This article appeared in the Cambridge United programme for the match against Plymouth Argyle on Saturday, 4 February 2017.

Refugees, and a certain president’s unlawful measures to prevent some finding sanctuary in his country, are in the news. Let’s examine, then, the welcome extended 80 years ago to terrified people fleeing deadly warplanes.

When peace returned, some refugees from that 1930s outrage went home. Others stayed in their adoptive countries and made priceless contributions to their new communities. Perhaps nowhere in Britain benefited more than Cambridge from their presence. It’s safe to say our football club gained as much as any other from their contribution.

The bombs that forced our refugees to leave their homes did not fall from Russian or Syrian aircraft. The warplanes were those of Hitler’s Condor Legion, formed by members of the Luftwaffe, and they flew in support of the fascist Francisco Franco’s Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War. The carpet-bombing of civilians in the Basque town of Guernica on 26 April 1937 was the Legion’s most infamous act.

One of its victims was a Republican fighter by the name of Gallego. Two of his sons, José and Antonio, and three other siblings escaped Franco’s lethal attentions when their mother placed them in a Bilbao orphanage. Soon the Gallego children, with nearly 4,000 other youthful refugees, were on their way to Britain, despite prime minister Stanley Baldwin’s ludicrous claim that the climate wouldn’t suit them.

The children were welcomed in various ‘colonies’ throughout the country, and the Gallegos spent time at the two in our area – at Pampisford rectory and in Station Road, Cambridge. The kids didn’t see their mother again for ten years, but they settled well thanks to the warm-hearted people they met, and to football.
‘Football meant everything to us; it was the only thing we knew about,’ Antonio told the Spanish paper El Pais in 2012. ‘We got attached to Cambridge and made a lot of friends here through playing football.’

Goalkeeper Antonio (quickly dubbed Tony) and winger José (Joe) signed for Cambridge Town as teenagers. Tony switched to Abbey United in 1943 before rejoining Joe at Milton Road the following year. Then he entered the professional ranks with Norwich City, where he played with former Town teammate Fred Mansfield. His spell at Carrow Road was brief, and he returned to Cambridge to become United’s first-choice keeper at the start of the 1947/48 season, as the club moved boldly into the semi-professional United Counties League.

Joe left Town for Brentford in 1947, signed for Southampton the following year and featured in Colchester’s first Football League season, but returned to play for the newly renamed Cambridge United when they joined the Eastern Counties League in 1951/52.

Tony remained first choice that season but in 1955 signed for Biggleswade; Joe stayed at the U's for another season before being united with his brother again. The Gallegos stayed in Cambridge for the rest of their lives, Joe dying in 2006 aged 82 and 90-year-old Tony passing away two years ago. I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts rang out loud and proud at the funeral.

The Gallegos are legends at United, as are Emilio Aldecoa at Coventry and Wolves and other fugitive children who made a mark in British football. We have cause to thank the Cambridge people who said ‘refugees welcome’ in 1937.

​What a lovely bunch! The latest visitors to The Story of the U’s, 100 Years of Coconuts’ exhibit on the history of Cambridge United, were members of Barnwell & Fen Ditton Local History Society – and some even learned new things about their area. As usual, there was much discussion about the ladies’ pants.

The local historians were also the first visitors to see new exhibits including Under the Gaslamps, artist Paine Proffitt’s brilliant evocation of the first days of Abbey United. Also newly on display is the sheet music of the original I've Got A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts.

The Story of the U’s is open to members of Cambridge United Supporters’ Club and their guests during normal club opening hours, and by appointment at other times. If you’re not a member and you would like to visit – and  

The Cambridge United family has lost a much-loved and esteemed member with the death of Jack Morgan at the age of 92 on April 26.

Renowned as the man who first played ‘I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts’ over the tannoy, Jack belonged to a diehard U’s family. His mother and father worked tirelessly for the club and Supporters’ Club and his brother Arthur played 110 first-team games between 1947 and 1955; usually but not always in goal.

Jack was born in the Hills Road area of Cambridge in 1924. His family subsequently moved to Ditton Fields; a hotbed of United support. He and his three brothers were soon enthusiastic supporters and later, like his parents, he served on the Supporters’ Club committee.

As Abbey United progressed towards professionalism and the Football League, it was the norm for supporters to help out with all manner of jobs. Jack remembered scrubbing floors and marking the pitch, but a highlight of his work was the playing of records, perched in the little box that still adorns the north-west corner of the ground, through the tannoy on match days.

Supporter Robin Mansfield recalled Jack taking him to his first U’s game in 1955. ‘It was he who first decided to play that record [Coconuts] whenever we had a win,’ he said. ‘I have asked Jack why he chose that particular record. His reply was: “It was purely accidental. I had a pile of records in front of me and thought this one would do!” He just carried on playing it and the tradition continues to the present day.’

Jack, who turned out at right half for United Reserves ‘when they were short’, worked at Marshall’s during World War II. He later became a rent collector for

I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts blasts out of the wind-up gramophone at Coconuts Acres night and day, but elsewhere you don't often hear our anthem played more than once in one day.

