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Clock this

10/17/2018

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An edited version of this article appeared in the Cambridge United match day programme for the League Two game against Swindon Town on 17 March 2018.

If you would like to witness a vision of almost unparalleled ugliness, pay a visit to the Abbey Arms, behind the main stand.

The clock hanging on the wall behind the bar is not, in my opinion, a thing of beauty. Some people disagree; I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.

Made somewhere in eastern Asia and imported specifically for the purpose I’m about to describe, it was scavenged from a bin by a gang of Coconuts mudlarks a couple of years ago and forms part of the organisation’s collection of U’s artefacts.

Although I recoil from the sight of it, I admit this hideous timepiece has two uses: telling the time (although not accurately) and throwing light on an often-overlooked aspect of United history.

The clock’s inscription tells its story: ‘Presented to the directors of Cambridge United by the manager and players in appreciation of their generous acts and support during the Southern League double season 1968/69.’

Everyone knows that United won the Southern League title two years running, in 1969 and 1970, helping to ease open the doors to the Football League. But the club’s 1960s exploits in the Southern League Cup receive far less attention.

Having already claimed the trophy in 1962 and 1965, the U’s set out to win it again on a Fenland summer’s day in 1968, drawing 1-1 at Wisbech with a goal from Tony Nicholas. Mick Brown and Richard Habbin did the business in a 2-0 second leg win and United were, thanks to a bye, through to round three.
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Above, Seiko wall clock presented to Cambridge United directors by the players and manager after the Southern League double of 1968/69
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Inscription: 'Presented to the directors of Cambridge United FC by the manager and players in appreciation of their generous acts and support during their SL double season 1968/69'
This brought Brentwood to the Abbey; they must have wished they’d stayed in Essex. Andrew Bennett relates in Risen from the Dust that the U’s were 4-0 up inside 30 minutes, ‘combining slick football and deadly finishing’. Six players were on the scoresheet as United emerged as 6-1 victors, the highlight of the day being a ‘contemptuous’ backheel over the Blues goalkeeper by Bill Cassidy.

Our heroes had a few memorable tussles with Chelmsford City in the 60s; another awaited them in the quarter-final.

Smarting from the loss of Cassidy, Tony Butcher, Terry Eades and Peter Leggett to Bill Leivers’ side, the Clarets deployed an eight-man defence and carried out a thorough clogging job on the unfortunate Cassidy. It worked: they came away with a 0-0 draw.
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Cambridge United's 1968/69 Southern League double-winning squad and their manager and directors with their trophies, from left the Cambridgeshire Professional Cup, Southern League championship shield and Southern League Cup. Personnel, back from left: Geoff Proctor (director), Jack Woolley (director), Mick Brown (coach), John Gregson, Terry Eades, Keith Barker, Gerry Baker, Robin Hardy, Bill Leivers (manager), Rodney Slack, Jackie Scurr, Peter Leggett, Phil Baker (secretary), Paddy Harris (director), Matt Wynn (director); front: Brian Grant, Mel Slack, Roly Horrey, Bill Cassidy, Dennis Walker, Jimmy Thompson, Tony Butcher, John Saunders
In the replay two days later, City grabbed an early goal but King Cass replied and then set up Roly Horrey before half-time. In a rare escape from a second-half Chelmsford onslaught, John ‘Scobie’ Saunders broke away to settle matters ten minutes from time.

Semi-final time: Leivers had just 13 players including two goalkeepers at his disposal when Ashford came to town, but they proved adequate to the task and Cassidy, John Gregson and Horrey notched in a 3-2 win.

United’s depleted team took the game to Cheltenham in the first leg of the final, played at the Abbey on Easter Saturday. The Robins’ penalty area was busier than Mitcham’s Corner, noted the CEN, but Gerry Baker’s strike on the hour was the only score.
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Second leg man of the match, the heroic Rodney Slack, was knocked unconscious near the end but found himself submerged by joyous teammates at the final whistle of a 0-0 draw that ensured the trophy’s return to Newmarket Road. The cup was United’s for the third time in eight years.

Cheerio
Harry
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Bishop's place in history

5/24/2018

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We're obliged to the generous Rod Bishop, who has donated the framed display on the right to The Story of the U's, the Coconuts mini-museum in Cambridge United Supporters' Club's Abbey Lounge home.

