Category: Chelsea

It's a record breaker!

8/7/2018

It was an unforgettable occasion for any Cambridge United supporter … the day Chelsea brought the FA Cup to the Abbey Stadium.

It was 1 May 1970 and, as Coconuts vice-chair Barry Benton remembers, the Pensioners had won the Cup just two days before, after a replay in a bruising encounter with Leeds United.

A couple of years before that, when they bought gangly young striker Ian Hutchinson from the U's, they had agreed to play a money-spinning friendly against United.

It was hardly surprising that United's record home attendance of 14,000 – a record that will probably never be beaten – was set that day. Every square inch of the ground was occupied as Chelsea paraded the Cup before kick-off.

Luckily, someone took a cine camera along to record the proceedings for posterity. We're immensely grateful to David Smith for providing the resultant film in video format. Click the button above to relive history.

Details of the events can be found in Risen from the Dust, the second volume of Andrew Bennett's Celery & Coconuts history of our club. Buy your copy at the CFU online shop or from the caravan on a match day.

Suffice it to say that, as the U's had a rather important fixture the following day – the home game against Margate that would bring them their second successive Southern League title – they wanted to take it easy, and a Chelsea reserve side took their place for the second half.

Moments from that Margate match are also preserved in David Smith's wonderful film. A George Harris penalty and a Bill Cassidy clincher effectively took United into the Football League.

Footage of the celebrations and of the Southern League championship shield being borne aloft in a sea of bodies brings it all back … precious memories of an amazing two days in Cambridge United history.

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To the Bridge

7/28/2018

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An edited version of this article appeared in the Cambridge United matchday programme for the game against Luton Town on 3 March 2018.

When talk turns to big clubs’ practice of ‘stockpiling’ young players, whereby the closest most will ever get to first-team football is on loan at another club, the word ‘Chelsea’ often crops up.

With good reason: at the time of writing, Roman Abramovich’s pet project had 38 players out on loan, and goodness knows how many other youngsters queuing up behind them.

The West London giants have always had an eye for young talent, but there was no question of stockpiling when they snapped up the 19-year-old Ian Hutchinson from United in 1968. Nor is there any suggestion that the Pensioners had anything but the best of intentions for the career of Abbey United’s youthful George Alsop when he left for Stamford Bridge in the early 1920s.

George Alsop in 1925. Photo: Cambridgeshire Collection at Cambridge Central Library

We don’t know exactly when the Barnwell-born lad departed for the Smoke; nor do we know how Chelsea came to find out about young Alsop’s talent. He was after all playing his home games on Stourbridge Common, in the depths of Cambridgeshire League Division Three, when he came to their notice.

Nigel Browne’s research into Barnwell families of the early 20th century – part of a Coconuts team’s scrutiny of the everyday lives of people in east Cambridge during World War I – shows that our George Alsop was probably born in 1902 and was living with his parents at 481 Newmarket Road in 1911.

It’s possible that his dad sold his East Road wheelwright’s business to Donald Mackay, whose family still runs the engineering and hardware emporium. It’s also possible that his mum was one of the Ivett family who helped to found the Ivett & Reed stonemasonry company on Newmarket Road.

We are going to find out about other aspects of Alsop’s life. One thing we do know is that he was some player.

The late Andrew Bennett’s book Newmarket Road Roughs (available for purchase through the CFU online store) reveals that he marshalled the Abbey United defence in 1921/22, the club’s first season of competitive football. Then he was off to Chelsea.

You’ll search in vain for internet mentions of George Alsop in a Chelsea FC connection. We’re making enquiries of the club historian, but it seems that, having made the enormous leap from the Cambs League to Football League Division One, Alsop got no further than Blues’ reserves.

Restored to the Abbey team as centre half and captain by 1924, he made an immediate impact in the season’s opening Cambs League Division One match at St Ives, scoring both goals in a 2-0 win.

Two weeks later, after a 6-2 defeat of Cottenham in which he again scored twice, the Cambridge Daily News raved: ‘He was originally a forward, and it was in that capacity that he was signed by Chelsea about two years ago. He was then a good shot, but he has not only benefited by his sojourn with the professionals in that direction, but in all-round football ability.’

Alsop was prominent in Abbey’s progress over the next few seasons; he’s pictured below in the middle of the front row of the all-conquering 1924/25 team.

But by the early 30s his influence was declining and, having appeared 160 times and scored 62 goals, he played his last Wasps game in 1932.

We have much to discover about this fascinating personality, and perhaps you can help. If you have any information about George Alsop or his family, please email 100yearsofcoconuts@gmail.com.

Abbey United in 1924/25, location unknown. Captain George Alsop is sitting in the middle of the front row, behind the Creake Charity Shield.

