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Sid High 1922-2015

12/31/2015

Coconuts has only recently heard of the death, on 27 September 2015, of former Abbey United player Sid High, who was for many years a prominent figure in the Waterbeach community.

Sid was born in the village on 30 September 1922 and spent his early life at Denny Abbey Farm, where his father was a horseman. After leaving school he worked at the village butcher’s, Bulls, but his heart was not in the job and it wasn’t long before he was able to take the first steps towards making a living from his lifelong passion: football.

He was on the books of Cambridge Town before making his debut for Abbey United against an RAF XI on 17 May 1941. A right winger, he became a regular for United during 1943/44, during which he was an East Anglian League ever-present. In one game he set up all four of Russell Crane’s goals in a 5-1 defeat of Bourn.

Sid scored his only hat-trick for the Wasps on 13 October 1945 in a 7-1 thrashing of RAF Quy, but the result was expunged from the records when the servicemen withdrew from the Cambs League. That season he was selected to play for Cambridgeshire against Hertfordshire and Essex.

Sid High: Waterbeach stalwart.

He moved into professional football and the Football League with Luton Town in October 1946, but after two years without a first-team breakthrough he moved on to Watford, for whom he scored three goals in seven League games during 1948/49. He then joined King’s Lynn of the Eastern Counties League and scored the only goal when they eliminated Abbey from the FA Cup in October 1950.

Sid returned to Newmarket Road in December 1951, playing at centre forward in a 2-1 home defeat by Colchester United Reserves, but made only one more appearance, scoring the only goal in United’s ECL defeat of Gorleston on 9 February 1952. Plagued by injuries, he retired from football that year.

He had met his future wife, Joan, while in King’s Lynn. They married in 1952 and had one daughter, Susan, and two grandchildren, Charlotte and Stephanie.

Over the years Sid had a variety of jobs: working in an antiques shop; at Pye and Gestetner; and for the University, where he printed exam papers until he retired.

He worked tirelessly for the Waterbeach community for over 25 years, with the annual village feast the biggest item on his agenda. He was part of the Beach News team when the village magazine was launched in the 1970s and helped with its production for many years. After full retirement he coached the Waterbeach School football team and also gave his time to the village club.

We are indebted to Beach News – beachnews@waterbeach.org – for much of the above information and for the photograph.

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Fabulous Baker boy

12/11/2015

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Better late than never … Gerry Baker was the guest of 100 Years of Coconuts and the club on Saturday, 21 November 2015, and it was a delight to see 1960s centre half and all-round nice guy. The words below are an edited extract from the programme of that date.

Voices were raised in the pubs of King’s Lynn. Strong words were uttered in the Tuesday Market Place. Anger and incomprehension were expressed in forthright terms on the quayside. What the dickens, red-faced townspeople demanded to know, was the football club thinking?

Faced with the possibility of a mob armed with flaming torches and pitchforks marching on The Walks, the Linnets’ directors took the unusual but sensible step of calling a public meeting to explain themselves. There was just one item on the agenda: why did King’s Lynn FC transfer Gerry Baker to Cambridge United on 16 October 1965?

The full-back-turned-centre-half was so popular around Lynn that supporters evidently had to pinch themselves when news of the transfer broke. The man himself took a phlegmatic view of the state of shock reigning in north Norfolk. ‘To me this shows that I did my job at Lynn,’ he told the Cambridge Evening News calmly.

Above, Gerry Baker (left) in action at the Abbey Stadium. Below, Gerry chats to CUFC chairman Dave Doggett after the Accrington Stanley game.

Gerry proved just as popular in amber and black as he had been at King’s Lynn. The imposing, no-nonsense defender went on to make 259 full appearances and score 16 goals for the U’s, and teammate Tony Butcher was in no doubt of his importance to the team, especially in the Southern League and Cup Double year of 1968/69.

‘The fellow who really won United the Southern League was big centre back Gerry Baker,’ he wrote in his memoirs. ‘In the last ten games or so he was fantastic. He propped us up match after match and never put a foot wrong. We were struggling to win those matches, but the big fellow saw us through and I think they should have struck a special medal just for him!’

Born in South Hendley, West Yorkshire on 22 April 1939, Gerry began his football career on the Sheffield Wednesday ground staff, moving to Bradford Park Avenue in 1955 and turning professional two years later. He played in 16 Football League games before joining King’s Lynn in 1961, where he was made captain. He made the move from full back to centre half at the start of the 1964/65 season.