It represents an important piece of U's history, for it contains what is believed to be the first full-time professional contract offered to a United player – at a weekly wage of £3 plus another £1 'when playing for the first team'.

Signed by full back Bob Bishop (Rod's father) and club secretary Fred Ward, and witnessed by player-manager Bill Whittaker, it dates to 16 August 1952, when ambitious United were playing in the Eastern Counties League but planning for bigger things.

The display also features Bob among the team that took on Bradford Park Avenue in the FA Cup second round on 12 December 1953, and the biography that appeared in Brian Attmore and Graham Nurse's '100 Greats' book published in 2002.

Bob, an athletic, versatile and influential player who was equally comfortable at right or left back, played 202 games for the U's between 1947 and 1956, when he hung up his boots to take on the role of trainer. He got forward occasionally, as his tally of six goals shows.

His United career spanned three eras: he joined when the club was competing in the United Counties League and stepped back from the trainer role when it was playing in the Southern League, in 1959.
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It's a splendid addition to The Story of the U's for which we thank Rod – a long-term United follower and no mean sportsman himself in his day, although he showed a puzzling preference for the oval ball.

​To arrange a visit to The Story of the U's, email 100yearsofcoconuts@gmail.com.
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Rise and shine

9/26/2017

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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.
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​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.
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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
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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.
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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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Peter Leggett, 1943-2016

11/11/2016

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Coconuts was saddened to hear of the death on November 2, at the age of 72, of Peter Leggett, who starred for the U’s before and at the start of the club’s Football League adventure.

Peter was a hugely talented but mercurial winger who, with his flowing locks, was sometimes compared to the Beatles and in his Southern League days was nicknamed the George Best of non-League. Between 1969 and 1971 he played 69 times for United and scored seven goals. The number of goals he created is probably incalculable.

He is recalled fondly by supporters of both United and Chelmsford City, both of whom he helped to Southern League titles, and it is accepted that he could have played at a much higher level.

Peter was born in Newton-le-Willows on 16 December 1943 and started his career at Weymouth. Swindon paid £1,000 for him in 1962 and he started 15 League games for the Robins before transferring to Brighton in 1965.  He made only three League appearances for the Seagulls before joining Chelmsford.

He was an integral part of the Essex side’s team as they won the Southern League championship in 1967/68. The following season, United manager Bill Leivers devastated the champions by signing four of their players: Tony Butcher, Bill Cassidy, Terry Eades and, in March 1969, Peter, for an undisclosed fee. He made his debut, on the right wing, in a 3-1 loss at Hillingdon on March 1. He played just once more in the Southern League that season, but United won the title and he was retained for the following term.

In September Leivers placed Leggett, Cassidy and John Saunders on the transfer list with a warning that they should buck their ideas up. Cassidy quickly re-established himself but Peter was in and out of the team, and in December he left for Lincoln City on a month’s trial. Lincoln wanted to keep him for a second month, but he preferred to return to the Abbey to fight for his place.

He returned to first-team action in February with a tremendous display in a Floodlit League match against King’s Lynn, tormenting the visitors’ defence and creating four goals in a 5-1 win. The following month he was outstanding in a 2-0 defeat of Chelmsford at the Abbey, tearing the opposing defence apart at his teasing, tormenting best. His performance was summed up by the first goal in which he nutmegged his full back by the corner flag, sped along the byline and pulled it back for George Harris, who struck the bar for Malcolm Lindsay to net with a diving header.

Leivers was moved to comment: ‘It was hard to reason why he was not playing for a First Division side. This boy has everything – pace, ball skill and an eye for the opening, but most of all in the last year he has become disciplined, with a wholly professional outlook.’

Leggett missed the last five games of the season with injury, but he had played his part as United became Southern League champions for the second time and were elected to the Football League.

United’s first League win, a 3-1 defeat of Oldham, was inspired by Peter’s twinkling toes; on 49 he jinked past three defenders as if they were not there and rolled the ball past the keeper to put his side level, and five minutes later he won a 30-yard dash for the ball and crossed for Harris to score with a diving header. Cassidy then made it 3-1 from another Leggett assist.