A wonderful exception to the rule occurred on Saturday, March 19, before the U's kicked off against Yeovil, as a tribute to Russell Crane (see obituary below). 

Coconuts rang out loud and proud over the PA as United and Yeovil supporters joined in a minute's applause in honour of the great man. That tribute followed a reading of these evocative words, which flowed from the pen of Andrew Bennett:

[On May Day 1952] United unexpectedly defeated the mighty Cambridge City 2-0 in the Cambs Invitation Cup final before a crowd of 9,814 at Milton Road, Crane scoring both goals in a five-minute spell during the first half. At the final whistle United’s ecstatic fans stormed the pitch and chaired Crane off to a rousing chorus of I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts.

100 Years of Coconuts and CFU were saddened to hear of the death at the age of 90, on 10 March 2016, of Abbey/Cambridge United legend Russell Crane.

Russell was the only man to play for the club in five different leagues: the wartime East Anglian, the Cambridgeshire, United Counties, Eastern Counties and Southern. It was an indication of the respect that all involved with the club held for Russell, a U’s man through and through, when he was made honorary life president of Coconuts in November last year.

Born on 26 January 1926, Russell grew up in Ditton Walk, a stone’s throw from the Abbey United ground, in a United-focused household. His father Herbie was a jack-of-all-trades helper behind the scenes, a role he filled into the 1950s. He would take the team’s shirts home for his wife Sylvia to wash, and count and bank the gate money from home games.

Russell left school at 15 and it was at that age that he made his U’s debut on 13 September 1941, in a 4-2 defeat of an RAF XI. A diminutive, stocky, speedy left winger with tricky skills and a powerful shot, he made an immediate impact and by 1943 was earning rave reviews from the local press.

By now 17, he was called up for the Royal Navy. He took part in an ill-fated exercise designed to prepare Allied forces for the Normandy landings, and later served all over the world, but returned to play for United whenever he was on leave. Upon demob in 1946 he established himself as a regular in the side and adjusted easily when Abbey joined the semi-professional United Counties League a year later.

Russell blossomed fully during the 1948/49 season, when he was the league’s top scorer with 42 goals in 37 games, a club record. In a 4-1 win at Eynesbury he scored a stunning goal when he picked up the ball in his own half and dribbled past man after man before hitting the net. At Kettering, ‘his marksmanship and working of the ball bore the hallmark of class and the opposing defence never knew what he was going to do next,’ said the press report. He scored four goals in a game on three occasions that season, with two hat-tricks thrown in for good measure.

He played at centre forward and inside left as well as on the left wing as United established themselves in the UCL. When they beat relative giants Wisbech in the East Anglian Cup in 1950, the local paper reported:  ‘If Abbey United are fortunate enough to win the East Anglian Cup this season, the name of Russell Crane should be engraved upon it in gilt letters. For it was the fighting spirit of this human dynamo of an inside forward when Abbey were a goal down after two minutes which largely inspired his team to a one-goal victory. Revealing all the menace of an angry wasp, Crane buzzed and harassed his way among the visiting defenders in a tireless pattern which did much to put a top-gear United on the winning trail by half-time.’

At the end of 1950/51 Peterborough United of the Midland League offered Russell a significant pay rise, but he declined to move out of loyalty to his hometown club. He told Coconuts TV in 2014: ‘As far as I was concerned it was a family affair, you know? My father worked up there, my mother did what she could do at home, my sisters [Edna, Ivy and Freda] all supported them and used to go up to the games …’

The renamed Cambridge United moved across to the Eastern Counties League in 1951. That season United unexpectedly defeated the mighty Cambridge City 2-0 in the Cambs Invitation Cup final before a crowd of 9,814 at Milton Road, Crane scoring both goals in a five-minute first-half spell. At the final whistle United’s ecstatic fans stormed the pitch and chaired Crane off to a rousing chorus of I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts.

For the 1953/54 season Russell was converted into an attacking left back, a role he took to with comfort. He was awarded a benefit match in April 1956 to mark 15 years’ service to the club and around that time he turned down the offer of a trial with Ipswich Town.
He filled a variety of positions as United progressed to the Southern League in 1958, and he scored the club’s first goal in that competition, in a 3-1 defeat of Guildford City. That season was his swansong at United and after 18 years’ service, 502 games and 186 goals he remained in local football at Soham and Sawston.

A part-time professional player to the end of his U’s career, Russell’s off-pitch working life encompassed spells at a cable company in Regent Street, the Pye group companies Unicam and Telecom and an electrical wholesaler. He continued to live in the Ditton Walk area until the end of his life. He leaves a daughter, Jane, two sons, Russell and Stephen, seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

To mark the 76 years since the death on 14 February 1940 of Henry Clement Francis, the man who gave the land on which the Abbey Stadium stands, we're publishing here an article that appeared in the United club programme on April 11 last year.
 