Roy Kirk was the United manager who provoked such puzzlement in King’s Lynn. Gerry was immediately appointed captain at the Abbey and formed a formidable centre-half combination with Jackie Scurr as Kirk experimented with a 4-2-4 formation. In the 1966/67 season, now under Bill Leivers’ management, he played in a club record 73 matches in the Southern League, the Eastern Professional Floodlit League and various cups.

Leivers felt his team should have won the league in 1967/68 (they finished third) but praised the progress of his players, especially ‘the transformation in the play of Gerry Baker’. The supporters agreed and made him their player of the year.

New signing Terry Eades began to ease Gerry out of the side and in October 1969 he was sold to Cambridge City. He captained the Lilywhites to promotion to the Southern League Premier in 1970 and the runners-up position the following season, before moving to Stevenage. Thereafter he took up the managerial reins at Great Shelford – where he still lives – and was instrumental in the club’s Cambs Invitation Cup win in 1980/81 and its 70s-to-90s domination of the Cambs League.

It's good to have you back, Gerry.

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Len: good man

12/7/2015

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The two gents pictured right were revisiting their old stamping ground on Sunday, December 6 for the FA Cup game against Doncaster Rovers, as guests of 100 Years of Coconuts and Cambridge United. Len Saward (right) and Russell Crane eagerly drank in the atmosphere and shared the disappointment of other U's fans at the result.

Accompanying Len were his son Patrick and grandsons Jack and Charlie, passionate U's supporters every one.

We've written extensively about Russell, the newly installed Honorary Life President of Coconuts, in the recent past. Now it's Len's turn, and we can do no better than to reproduce the programme article about him that appeared on Sunday. Read on …

Football brothers: Bobby and Jack Charlton, Phil and Gary Neville, Rio and Anton Ferdinand, John and Clive Charles for starters. Glenn and, um, Carl Hoddle. The U’s have had a few, Alan and Gary Kimble being the most obvious examples.

If only Pat Saward had played for United alongside older brother Len, what a partnership that would have been, supporters of the older generation have been known to muse. The Millwall, Villa and Huddersfield wing half overshadowed Len in the fame stakes, winning an FA Cup winner’s medal and earning 18 Irish caps during a long career.

Ah but, you see, there are many who saw the brothers play who insist Len was the better of the two. He could have eclipsed Pat’s fame if he’d had more of the latter’s driven nature, the sages used to say over their pints of mild in The Globe. Look at what Wilf Mannion said about him, they’d declare, driving the point home with a jab of the pipe stem.

Len Saward, Golden Boy Mannion once said, was the cleverest footballer he ever played with.

Len, who is at today’s game as a guest of 100 Years of Coconuts and Cambridge United, has earned himself a unique place in the Abbey annals. He was a wonderfully elusive inside forward possessed of a mighty shot who played for the U’s in two spells between 1952 and 1958, chalking up 170 games and 43 goals. He paid for the club’s first floodlights out of his testimonial fund, for heaven’s sake. Then he worked in Dudley Arliss’s commercial department, at first selling the pools tickets that helped United climb towards the Football League.

Aldershot-born Len arrived from Crystal Palace via Tonbridge and a £750 fee in September 1952, promptly scored on his Eastern Counties League debut against Stowmarket and finished the season in double figures.

Russell Crane (left) and Len Saward at the Abbey Stadium on Sunday, 6 December 2015.

The following term he starred in United’s 3-1 FA Cup win over Cambridge City in front of a near-12,000 crowd – a victory that paved the way for the toppling of the Third Division South Newport County in the first round proper. After drawing 2-2 at Newmarket Road, United’s heroes triumphed 2-1 in the replay in South Wales, with Len heading the first goal.

Newport liked what they saw and paid £750 for Len’s signature, but the move really didn’t suit him and he was allowed to rejoin the U’s in March 1955.

Back in Cambridge, he found himself playing under the most incompetent manager in United’s history, Gerald Williams, but the latter was soon history and Len flourished under Bert Johnson. The 1956/57 season saw him playing on the right wing as part of perhaps the strongest ever U's forward line, which also included Mannion, Bernard Moore, Brian Moore and Kevin Barry.

A crowd of 5,500 turned out in October 1957 for Len’s testimonial, which pitted United against an Invitation XI. Among the stars in the latter team was, naturally, brother Pat.

The following year Len joined Sudbury Town and he later moved to Newmarket Town. He was player-manager of Soham Town Rangers in 1965 when he took the job of assistant admin secretary at the Abbey as part of Dudley Arliss’s incredibly successful pools team. He worked for United until 1987.

Now in his late 80s, Len can be found talking to Coconuts TV at 100yearsofcoconuts.co.uk/coconuts-tv.html. It was a delight to have him with us again today.

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Sid High 1922-2015

Fabulous Baker boy

Len: good man

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