’s day in 1968, drawing 1-1 at Wisbech with a goal from Tony Nicholas. Mick Brown and Richard Habbin did the business in a 2-0 second leg win and United were, thanks to a bye, through to round three.

Above, Seiko wall clock presented to Cambridge United directors by the players and manager after the Southern League double of 1968/69

Inscription: 'Presented to the directors of Cambridge United FC by the manager and players in appreciation of their generous acts and support during their SL double season 1968/69'

This brought Brentwood to the Abbey; they must have wished they’d stayed in Essex. Andrew Bennett relates in Risen from the Dust that the U’s were 4-0 up inside 30 minutes, ‘combining slick football and deadly finishing’. Six players were on the scoresheet as United emerged as 6-1 victors, the highlight of the day being a ‘contemptuous’ backheel over the Blues goalkeeper by Bill Cassidy.

Our heroes had a few memorable tussles with Chelmsford City in the 60s; another awaited them in the quarter-final.

Smarting from the loss of Cassidy, Tony Butcher, Terry Eades and Peter Leggett to Bill Leivers’ side, the Clarets deployed an eight-man defence and carried out a thorough clogging job on the unfortunate Cassidy. It worked: they came away with a 0-0 draw.

Cambridge United's 1968/69 Southern League double-winning squad and their manager and directors with their trophies, from left the Cambridgeshire Professional Cup, Southern League championship shield and Southern League Cup. Personnel, back from left: Geoff Proctor (director), Jack Woolley (director), Mick Brown (coach), John Gregson, Terry Eades, Keith Barker, Gerry Baker, Robin Hardy, Bill Leivers (manager), Rodney Slack, Jackie Scurr, Peter Leggett, Phil Baker (secretary), Paddy Harris (director), Matt Wynn (director); front: Brian Grant, Mel Slack, Roly Horrey, Bill Cassidy, Dennis Walker, Jimmy Thompson, Tony Butcher, John Saunders

In the replay two days later, City grabbed an early goal but King Cass replied and then set up Roly Horrey before half-time. In a rare escape from a second-half Chelmsford onslaught, John ‘Scobie’ Saunders broke away to settle matters ten minutes from time.

Semi-final time: Leivers had just 13 players including two goalkeepers at his disposal when Ashford came to town, but they proved adequate to the task and Cassidy, John Gregson and Horrey notched in a 3-2 win.

United’s depleted team took the game to Cheltenham in the first leg of the final, played at the Abbey on Easter Saturday. The Robins’ penalty area was busier than Mitcham’s Corner, noted the CEN, but Gerry Baker’s strike on the hour was the only score.

Second leg man of the match, the heroic Rodney Slack, was knocked unconscious near the end but found himself submerged by joyous teammates at the final whistle of a 0-0 draw that ensured the trophy’s return to Newmarket Road. The cup was United’s for the third time in eight years.

Cheerio
Harry

Grounds for debate

10/13/2018

An edited version of this article appeared in the Cambridge United matchday programme for the game against MK Dons on 13 October 2018.

Long winter evenings spent yarning round a hissing log fire are just around the corner. You’ll be wanting some U’s-related trivia for you and your mate to debate.

Here’s a question to set tongues wagging: can you name the grounds within the Cambridge city boundaries that United have played at?

We don’t need to refer to Andrew Bennett’s brilliant Celery & Coconuts history books to be able to list the Abbey Stadium (formerly known as the Abbey ground or simply Newmarket Road) and its predecessor, the Celery Trenches, located nearby.

Early in the last century, ‘home’ United venues included Parker’s Piece, Stourbridge Common and Midsummer Common, and at least one fixture of more recent times was played on Coldhams Common.

Early ‘away’ venues included the New Cherry Hinton ground, somewhere in Newnham, Chesterton Rec and Trinity New Ground.

Action from the United v City Cambridge derby in the Cambs Invitation Cup semi-final at Grange Road on 20 March 1954. Photo: Cambridge Daily News

We played many times at Cambridge City’s lovely old Milton Road home, in its two incarnations. Other away venues included the Railway Social Club Ground (location described as ‘at the back of the cattle market’), Pye’s wonderful sports ground in Chesterton, Jesus Green, Lammas Land, Porson Road (probably the Perse preparatory school's sports field) and college grounds including Fitzwilliam House, King’s & Selwyn, Queen’s, Christ’s, Pembroke, Sidney Sussex, St Catherine’s and Clare.

United have performed on the sacred turf of Fenner’s cricket ground and, equally surprisingly, have turned out twice at the University’s rugby union headquarters in Grange Road.

