Generations of Cambridge United supporters, staff and officials lost a much-loved friend and colleague with the death on January 23, at the age of 92, of Wally Rookes. As a player, tireless volunteer worker, fundraiser and die-hard supporter, Wally enriched the lives of those with whom he came into contact around the Abbey Stadium for more than three quarters of a century. In 1932, at the age of five, he was present with his father Walter when the ground was officially opened. At that time it was little more than a field and Abbey United were competing in the Cambridgeshire League. He played in goal for the first Abbey United ‘A’ team of young footballers, from the 1950/51 season, and later appeared for the Reserves in the Peterborough League. |
His last appearance between the sticks came in the mid-1990s, when he was nearly 70 years old. Team manager Tommy Taylor cajoled him into playing for a staff team against Leyton Orient employees at the Abbey; clad in the long shorts and cloth cap of a former era, Wally earned warm applause when he dived full length to tip an Orient penalty kick round the post. Long before that, he had been valued as a dedicated worker for the CUFC cause. One of the first agents for fundraising schemes under Len Selmes and Jack Rayner, |
he continued to sell programmes and lottery tickets for many years. At one time he ran the away travel club, and he was a long-term volunteer helper for the ground staff and maintenance team, recalled fondly by stadium manager Ian Darler in his memoir, Life’s a Pitch. Ian remembers the time Wally used his contacts in the Royal Anglian Regiment – he was a veteran of the Cambridgeshire Regiment, a forerunner of the RAR – to equip the staff with work boots and protective clothing in the form of army-issue boots, camouflaged trousers and green jumpers. Ian paid tribute to the rapport Wally built up with schoolchildren who came to the club for work experience – experiences that evoked many a letter of thanks. |
Born in 1927, Wally grew up in United’s Barnwell heartland and later lived in Cherry Hinton. He married Betty Dickerson in 1948 and they had three children – Patrick, Wally and Jennifer – and three grandchildren: Maddy, Scott and Wayne.
The funeral will be in the West Chapel of Cambridge City Crematorium at 2pm on Tuesday, February 18. Family flowers only; donations may be made to EACH.