United’s debut in the League Cup quickly brought the club down to earth with a 5-0 defeat at Colchester United. Colchester had been criticised for playing percentage football, of getting the ball into the box quickly which was very similar to the tactics employed by United under John Beck 20 years later. The first League away match also ended in defeat by 2 goals to 1 at Northampton Dennis Walker scoring United’s second League goal. The next two matches were at home and provide the U’s with their first two Football League wins. The first a 3-1 victory over Oldham Athletic, who were to win promotion at the end of the season, Peter Leggett, George Harris and Bill Cassidy the scorers in front of 5,435. Then a 1-0 victory under the Abbey Stadium lights over Brentford, Meldrum the scorer, began a run of six games without defeat, including the first League away win at Crewe Alexandra. A John McKinven penalty and an 83rd minute goal from Malcolm Lindsay giving the U’s a 2-1 win. The run included a 4-2 victory over Wimbledon (the original Wimbledon FC, that is.) in the Southern League Championship match, which was played annually between the previous season’s League Champions and the SL Cup winners. Two goals from Roly Horrey and one each from Bill Cassidy and Ron Howell gave United a comfortable win and their last Non-League trophy, for 40 years anyway! A attendance of only 1,768 showed the Cambridge public were more interested in League football than the past Non-League days.
Football League status was coming at a price though. Following on from the unwanted visit of “skinhead” hooligans from Lincoln for the opening match, more incidents followed this time initiated by so called United supporters. Visiting Oldham supporters had their coach windows smashed in and police with dogs had to intervene to prevent Oldham fans exacting revenge. Later on nine arrests were made on Newmarket Road.  Manager Bill Leivers appealed to the trouble makers to stop saying “I am sure these people are not Cambridge United fans but hooligans using football as protection while they cause trouble”. He went on to say he sympathised with  those who advocated the return of the birch ( a method of corporal punishment carried out with a birch rod) and would like to see the return of national service.

A bad knee injury to George Harris in the Oldham match was looking like it would cause him to be out until November. When Leivers found out much travelled striker Tony Hateley had been transfer listed by Birmingham City he made enquiries, thinking that at the age of 29 Hateley wouldn’t be carrying a six figure fee he had in the past. The £50,000 price tag was way outside United’s budget though and Hateley went to Notts County.
It wasn’t just on the pitch that United had to adjust to Football League status. There were complaints about matchday congestion on Newmarket Road and at the turnstiles. With regular attendances of 4-5,000 United appealed for fans to adjust their routines and try to arrive earlier. There were also PA announcements for fans to refrain from running on the pitch  during and after matches and not to climb the walls and floodlight pylons (believed to be the tallest in the League, by the way).  
Hard to believe these days but it wasn’t until the eighth match into the season that United received their first League booking (Yellow Card). Dennis Walker having the dubious honour in the 2-1 defeat at Chester on 23rd September. How times have changed.
For myself this was the beginning of a period of great change. My final year at school and lots of deliberations about choosing a career. After endless visits to career fairs I was beginning to think about a career in the police force. But to be honest careers and GCSE’s (O-Levels) were not exactly top of my priorities. Girls, youth club, music, playing snooker and football both badly and of course Cambridge United were taking up most of thoughts and time, not to mention the little money I was earning as a evening waiter at Selwyn College.
My daily routine was School, home for tea, then cycling to Selwyn to spill soup over students, then cycling to Comberton for the youth club or village disco. What time was there for home work. Someone once said “youth is wasted on the young!” Well they may be right.
Nigel Browne.

In Paul Mullin, for the first time in many years, Cambridge United have a striker making a legitimate challenge for David Crown’s goalscoring record. A very appropriate time, then, to take a close look at David’s time at the Abbey Stadium and that record-breaking season.
 
I’m plenty old enough to remember David Crown at United so some of this is drawn from memory, but for the facts and figures I have dipped into Kevin Palmer’s book “Cambridge United: The League era a complete record” and Andrew Bennet’s “The Moose That Roared”.  By a neat quirk of fate, however, I also managed to have a chat with David in his office in Leigh-on-Sea.
 
David Crown holds the Cambridge United record for the highest number of Football League goals scored in a season - 24 in 1985-86.  Or is it 25?  We’ll come back to that.  He was at United for only two and a bit seasons, between 1985 and 1987.  This was a twilight period for the football club, we were fighting for survival.  He was signed by probably United’s worst ever manager, Ken Shellito. That’s quite a claim; there are a fair few creditable challengers for that particular title (points in the direction of John Ryan, Steve Thompson and Martin Ling). Nevertheless, by bringing David Crown to the club, Shellito at least left one positive legacy to mark his car-crash period in charge.
 