The first occasion they ventured on to oval-ball territory was in December 1942, when the wartime Abbey United stuffed a local civil service team 10-2.

The next came on 20 March 1954, when the U’s took on their supposedly bigger and better rivals from over the Cam in a Cambs Invitation Cup semi-final.

The new-look cup was supposed to have featured eight clubs that season but holders Wisbech decided they had better things to do. That left United, City, Camden, Ely, Histon, March and Pegasus – a club composed of Cambridge and Oxford students – to fight it out.

Centre forward Albert George – father of former Abbey beat bobby Trevor – notched a hat-trick as the U’s thrashed March 6-1 in the first round and set up the Grange Road showdown.

United were expected to beat the City gents, who had finished a disappointing seventh in the Athenian League, and goals from inside left Jack Thomas duly made it 2-0 in front of an all-ticket crowd of 5,000.

The final, against Histon at Milton Road, started badly and quickly got worse.

Player-manager Bill Whittaker had to have painkilling injections before and during the match (partly excusing a late penalty miss, perhaps) and Thomas, victim of a leg muscle strain early on, hobbled through the game as a passenger. It finished goalless.

Chaos then ensued: no one had a clue what was supposed to happen next. Should extra time be played or not? Eventually, Cambs FA secretary Bill Ling stepped forward to decree that the match should continue.

A crowd of 5,645 watched, grumbling, as U’s and Stutes slugged it out. At the end of 120 strength- and patience-sapping minutes, it was still 0-0 as far as anyone could make out – night had descended by that stage.

The season was at an end and there was nothing else for it: a replay would have to be staged the following season.

United finished the job nearly six months later with a 3-1 win at Milton Road, Thomas (two) and Peter Dobson doing the goalscoring honours.

Cheerio
Harry

Sam the slam

10/6/2018

An edited version of this article appeared in the Cambridge United matchday programme for the game against Coventry City on 16 September 2017.

If you ask any of the old-timers who were around in the early 1960s about the most skilful men they’ve seen in amber and black, the name of Sam McCrory will crop up as often as not.

He wasn’t the speediest thing on two legs – he was once described as ‘a deliberate moving but highly gifted inside forward’ – and he was getting on when he arrived at the Abbey in the summer of 1960 – but the fiery Sammy had a trick or two up his sleeve.

Ask the England team of 1957.

Sam McCrory (second from right) pictured ahead of Northern Ireland's 3-2 win against England at Wembley on 6 November 1957.

At Wembley on November 6 of that year, the Southend schemer and marksman won his only cap for Northern Ireland against an England side boasting the formidable likes of Duncan Edwards, Billy Wright, Tommy Taylor and Johnny Haynes.

The fact that McCrory was 33 years old at the time was not lost on the English lads, some of whom delighted in pointing out his geriatric status.

Sammy had the perfect answer to the uncharitable and unwise chirping: his country’s second goal, with a ‘glorious drive’, in a 3-2 win. The English were forced to swallow their taunts.

Sam McCrory had worked long and hard for that delicious moment.

Born in Belfast, he had played in the same Scouts team as the boy who would go on to skipper the Irish to that Wembley victory: Tottenham legend Danny Blanchflower. He won two Irish Cups with Linfield before crossing the water to ply his trade with Swansea, Ipswich and Plymouth.

But it was at Southend that he achieved hero status: among his 91 goals in 200-odd games was the first at the Shrimpers’ new Roots Hall ground, in 1955.

Manager Alan Moore persuaded McCrory to sign for the U’s in the face of a player-managership offer from a League of Ireland club. The club certainly got its money’s worth over the next two seasons.

With the exception of his first Ipswich match, McCrory had scored on every debut throughout his career, and he duly netted United’s Southern League Premier first goal of 1960/61, against Hinckley.

He followed up with a hat-trick in a 7-3 FA Cup trouncing of March Town United, but then came the first in a series of sendings-off that would set a U’s record.

Dismissal at Hinckley in December 1960 was followed by another in October 1961 at home to Romford; both were for protests at the refs’ failure to recognise handball when they saw it.

Top, Sam McCrory in Cambridge United colours. Above, McCrory scores from the penalty spot at the Allotments End – the first goal in United's 9-0 victory over Tunbridge Wells United in the Southern League Premier Division on 21 January 1961. Photo: Cambridge Daily News.

On 27 January 1962, a kicking incident at Cheltenham saw him become the first United player to be sent off twice in one season, and three times in all.

But in between the dismissals there were sublime moments like the winner in a 3-2 East Anglian Cup victory over the Norwich second string in November 1961: after mesmerising his marker with sleight of foot, he hammered a ferocious drive into the top corner.

