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A great man remembered

11/25/2018

Andrew Bennett's family and closest friends were the guests of honour when a plaque commemorating the U's supporter extraordinaire was unveiled on Saturday, November 24.

The club historian, author, reporter, archivist and statistician, who died in February, is now commemorated in the central tunnel of the Habbin, from whose terraces he watched countless hundreds of United matches.

The plaque's manufacture, by Ivett & Reed of Newmarket Road, was made possible by a crowdfunding campaign that was over-subscribed many times over.

The surplus moneys – boosted by royalty payments from Andrew's Celery & Coconuts history of Abbey/ Cambridge United – will fund the annual Andrew Bennett Award, the details of which will be announced at the 2019 Cambridge United Hall of Fame induction dinner in March.

After the unveiling of the slate plaque, Andrew's ashes were interred next to the Habbin-side touchline.

It was a fitting conclusion to a moving occasion, and one that will ensure Andrew's enduring presence in a place he loved.

Top, members of Andrew's family including mother Joyce (centre) gather to remember the great man. Bottom, Andrew's ashes are interred by the Habbin touchline. Photos: 100 Years of Coconuts

The marrow that flew

11/3/2018

An edited version of this article appeared in the Cambridge United matchday programme for the home game against Grimsby Town on 3 November 2018.

Volume three of Celery & Coconuts – Andrew Bennett’s masterly history of Cambridge United, dropping through your letterbox soon – had several working titles before Coconuts plumped for Champagne & Corona.

If certain people had had their way, it would have been entitled Big Ron, The Doc and the Vegetable Marrow. Another possibility was When I See a Marrow Fly. It was almost called Vegetables Incoming.

Those of you who were around in the 1970s – the decade with which this brilliant book concerns itself – might have an inkling of the reason for this apparent obsession with a member of the squash family.

Champagne & Corona: substantial vegetable content. Design: Jon Appleton

The rest of you will have to buy a copy, turn to page 280 and read referee Jeff Sewell’s account of goings-on at the Abbey on 29 September 1979.

As Champagne & Corona illustrates in Andrew’s usual entertaining style, the 1979-80 season was one in which our club established itself as a Division Two fixture – an achievement that had not even been contemplated just 32 years before, when United were still competing in the Cambridgeshire League.

There was an echo of one of that season’s fixtures recently when the U’s were drawn to play Guiseley AFC away in the first round proper of the FA Cup.

In 1979-80, United were still getting their heads round the idea that they wouldn’t compete in the Cup until the third round, because of their elevated status in Division Two. It had come as something of a shock the previous season, when they exited the competition at the first opportunity by going down to a 3-1 loss at Shrewsbury.

Cambridge United's Roger Gibbins takes on Chesham United goalkeeper Billy Barber in an FA Cup third round tie on 5 January 1980

Now they were faced with the prospect of a trip to a club of a similar standing to our friends in Guiseley: the Isthmian League’s Chesham United. The U’s were cast in the unfamiliar role of giants.

At a ground the Cambridge Evening News described as a ‘rustic cockpit’, the players trotted out on to the kind of surface that was all too familiar in those far-off days: a sea of mud. You could have counted the blades of grass on the fingers of one hand.

Those of the all-ticket crowd of 5,000 who were standing at the appropriately named Cow Meadow end greeted home goalkeeper Billy Barber with a grateful round of applause – two days before he had still been in Australia, where he had been visiting his fiancée.

As expected, the mud pit proved tricky. Pacy U’s striker Alan Biley found himself bogged down and goalkeeper Malcolm Webster struggled with his goal kicks. United fans, dreading a humiliating giant-killing, puffed with relief when home captain John Watt slammed an early 30-yard shot against the bar, leaving a muddy brown stain to remind us of a narrow squeak.

Roger Gibbins to the rescue: he blasted United into the lead after half an hour. Then, after brilliantly saving a Chris Turner header, the jet-lagged Barber was beaten by a George Reilly nod ten minutes from the end.

United had battled through the mire to a glamorous fourth round tie at home to Aston Villa. But that’s another story.

Order your copy of Champagne & Corona by visiting CFU’s online store or dropping in at the caravan on a match day.