Crown signed for United from Reading on a free transfer, aged 27, in the summer of 1985.  He was a regular starter at Reading in the old third division but had been deployed mainly as a winger, scoring 14 goals in 88 league appearances over two seasons. This was a successful period for Reading and included promotion from the fourth division in 1983-84. Crown started all but one game for Reading that season, scoring seven goals.  He had previously played for Brentford, Portsmouth, and Exeter on loan, all in the third division.  Considering these credentials and given that United had just suffered a second successive relegation, were skint and were predicted to struggle in the fourth division, the more I look back on the signing of David Crown, the more of a coup it appears to be. 
 
On signing Crown, Shellito said he intended to play him as a central striker.  That decision may well have been based on DC’s performance for the Royals against Shellito’s United in April the previous season when, switched from the wing to centre forward, he scored both the goals that beat the already-relegated U’s at the Abbey. In an interview for the United fanzine “The Abbey Rabbit” in 1989 Crown explained that the pitch at his first club, Walthamstow, was so boggy through the middle he was moved out wide, hence his early days were spent as a winger. Northampton wanted to sign him from Reading, he told “The Abbey Rabbit”, and offered a fee, but he didn’t fancy their manager or their ground (shared with Northamptonshire Cricket Club back then) so he chose United.

He joined a rag-tag United squad that included Alan Comfort, David Moyes and Andy Sinton (still only 19 years old) and three members of John Docherty’s great team (Tom Finney, Steve Spriggs and Steve Fallon) whose best days were behind them (Fallon’s due to injuries). It would be misleading to say it was a squad in transition as that would imply there was some kind of plan on the club’s part.
 
United started the 1985-86 season true to the form of the previous two and were quickly scraping along the bottom of the table. It took Crown seven games to score his first United goal, a consolation in a 4-1 loss at Colchester.  Let’s count his goals as they go in.

(1) Colchester United (a)
 
By the time David Crown opened his account United had already sunk to 23rd.  It was clearly going to be a long, hard, miserable season, the third in a row.    
 
(2) Exeter (h) (3) Halifax (a)
 
I’ll confess, I stayed away from the Abbey at the start of that season.  My first sighting of David Crown in a United shirt was against Mansfield on 5th October. I was prompted to go that afternoon by the genuine thought that our days in the Football League were numbered. Such was my sense of dread that I took a camera with me, to record some of the action before it was too late.  In another sign of the shambles around the club at the time, a steward spotted me at the front of the NRE with my Zenith and asked why, as a member of the press, I wasn’t sitting on the perimeter? I said nothing and allowed him to open a gate for me before taking up a prime spot next to Roger Hansbury’s left hand post. True story. Three late goals, including David Crown’s fourth in five games, saw United to a fine 4-2 win. Perhaps all was not lost after all, especially if Crown could keep on scoring. He did.
 
(4) Mansfield (h) (5) Wrexham (a) (6) Orient (h) (7)(8) Boro (h) (9) Crewe (a)
(10) Northampton (h) (11) Tranmere (h)
 
By the end of 1985 David Crown had 11 league goals, not at all shabby given our form and lowly league position. Scoring a brace in a 3-1 victory over Boro really started to endear him to the Abbey faithful. When wouldn’t it? 
 
Shellito resigned in December. He was replaced by Chris Turner, but even he wasn’t able to stop United slipping back into the re-election zone. David Crown missed a couple of games with an ankle injury late in the year, but he scored on his return against Hereford in January.
 
(12) Hereford (h) (13)(14) Wrexham (h) (15) Preston (a)
 
By the end of March, with only a month of the season remaining, Crown had scored 15 league goals. That’s a very decent return, but not record-shattering form. United were 22nd in the table and looked nailed on to have to apply for re-election.  We had won only 11 of 39 games. But then David Crown caught fire. 
 
(16) Swindon (h) (17)(18)(19) Halifax (h) (20) Burnley (a) (21) Crewe (h) (22) Northampton (a)
 
Crown’s 22nd league goal of the season at Northampton took him past Alan Biley’s United record, set in 1977-78.  Curiously, I don’t remember any great celebrations when he broke the record, either on the terraces or in the media (ie the Cambridge Evening News, that’s all there was). I guess it was because the prevailing mood around the club was still one of despondency, following another rotten season. David Crown wasn’t finished yet, though.
 
