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Andrew Bennett 1959-2018

2/7/2018

It is with immense sadness that 100 Years of Coconuts passes on the news of the death on Wednesday, 7 February 2018, at the age of 58, of Andrew Bennett, Cambridge United supporter, club historian and writer extraordinary.

Andrew became known to the wider U’s fanbase through his brilliantly written match reports, compiled almost totally from memory and first published online in the late 1990s. His death came at a time when the third print volume of his magnum opus, the definitive history of Abbey/Cambridge United, titled Celery & Coconuts, was moving into production in preparation for autumn publication.

Typically, despite suffering from a long illness that necessitated lengthy periods of debilitating treatment, he finished the manuscript long before deadline, and had already prepared future volumes.

Born in 1959 in Kingston upon Thames in Surrey, Andrew moved with his family to Cambridgeshire when he was very young. The Bennetts lived in several villages before settling in Histon, where Andrew stayed for the rest of his life.

After gaining A levels in English and French at Netherhall School in Cambridge, he embarked on a 33-year career with the National Westminster Bank. Following redundancy from NatWest in 2012, he started work in earnest on Celery & Coconuts, which continued after he secured a job as a porter at Selwyn College in 2014.

Football, and Cambridge United in particular, was one of Andrew’s great passions; a vast music collection testifies to another. While one room of the house he shared with his mother, Joyce, was filled with shelves, racks and cabinets of carefully sorted CDs and vinyl discs, another contained an astonishing collection of U’s memorabilia and programmes.

He was a meticulous and thorough keeper of records and statistics, a trait that led to him being named United’s club historian in the summer of 2017.

His father was ‘not much of a football fan’ in Andrew’s recollection, but he nevertheless took the young man to watch United and Cambridge City on alternate Saturdays. There was never any question that he would become a City fan, however. His first U’s match came on 13 April 1970, when United beat Gloucester City 3-0.

He recalled last year that his first favourite United player was the fleet-footed, ex-Chelmsford right winger Peter Leggett. ‘My favourite footballer at the time was George Best, so naturally United’s version, Peter Leggett, with his Peter Wyngarde/Jason King droopy moustache, made the biggest impact on me in my early days as a United fan,’ he said.

Andrew Bennett: fan, historian, writer.

‘Then came Brian Greenhalgh, and later there were the great 70s sides with the likes of Steve Spriggs, Steve Fallon and Alan Biley.’

Leggett was the provider for George Harris, Bill Cassidy and Malcolm Lindsay in that 1970 win over Gloucester. Andrew’s attendance at that match was followed by countless others, at home and far afield, over the ensuing decades.

The 1990s rise of the internet, and its opportunities for expression and communication, gave Andrew an outlet for his gift for entertaining and illuminating writing. Encouraged by editor Andrea Thrussell, he started to contribute his inimitable match reports to the unofficial United website and the Moosenet news group, and they soon won legions of fans.

Tellingly accurate, captivatingly written and often laugh-out-loud funny, the reports related the exploits of the likes of Le Dieu du But (Lionel Perez), Terrier Fleming and Captain Fantastic (Paul Wanless). Many readers looked forward eagerly to attempting Dancing Shaun (Marshall)’s Dance of the Week.

More recently published on social media by 100 Years of Coconuts – of whose management committee he was a dedicated and valued member – Andrew’s reports were followed by regular articles for the United programme, contributions to the Coconuts website and, latterly, Celery & Coconuts, whose first two volumes – Newmarket Road Roughs and Risen from the Dust – have met with critical acclaim.

The result of tremendous dedication and many long hours of research in the Cambridgeshire Collection and elsewhere, Celery & Coconuts – whose publication will continue – will stand as a tribute to a kind, devoted, brilliant and unimaginably brave man.

His long, courageous battle against cancer was fought with unfailing cheerfulness and resolute determination. Besides his mother, Andrew leaves two sisters and a brother.

Andrew Bennett presents a copy of Newmarket Road Roughs, the first volume of Celery & Coconuts, to Cambridge United chairman Dave Doggett in 2016 …

… and is in turn presented with a memento of his appointment as Cambridge United club historian by the chairman in 2017.

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Get set, go! Hall of Fame tickets go on sale

2/7/2018

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U's fans' favourite social event of the year, the Cambridge United Hall of Fame induction ceremony and dinner, will take place at the Abbey Stadium on Thursday, March 15 – and tickets go on sale today.

The event, which will see six personalities inducted to the Hall of Fame, will be held in the Premier Travel Suite at 6.30 for 7.30pm.

All players for whom supporters have been voting over the past couple of months have been invited to attend – and so far Alan Biley, Andy Duncan, Steve Fallon, Rodney Slack and John Taylor have confirmed they'll be there on the night.

Voting, which closes today, has taken place in three player categories: pre-1970, 1970-1989 and 1990-2005. In addition, three other inductees will be honoured, including an 'off-pitch' personality.

Tickets, priced at £25 for a two-course dinner and the chance to rub shoulders with the stars, are available from the CFU online shop. Guests will have the chance to bid for hugely desirable United-related goods in a silent auction, buy tickets in a draw and have their photographs taken with a surprise, well-known football object from the past.

Go to cambridgefansunited.org/store/c1/ to order your tickets, but be quick about it – last year's event sold out in a couple of days and organisers are expecting a similar response this year.

And look out for more updates here and on social media … we'll bring you the news as it happens.

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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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Mind where you put that coconut

2/3/2018

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There are, I know, more than a few U’s fans in Greater Manchester. I suspect one of them departed for the Great Habbin in the Sky recently.

My suspicions centre on the coconut that was slipped into the coffin of a deceased person undergoing cremation in Bolton.

The BBC reports that the coconut exploded, ‘sending fear’ through the crematorium staff.

If you’ve ever blown up a coconut, you’ll sympathise with the poor employees. It can put the fear of God into a person.

Donna Ball, Bolton’s assistant director of community services, says mourners put all kinds of things, including TV remotes and e-cigarettes, in coffins. She added: ‘We are asking people to be considerate regarding the items they place into coffins before the cremation process.’

Coconuts: please don't put them in coffins.

Well said, that woman. While I understand better than most that the dear departed will crave their nicotine hit beyond the grave, and will be anxious not to miss Strictly, I'm a stickler for strict adherence to the Cremation (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2016.

I'm writing to Ms Ball to ask if the explosive coconut bore any traces of amber and black.

Cheerio
Harry

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Andrew Bennett 1959-2018

Get set, go! Hall of Fame tickets go on sale

When Chelsea came to town

Mind where you put that coconut

Happy Harry's blog

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