If the dark day ever dawns when U’s fans are faced with the terrible task of choosing a successor to I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts as the Abbey’s victory anthem, which song will get your vote? Tiptoe Through the Tulips by the Crooning Troubadour Nick Lucas, perhaps? On the Good Ship Lollipop by Shirley Temple? I bet your finger won’t be hovering anywhere near the Waltzing Matilda button.

Yet that bush ballad about a swagman who prefers topping himself in a billabong to facing justice for nicking a jumbuck has a reasonable claim to the status of United’s hymn. It has a U’s connection, which is more than Coconuts had when it was first dropped on the Tannoy man’s turntable.

Pffffft, you sneer. Justify that ridiculous claim, you demand. I will. Hear and attend and listen; for this befell and behappened and became and was, O my Best Beloved. This is the sort of story that emerges when you start digging around in gloomy archives and little-known corners of the internet. This is the story of Henry Clement Francis.
​
HC, as we’ll call him, was the Abbey United president who gave the club the land on which you’re probably reading this programme. His daughter, Elizabeth Muriel Saxon, kicked off the first match at the Abbey Stadium on 31 August 1932.

Fifth son of lord of the Quy manor and solicitor of note Clement Francis, HC was a director of the Star Brewery in Newmarket Road, a Cambridge alderman, a county councillor and chairman of the board of guardians for Abbey Ward. Most of that happened in HC’s later years; his younger days were even more interesting.

He’d gone to a posh school, Charterhouse, where he was a classmate of the Boy Scout movement founder Robert Baden-Powell. A dedicated and highly skilled 

If there's anyone who embodies the spirit of Cambridge United, it's Russell Crane. Supporter, player and worker, Russell still lives close to the ground and is a U through and through. He and daughter Jane Lyon were the guests of 100 Years of Coconuts and the club on Saturday, for the Northampton game. Here are some pictures from the day and an edited version of an article that appeared in the matchday programme.

Russell Crane has as valid a claim as anyone to the title of Mr United. Growing up in an Abbey United-centred family a coconut’s throw from the ground, he was still a boy when he first pulled on the amber and black. He bowed out 18 years later having played 502 games, scored 186 goals despite playing many of those games at left back, and left his mark on five different leagues.

Now in his late 80s, Russell is today making use of the CFU audio description service through which volunteers provide visually impaired fans with a live account of the action. He hasn’t had to travel far to be with us today, for he lives very close to where he grew up in Ditton Walk. The Cranes were Abbey United through and through – mother washing the team kit, father counting the gate money and taking it to the National Provincial Bank in Trinity Street; like so many U’s people they gave their time freely to the club they loved – so it was natural that Russell should play for his local club. A tricky left winger with a cannonball shot who had represented Cambridge Schoolboys, he left school at 15 and was soon playing alongside fellow legends Harvey Cornwell and Wally Wilson in a 4-2 defeat of an RAF XI. The date was 13 September 1941.

The following season saw Russell playing in the wartime East Anglian League – the Cambridgeshire, United Counties, Eastern Counties and Southern Leagues were also to feature on his CV – and garnering enthusiastic reviews from the press. But there was a war on, and he was called up at the age of 17. His Royal Navy service took him to the ends of the Earth, but it didn’t stop him playing for Abbey when leave gave him the opportunity.

Russell adapted easily to the semi-pro United Counties League after the war, and his star rose to its zenith in the 1948/49 season, when he blasted 42 goals in a mere 37 games – a club record – and notched four goals in a game three times. ‘His marksmanship and working of the ball bore the hallmark of class and the opposing defence never knew what he was going to do next,’ purred the press. Two years later the paper insisted: ‘If Abbey United are fortunate enough to win the East Anglian Cup this season, the name of Russell Crane should be engraved upon it in gilt letters.’

Peterborough United of the Midland League came calling in 1951 as United prepared for life in the Eastern Counties League, but Russell was having none of it. ‘As far as I was concerned it was a family affair,’ he told Coconuts TV last year. ‘My father worked up there, my mother did what she could do at home, my sisters all supported them and used to go up to the games.’

His loyalty was rewarded when the U’s (by now Cambridge United) beat the giants of Cambridge City 2-0 in the final of the Cambs Invitation Cup, in front of a crowd of 9,814, at Milton Road on 1 May 1952. Russell scored both goals in a five-minute first-half spell, and at the final whistle United’s ecstatic supporters chaired him off the pitch, singing I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts as they went. As Andrew Bennett observes, the balance of power in the city was starting to shift.

Russell, converted to an attacking left back role by player-manager Bill Whittaker in 1953/54, continued to endear himself to the fans. In 1956 he was awarded a benefit match to mark 15 years of service, and fought off the attentions of Division Three (South) Ipswich Town.

It was entirely appropriate that he should score United’s first home Southern League goal on 30 August 1958, in a 3-1 defeat of Guildford City. But that season was his last for his beloved U’s and he played out the rest of his career at Sawston and Soham.

It’s unlikely we will see Russell Crane's like again, but the flame lit by him and other legendary players and supporters, united in endeavour, will never be extinguished.