(23) Colchester (h) (24) Torquay (h)
 
United won four and drew one of the last six games of the season, Crown scoring nine in the last seven, and lost only one of their last 11. Sadly, it didn’t manage to lift United out of the re-election zone and we finished 22nd, but it took us to 54 points, level with Exeter, Halifax and Tranmere, the latter two above the dotted line on goal difference. A few weeks later the 92 league chairmen voted for United to stay in the Football League. 
 
There was only one guy to thank for this achievement: David Crown. By my reckoning his goals won us 19 points that season.  It doesn’t bear thinking about where United would have been without him. To break your club’s goalscoring record, by three goals, is a great achievement. To do it in such a rank season, in such a rank team, is the stuff of legend.  There were only three penalties amongst his goal tally (Steve Massey was the U’s penalty taker until late in the season).
 
To confirm, then, David Crown’s Cambridge United Football League goalscoring record is 24.  I stress this as, for many years, I thought it was 25 - because that’s what it says in Kevin Palmer’s book. “The Moose That Roared” doesn’t clarify matters; it notes that Crown broke the record but doesn’t specify how many goals he scored that season. I have cross-checked each of his goals in Kevin’s and Andrew’s books and found no contradictions. I guess there was just some wayward arithmetic on Kevin’s part. I have always considered Kevin’s book my bible on United stats … and still do!  I think we can allow him one error. Sorry to labour this point, but if Paul Mullin is going to get close to David Crown’s record it’s crucial we all know what the record is!

In all competitions Crown scored 27 that season, and this too is a United record.  His 24 league goals were supplemented by our consolation in a horrible 2-1 FA Cup first round defeat at non-league Dagenham and by a brace against Boro (again) in the Freight Rover Trophy.  This all-competitions total is confirmed in Brian Attmore and Graham Nurse’s piece on David Crown in their book “Cambridge United 100 Greats”.
 
The following season, 1986-87, was less prolific for David Crown, scoring 12 league goals, 16 in all competitions.  That might have spelt trouble for United if Mark Cooper, just 19 years old, hadn’t stepped up to share the goalscoring burden, outscoring Crown with 13 league goals. The two struck up a great partnership. Crown told “The Abbey Rabbit” their styles complemented each other (not unlike the Mullin and Ironside pairing that we are enjoying right now).

There were clear signs of a recovery at the Abbey Stadium and, although Chris Turner’s team did not manage promotion in 1986-87, it embarked on a cracking League Cup run to the fourth round, where we were finally knocked out by a frighteningly strong Tottenham team. Along the way Crown scored the only goal of the game to beat second division Ipswich, set up by Mark Cooper.  Watch the goal here (from a very weird Abbey camera angle):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuGRDGbbPBI
 
This, sadly, appears to be the only available online footage of DC in black and amber.    
 
The 1987-88 season was to be David’s last at the Abbey. He started in cracking form, netting a hat-trick against Crewe in August.  According to “The Moose That Roared”, scouts from Arsenal, QPR and Newcastle watched him score the two goals that beat Halifax in late September.

In early November 1987 David Crown was sold. We were shocked on two fronts:  first, the fee, a measly £30,000, and second, his destination, third division Southend. There was a third point, too:  what did the sale of our record goalscorer say about the ambition of the club?

CAMBRIDGE UNITED VS THE WEATHER
 
The recent Harrogate fog-fest made me think about the times I have watched Cambridge United over the past 50 odd years in really bad weather.  Here are a few of my memories of United playing in the most extreme weather conditions.
 
RAIN
 
One decidedly soggy game that stands out for me was at home to Tranmere in 1990.  It had been a very wet Christmas and the pitch was barely playable. At one point the Tranmere keeper tried to roll the ball to a full back. The ball held up in a puddle but rather than clear the danger the full back tried a return pass but the ball held up again, in the same puddle. Colin Baillie stepped in and chipped the keeper right in front of the NRE.  The United pitch suffered a lot that year, this was arguably its worst day – or its best if you are Colin Baillie. United won the game 3-1.
 
Watch the incident here: 

 The behind-closed-doors game against Newport County in October 2020 at the Abbey came close to be being abandoned following a half time downpour.  Not for the first time Ian Darler and his team came to the rescue, clearing the pitch of the worst of the standing water and the game survived.  The U’s went on to win 2-1, of course.  There was one casualty that afternoon, however.  The persistent heavy rain revealed United’s smart one-off 50th anniversary white shirts to be rather transparent when wet!
 