Having scored 27 U’s goals in 98 games – goodness knows what he would have achieved if he hadn’t incurred six weeks of suspensions – McCrory went home in the summer of 1962 and player-managed Crusaders for a while.

He and wife Rita later ran the Port O’Call bar in Donaghadee, welcoming a certain George Best to perform the opening ceremony in 1969. He died in 2011, leaving many a United supporter staring wistfully into his beer.

Cheerio
Harry

Resting place

10/4/2018

Burwell Cemetery can be added to the list of sites that are important to Cambridge United supporters and football fans in general.

There lie two of the game's best liked and most respected practitioners: brothers Len and Pat Saward.

Len, who died in March last year at the age of 89, is commemorated by the handsome headstone pictured here. Featuring United's old 'book and ball' crest, it was created by Ivett & Reed of Newmarket Road – a firm with a long history of U's support.

Ultra-talented forward Len played a total of 170 games for United between 1952 and 1958, scoring 43 times. He went on to serve the club behind the scenes as a valued and hard-working member of a phenomenally successful commercial department.

A few yards away lies younger brother Pat, an Irish international 18 times and a stalwart defender for clubs including Millwall and Aston Villa.

Burwell has not often been a place of pilgrimage; it can now claim that distinction.

Corona moments

10/2/2018

An edited version of this article appeared in the Cambridge United match day programme for the game against Forest Green Rovers on 2 October 2018.

When you glug a Corona nowadays, you’re drinking a disappointingly thin lager brewed in Mexico. There may be a chunk of lemon or lime wedged in the neck of the bottle, presumably to make it taste of something.

But to those of us who grew up before the drinks industry went daft, Corona means something very different.

Corona was the pop that came in bottles delivered by the Corona man in his big yellow lorry: lemonade, limeade, cherryade and loads of other flavours including my favourite, dandelion and burdock.

There were Corona depots all over the country and one of them was in front of the Abbey, on the site now occupied by the car hire people. That’s why all right-thinking people call that end of the ground the Corona End.

And that’s also why the next volume of the late, great Andrew Bennett’s history of our club, Celery & Coconuts, is called Champagne & Corona.

If you want to know where the ‘Champagne’ bit comes from, you’ll just have to buy a copy of the book, and I can help you out with that.

The Coconuts mob are taking pre-orders for the book, which will be out in plenty of time for Christmas. To reserve your copy, head, with credit card handy, to the CFU online store at cambridgefansunited.org/store, or to CFU's Caravan of Love in the front car park on a match day .

I’ve been allowed a glimpse and, I tell you what, Champagne & Corona is up to Andrew’s usual brilliant standard. It tells the story of the 1970s: an amazing decade that saw the U’s embark on their Football League adventure and climb all the way up to what is today called the Championship – the old Second Division.

They were (mostly) fantastic days, when we could feast on the skills of blokes like Brendon Batson, Steve Spriggs, Tom Finney, Dave Stringer, Willy Watson, Steve Fallon, Alan Biley and Brian Greenhalgh.

Brian Greenhalgh (left in amber) and Dave Lill during a 2-0 Third Division win at Rochdale on 5 February 1974

Brian and his striking pal Dave Lill feature on the front cover of Champagne & Corona. Dave is watching Brian tussle with the Rochdale defence at Spotland, during a 2-0 win for the U’s. You can understand and forgive the Dale player's pained expression, although not his hairstyle.

As you can tell from the sparsely populated terrace visible in the background, Dave was one of very few people who witnessed that event.

The Third Division fixture, on 5 February 1974, attracted the grand total of 588 spectators – a record low League attendance for both clubs. Champagne & Corona reveals the main reason for the tiny crowd: the Three-Day Week.

History lesson for those who weren’t around: in early 1974, beset by industrial action, a global oil crisis, cripplingly high inflation and general discontent, the Tory government introduced measures to conserve electricity consumption. One of these was the Three-Day Week, which limited businesses’ use of electricity to three consecutive days in every seven.

Rochdale weren’t allowed to use their floodlights, and United travelled to Lancashire on a Tuesday morning in order to play in the afternoon.

So it was that fewer than 600 people were able to turn up and watch. ‘The atmosphere was absolutely shocking,’ observed United manager Bill Leivers.

Andrew’s typically entertaining account of United’s place in the history of industrial relations is just one of many delights to be found within the covers of Champagne & Corona. Please order your copy now so that Coconuts can afford to pay the printer's bill.

Cheerio
Harry