Category: Bert Johnson

Moore information

12/26/2018

This article appeared in edited form in the Cambridge United matchday programme for the game against Crawley Town on Wednesday, 26 December 2018.

We’re not announcing the results of the 2019 Cambridge United Hall of Fame vote yet – the process doesn’t even close until the year does – but it’s been interesting to see certain trends emerging.

Among the nominations for pre-1979 players and managers, there’s been a healthy number for the human brick wall that was Terry Eades, for Abbey United legend Harvey Cornwell and for the hugely talented inside forward Len Saward, among other star names.

Another popular nominee is Brian Moore, the Belfast-born forward who, across four seasons in black and amber from December 1956, made scoring goals look like child’s play.

Imagine watching someone score 113 goals in 161 U’s games, including 68 in one astonishing season. Now do your best to imagine that someone scoring all those goals while effectively blind in one eye.

Moore made light of a disability that would have finished most footballers’ careers before they had started. And when he’d finished at Newmarket Road, he crossed the river to become a hero at Cambridge City … and then at Wisbech Town, Boston United and Newmarket Town.

His career would have been very different had not fate, and a heavy leather football, intervened.

As Andrew Bennett related in Risen from the Dust, Moore’s displays for Glentoran and Distillery had attracted big clubs’ attention in 1955, and his early showings for West Ham promised great things to come.

He was only 21 when he was hit in the face during a fixture at Middlesbrough. He managed to play on but it was found that the ball’s lace had so badly damaged the retina in his right eye that he was effectively blind on that side.

Moore, advised that another such blow could deprive him of sight altogether, stopped playing, even though a degree of blurred vision began to return to the damaged eye. Then along came Bert Johnson.

The United player-manager offered him incentives to return to the game in Cambridge that proved irresistible: a job with Pye Telecom and the chance to play for the U’s alongside the legendary Wilf Mannion.

It wasn’t long before he was thrilling supporters with goals and skills galore, with the help of teammates like Mannion and Ron Murchison calling to tell him when their passes were arriving on his 'blind' side.

In his annus mirabilis of 1957/58 he just couldn’t help scoring: he’d racked up 30 goals in all competitions before Christmas and reached 68 in a mere 52 games.

New manager, new rules: for the 1960/61 season his namesake gaffer Alan Moore, who had followed Johnson and Bill Craig, decreed that his squad would all be full-time footballers, placing his star striker in a quandary.

Not wanting to lose his job at Pye’s, he left for Milton Road and a new chapter in an amazing career.

Cheerio
Harry

Above, Brian Moore scores at the Corona End. Below, Moore (second left) with two Charlton players and United player-manager Bert Johnson (right) inspect an inscribed ball presented to Moore to mark his 68 goals in 1957/58. Photos: Cambridge Daily News

Above, Brian Moore (left) leaves the Newmarket Road ground with teammate Jimmy Campbell during the 1958/59 season. Below, Moore with wife Pamela and newborn son Peter James. Photos: Cambridge Daily News

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Men of the cloth

10/19/2017

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An edited version of this article appeared in the Cambridge United matchday programme for the game against Yeovil Town on 17 October 2017.

On the rare occasions when there’s not much happening at Coconuts Towers and the only alternative would be watching Strictly – not a prospect to set the average Coconutter’s heart racing – we often amuse ourselves with a little parlour game.

As the fire blazes merrily and the Cinzano bottle does the rounds, we fall to composing make-believe XIs – for example, dreaming up a team of past and present United players with the same initials for forename and family name. Brendon Batson and Dave Donaldson are guaranteed starters, and Efon Elad often sneaks in.

A side of craftsmen might feature Les Cartwright, Stephen Smith and Tony Fletcher, while the Body Parts XI would include Brian Hart, Chris Foote and Peter Leggett. Or how about a Clergy XI?

The history of the U’s (described by Andrew Bennett in Celery & Coconuts, whose second volume, Risen from the Dust, is published this month; order online at the CFU store or at the caravan on a match day) throws up two reverend gentlemen who graced the Abbey pitch.

Winger Alan Comfort was at the Abbey between 1984 and 1986 and has been chaplain at Leyton Orient for many years, following a lengthy and popular playing career at Brisbane Road. He studied for the Anglican priesthood at Ridley Hall, the theological college in Sidgwick Avenue, and is now rector of three churches clustered around the A10 near Puckeridge, Herts. Son Henry continues the U's connection – he's the club's chief operating officer.

The Rev A Keenan was described as ‘a grand centre half’ on his Abbey United debut in 1945, but was happy to deputise between the sticks when United were needed. There was a war on and keepers, like oranges, were in short supply. He turned out 11 times for the U's in all.

But what of those players whose names qualify them for a place in the Clergy XI? We were obliged to rule as ineligible, because of their tenuous ecclesiastical connections, the likes of Phil Chapple, Christian Smith and Les Serman and Alan Lord.

But local lad Nick Pope, a very welcome addition to the United ranks on loan from Charlton in 2013, is a shoo-in for the goalkeeper’s jersey, leaving Rev Keenan free to fill a centre-back spot. Nick is now doing very well for himself in the Premier League at Burnley.

Left back is David Deacon, who was signed by manager Alan Moore in the summer of 1960. A six-footer who had played around 70 games over eight seasons at Ipswich, he went on to make 31 appearances for the U’s.

Above, Jill and Alan Comfort; below left, Nick Pope in his Charlton days; below right, Bob Bishop in his role as United trainer in 1959.