Players get paid to play in the rain.  As fans it’s quite the contrary, we sometimes fork out for the privilege of getting drenched.  Two examples spring to mind, both featuring notorious UTs – Uncovered Terraces. Bolton and Tranmere both, very kindly, used to reserve their expansive UTs for away fans.  It rained non-stop at Burnden Park in October 1981.  The nearest we could find to shelter was under the floodlight pylon. The utter soaking was worth it in the end, though, we won a cracker of a match 4-3, thus ending a run of 486 Division Two away games without a win.  Something like that. 
 
It was the same at Prenton Park in August 1992. The first game of the season, would you believe? Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Wet, wet, wet. My missus accompanied me to the Wirral that day, she had the right hump afterwards.  She has kept her “waterproof” anorak from the day as a reminder not to believe anything it says on a label.  To make matters worse we lost 2-0.
 
Watch the highlights here (you can see the rain dripping off the roof at one point):

Relentless rain was the reason for one of the few occasions a United game was abandoned, at Barnsley in October 1982. Our Milk Cup tie was halted after an hour due to a waterlogged pitch with the game at 1-1.  We lost the re-arranged game 2-1.

MUD
 
It’s January 1980, United are at Chesham for a third round FA Cup tie, and it’s a mud bath.  I swear there were only four blades of grass on the entire pitch.  United fans were allocated a grass bank behind one of the goals, but before long it was impossible to stand on it.  U’s fans spend just as much time slipping and sliding around as the players did that afternoon. I can’t remember whether it was a United or Chesham attempt on goal at our end, but the ball was heading in until it stuck in the mud and the grateful keeper collected it. United won 2-0 and drew Villa in the next round as a reward.
 
WIND
 
A gale force wind can turn a football match into the proverbial game of two halves.  Such was the case when United played at Stockport in March 1987. The wind was reported to have been gusting at 80mph. One end of the ground was even closed as part of the roof was considered dangerous. Playing with the wind United were 2-0 up at half time, but it was not enough.  After the break Stockport scored three times to win 3-2. My friend Steve made the trip that evening but, delayed by road closures crossing the Pennines, he only got to Edgely Park at half time. D’oh. 
 
Scunthorpe at the Abbey in October 1989 was similarly impacted by a mighty gale force wind.  United played with the wind in the first half, attacking the NRE and scored four before half time.  Worryingly Scunthorpe scored an “away” goal, against the wind, to make it 4-1 at half time. That first half advantage proved sufficient, though, as United survived by conceding only two against the wind in the second half, ending up 5-3 winners. 
 
That first half included two of the most remarkable United goals ever seen at the Abbey, both scored from inside their own half - with the help of the gale. Take a bow Gary Clayton and Chris Leadbitter. I remember the latter’s goal very clearly, viewed from the NRE:  As Chris launched the ball into the stratosphere, we watched the Scunny keeper on his line peer skywards in sheer terror for what seemed like 10 minutes until the ball finally reappeared and dropped over his head and into the goal. 
 
Watch the wind-assisted action here:

FOG
 
Fog is the worst of all the match-threatening elements for fans, in my opinion.  The ref will deem the match on if he can see both goals from the half-way line, but that means most fans in the ground will not stand a chance of witnessing at least half of the proceedings. 
 
This was the case in another FA Cup third round tie at Doncaster in January 1982.  We feared the worst travelling on the train up to Yorkshire from London as the mist turned to fog and then, as the Midlands became the North, into a bona fide pea souper!  The game was given the go-ahead, to the dismay of the Us fans stood on a steep bank behind one of the goals.  We could see nothing beyond the nearest point of the centre circle.  Much of the game thus remains a mystery to us, save for the result – an ignominious 2-1 defeat. The programme Doncaster produced for the tie only rubbed salt into wounds, a single typed sheet wrapped around the programme intended for an earlier, postponed game against Walsall.  A candidate for the worst 40p I’ve ever spent.

Us fans won’t need reminding of the heavy fog that descended on the Abbey at the recent game against Harrogate (January 2021), and got steadily worse as the game progressed.  There were no fans at the Abbey so U’s fans were watching on iFollow or listening to BBC Radio Cambs.  Neither Mark Johnson or Doug Shulman had a clue who scored our equalizer!  Joe Ironside, chaps.  At one point Jeff Stelling on Sky Sports News was convinced the game would not be completed, and the Sky reporter at the game said that one United substitution could have involved Dion Dublin for all he could see. Luckily the fog seemed to lift a little after that goal so the game completed its course, United winning 2-1.
 