Cheerio
Harry

Grounds for debate

10/13/2018

An edited version of this article appeared in the Cambridge United matchday programme for the game against MK Dons on 13 October 2018.

Long winter evenings spent yarning round a hissing log fire are just around the corner. You’ll be wanting some U’s-related trivia for you and your mate to debate.

Here’s a question to set tongues wagging: can you name the grounds within the Cambridge city boundaries that United have played at?

We don’t need to refer to Andrew Bennett’s brilliant Celery & Coconuts history books to be able to list the Abbey Stadium (formerly known as the Abbey ground or simply Newmarket Road) and its predecessor, the Celery Trenches, located nearby.

Early in the last century, ‘home’ United venues included Parker’s Piece, Stourbridge Common and Midsummer Common, and at least one fixture of more recent times was played on Coldhams Common.

Early ‘away’ venues included the New Cherry Hinton ground, somewhere in Newnham, Chesterton Rec and Trinity New Ground.

Action from the United v City Cambridge derby in the Cambs Invitation Cup semi-final at Grange Road on 20 March 1954. Photo: Cambridge Daily News

We played many times at Cambridge City’s lovely old Milton Road home, in its two incarnations. Other away venues included the Railway Social Club Ground (location described as ‘at the back of the cattle market’), Pye’s wonderful sports ground in Chesterton, Jesus Green, Lammas Land, Porson Road (probably the Perse preparatory school's sports field) and college grounds including Fitzwilliam House, King’s & Selwyn, Queen’s, Christ’s, Pembroke, Sidney Sussex, St Catherine’s and Clare.

United have performed on the sacred turf of Fenner’s cricket ground and, equally surprisingly, have turned out twice at the University’s rugby union headquarters in Grange Road.

The first occasion they ventured on to oval-ball territory was in December 1942, when the wartime Abbey United stuffed a local civil service team 10-2.

The next came on 20 March 1954, when the U’s took on their supposedly bigger and better rivals from over the Cam in a Cambs Invitation Cup semi-final.

The new-look cup was supposed to have featured eight clubs that season but holders Wisbech decided they had better things to do. That left United, City, Camden, Ely, Histon, March and Pegasus – a club composed of Cambridge and Oxford students – to fight it out.

Centre forward Albert George – father of former Abbey beat bobby Trevor – notched a hat-trick as the U’s thrashed March 6-1 in the first round and set up the Grange Road showdown.

United were expected to beat the City gents, who had finished a disappointing seventh in the Athenian League, and goals from inside left Jack Thomas duly made it 2-0 in front of an all-ticket crowd of 5,000.

The final, against Histon at Milton Road, started badly and quickly got worse.

Player-manager Bill Whittaker had to have painkilling injections before and during the match (partly excusing a late penalty miss, perhaps) and Thomas, victim of a leg muscle strain early on, hobbled through the game as a passenger. It finished goalless.

Chaos then ensued: no one had a clue what was supposed to happen next. Should extra time be played or not? Eventually, Cambs FA secretary Bill Ling stepped forward to decree that the match should continue.

A crowd of 5,645 watched, grumbling, as U’s and Stutes slugged it out. At the end of 120 strength- and patience-sapping minutes, it was still 0-0 as far as anyone could make out – night had descended by that stage.

The season was at an end and there was nothing else for it: a replay would have to be staged the following season.

United finished the job nearly six months later with a 3-1 win at Milton Road, Thomas (two) and Peter Dobson doing the goalscoring honours.

Cheerio
Harry

Celery & Coconuts volume three – order now!

9/20/2018

The third volume of Andrew Bennett’s brilliant Celery & Coconuts history of Cambridge United, relating the incredible story of the 1970s, is available to order now.

With a foreword by star 70s striker Alan Biley, Champagne & Corona tells the tale of a revolutionary decade – one that saw the club continue its irresistible rise to claim a place in English football’s second tier.

Written in Bennett’s distinctive, expressive style and containing more than 150 illustrations – as well as the vital statistics of an amazing ten-year upwards surge – it will merit a place on any football fan’s bookshelves.

Champagne & Corona will be published in November by Lovely Bunch, the publishing offshoot of CFU heritage arm 100 Years of Coconuts, in good time for Christmas.