Gifted but still sometimes frustrating, Peter lost his place to Roly Horrey in November and was transfer-listed at his own request. No offers were received. He was also hit by a recurring muscle injury, and after United finished the season in an underwhelming 20th place, he was one of six players declared surplus to requirements. Talks with Cambridge City broke down when he suffered a recurrence of a groin injury, and his professional career was over.

In 2013 Leivers revealed that, after one game in which Peter had run his full back ragged, he told the player that, if he continued to play like that, he could command a transfer fee of £50,000. ‘Don’t talk daft,’ replied the winger.
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Peter later worked as a manager for the Britvic soft drinks company in Chelmsford, the city where he remained for the rest of his life. He left a widow, Margaret, and three children.
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Peter Leggett: perhaps he didn't realise just how good he was and how far he could go.
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​Mel Slack, 1944-2016

8/9/2016

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The Cambridge football family lost a well loved member with the death on Saturday, 6 August 2016 of Mel Slack, at the age of 72.

Mel started 124 times and made ten sub appearances for the U’s between 1969 and 1971, starring for Bill Leivers’ side as it gained election to, and established itself in, the Football League. A hard-tackling midfielder, he played for Cambridge City when his United career ended.

Born on 7 March 1944 in Bishop Auckland (County Durham), he was on Burnley’s books as a youth before signing for Sunderland in 1961. He played twice in four years and then joined Southend United, for whom he played 107 league matches.
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He arrived in Cambridge in January 1969 after Southend gave United £5,000 plus Mel in return for full back Keith Lindsey. He made his debut on January 15 in a Southern League Cup game against Chelmsford, and competed with Dennis Walker for a midfield place for the rest of the season.

United became Southern League champions for the first time at the end of the season, and Mel also picked up a Southern League Cup winner’s medal, playing in the second leg of the final at Cheltenham as the U’s won 1-0 on aggregate.
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Mel Slack: brought up in a hard school of football
He was a regular starter the following season, helping to anchor the midfield as United challenged for the title again. He missed the last away game, a 4-1 loss at Yeovil, with tonsillitis, but got out of his sickbed to play in a 3-0 defeat of Worcester five days later. The following evening he started in front of the Abbey Stadium’s record crowd of 14,000 in a friendly against Chelsea, but like the rest of the first team sat out the second half in anticipation of the title-deciding game against Margate the following afternoon. United won 2-0 and were champions again.

Following the club’s election to Football League Division Four, Mel remained a regular first-team choice, although his 1970/71 season was ended three games early by an ankle injury. United finished 20th in their first League season and, as Leivers revamped his squad, Mel signed for City.

He returned to the Abbey in November 1971 to play in the first leg of the Cambs Professional Cup final. Cautioned for bringing down Peter Phillips, he reacted by throwing a punch when the U’s striker returned the compliment, earning an instant dismissal.

He had explained why he was no stranger to the physical side of the game the previous season. ‘I was brought up in a hard school at Sunderland, where we were always instructed to put our opponents out of the game before starting to play the football. Great play was made of mental attitude as we prepared before each game to do battle, and I have always played hard, whether in training or a match.’

Nonetheless, Mel’s skill on the ball was considerable and, while he was not known for scoring – he netted just three times for United – he will long be remembered for one moment of brilliance. With the score at 1-1 with five minutes to go in the first away game of 1969/70, he dribbled through Gloucester’s attempted offside trap to score an outstanding winner.
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He believed his best asset lay in another area, however: ‘I feel I am at my best when the boss says before the game that so and so have a particular danger man and I am given the job of playing him out of the game.’

Remaining in the Cambridge area after his retirement, Mel became widely known as the landlord of the Rose & Crown in Teversham and later lived in Fulbourn. He leaves widow Joan, daughter Keely and two granddaughters.
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Russell Crane 1926-2016

3/11/2016

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100 Years of Coconuts and CFU were saddened to hear of the death at the age of 90, on 10 March 2016, of Abbey/Cambridge United legend Russell Crane.

Russell was the only man to play for the club in five different leagues: the wartime East Anglian, the Cambridgeshire, United Counties, Eastern Counties and Southern. It was an indication of the respect that all involved with the club held for Russell, a U’s man through and through, when he was made honorary life president of Coconuts in November last year.