Try to watch the action through the gloom again here:

FROST AND ICE
 
Anyone who has followed the Us for any reasonable length of time will have surely been frozen to the bone at some point.  A frozen pitch was the cause of the only United game I have attended to be abandoned.  It was a top-of-the-table fixture versus Blackburn Rovers at the Abbey in December 1991.  It was mightily cold when the game kicked off and during the first half from the main stand you could clearly see the pitch become whiter and whiter as the frost took hold.  It was not a great surprise that the match was abandoned at half time. There had been no goals.
 
Much more controversial was United’s FA Cup match at Shrewsbury in January 1979, yet another third round tie.  I was on one of six or seven United coaches to leave the Abbey that frosty morning, each of them with an eye on the weather and an ear to the radio as we travelled north – matches were being postponed left, right and centre.  As it turned out Shrewsbury v Cambridge was one of only four ties that survived the freezing weather that afternoon and, probably as a result, the game was on Match of the Day.  From the word go it was quite clear the game should never have started as the pitch was rock hard, frozen solid. We lost 3-1 on a skating rink not a football pitch.  I’ve held a grudge against Shrewsbury ever since. 
 
Most fans will have their own idea as to the coldest football ground in the UK.  My candidates are Port Vale and Barnsley. I think my very coldest experience, though, was at Eastville, Bristol Rovers in February 1980.  I bought a cup of tea at half time to warm up. I was nudged as I made my way back down the terrace.  As the tea spilt, the scalding liquid initially burnt my hand but then, an instant later, I could feel it freezing. A numbing 0-0 draw didn’t help.

SNOW
 
Snowy matches are all memorable, who doesn’t love it when the orange ball makes an appearance? As I kid in the early 70s, I made a snow-covered Subbuteo pitch out of an, ahem, “borrowed” white bed sheet. Snowy games are few and far between, sadly, and I can only recall a few watching United.
 
At Sheffield United in December 1978 the pitch must have had a good inch or two of lying snow. We came back from 2-0 down to lead 3-2 only to be denied the win by a very late equaliser. I remember Floyd Streete hitting the bar at our end with a 25-yard thunderbolt.  It sent the snow that had settled on the crossbar flying into the air in a perfect arc, reflecting all the colours of the rainbow against the floodlights. The coach trip back down the A1 in a blizzard was very hairy at times, we saw quite a few cars abandoned by the side of the road. The had snow stopped by the time we got to Boro and there was not a hint of snow in Cambridge, so the old boys supping in the Supporters Club couldn’t understand what the fuss was about when we told the tale of a very eventful away game. 
 
The following year we played West Ham at Upton Park on the Friday before Christmas.  This was a local game for me as I worked close by, but getting to the game was still a nightmare, caused by heavy snow and problems on the underground. As a result, the attendance was a paltry 11,000.  At half time I remember the tannoy played Mike Oldfield’s “In Dulci Jubilo” which managed to get what seemed like the whole ground dancing to keep warm. It even prompted a streaker! It was still playing, at the crowd’s insistence, as the second half got underway. We lost 3-1.
 
Heavy snow on the M11 prevented me from reaching Grimsby in November 1980.  We decided enough was enough when a car passed us in the fast lane facing the wrong direction before completing a 360 degree turn and sliding into a ditch!  In the blizzard, halfway up the A1, the Supporters Club coach famously collected what was described as “a snow-bound yeti wearing a black and amber scarf”! It was in fact my friend Daron, hitching a lift to the game from university in Nottingham. The snow turned to rain in Grimsby so the game went ahead, although it was a mud bath by all accounts.
 
The club spent 16 hours clearing the Abbey of snow in February 1985 before a game against York, helped by an army of volunteer fans - and at least one of the players, Kevin Massey, I’m told. They wished they hadn’t bothered, the Us were thumped 4-0.  Kevin Massey didn’t play, by the way!
 
HEAT
 
This is a rare one.  There is, for me, only one possible candidate for the hottest conditions I have ever watched United.  It was August 2003; England was in the grips of a heat wave.  The first game of the season had the Us at Huddersfield. The temperature climbed and climbed as we drove north.  When we, reluctantly, got out of the air-conditioned car it was 36 big fat degrees. The game was pretty good, considering, and we got a creditable 2-2 draw thanks to goals from Dave Kitson and Dan Chillingworth.  My main memory, though, was a United player (I think it was Stuart Bimson) receiving a bad cut to his head very early in the game, but playing on, bandaged up and bloody Terry Butcher style.  To do that under normal conditions would have been commendable.  To do so in that heat was, frankly, heroic!
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
These are games that went ahead, despite the weather conditions.  Many more have been postponed of course, some very late in the day (hello Morecambe).
 