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When Chelsea came to town

2/4/2018

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This article appeared in the Cambridge Independent's edition of 17-23 January 2018.

Long before the name of Roman Abramovich brought a gleam to Ken Bates’s eye and gave a fillip to his earnings potential, Chelsea were a fairly unremarkable club that popped up occasionally to claim one of English football’s top prizes.

And it may come as a surprise to younger readers that the west London club, now one of the world’s richest, have played Cambridge United no fewer than 17 times over the years.

Admittedly, four of those games pitted the Pensioners’ ‘A’ team against United’s best XI and took place in the early 1950s, in the Eastern Counties League.

Admittedly, three of those games were friendlies. Admittedly, the U’s have a poor record against the Blues, having won just four times and drawn once.

But ten of the 17 matches featured the two clubs competing on equal terms, in League Division Two in the 1980s, and one of the friendlies was one of the most unforgettable contests ever staged at the Abbey Stadium.

The first meeting between the U’s and Chelsea took place at Newmarket Road on 17 November 1951 and resulted in a 2-1 win for the youthful visitors. There were to be three more ECL encounters before Chelsea withdrew from the league in 1953.

Talking of youngsters, United youth teams of the early 1960s earned themselves a couple of tilts against their Chelsea counterparts in the FA Youth Cup.

In 1961/62, having disposed of Luton and Wycombe, they were drawn at home to Chelsea in round four. A crowd of 1,909 watched a Pensioners side featuring John Hollins and Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris claim a 3-0 win.

The following year, United’s young men gained a 2-1 win over Charlton in round two but went down 4-0 in the following round to a Blues team that included winger Peter Houseman.

The next time the clubs’ paths crossed was in a 1968 friendly, which Chelsea won 3-1. But a much bigger, record-breaking occasion was in the offing.

By April 1970, Ian Hutchinson, signed by Chelsea from the U’s two years earlier, had developed into a striker capable of terrorising any defence – with his feet, his head or his phenomenally long, accurate throws.

Hutch was a standout performer in that year’s brutal FA Cup final, scoring Chelsea’s equaliser in the first match at Wembley, then hurling the ball that provided David Webb’s winner in the replay at Old Trafford.

Chelsea players parade the recently won FA Cup before playing Cambridge United at the Abbey Stadium on 1 May 1970. Photo: David Campbell/Cambridgeshire Collection.

Ian Hutchinson watches as his former teammate Rodney Slack collects the ball during the Chelsea-Cambridge United friendly match on 1 May 1970. Photo: David Campbell/Cambridgeshire Collection.

A mere two days later, on May 1, the victorious Blues players paraded their hard-won trophy in front of 14,000 (and probably more) Cambridge people in a match arranged as part of the Hutchinson transfer deal.

The attendance record set that day will never be broken while the Abbey stays in its present form. The place was full to overflowing and desperate spectators were forced to seek, as Jim Laker used to say, all kinds of vantage points. A present-day stadium manager would have had palpitations.

The time came for Hutch to showcase his long throw, and gasps were followed by cheers when it dropped towards the penalty spot.

By that time, the United team had been replaced by Chelsea’s reserves, who ran out 4-3 winners.

The U’s had other things on their minds: the following day’s Southern League title decider at home to Margate.

A young Ian Hutchinson at the Abbey Stadium, before his 1968 transfer to Chelsea.

There were sighs of resignation around Newmarket Road in the early summer of 1968, when Ian Hutchinson departed for Stamford Bridge.

The young man clearly possessed huge potential although, gangly and seemingly uncoordinated at times, he had been singled out for ill-judged barracking by a few spectators.

No one could complain, however, about the compensation United received from Chelsea: £2,500 up front, another £2,500 after ten First Division appearances, the same amount when he played for England Under-23 and the promise of that record-breaking 1970 friendly match.

And no one expected to see Hutchinson playing in amber and black again … except perhaps Hutchinson himself.

In the autumn of 1968, United manager Bill Leivers was startled to hear Hutch’s voice when he picked up his office phone.

He was even more surprised to hear that the young starlet, finding life at the top was not to his liking, wanted to come home.

‘We were living in a hotel and, as a reserve player, I was earning less than I had been at the Abbey Stadium,’ Hutchinson recalled later.

'So I approached Bill Leivers and asked if he would take me back. He said there would always be a place for me at the Abbey Stadium.’

But his big break in Chelsea’s first team wasn’t far away and, despite an awful succession of injuries that ended his career far too early, he became one of the Shed’s favourite adopted sons.

United and Chelsea fans alike mourned his premature death, at the age of 54, in 2002.

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It's a record breaker!

To the Bridge

When Chelsea came to town

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