Category: Ian Hutchinson

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.

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When Chelsea came to town

2/4/2018

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This article appeared in the Cambridge Independent's edition of 17-23 January 2018.

Long before the name of Roman Abramovich brought a gleam to Ken Bates’s eye and gave a fillip to his earnings potential, Chelsea were a fairly unremarkable club that popped up occasionally to claim one of English football’s top prizes.

And it may come as a surprise to younger readers that the west London club, now one of the world’s richest, have played Cambridge United no fewer than 17 times over the years.

Admittedly, four of those games pitted the Pensioners’ ‘A’ team against United’s best XI and took place in the early 1950s, in the Eastern Counties League.

Admittedly, three of those games were friendlies. Admittedly, the U’s have a poor record against the Blues, having won just four times and drawn once.

But ten of the 17 matches featured the two clubs competing on equal terms, in League Division Two in the 1980s, and one of the friendlies was one of the most unforgettable contests ever staged at the Abbey Stadium.

The first meeting between the U’s and Chelsea took place at Newmarket Road on 17 November 1951 and resulted in a 2-1 win for the youthful visitors. There were to be three more ECL encounters before Chelsea withdrew from the league in 1953.

Talking of youngsters, United youth teams of the early 1960s earned themselves a couple of tilts against their Chelsea counterparts in the FA Youth Cup.

In 1961/62, having disposed of Luton and Wycombe, they were drawn at home to Chelsea in round four. A crowd of 1,909 watched a Pensioners side featuring John Hollins and Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris claim a 3-0 win.

The following year, United’s young men gained a 2-1 win over Charlton in round two but went down 4-0 in the following round to a Blues team that included winger Peter Houseman.

The next time the clubs’ paths crossed was in a 1968 friendly, which Chelsea won 3-1. But a much bigger, record-breaking occasion was in the offing.

By April 1970, Ian Hutchinson, signed by Chelsea from the U’s two years earlier, had developed into a striker capable of terrorising any defence – with his feet, his head or his phenomenally long, accurate throws.

Hutch was a standout performer in that year’s brutal FA Cup final, scoring Chelsea’s equaliser in the first match at Wembley, then hurling the ball that provided David Webb’s winner in the replay at Old Trafford.

Chelsea players parade the recently won FA Cup before playing Cambridge United at the Abbey Stadium on 1 May 1970. Photo: David Campbell/Cambridgeshire Collection.

Ian Hutchinson watches as his former teammate Rodney Slack collects the ball during the Chelsea-Cambridge United friendly match on 1 May 1970. Photo: David Campbell/Cambridgeshire Collection.

A mere two days later, on May 1, the victorious Blues players paraded their hard-won trophy in front of 14,000 (and probably more) Cambridge people in a match arranged as part of the Hutchinson transfer deal.

The attendance record set that day will never be broken while the Abbey stays in its present form. The place was full to overflowing and desperate spectators were forced to seek, as Jim Laker used to say, all kinds of vantage points. A present-day stadium manager would have had palpitations.

The time came for Hutch to showcase his long throw, and gasps were followed by cheers when it dropped towards the penalty spot.

By that time, the United team had been replaced by Chelsea’s reserves, who ran out 4-3 winners.

The U’s had other things on their minds: the following day’s Southern League title decider at home to Margate.

A young Ian Hutchinson at the Abbey Stadium, before his 1968 transfer to Chelsea.

There were sighs of resignation around Newmarket Road in the early summer of 1968, when Ian Hutchinson departed for Stamford Bridge.

The young man clearly possessed huge potential although, gangly and seemingly uncoordinated at times, he had been singled out for ill-judged barracking by a few spectators.

No one could complain, however, about the compensation United received from Chelsea: £2,500 up front, another £2,500 after ten First Division appearances, the same amount when he played for England Under-23 and the promise of that record-breaking 1970 friendly match.

And no one expected to see Hutchinson playing in amber and black again … except perhaps Hutchinson himself.