Lining up at right back we have the ever-dependable Bob Bishop, a man who became Abbey’s first professional player when, in 1947, he signed for the ambitious little club embarking on its first season in the United Counties League. He eventually played 202 games in two spells before spending three years as trainer. His last manager, Bert Johnson, described him as ‘a never-say-die player; a real fighter’.

Another of the Bishop clan, skilful left winger Jack, is also an automatic choice. He joined United from Bury Town for the start of the 1951-52 season and, like his brother, amply demonstrated his dedication to the cause. An ambulance was called during a game against Tottenham Hotspur ‘A’ after Jack suffered suspected concussion, but he insisted on leaving the ground the same way he had arrived: wheeling his bike.

Striker Dean Neal didn’t pull up any trees during his 1986/87 stint at the Abbey, but he makes the Clergy XI by default. We’re short of a defender, a couple of midfielders and a forward; write to 100yearsofcoconuts@gmail.com with your suggestions.

Cheerio
Harry

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Eddie Robinson 1935-2016

12/1/2016

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It was with sadness that 100 Years of Coconuts learned of the death, at the age of 81 on November 28, of former Cambridge United forward Eddie Robinson.

Eddie was a gifted winger or inside forward who joined United at the age of 22, for the club’s first season in the Southern League in 1958. He made 62 appearances, scored 23 goals and gained many admirers before departing for Cambridge City in late 1959.

From top, Eddie Robinson in United change strip; pages from programme for Robinsons XI v Milton, 1969 (click to enlarge); the Robinson team in 1969, with mum Bella in the foreground and sisters Joan and Miriam left and right. Brothers, from left: Eddie, Leslie, Brian, Raymond, David, Ronnie, Jackie, Michael, Don, Charlie and Robert; Eddie in 2010. Photos courtesy of Cambridge News and Neil Harvey.

Born in Sunderland on 5 January 1935, he came to Newmarket Road after a youth career with Middlesbrough – where he played alongside Brian Clough – and four years as a professional at Charlton Athletic. His time at the Valley was interrupted by two years of national service with the RAF, during which he survived a grenade attack on his vehicle while on active service in Cyprus.

Playing at inside left for the U’s, he was a regular first choice and after a fine performance in a 2-0 win at Guildford City in January 1959, manager Bert Johnson stated: 'It is always a sign that a player is playing well when he gets rough treatment away from home – and Eddie Robinson certainly had that on Saturday.'

Later that month he was switched to the left wing, playing there for most of the rest of the season and finishing as the club’s top Southern League scorer with 11 goals from 29 games. United won the Cambridgeshire Professional Cup and the Southern League Inter-Zone competition that year, and in a 7-2 Inter-Zone thrashing of Chelmsford City, Eddie scored five goals, including a hat-trick in the first 36 minutes.

In November 1959, perhaps unhappy at being stationed on the wing, he was placed on the transfer list at his own request, and within 24 hours City had snapped him up for a small fee. When City and United met in the Southern League Cup early in 1960/61, City won their home leg 2-0, with Eddie scoring one of the goals. In the return match, which United won 2-0, he was forced to retire with a wrenched knee, resulting from a Roy Kirk tackle, after just four minutes. The injury finished Eddie’s career at that level, and after a year of struggle he was forced to retire at the age of 26. He had scored eight goals in 47 games for the Milton Road club.

He was awarded, and played in, a benefit match between City and his own XI, which included six United players. His injury problems improved enough to enable him to make a comeback for Soham Town Rangers in 1964.

Eddie was one of the 14 children – 11 boys and three girls – of pro boxer Jackie Robinson and his wife Bella. The number of male siblings allowed them to raise a team to take on other families in charity matches. In the late 1960s the Robinsons – including Charlie, who played ten times for City and twice for United around that time – took part in a ‘family championship’ of England. ‘We won it, beating a family called the Navens from Birmingham, although they weren't all brothers,’ Eddie told the Cambridge News in 2010.

They also beat a Jackie Milburn all-star XI and were invited to play a German family. ‘We discovered the goalkeeper for the German side was their mother, who was in her 70s. And we thought it wouldn’t be fair if we went over and put loads of goals past her,’ he recalled.

Eddie and his wife Valerie were married in 1962 and moved into the family home in Milton the following year. Daughter Melanie was born in 1965 and son Nick followed on Eddie’s birthday in 1968, causing his proud father to remark: ‘I would have preferred a new set of golf clubs.’ As talented a golfer as he was a footballer, he achieved a handicap of five and won many competitions at Newmarket’s Links club.

He was prevented from following his apprenticed trade of roofing and tiling by the risk of injury affecting his football career. Instead, he studied accounting and concentrated on that profession following his retirement from football.

Made chief accountant at Pye Engineering Services in 1962, he showed skill in highlighting errors in business plans and was appointed as a troubleshooter at Pye head office in 1968. He spent many years improving productivity at the company’s UK and international divisions.

In 1981 he set up a successful jewellery business, but a drop in the price of gold in 1984 forced a return to accountancy. He then worked for small companies around Cambridge until 1987, when he took up the role of credit controller for Marshall Aerospace and Specialised Vehicles. Following retirement in 2000, he focused on improving his golf game and on doting on his grandchildren: Lauren, Jack, Shelley, Elliot and Albert.

The funeral will take place at 12.45pm on Tuesday, December 13 at Cambridge Crematorium.

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Moore information

Men of the cloth

Eddie Robinson 1935-2016

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