Category: Dave Kitson

These I have loved

1/19/2019

It’s a daunting task but a hugely rewarding one: since Andrew Bennett died last February, Coconutters have been wading through the vast amount of stuff he left us.

Words are not adequate to convey the size of our beloved club historian’s archive of writings, stats, reports, photographs … you name it, Andrew saved it.

It will take many a year to explore, sort, catalogue and communicate the contents of the entire hoard of treasure. The best we can do at the moment is to nibble away at the edges of the digital pile.

As we do so, we regularly unearth priceless examples of Bennettiana, and we’re happy to bring one to your attention today.

Around 2010, Andrew described his favourite U’s players from the 40-odd years that he’d been making his regular pilgrimages to the Abbey. He wrote:

My name is Andrew Bennett, I am 51 years of age and for the last 35 of those years I have been a resident of the village of Histon. I first nagged my Dad into taking me to the Abbey Stadium on 13 April 1970, for a 3-0 win over Gloucester City. It is well-nigh impossible to pick out just five players who have sported the black and amber over the last 40-plus years, but here goes …

Brian Greenhalgh. Peter Leggett was my very first U’s hero, due to his resemblance to my all-time footballing idol, George Best. But Greenhalgh stood out as something special: a graceful, flaxen-haired goal machine whose United career climaxed in the unforgettable 3-2 win over Mansfield on the last day of the 1972/73 season that clinched promotion to Division Three.

I can still hear the chants of ‘Greeeeen-halgh! Greeeeen-halgh!’ echoing around the old place as the crowd celebrated on the pitch with the players, then chairing them off. For a 13-year-old, four-eyed geek, life did not get any better than this. I never got to touch the hem of the great man’s garment, though.

Steve Fallon. It is my theory that as far as favourite players go, we eventually gravitate towards one with whom we identify most readily. Once I realised that I would never be another Best, or even another Leggett, I grew to admire a man with different qualities: consistency, stoicism, reliability, strength, loyalty, courage.

Just occasionally, very occasionally, Fallon would produce something quite extraordinary, a 25-yard wonder goal such as he scored against Grimsby on a sunny afternoon in May 1981.

He was there throughout the great days of the late 1970s/early 1980s, and he was one of the few who stayed when it all turned sour later on; if injury had not curtailed his career, he’d probably still be playing for us now.

Steve Claridge. You only have to look at certain players for their personality to all but jump off the pitch and rugby-tackle you to the ground. Claridge was a rebel: scruffy, insolent, a shambling maverick with rolled-down socks in a marvellous team that John Beck did his best to turn into dead-eyed robots, but did not quite succeed.

But what I liked most about him was his absolute joy when he scored a goal – an infectious, unbridled expression of the sheer fun of football at its best that he shared with us, lighting up the whole stadium.

He even came back after leaving us once, before going on to the even greater fame and fortune he deserved. Then he shared it all with us in a cracking autobiography.

Dave Kitson. As a ‘ginger’ myself, I always tried to look on myself as one of the chosen few, someone special who stood out from the crowd despite all evidence to the contrary. Then came Kits, the coolest man in town, an intelligent, articulate, supremely gifted footballer who managed to be simultaneously United’s best striker, midfielder, defender and passer of the ball whenever he played, and came across as even more Fonz-like off the pitch.

The most talented player I have ever seen in a United shirt, he was sold from under our noses by an incompetent board and he should have played for England. I still harbour a faint hope that he will.

Robbie Simpson. My most self-indulgent pick, I suppose. I have never wanted to talk to or get to know United players, for fear that they would turn out to be the self-obsessed, dim-witted, objectionable ninnies that so many higher level players really are. But when I presented Robbie with his player of the season trophy in 2007, he not only knew who I was but told me he loved my match reports and always got his dad to print them off for him.

He had had a great season, saving us almost single-handedly from relegation to the Conference South with goals of grace, skill and power, including a dramatic late

winner at Aldershot, and to discover that he was a humble, well-spoken, thoroughly nice guy as well made it all the more bittersweet that he had to leave us so soon. But then, don’t they all …

Honourable mentions: Dion Dublin, David Crown, Ian Measham, Wayne Hatswell, Martin Butler, Lionel Perez, Tom Finney, Alan Biley, Willie Watson.

Cheerio
Harry

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Review: What Dreams Are (Not Quite) Made Of, by Tom Youngs

8/14/2016

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Multiple sclerosis is a nasty, lifelong condition that you hope will never come near you or yours. It’s a neurological disorder, and it’s one of those that can occur when the body’s immune system goes awry. It’s probably affecting upwards of 100,000 people in the UK right now.

All those people and their families face an uncertain future: MS is different for everyone. Symptoms can include crippling fatigue, mobility problems, speech difficulties and muscle spasms among many others, but they vary from person to person; MS-free periods can last for hours or years, as can relapses. One of the few things that’s certain about the condition is that we haven’t found a cure.

Some people find they have MS after noticing something going wrong with their eyesight – and that’s what happened to Tom Youngs. Yes, our Tom Youngs, the all-action, probing, darting forward who was a favourite of United supporters between 1997 and 2003. The Tom Youngs whose intelligence shone through on the football field and off it. The Tom Youngs who, while notching 48 goals for the U’s, formed memorable partnerships with the likes of Dave Kitson, Zema Abbey, Ömer Riza and Shane Tudor.

Tom Youngs brings Chelsea's John Terry to his knees, 24 February 1999.

It’s not fair that such a shining example of healthy, young humanity should be afflicted by an awful disease like MS, but Tom is not one to sit at home and bemoan his condition. Self-pity is not his style. He’d rather be making use of his abilities and the skills he picked up while studying for his journalism degree, and doing something positive.

The result is What dreams are (not quite) made of: No fame, no fortune just football … and Multiple Sclerosis, Tom’s newly published account of his life in and after football. Naturally, it majors on his time at the Abbey, where he was welcomed at the age of ten having shone in his hometown of Mildenhall. But it will also interest readers in places like Northampton, Leytonstone and Bury (Lancs, not St Edmunds), where he ground out the rest of a career that – thanks to ill fortune, poor management and too many spells on the physio’s table – never achieved what it had promised.

It’s engagingly written – no ghostwriter needed here – and pleasingly frank. If he thinks a training schedule was badly planned and executed, he’ll tell us, and he’ll name the guilty party. And we’re treated to a cutting assessment of the homophobia, sexism, racism and childishness of football dressing room culture of his time – a culture in which Tom never felt comfortable. Let’s hope more enlightened views prevail today.

He’s unflinching in addressing the MS issue and the ramifications for his family. Tom, his wife Chelle and their daughters do not know what the future holds, but it’s certain that, whatever happens, they’ll face it head on and in a positive frame of mind. This most articulate of men has done those who research, work with and live with MS a great service – and given the rest of us, football fans or not, a cracking read.

Harry

What Dreams are (Not Quite) Made of: No Fame, No Fortune, Just Football ... and Multiple Sclerosis is published by Vertical Editions (Skipton) at £14.99 (hardback).

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These I have loved

Review: What Dreams Are (Not Quite) Made Of, by Tom Youngs

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These I have loved

​Review: What Dreams Are (Not Quite) Made Of, by Tom Youngs

Happy Harry's blog

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Review: What Dreams Are (Not Quite) Made Of, by Tom Youngs