Champagne & Corona: get your order in now

Initial orders are being taken through the CFU online store and at the CFU caravan on a match day. Email 100 Years of Coconuts if you have any questions.

Champagne & Corona: The Story of Cambridge United Football Club 1970-1980
Paperback; 360 pages
£18.99 if collected from the CFU outlet; £17.99 for CFU members
£21.98 for postal deliveries; £20.98 for CFU members

In the master's footsteps

8/25/2018

George Alsop with the Cambs Challenge Cup, Milton Road, 18 April 1925. Photo: Cambridge Chronicle/Cambridgeshire Collection at Cambridge Central Library

An edited version of this article appeared in the Cambridge United matchday programme for the game against Cheltenham Town on Saturday, 25 August 2018.

In February of this year, 100 Years of Coconuts lost its greatest asset: a one-man information storehouse and author extraordinaire in the person of Andrew Bennett.

It was a tragically heavy blow for Andrew’s family and for his legions of friends and admirers. And for a while, Coconuts people wondered how they could carry on researching and communicating the story of our club.

Moves are afoot to ensure his name and achievements endure: stand by for the unveiling of a memorial plaque in the Habbin, for news of the Andrew Bennett Award and for the autumn publication of the third volume of his peerless Celery & Coconuts history of the club.

But how could we hope to carry on Andrew’s work – his tireless ferreting out of information in libraries and archives, his compilation of stats, facts and info in dozens of databases, his cheerful and speedy answering of queries from football fans far and wide – in short, his work as Cambridge United’s club historian?

The short answer is that we couldn’t. But what we can do is have a bash at providing a second-best service – a sort of Andrew Bennett Lite, if you like.

Luckily for us and you, Andrew bequeathed to Coconuts his entire, vast archive of U’s-related stuff.

When I say ‘vast’, I mean ‘flipping ginormous’. If you chopped down all the forests in Scandinavia to provide enough paper, printed everything out and laid the sheets end to end, the result would stretch seven times around the world and then on as far as Godalming.

The size of the task of bringing order to the archive, and coming close to understanding it, is gut-grippingly terrifying. Merely opening a folder at random, to reveal thousands upon thousands of sub-folders and individual files, would be enough to induce panic in the most placid of Zen practitioners.

I was browsing idly the other day, clicking on files here and there, when I came across the photograph on this page.

Although not in the best of nick – Andrew downloaded it from a microfiche reader (always a hit-and-miss procedure) during one of his countless visits to the Cambridgeshire Collection – it does provide a priceless snapshot of a precious moment in the early days of Abbey United. And I hadn’t seen it before.

Can you make out the object in George Alsop’s hands? It’s the Cambridgeshire Challenge Cup, and the Abbey team that Alsop captained had just won it.

The date is 18 April 1925, the venue is Cambridge Town’s Milton Road ground and the day’s events – Abbey’s trouncing of Girton United by six goals to one – are being reported by the long-gone Cambridge Chronicle.

The bearded gent to Alsop’s right is Major Oliver Papworth, who presented the cup, and to his left is Cambs FA secretary Charles Dennant.

The Wasps had lined up: R ‘Percy’ Wilson; Joe Livermore, Bill Walker; Jim Self, Alsop, Bill ‘Pim’ Stearn; Fred Stevens, Frank Luff, Harvey Cornwell, Tom Langford, William ‘Fanny’ Freeman (kids: teams played in the 2-3-5 formation in those days). Cornwell had scored a hat-trick and the other goals had come from Walker, Langford and Freeman.

The Challenge Cup was just one of three trophies claimed by Abbey United that season – and they shared a fourth. Read Andrew's Newmarket Road Roughs for the full detail.

Cheerio
Harry

It's a record breaker!

8/7/2018

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.

It was hardly surprising that United's record home attendance of 14,000 – a record that will probably never be beaten – was set that day. Every square inch of the ground was occupied as Chelsea paraded the Cup before kick-off.

Luckily, someone took a cine camera along to record the proceedings for posterity. We're immensely grateful to David Smith for providing the resultant film in video format. Click the button above to relive history.

