Category: Steve Fallon - 100 YEARS OF COCONUTS

100 YEARS OF COCONUTS

What have Malcolm Lindsay, Tom Finney, Steve Fallon in common

1/7/2020

What do Malcolm Lindsay, Tom Finney and Steve Fallon have in common?

All of the them have been interviewed by the coconuts team of Ben Phillips, Alan Burge and Tom McGrane during the past few weeks.

If you have missed their wonderful stories and memories have a listen via the videos

Coconuts TV can be found via here

Why not bookmark the page, so you can enjoy all the match videos and interviews

Heroes of the Hall of Fame

3/25/2019

Six star performers on and off the pitch were inducted into the Cambridge United Hall of Fame during a celebratory dinner in the Abbey Lounge, home of the Supporters' Club, on Thursday, March 21.

Players Terry Eades, Steve Fallon and Tom Finney, manager Roy McFarland, commercial powerhouse Bill Cawdery and club historian Andrew Bennett joined their peers in the Hall of Fame, which is managed by 100 Years of Coconuts and recognises outstanding contributions to the story of the football club.

Eades, Fallon, Finney and McFarland were chosen by United supporters via online and paper voting, while Cawdery and Bennett were selected for induction by a Coconuts/ Cambridge Fans United electoral college.

‘The Cambridge United Hall of Fame recognises the work of people who have changed the history of the club significantly, one way or another,’ former Coconuts chair Pat Morgan told the press.

‘It doesn’t matter whether their contributions were on the pitch, in the dugout, in the boardroom, in the offices or on the terraces.

'The Cambridge United team is not just 11 players on the park on a Saturday; it’s every character who has ever played a part in the never-ending story that unfolds each week.’

Three of the new Hall of Famers were present to receive their mementos of induction: defenders Eades and Fallon and striker/midfielder Finney.

Mark Cawdery received his late father’s memento and Sam Wilson accepted his uncle Andrew Bennett’s award, while diners were able to watch a recording of McFarland’s acceptance speech.

The new inductees joined the existing Hall of Famers who have been inducted since the launch of the scheme in 2016: commercial manager Dudley Arliss, player/supporter Russell Crane, players Alan Biley, Dion Dublin, Wilf Mannion, Rodney Slack and Paul Wanless, player/managers John Beck and John Taylor, team managers Bill Leivers and Richard Money, stadium manager Ian Darler and supporter extraordinaire Lil Harrison.

Bennett’s induction to the Hall of Fame also served as the inauguration of the annual Andrew Bennett Award, which is intended to recognise extraordinary inputs to the club and its community.

It was instituted in memory of the late honorary club historian, archivist, writer and author of the Celery & Coconuts history of Abbey United/Cambridge United, who died in February last year.

Cambridge United director of football Graham Daniels presided over the ceremony, which was also attended by many supporters and ex-players including Andy Beattie, Alan Biley, Derrick Christie, Sam Harris, Peter Hobbs, Keith Lockhart, Rodney Slack and John Taylor.

Visit photographer Simon Lankester's Flickr account to view full coverage of the evening.

Top, celebrations for Hall of Famers past and present; above, Mark Cawdery (right) receives a memento of his father Bill's induction into the Hall of Fame from Ian Darler. All photos by Simon Lankester; visit Simon's Flickr pages to view coverage of the entire evening

Cambridge United Supporters' Club chairman Paul Mayes (right) presents Terry Eades with his Hall of Fame memento

Existing Hall of Famer Alan Biley (left) with new inductee, and former teammate, Tom Finney

Former centre-back partners Andy Beattie (left) and Steve Fallon renew their friendship

Roy McFarland receives his memento from former Coconuts chair Pat Morgan on March 12 at McFarland's Derbyshire home

Sam Wilson (left) receives a memento of induction into the Hall of Fame on behalf of his uncle Andrew Bennett from 100 Years of Coconuts committee member Ian Elliott

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

Steve Fallon, man and boy

7/10/2018

This is an edited version of an article that appeared in the Cambridge United matchday programme for the game against Bristol Rovers on 30 October 2015.

It was good to see Steve Fallon back at the Abbey in March, when he took his place among those shortlisted for a place in the Cambridge United Hall of Fame.

We were nodding our heads as his old teammate Alan Biley said that of all the men he played with at United, Steve was the most suited to grace the top of the game.

He never played at English football's highest level. It's that division's loss: it is the poorer for never seeing Steve show just how good a footballer he was.

He's been associated with Cambridge so long, it’s easy to forget that he grew up near the other place.

Yes, he’s a native of Whittlesey and as an impressionable youngster professed a fondness for Tottenham Hotspur and Posh.

Those youthful indiscretions have long been forgiven, for Steve matured into one of the greatest footballers and servants of the game our city has ever had.