We all know that Ian Darler and his ground staff team take exceptionally good care of the Abbey pitch, so much so that I can’t remember when we last had a home league game called off - can you?
 
These are my memories of watching the Us in extreme weather conditions.  What are yours? 
 
 
Nigel Pearce
January 2021

Early Memories of being a Cambridge United fan
 
It was the excitement of seeing England win the 1966 World Cup just after my ninth birthday that saw the beginnings of my love of football. From the start of the following season, most of my Saturday afternoons were spent with my schoolpals watching the home games of my local team Haverhill Rovers at Hamlet Croft (now, sadly the site of new housing)  - alternate weeks  would see the first team playing in the Eastern Counties League, and the Reserves playing the following week in the Essex & Suffolk Border League.
 
Supporting a "proper" team was very much dependent upon copying the popular kids at school, and I was no different. Chelsea became my team, and my dad even got seats for us to go to one or two home games in each of the following few seasons. I wanted to go more regularly, but that was not possible.  It was therefore my dad's idea that he take me to watch Cambridge United (just a half-hour drive away), and so it was that in March 1969 we  took our seats in the Main Stand at the Abbey Stadium to watch United, then flying high in the Southern League and challenging Hillingdon Borough for top spot. That first game  was against Worcester City, with United running out 3-0 winners if I remember correctly. I think Tony Butcher and Bill Cassidy were among the goalscorers. Others in that team included Roly Horrey, Rodney Slack, Dennis Walker, Robin Hardy, Gerry Baker and Terry Eades, but Bill "Cass" Cassidy became my first favourite player.

From that point I was absolutely hooked, and pressured my dad into taking me to as many  games as possible as United homed in on winning the league in May 1969. The title was clinched on the final day with a 3-0 win against Kettering, pipping Hillingdon by a single point. Tony Butcher scored a hat-trick, in front of over 6,000 fans. From my vantage point in the Main Stand, I could see many of those fans coming on the pitch at the end of the game to celebrate. I loved it!  In those days, the top non-league teams were able to join the bottom four teams from Division Four in attempting to be elected/re-elected into the Football League. United fell just short by twelve votes that season, but through intense lobbying by the United directors the result would be different twelve months later!  

The following season was equally successful, the signing of striker George Harris proving a master stroke. I remember that for Christmas 1969, my mum had knitted me a black & amber scarf for me to wear at United games - however at around that time the team had changed to an all-white kit! It wouldn't be until the 72/73 season that they reverted to black & amber colours, and I have continued to wear my original knitted scarf to this day, despite my wife shrinking it in the wash!

The 1969/70 title challenge was between United and Yeovil, and United went into the final game at home to Margate still needing a win to clinch the Southern League title for a second time. However, there was a complication in that a friendly had been arranged with Chelsea for the night before, being part of the transfer agreement that had seen Ian Hutchinson transferred by United to the Londoners two years previously. I remember being crammed into the standing area between the Main Stand (which then only extended  to the halfway line)  and the Newmarket Road end, and getting the autograph of Chelsea striker Tommy Baldwin as the Chelsea team made their way from the team bus to the changing rooms. The crowd was a record 14,000, with fans taking every vantage point, including sitting on the top of the wall behind the Allotments End and climbing on floodlight pylons - no health & safety issues in those days! Chelsea had won the FA Cup just two days previously in a replay against Leeds, and the team (most of whom had played in the replay) proudly paraded the cup in a lap of honour around the ground before the game. In view of the importance of the game against Margate 24 hours later, United only played the first 45 minutes, being replaced by a Chelsea reserve side in the second half.

The Margate game the following day was very tense, remaining goalless until ten minutes from the end when George Harris put United in front with a penalty at the Allotments End. I think it was Bill Cassidy who scored a second  to clinch the game and the championship, with fans again streaming onto the pitch at the final whistle in celebration. And so that summer United went into the re-election vote with strong expectations, that turned out to be fully justified as they beat Bradford Park Avenue by 14 votes and hence were elected to the Football League for the first time in the club's history.

When the fixtures for the historic first Football League season were published, I was excited to note that United would be home to Lincoln City on the opening day. However, I was brought down to earth with a bump when I realised that the date of that first game came half way through a family holiday to Devon, staying with my aunt and uncle.  I think my dad realised my disappointment, and decided to take me to watch Exeter City v Scunthorpe instead - I tried to look pleased, but I think I spent the whole game wondering how The U's were getting on!