Details of the events can be found in Risen from the Dust, the second volume of Andrew Bennett's Celery & Coconuts history of our club. Buy your copy at the CFU online shop or from the caravan on a match day.

Suffice it to say that, as the U's had a rather important fixture the following day – the home game against Margate that would bring them their second successive Southern League title – they wanted to take it easy, and a Chelsea reserve side took their place for the second half.

Moments from that Margate match are also preserved in David Smith's wonderful film. A George Harris penalty and a Bill Cassidy clincher effectively took United into the Football League.

Footage of the celebrations and of the Southern League championship shield being borne aloft in a sea of bodies brings it all back … precious memories of an amazing two days in Cambridge United history.

Review: Risen from the Dust

11/23/2017

Andrew Stephen, editor of the CFU fanzine Amber News, gives his impressions of volume two of Celery & Coconuts, Andrew Bennett's history of Abbey/Cambridge United.

I find it almost impossible to like books about sport in general and about football in particular. Most writers who know about their sport find it difficult to convey the sense of excitement generated by a live event. Being there, when something that matters to you is happening, is a deeply personal thing. Football writers increasingly kill off their subjects with a kind of trainspotter’s approach to statistics, or, in the case of the tabloid ‘journalists’, a desire to dwell on celebrity and gossip rather than the nuances of the game.

Of course, Andrew Bennett has been writing match reports, with flair, insight and no little humour, for years. And he is a man who can be trusted with the history of the world’s greatest football team.

I was nearly seven when the fifties came to an end but this book brings that vital decade vividly to life, explaining how Abbey United were gradually transformed into a much more professional outfit ready to dominate the Southern League. Those watching games in that era will tell you that Wilf Mannion, even at 38 years old, was the greatest player ever to play for Cambridge United. Volunteers continued to develop and sometimes build parts of the ground, players of pedigree came and went and the club’s directors became ever more ambitious.

For me, the acid test for this book covered the games between 1967 and our election to the Football League, my first three years as a fan.

Leaving aside scores and their significance, I was taken back to paying 1/6d at the turnstiles as a Junior, the smell of sweet pipe tobacco at the Newmarket Road End, buying pies from the Supporters’ Club on the terrace which is now the Disabled Enclosure and the expectation of winning every game.

As the pages turned, I could see once again Ian Hutchinson’s booming long throws, the bravery of Rodney Slack, the elegance of Robin Hardy and the class of George Harris. Life was simpler then; cash on the gate, only one manager, no ‘simulation’, no corporate pressures or obsession with image – but I digress.

And there were the downsides, like the fateful Easter when we lost twice to our big rivals Chelmsford City. The following season, having bought their four best players, we were ready to storm into the Football League. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Andrew is a fine writer and a real fan. If you like football, nostalgia and the story of a little club which became great because of its people, you’ll love this.

Risen from the Dust: The story of Cambridge United Football Club; 1951-1970 by Andrew Bennett. Published by Lovely Bunch. £19.99 (£1 discount for CFU members). Available online at cambridgefansunited.org/store/c4/Books.html and from the CFU caravan on a match day.

Rise and shine

9/26/2017

This article appeared in the Cambridge United programme for the match against Forest Green Rovers on 26 September 2017.

Several elements of the photograph on this page allow us to date it to the late 1960s/early1970s. The buzz cut, braces and button-down collar sported by the tall gent on the left, for example, were undoubtedly complemented by a pair of DMs, useful in the event of the aggro that was all too prevalent at the time.

The real giveaway, of course, forms the centrepiece of the tableau and permits us to pinpoint its exact date: 2 May 1970. The magnificent trophy held aloft by Malcolm Lindsay and his U’s teammates is the Southern League championship shield, and they had just won it by beating Margate 2-0 in the final league match of the season.

Play Spot the Player and you’ll pick out Jimmy Thompson, Robin Hardy and Terry Eades. Those of us who were around at the time could pass a happy half-hour playing Spot the Fan among the masses on the Abbey pitch.

It’s a memorable image, which is one reason it was chosen for the front cover of Risen from the Dust, the second volume of Andrew Bennett’s Celery & Coconuts history of Abbey/Cambridge United. It will be published next month; preorder your copy now from the CFU online store or the caravan in the front car park on a match day.