In the autumn of 1968, United manager Bill Leivers was startled to hear Hutch’s voice when he picked up his office phone.

He was even more surprised to hear that the young starlet, finding life at the top was not to his liking, wanted to come home.

‘We were living in a hotel and, as a reserve player, I was earning less than I had been at the Abbey Stadium,’ Hutchinson recalled later.

'So I approached Bill Leivers and asked if he would take me back. He said there would always be a place for me at the Abbey Stadium.’

But his big break in Chelsea’s first team wasn’t far away and, despite an awful succession of injuries that ended his career far too early, he became one of the Shed’s favourite adopted sons.

United and Chelsea fans alike mourned his premature death, at the age of 54, in 2002.

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Hutch phones home

10/7/2017

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An edited version of this article appeared in Cambridge United's matchday programme for the game against Wycombe Wanderers on 7 October 2017.

Imagine: one of United’s legions of promising youngsters, with a handful of first-team games under his belt, is snapped up by Chelsea, as so many promising youngsters seem to be. The U’s are rewarded handsomely and the promising youngster’s future looks assured. Everyone’s happy.

But a few weeks later, the promising youngster is on the phone to his old mentor at Newmarket Road, asking if he can come back. Life at the top, he has found, is not all it’s cracked up to be.

Unlikely? Perhaps, but it happened in the 1960s, as Andrew Bennett reveals in Risen from the Dust, the second volume of his Celery & Coconuts history of our club (out soon; order online at the CFU store or at the CFU caravan on a match day).

The promising youngster in question was Ian Hutchinson, his mentor was Bill Leivers and the call took place a couple of months after his transfer to Stamford Bridge for an eventual £7,500 plus the proceeds of a friendly between the two clubs.

Hutch explained later that, yet to break into the Pensioners’ first team, he was living in a hotel and earning less than he had been at the Abbey. ‘So I approached Bill Leivers and asked if he would take me back. He said there would always be a place for me at the Abbey Stadium …’

Still following the engineering apprenticeship he had been engaged on when he signed for United from Burton Albion in February 1968, he was leaving home at 5am most mornings to go to work. ‘I miss much about Cambridge, especially the people,’ he said.

But Hutch’s breakthrough wasn’t far away, and he went on to form a heavy-scoring partnership with Peter Osgood that delighted the Shed. A stand-out performer in the brutal, replayed 1970 FA Cup final against Leeds – after which Chelsea visited the Abbey for the promised friendly, drawing 14,000 spectators – he remains best known for the amazing long throws with which he peppered opposition six-yard boxes.

Sadly, his career was disfigured by a cruel succession of injuries, and he was only 27 when he called it a day. Even more sadly, he died in 2002 at the distressingly young age of 54.

U’s supporters recall his time at the Abbey fondly. They had first encountered him in United’s meetings with Burton in the Southern and Midland Floodlit leagues, and had marvelled at the run-around he gave steely U's centre half Gerry Baker a few weeks before his arrival in Cambridge. Not many people did that to Gerry.

Top, Ian Hutchinson in action at the Abbey Stadium. Above, congratulations for his equaliser at Wimbledon on 6 April 1968. Below, the young Hutch.

Hutch had only been at Burton a year; they had spotted him playing for International Combustion’s works team in the East Midlands Regional League, where he averaged a useful three goals a game. Tall, gangly and raw but with speed, skill on the ball and great ability in the air, he was a terrific prospect, and United beat three League clubs, as well as a couple of their Southern League rivals, to his signature.

He prospered under Leivers’ wing, scoring seven times in his 21 U’s games. One of those goals, at Wimbledon on 6 April 1968, will be remembered for ever.

Receiving a throw-in near halfway with his back to goal, Hutch turned, leaving his marker for dead, and beat three more defenders on his way to the apex of the penalty box, where he let loose a right-foot shot that was in the top corner before Dons keeper Frank Smith had seen it. He is missed greatly.
Cheerio
Harry

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It's a record breaker!

When Chelsea came to town

Hutch phones home

Happy Harry's blog

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