 Throughout this season, the Pioneers series has been uncovering the lives of the teenage lads who played in 1913-14 for Abbey United, as the U’s were then known. For the first time, we’ve been able to identify most of them, although the identities of a frustrating few remain unestablished.
As the pioneers’ lives have gone under the microscope, some interesting characteristics of the group have emerged, perhaps the most conspicuous being how close to the Abbey Church the players lived. Legend has it that Abbey United, named after the church more formally known as St Andrew the Less, was founded in 1912 for the boys of the church choir, or perhaps those attending Sunday school. That idea is strengthened when you look at the map on this page. Amber blobs mark the homes of Abbey United players, strongly clustered around the church (pinpointed by the red cross) on Newmarket Road and in the Abbey Estate. Most would have had a stroll of a couple of minutes or less to get to the church, and even players who lived further afield, in Stanley Road, Norfolk Terrace or Sturton Street, would only have walked about half a mile. To paraphrase the League of Gentlemen, this was a local club for local people. Another argument for the ‘boys’ choir’ theory is evident in the players’ ages: a couple of them were only 14 at the time of the first game of 1913-14, on November 6. The oldest players were 19, and the average age of all players was a little under 17 years. The last game of the club’s first season took place just two months before the outbreak of the First World War, and Abbey United players were evidently keen to enrol in the armed forces. As we’ve seen, some lied about their age in order to do so. Remarkably, every single player of the 20 we’ve identified saw some form of military service between 1914 and 1918. A majority served with the Cambridgeshire Regiment. The club experienced its share of casualties: four players died as a result of hostilities, and of the 16 who survived, only six did not suffer war-related wounds, disability or disease. We welcomed more than a dozen descendants of Abbey United pioneers to the game against Barrow on April 25, but we’re still looking for family connections to the young football club. If you believe your ancestor played for Abbey United, in 1913/14 or in the 1920s, please get in touch: [email protected].  On this season’s journey of discovery through the lives of Abbey United pioneers – the lads who played for the newly founded club in the 1913-14 season – we’ve uncovered a great deal of misfortune. Some of the young men perished in the Great War; others were forever scarred by that nightmarish conflict; none came through the war years unchanged.
Into the last category falls Harry Furness (sometimes spelt Furniss), who played at least twice for the club: in a 3-2 loss to Watts & Sons in November 1913 and in a 4-1 defeat to Saint’s Building Works two months later. A native of Cherry Hinton, Harry was born in 1894. In 1901 he was living in the village’s Church End with his Irish mother Maggie, father Thomas, who worked as an “attendant” at Fulbourn mental hospital, three sisters and a brother. Thomas died aged 49 in 1907, and around that time the family moved to Newmarket Road, near the Stanley Road turn. In 1911 Harry was working as a general labourer at the Cambridge Brick Company’s works on the opposite side of the road. He anticipated the First World War by attesting for the Cambridgeshire Regiment in January 1914, 18 days before that match against Saint’s. His military career did not follow a typical path. An initial medical inspection concluded that Harry was fit for service. He stood five feet five inches tall and his vision and physical development were pronounced good. But a further check in August 1914 revealed that Private Furness was temporarily unfit, and he was told to be ready to rejoin when he was in better shape. He duly reported for duty in February 1915, only to be declared unfit for service. The medical officer’s report mentioned syphilis, and Harry was discharged from the army. He spent time – we don’t know how much – in the Welsh Metropolitan War Hospital (pictured), a psychiatric facility in Cardiff. Its medical lead, Lieutenant-Colonel Edwin Goodall, was made CBE in 1919 in recognition of the hospital’s work with wounded and shell-shocked troops. By July 1919, Harry was still undergoing treatment but had been transferred to the very same Fulbourn hospital where his father had worked, about a mile from his old Cherry Hinton stamping ground. It appears that Harry never emerged from Fulbourn. It was there that he died, at the age of 40, in 1935. If you believe you are a descendant of Harry’s, or if you know someone who is, please get in touch: [email protected]..  At the Notts County match we welcomed back Matt Cooke, former CUFC player, 3 seasons, 1992-1994, and whilst Matt didn't make the 1st team, he went on to play and coach in the USA & thanks CUFC for helping to shape his career
Read his story below Matt was an apprentice at the club during the mid-nineties when John Beck was manager and Dion Dublin was a player. He is returning for his first time having moved to America. The words below are Matts and describe his time at Cambridge United and what followed My football journey began in Bishop’s Stortford, where I played for local youth side Grange Jets. A defining moment came during a cup final at Rhodes Avenue, home of Bishop's Stortford FC. We won convincingly 5–1but more importantly for me, it caught the attention of U’s scouts. Following that match, two of my teammates and I were invited to trials at Coldham’s Common, just behind the Abbey Stadium. It was an intimidating experience, with around 70 young players competing for just a few places. When the dust settled, only two were selected—and I was fortunate enough to be one of them. That initial success led to a further series of demanding trials and matches, each testing not just ability but resilience and character. Thankfully, I did enough to earn my place and went on to represent Cambridge United’s youth team as a striker for the next few seasons. During that time, I had the privilege of developing in a professional environment, working under the youth coaching staff while also gaining exposure to the first team under manager John Beck. I was fortunate enough to occasionally train alongside players such as Dion Dublin—experiences that greatly shaped my understanding of the game. I also played alongside Michael Kyd, a fantastic player and friend who went on to make over 140 first-team appearances. Together with the squad, we enjoyed a remarkable 17-match unbeaten run, including a memorable victory over Arsenal. These experiences led to selection for England U19 Schoolboys. Although injury prevented me from playing, it remains a proud milestone and a testament to the foundation built at Cambridge United. That platform led to a fulfilling football career, including playing and coaching in the USA. Today, I’m here with my wife Clare and our two children, James and Annie. Come on the U’s! If you were played in the Youth Team alongside Matt. Please contact me [email protected]  Pinpointing the identities of the lads who played for Abbey United in the 1913-14 season is sometimes fairly straightforward. In other cases, it’s pretty much impossible.