I managed to see about a dozen home games in that first season in Division 4,  but only Saturday matches as I was not allowed out on "school night". In the following 71/72 season, for games that my dad couldn't attend I was allowed to go on the bus from Haverhill to games on my own, but only if I promised not to stand behind the Newmarket Road end, as my dad said the spectators there were a bit rowdy! The Allotments End therefore became my regular vantage point, seeing my new favourite player Brian Greenhalgh score quite a number of goals, including four in a 6-0 thrashing of Darlington. Still no midweek games, though!

By the time the 72/73 season got underway, I had persuaded my best mate Martin Page to come along with me on the bus to home games, and this meant my parents were a bit more relaxed about me going to midweek games.  We would watch the games by standing behind whichever goal United were attacking, changing ends at half-time by walking behind the Main Stand. That season saw United make a strong push for promotion, and the team's form gave me & Martin the encouragement to go to an away game at Colchester (a 1-0 win with a Bobby Ross goal), picking up the supporters coach when it came through Haverhill. The season's climax though was the final game, at home to Mansfield, knowing that the winners would gain promotion to Division 3, with a draw being of no use to either side. There were no play-offs in those days, of course.

The Mansfield game attracted a crowd of over 11,500, which I believe is still (to this day) a club record since entering the league. Me and Martin, along with another good mate David Ince, decided to make a day of it and had gone to Fenners in the morning to see Cambridge University play cricket against Yorkshire, before we all made our way to the Abbey. The size of the crowd meant there could be no half-time change of ends for us fans, and so because of some "disturbances" in the Newmarket Road end with some Mansfield interlopers we watched the game from the Allotments End. I can remember the tension of Mansfield taking the lead twice (sandwiching a Ronnie Walton goal) before Bobby Ross scored a equalising penalty just before half-time to tie the game up at 2-2, and then the ecstacy of Ronnie Walton slamming in the winning goal right in front of us in the second half. As the final minutes ticked away oh so slowly, we made our way down to the front of the terracing and over the front barrier in readiness for a pitch invasion, which actually happened  prematurely when  some of us (me included!) mistook the referee's whistle for an offside decision to be the final whistle! We all had to sheepishly retreat off the pitch to enable the match to resume, only for a proper invasion just a few moments later when the final whistle was finally blown. Pandemonium on the pitch with thousands of fans trying to mob the U's players - I still have a press cutting taken from the Cambridge Evening News which includes a photo of Brian Greenhalgh being chaired off the pitch , and I'm captured in that photo joining in chants of "Greenhalgh, Greenhalgh!"

So those are my early memories of following this very special club  through all the ups and downs that have followed in the past half century. Although none of us of course wanted those "downs", it is I believe by having the bad times that enable us to appreciate so much more  when the good times come - promotions, Wembley wins, getting to the FA Cup quarter finals twice, almost getting into the Premier League, play-off wins, and drawing against Manchester United followed by being amongst 9,000 U's fans at the replay at Old Trafford.

Come on you U's!!! 

 Ray Colfar 1935-2020

The Cambridge United family lost a fondly remembered member with the death, at the age of 85
on December 16, of former left winger Ray Colfar.

A rapid raider with a powerful shot who could create goals as well as finish them, Colfar was at the Abbey Stadium for just one season in 1961/62, but made 60 appearances in all competitions, scoring 14 times.

His signing from Crystal Palace in the summer of 1961 was something of a coup for U’s player-manager Alan Moore, whose manoeuvres in the transfer market were constrained by a weekly wage budget for his entire squad of £200.

He had won the Athenian League with Sutton United and gained promotion from the Football League Fourth Division with Palace, before falling out of favour with Eagles manager Arthur Rowe. Colfar had told Moore that, in return for a favour whose nature was not made known, he would have first refusal if he decided to leave Selhurst Park. Palace asked £2,500 when they
acceded to the 24-year-old’s transfer request.

His season with United yielded silverware in the form of the Southern League Cup and he impressed throughout with, as the Cambridge Daily News described it, his ‘jet-paced speed and deft ball control’.

In a remarkable Southern League Premier Division match at home to Kettering, United were trailing by 2-0 with just 23 minutes to go, but Colfar inspired his teammates to run riot with five goals in the closing stages, scoring one himself.

Moore had turned down offers for his star winger from Romford, Yiewsley and Chelmsford, but didn’t stand in his way when Southern League champions Oxford United came calling. The other U’s, newly elected to the Football League, paid £2,000 for Colfar’s services, and he  featured in their first ever League game, at Barrow on 18 August 1962.