Another reason for the photograph’s choice is that it represents the culmination of two decades of sky-high ambition, dogged determination and sheer, unceasing hard work on the part of supporters, directors, officials and players. The rapidity of the club’s rise from local league part-timers to a position that made it almost impossible for Football League clubs not to elect United to join them was unprecedented. It will never be repeated.

In the early weeks of 1951, the year in which Risen from the Dust opens, the U’s were still called Abbey United and were grubbing around in the semi-pro United Counties League.

A limited liability company looking after the club’s affairs – a declaration of the ambition burning bright at Newmarket Road – had been set up the year before, but the change of name to Cambridge United and acceptance into the Eastern Counties League were still in the future. Even the Southern League, at that time the biggest non-League competition, was a very distant prospect.

The book recounts the story of the nineteen short years it took the U’s to surge upwards through the ECL and the Southern League, win the latter twice and its league cup three times and hammer irresistibly on the door of the Football League’s art deco headquarters in Lytham St Annes.

Over the course of 388 pages, Andrew (belated congratulations on your appointment as club historian, lad) covers all the great moments and talking points in his familiar, eminently readable style. They include the development of the Abbey funded and carried out by supporters, the sight of football legend Wilf Mannion in amber and black, the unforgettable derby tussles of the 60s, the incredibly successful pools operation driven by Dudley Arliss, the constant bitter argument over the issue of City-United amalgamation … it’s all there. And stats fans get page after page of the factual stuff.

It can be yours for the ridiculously low price of £19.99, or £1 less if you’re a CFU member. We look forward to taking your order.
Cheerio
Harry

Roughs justice

11/24/2016

There was a choice. Either Andrew Bennett (left) and Dave Doggett could take part in the Mick George Skip Challenge at half-time of the Wycombe game on November 19, or they could stand around on the pitch while Simon Lankester wielded his camera.

Hold on! What's that they're holding? Why, it's a copy of Newmarket Road Roughs, the first volume of Andrew's history of Abbey/Cambridge United, Celery & Coconuts.

Do you think Andrew is presenting the chairman with a free copy of his work? Surely Dave could have visited cambridgefansunited.org and ordered a copy for himself, at the low, low price of £14.99, or even ordered one at the CFU caravan in the front car park on a match day? He would have been able to choose whether to have it delivered or pick it himself from the caravan.

#thepastwillsoonbepresent

8/29/2016

The past will soon be present … the first volume of Celery & Coconuts, Andrew Bennett’s definitive history of Abbey and Cambridge United, will be published in October by 100 Years of Coconuts. And you can preorder your copy of Newmarket Road Roughs at the CFU online store.

Newmarket Road Roughs, published under the Lovely Bunch imprint, examines in exhaustive detail the humble beginnings of Abbey United, the club that grew up in the back streets of Barnwell and went on to challenge the biggest names in English football. Andrew describes the background to the club’s formation, its pre-WWI friendlies, its post-war exploits in the Cambridgeshire League, its fight to stay alive during World War II and its subsequent move into the professional game.

The first volume of Celery & Coconuts ends in 1951, when our ambitious club changed its name to Cambridge United and embarked on its preparations for life in the Southern League and, finally in 1970, the Football League.

Order from cambridgefansunited.org/store/c4/Books.html or visit the CFU outlet on a match day.

Packed with the fascinating stories of the characters who saw our club, always firmly based in its community, through its formative years and on to the brink of national recognition, Newmarket Road Roughs comes with details of every game played by Abbey United in its first 40 years, plus league tables and playing records.

Those appendices alone are worth the cover price of £14.99 for this attractively designed hardback book – the first of many to come from Andrew Bennett and Lovely Bunch. To preorder your copy, go to cambridgefansunited.org/store/c4/Books.html or visit the CFU outlet on a match day. Alternatively, drop a line to 100yearsofcoconuts@gmail.com. Members of CFU enjoy a £1 discount.

We’ll let you know when your copy of Newmarket Road Roughs is available to pick up or is in the post. By choosing to collect from the CFU caravan you will avoid the postal charges of £2.99 for normal post and £5.99 for Royal Mail special delivery.

Happy reading! The past will soon be present.