Count ’em: 446 appearances (and the little matter of 30 goals) in all competitions for United, in a career that spanned 13 seasons.

Then he goes and makes a good fist of a job in the club’s commercial department while limbering up for a management career that took in Cambridge City, Histon, Soham Town Rangers and Histon again.

The years he spent in his first spell at Bridge Road, taking the team from the Eastern Counties League to the Conference play-off semi-finals, may have coloured some younger fans’ views of the man, but who will forget his appearance at the head of the United supporters’ solidarity march ahead of our last Football League game of 2005?

Ken Shellito didn’t say much worth listening to during his brief tenure as gaffer in 1985, but it was nail-on-head stuff when he explained why he made Steve his captain: ‘I thought [he] should have the job because he is Cambridge United … In the time I have been at Cambridge I have never heard anyone say a bad word about him as a player or as a person.’

It was a much more successful manager, Ron Atkinson, who had brought Steve from Kettering to Newmarket Road in March 1975.

We think of him as a centre back of skill, strength and intelligence, but it was as a left back and in midfield that he established himself, before teaming up with the likes of Brendon Batson and Dave Stringer as his central defensive career flourished.

Those illustrious names would later be joined as defensive partners by such black-and-amber legends as Lindsay ‘Wolfie’ Smith, David Moyes, Andy Beattie, Keith Osgood and Chris Turner.

He knew where the goal was, too, as an unforgettable, 40-yard volleyed screamer at Gillingham in January 1978 showed.

He was at it again, from closer range this time, as United overcame Exeter 2-1 later that season to climb into the Second Division.

Top clubs like Tottenham and Derby offered sums up to £200,000 for his services, but his United career was far from finished.

Steve was a tower of strength throughout United’s amazing six-year spell in the second tier and beyond, as the club’s fortunes plummeted in the mid-80s.

By now the number of knee operations was beginning to mount and, finally, he was forced to call it a day in November 1986, at the early age of 30.

Top to bottom: Steve Fallon shows a large crowd what he's made of; in action against Sheffield Wednesday; scoring the goal against Exeter that took United into Division Two; with mascots at the Abbey Stadium.

It was time to start forging that second career, and time for us to thank our lucky stars that we had the chance to admire the skills and commitment that made Steve an Abbey legend.

Yet more from the Hall of Fame do

3/12/2017

Starting with three of last Thursday night's Cambridge United Hall of Fame inductees (right: Paul Wanless, John Beck and Dion Dublin), here are more photographs of the evening.

Were you there? If you were and you're not pictured, check out yet more coverage on this blog in the coming days … there's more to come.

All photos are the copyright of Simon Lankester, whose permission you should seek before reusing them.

More Hall of Fame pictures – and there's more to come

3/10/2017

The consensus seems to be that the second induction ceremony for the Cambridge United Hall of Fame, held at the Cambs Glass Stadium on Thursday, March 9, was a terrific success all round.

A Premier Travel Suite packed with 120 guests paid tribute to four new inductees to the Hall of Fame: John Beck, Ian Darler, Dion Dublin and Paul Wanless. Beck, Dublin and Wanless received the accolade following voting among supporters; stadium manager Darler, whose career of nearly 40 years has been punctuated by many other awards, was selected by a committee.

The Coconuts committee is hugely grateful to Graham Daniels, who acted as master of ceremonies on the night, Paul Burling and his staff, whose catering and service were top class, and Olivia Disley-Stevens, Cambridge United's conferencing and events manager, for her help in putting the evening together.

Here is the second batch of photos, from Simon Lankester, from an evening that will be remembered for a long time. Watch out for more in the coming days and visit the Cambridge United Hall of Fame website: www.cuhalloffame.org.uk.

Clockwise from top right: master of the master of ceremonies' art, Graham Daniels; three Hall of Fame inductees, from left Paul Wanless, John Beck, Dion Dublin; Abbey legends Dion Dublin and Richard Money; Lindsay Smith (left) shares a joke with Tom and Pauline Finney; Dion chats with Steve and Linda Fallon; Coconuts committee members line up with inductees and shortlistees, back from left: Rodney Slack, Richard Money, Paul Wanless, Brendon Batson, Alan Burge, Dion Dublin, Steve Fallon, Tom Finney, Lindsay Smith, John Beck; front Andrew Bennett, Tom McGrane, Ian Elliott, Barry Benton. Click on images to enlarge. All photos copyright Simon Lankester.

Poster boys

9/11/2016

Signed squad photo, 1980/81 season.

Just for you, autograph fans … the latest additions to the 100 Years of Coconuts collection, kindly donated by Tim and Will Cutter. They were among the memorabilia collected by their dad Stan, who was a director of Cambridge United between 1980 and 1983 and a fondly remembered member of the Vice-Presidents' Club.

