An edited version of this article appeared in the Cambridge United matchday programme for the game against Accrington Stanley on 11 November 2017. It refers to United's FA Cup match against Newport County played on December 3 of that year. Newport won 2-0.

Which football club plays in amber and black, was formed in 1912 and re-formed in 1919, and experienced a life-changing upheaval in 1989? Which football club apart from Cambridge United, that is?

An edited version of this article appeared in the Cambridge United matchday programme for the game against Exeter City on Tuesday, 22 August 2018.

Cambridge United are unbeaten in European competition, which is more than you can say for so-called giants like Manchester United, Arsenal, The New Saints and Wrexham.

Point out if you like that United’s involvement in contests beyond these shores is limited to two fixtures. Mention if you must that we didn’t actually play any foreign teams. Draw all the attention you want to the paltry attendances at the two competitive international matches the U’s did play – a total of 5,301.

I don’t care: the record stands. We didn’t lose either fixture.

Our club’s potential passport to worldwide fame came in the form of the 1992/93 Anglo-Italian Cup. This competition effectively replaced the late and wholly unlamented Full Members’ Cup, which had run its course by 1992 despite the support of Simod and Zenith Data Systems (whoever they were).

But the Anglo-Italian already had history. First established in 1970, it ran for four seasons before petering out because no one was very interested in it.

An edited version of this article appeared in the Cambridge United matchday programme for the game against Lincoln City on 9 February 2018, and preceded this year's Hall of Fame inductions.

By the time you read this it will be all over bar the shouting, although if I know you lot there will be a fair amount of that.

The votes for this year’s player inductees to the Cambridge United Hall of Fame will have been counted and tickets for the induction ceremony will have gone on sale.

Even if the Coconuts mob let me in on the secret, I’m not going to reveal which players have won the votes. But I want to take this opportunity to talk about one of those shortlisted in the 1970-1989 category – a man whose contribution to the United cause was immense but is sometimes underestimated.

An edited version of this article appeared in the Cambridge United matchday programme for the game against Notts County on Saturday, 11 August 2018.

‘It’s the man who made me!’ yelped Alan Biley excitedly as Graham ‘Willie’ Watson joined the merry throng assembled in the Abbey Lounge for a Cambridge United Former Players’ Association gathering.

It was a big build-up but one that was wholly merited. There’s no counting the number of goals that Willie laid on a plate for United’s will-o’-the-wisp striker, who reaped further reward by going on to play at the top level of the English game.

But while Alan became a legend at the likes of Derby County, Portsmouth and Brighton, Willie’s only subsequent foray outside his adopted Cambridgeshire home came when he joined Lincoln City for a while. He ended up making 233 U’s appearances, contributing 28 goals for the cause.

And he’s still around. Gone are the days when he turned out for Soham Town Rangers and Histon and kept the Three Horseshoes in Comberton, but he’s never too far from the Abbey.

When Bill Leivers lured him south in 1972, he knew what he was laying out £5,000 for – the 15-year-old Willie had been his first signing at Doncaster.

The young apprentice-turned pro had already played 48 times for Rovers (and 13 for Rotherham) after being introduced to first-team football as a 17-year-old. He also knew what winning a league was all about: he had done that at Belle Vue in 1969.

Nicknamed after a fellow Yorkshire sportsman – the first Willie Watson was a post-war England international at both football and cricket – he made his United debut in a 2-0 Division Four win at Newport County on September 16. His first goal came a fortnight later at Northampton as he set about his business: pulling the midfield strings and occasionally getting on the scoresheet.

There was no more committed or more talented footballer around. Willie allied a solid work ethic to terrific ability with the ball, yet his contribution to the U’s has often been undervalued.

Even at the time, for inexplicable reasons, he was sometimes the target of ill-informed terrace criticism.

His teammates would have none of it, and quite rightly so. Striker Nigel Cassidy declared: ‘Willie’s vision is fantastic … the crowd gives him so much stick it is embarrassing, but he has got real talent …’

Ron Atkinson, who succeeded Leivers as manager at United, appreciated what he brought to the side. ‘It seems that when Willie is playing well, we always appear to be playing well,’ he said at one point in 1977/78. ‘I have a feeling all our best performances come when he is having a good time.’

That season was memorable for a brilliant Watson goal at Exeter: running on to a Tom Finney ball, he left his marker flailing with a delicious body swerve and slotted home from 15 yards.

Willie was in the form of his life as the U’s ended the season by winning promotion to the old Division Two. Sadly, new gaffer John Docherty sold him to Lincoln City for £15,000 before he could have much of a bash at the higher level.
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But he was back in 1980, explaining to the Cambridge Evening News: ‘I feel more at home here than I do at Doncaster, so when the chance came to return to United I jumped at it.’ Cambridgeshire welcomed him back with open arms.

Cheerio
Harry

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.

This is an edited version of an article that appeared in the Cambridge United matchday programme for the game against Port Vale on 5 May 2018.

I would like to take this opportunity to quote some Half Man Half Biscuit lyrics at you.

‘Even men with steel hearts love to see a dog on the pitch,’ warbled the Wirral band’s world-weary singer, Nigel Blackwell, in 1995. ‘It generates a warmth around the ground that augurs well for mankind.’

As ever, the Birkenhead Bard is spot on. Nothing warms the cockles of the average football punter's heart quite so much as a brief interlude starring a playful pooch.

In this age of wall-to-wall TV coverage, every doggy incursion is replayed a zillion times on YouTube, but there was a time when these friendly invasions were so commonplace that they scarcely warranted discussion in the pub after the game.

In the olden days, turnstile operators would turn a blind eye to dogs accompanying spectators, and it was accepted that the canine companions might wander on to the pitch at some point.

I remember one old bloke, long gone now, who was a regular fixture in the Corona End along with his mate – some kind of spaniel, if memory serves.

Back in the day, we half-expected an appearance by a ball-seeking dog – I used to feel quite cheated if none turned up. ​Occasionally, one of these panting intruders would show impressive ball control, visionary awareness and mazy dribbling skills, and the cheers would rattle the Habbin’s rafters