At the Manor Ground he played alongside three personalities who would later make considerable impacts at the Abbey: brothers Graham and Ron Atkinson and striker Harry ‘Bud’ Houghton.

Thereafter his career took in Southern League clubs Wimbledon and Guildford.

Born on 4 December 1935, Colfar made little impact on the football world in his native Liverpool, but he started to attract the attention of League clubs when, at the age of 17, he moved to London and joined Kingston Boys’ Club. Chosen to represent the National Association of Boys’ Clubs, he played against the Welsh association at Wembley and also against Scotland and the Air Training Corps.

West Ham signed him as an amateur, and he played for the Hammers’ ‘A’ and Combination

sides before spending two seasons with Sutton and then, in 1958, turning professional with Palace.

Read about the 1961 / 62 via the link here

Here we go. This is the moment everybody connected with Cambridge United has been waiting for. Not just since our election to the Football League back in May but ever since the club turned professional and made Football League status our goal”. These were the opening words in the programme for the first ever Football League match not only for Cambridge United but the first in Cambridge. Saturday 15th August 1970 was the date, Lincoln City the opponents. Manager Bill Leivers also had some profound words “this is the realisation of a dream. It will be a wonderful occasion and I am determined to sit back and enjoy it, and for once the result will be of secondary importance to me. We have had to crawl to get into the League, now we can walk and perhaps soon we will be able to run with the big boys”.

For the first time the club accepted match ball sponsors and received 18 applications within 72 hours of making the announcement. Chairman Jack Woolley and Mrs. Woolley sponsored the first match ball. United also advertised for ‘attractive girls’ to be dressed in uniforms of blouse and mini-skirt, to sell programmes. Surprising what you could get away with in the 1970’s!  The board of directors had already calculated they would need attendances of over 5,000 to break even. So must have been delighted when 6,843 turned up.

United’s team for that history making match was, Roberts, Thompson, Meldrum, Slack, Eades, Hardy, Leggett, Cassidy, Lindsay, McKinven, Harris. Lining up in a ambitious 4-2-4 formation. Only two of the team, Terry Eades and Keith Lindsay, hadn’t played in the Football League before. It was also a League debut for the match referee Robert Perkins. For the record the Lincoln team lined up as Kennedy, Taylor G, Peden, Hubbard, Harford, Grummett, Hughes, Trevis, Freeman, Taylor W, Fletcher. Spot the future England manager?

The match its self was described as a “truly great occasion” by the Cambridge News Light Blue sports newspaper. A Drum & Pipe band was the live pre-match entertainment before United kicked-off towards the Corona End (NRE in today’s language).  United took the game to their illustrious visitors and had the best of the early chances. But on eight minutes and with their first real attack the Imps took the lead when Fletcher crossed for captain Travis to beat Roberts from close range. The goal visibly shook United and they spent the rest of the half defending and had to make three goal line clearances.

Geed up by Bill Leivers half-time pep talk United did settle down and started to take the game to Lincoln. However, it wasn’t until the 78th minute they managed the equaliser and their first League goal, Colin Meldrum’s header thundered against the underside of the bar before spinning into the net. There then followed 15 minutes of nervy defending before United claimed their first Football League point to signal their arrival.

Football League status did bring an unwelcome factor. Earlier in the day Cambridgeshire police intercepted three coachloads of Lincoln “Skinheads” who had intended  to cause trouble at the match. After confiscating various weapons at the Trinity Foot pub on the A604 (now A14) the coaches were escorted back to Lincoln.

For me this was a bitter/sweet moment. The annual family holiday, this year to Weston-Super-Mere had been booked long before the League fixtures were released and there was just no way I could get out of it.

In the days before the internet, mobile phones and Saturday afternoon score update TV programmes the only way of keeping up with events 150 miles away was national radio. They didn’t cover the fourth division much but, as we were the new boys, they did have a reporter at the Abbey who gave reports when goals were scored and at half/full time. I remember well trying to keep a crackly car radio in tune, which seemed to change everytime we turned a corner. I can still recite by heart the United line-up of that day, anorak or what? I was also becoming a bit of a programme collector and had made arrangements for a United supporting school mate to get me a programme, which he agreed to providing I paid him in advance. Everyday towards the end of the summer term I intended to pay him, but somehow it never happened. But what are mates for? First day back at the start of the new school year the programme was duly delivered. Nothing mentioned about payment and as I had spent the last of my paper round money on twenty No.6 I wasn’t going to say anything.

So, Tim Sewell if you can find me I am now quiet willing and able to pay you for the programme............2 shillings, 10p in today’s money

Photos courtesy of Cambridge News