Born on 26 January 1926, Russell grew up in Ditton Walk, a stone’s throw from the Abbey United ground, in a United-focused household. His father Herbie was a jack-of-all-trades helper behind the scenes, a role he filled into the 1950s. He would take the team’s shirts home for his wife Sylvia to wash, and count and bank the gate money from home games.

Russell left school at 15 and it was at that age that he made his U’s debut on 13 September 1941, in a 4-2 defeat of an RAF XI. A diminutive, stocky, speedy left winger with tricky skills and a powerful shot, he made an immediate impact and by 1943 was earning rave reviews from the local press.

By now 17, he was called up for the Royal Navy. He took part in an ill-fated exercise designed to prepare Allied forces for the Normandy landings, and later served all over the world, but returned to play for United whenever he was on leave. Upon demob in 1946 he established himself as a regular in the side and adjusted easily when Abbey joined the semi-professional United Counties League a year later.

Russell blossomed fully during the 1948/49 season, when he was the league’s top scorer with 42 goals in 37 games, a club record. In a 4-1 win at Eynesbury he scored a stunning goal when he picked up the ball in his own half and dribbled past man after man before hitting the net. At Kettering, ‘his marksmanship and working of the ball bore the hallmark of class and the opposing defence never knew what he was going to do next,’ said the press report. He scored four goals in a game on three occasions that season, with two hat-tricks thrown in for good measure.

He played at centre forward and inside left as well as on the left wing as United established themselves in the UCL. When they beat relative giants Wisbech in the East Anglian Cup in 1950, the local paper reported:  ‘If Abbey United are fortunate enough to win the East Anglian Cup this season, the name of Russell Crane should be engraved upon it in gilt letters. For it was the fighting spirit of this human dynamo of an inside forward when Abbey were a goal down after two minutes which largely inspired his team to a one-goal victory. Revealing all the menace of an angry wasp, Crane buzzed and harassed his way among the visiting defenders in a tireless pattern which did much to put a top-gear United on the winning trail by half-time.’

At the end of 1950/51 Peterborough United of the Midland League offered Russell a significant pay rise, but he declined to move out of loyalty to his hometown club. He told Coconuts TV in 2014: ‘As far as I was concerned it was a family affair, you know? My father worked up there, my mother did what she could do at home, my sisters [Edna, Ivy and Freda] all supported them and used to go up to the games …’

The renamed Cambridge United moved across to the Eastern Counties League in 1951. That season United unexpectedly defeated the mighty Cambridge City 2-0 in the Cambs Invitation Cup final before a crowd of 9,814 at Milton Road, Crane scoring both goals in a five-minute first-half spell. At the final whistle United’s ecstatic fans stormed the pitch and chaired Crane off to a rousing chorus of I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts.

For the 1953/54 season Russell was converted into an attacking left back, a role he took to with comfort. He was awarded a benefit match in April 1956 to mark 15 years’ service to the club and around that time he turned down the offer of a trial with Ipswich Town.
He filled a variety of positions as United progressed to the Southern League in 1958, and he scored the club’s first goal in that competition, in a 3-1 defeat of Guildford City. That season was his swansong at United and after 18 years’ service, 502 games and 186 goals he remained in local football at Soham and Sawston.

A part-time professional player to the end of his U’s career, Russell’s off-pitch working life encompassed spells at a cable company in Regent Street, the Pye group companies Unicam and Telecom and an electrical wholesaler. He continued to live in the Ditton Walk area until the end of his life. He leaves a daughter, Jane, two sons, Russell and Stephen, seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
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From top: Russell Crane heads for goal against Cambridge City in 1957/58; with daughter Jane Lyon in the Abbey Stadium main stand; a Cambridge Daily News profile; with memento of his installation as honorary life-president of 100 Years of Coconuts; with centenary shirt; and on the Abbey pitch with John Taylor for the centenary match, 2012.
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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.
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Above, Gerry Baker (left) in action at the Abbey Stadium. Below, Gerry chats to CUFC chairman Dave Doggett after the Accrington Stanley game.
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​​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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    Happy Harry's blog

    I'm the living embodiment of the spirit of the U's, and I'll be blogging whenever I've got news for you, as long as I don't miss my tea. 

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