That’s the experience in the cases of two young men named in the local press as H Blunt and Sainty, who between them played at least five times for Abbey in that pre-First World War season. We might know the initial letter of Blunt’s first name but we can only guess what it was – Harold, Herbert, Henry? In any case, public records don’t reveal any obvious contenders who were of a likely age in 1913 and 1914. Perhaps there was an error in the local newspaper's reading of a handwritten teamsheet, and it’s possible “H Blunt” should have been printed as “H Brunt”. Now we might be getting somewhere. Maybe Harry Brunt, born in 1895, is our man. Harry attended the Abbey and Brunswick Boys’ Schools and in 1911 was living in Beche Road – just round the corner from the Abbey Church, cradle of our club – while working as an errand boy. At the time of his enrolment in the East Yorkshire Regiment in December 1915, he was said to be a “brewer’s man”. Joining the expeditionary force in France the following year, he suffered the unpleasant experience of being gassed and was discharged due to bronchitis a few months from the end of the war. The 1921 census found Harry living in Godesdone Road and working as a labourer, and he was still there in 1939. He died in Cambridge in 1960. Now we turn to the young man apparently called Sainty who played for Abbey against Watts & Sons in November 1913. No likely candidates of that spelling of the name can be found in genealogical and newspaper records, but if we add an “e” we’re in business. In April 1915, a letter home from the Western Front, from Sergeant HC Clarke of the 1st Cambridgeshire Regiment, revealed that a Private Saintey, an ex-“Abbey” man, took part in a match in France between No 5 Platoon, “B” Company and a Royal Field Artillery team. Is this the Robert Saintey who was born in 1897, attended Barnwell Boys’ School and lived in River Lane? We know next to nothing else about Robert, but it’s intriguing to speculate that he was an Abbey United pioneer. If you believe you are a descendant of the Blunt/Brunt or Sainty/Saintey families, or if you know someone who is, please get in touch: [email protected]. This season’s Pioneers articles have shown us that the First World War took a heavy toll of the teenage lads who turned out for Abbey United in the club’s first full season of 1913-14. Walter Huntlea was one such: although he survived the war, his life was turned upside down on 13 November 1916, when the Cambridgeshire Regiment was taking part in the Battle of the Ancre, the last big British attack of the Somme offensive (casualty pictured). As the exhausted men of the Cambs attacked from high ground into the valley of the river Ancre, 19-year-old Walter was wounded so severely that one of his legs had to be amputated. Let it not be forgotten that of the three million-plus men who fought in the Somme, more than a million were either wounded or killed. Walter had signed up for war service two years before, when he was employed in the machine room at the Cambridge University Press printing works, and not long after he had played at centre forward for both Abbey United and CUP’s football team. Born in 1897, he was the son of Henry, a musician who turned his hand to billiard table repairs and lived in Newmarket Road and, from around 1911, Sturton Street. Walter wasn’t officially discharged from the army until July 1918, and, with his lifelong disability, he joined hundreds of thousands of men seeking work in a world that had been changed for ever. The 1921 census found him living in Sturton Street and eking out a living as a self-employed poultry farmer. Perhaps he followed that livelihood in the house’s small back yard; we don’t know for sure. By 1931 he had moved over the Mill Road railway bridge to live with his sister Mabel and her husband Stephen Tingey in Suez Road. By the time of the 1939 register, the Tingey family had moved back to more familiar territory in Eden Street, and Walter was listed as incapacitated. The post-Second World War years brought a move over the river Cam to the Victoria Road area: Walter married widow Gladys Charles in 1946 and the couple lived in Gladys’s Searle Street house. He was still living there at the time of his death, at the age of nearly 85, in 1982. Gladys lived on for five more years. If you believe you are a descendant of Walter’s, or if you know someone who is, please get in touch: [email protected].  |
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