Click on the images to enlarge them and give yourself a chance of identifying the autograph artists. Then why not have a browse of the Coconuts collection here?

Anyone know what Mitchell Springett is up to these days? If so, please drop us a line at 100yearsofcoconuts@gmail.com

Signed squad photo, 1983/84 season, kindly demonstrated by Messrs (from left) Malcolm Webster, Robbie Cooke, Jamie Murray, Tom Finney and Steve Fallon.

All together, now

7/4/2016

Some of the inaugural members of the Cambridge United Former Players' Association at the launch event in the Supporters' Club on Monday, July 4. From left: Tom Finney, Graham Daniels, Vic Phillips, Rodney Slack, Peter Bowstead, Peter Hobbs, Tom Youngs, Dan Gleeson, Steve Fallon, Peter Phillips, Jim White.

The first three inductees of the newly inaugurated Cambridge United Hall of Fame were honoured tonight by 100 Years of Coconuts.

At an award ceremony in the Supporters’ Club, presided over by United chairman Dave Doggett and fans’ elected director Dave Matthew-Jones, Russell Crane, Lil Harrison and Rodney Slack were inducted into the Hall of Fame.

The ceremony was watched by members of the Cambridge United Former Players’ Association, also launched tonight by Coconuts.

The Former Players’ Association has been set up with the aim of bringing the extended U’s family closer together, while the Hall of Fame recognises outstanding contributions to the development and history of the football club. Like Coconuts’ recently opened mini-museum, The Story of the U’s, the two initiatives have been made possible by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The Hall of Fame inductees were chosen by Coconuts and CFU trust board members. In future, Coconuts will look to involve the entire U’s supporter base in the voting process.

At first the Hall of Fame will take the form of a website, but Coconuts and Cambridge United are looking at the possibility of a physical display within the Abbey Stadium.

‘We were very clear when we set out to launch the Hall of Fame that we didn’t just want to honour players,’ said Coconuts chair Pat Morgan.

‘Fans are just as important to any football club as players, directors, financial supporters and staff, and the first three inductees are a good indication of that.

‘Russell Crane was just as much a U’s supporter as he was a player. Lil Harrison was involved with the club before the first world war and was still going to games in the 1990s. Rodney Slack has the U’s in his blood despite being born near the other place [Peterborough].

‘As Russell told us, the club is a family affair, and you couldn’t find three more committed family members than these first inductees.’

Russell Crane (1926-2016) grew up in a U’s-mad household in Ditton Walk, opposite the United ground. He broke many club records during an 18-year career with Abbey and Cambridge United, and was still attending games as a guest of Coconuts as recently as last year.

Rodney Slack was born in 1940. Voted player of the year three times in his first five years as a U’s player, he was idolised by the fans and continues to live within a stone’s throw of the Abbey. He is a 100 Years of Coconuts committee member and chairman of the Former Players’ Association.

Lil Harrison (1904-1996) first saw Abbey United play at the age of ten. She went on to become a stalwart of the Supporters’ Club committee, raised countless thousands of pounds as the club rose through the leagues and came to exemplify the family spirit of the club.

The inaugural membership of the Cambridge United Former Players’ Association is around 100 – a number that is expected to grow fast in the coming months.

They range from ‘Tickle’ Sanderson, who first played for Abbey United in 1939, to more recent players like Liam Hughes and Coconuts patron Luke Chadwick.

CUFPA, chaired by Rodney Slack, is setting up a website and will keep members in touch with a quarterly newsletter. Occasional small-scale social events will be arranged and members are encouraged to contact each other via a password-protected members’ area on the website.

After the Fall

11/5/2015

Steve Fallon with friends and admirers in the Dion Dublin Bar, Abbey Stadium, 30 November 2015. From left, Kevin Higgins, Brian Higgins, Coconuts treasurer Tom McGrane, chair Pat Morgan, Steve Fallon, Coconuts committee member Alan Burge. Photo: Peter Leete.

Coconuts is pursuing its aim of welcoming at least one former player or manager to the Abbey at every home game – when we run out of players we'll start at the beginning again – and it was a real pleasure to have Steve Fallon among us last Friday.

Need a reminder of the facts and figures? Steve started a massive 446 games for the U's in all competitions, and made five sub appearances, between 1975 and 1987; he scored 30 goals, including one at Gillingham that some

say was the best U's score they've ever seen; he turned into a highly successful manager with Cambridge City, Histon and Soham Town Rangers, and has just started his second spell at Bridge Road; Ron Atkinson, who signed him for United from Kettering, once called him the best young centre-half in the country, and not many people argued at the time.

Steve is a lovely bloke: modest, unassuming, affable, generous. It was great to have him with us.