Confessions of a dedicated U’s fan, by Andrew Stephen
For some years during my childhood, I could see the distant floodlights of the Abbey Stadium while staying at my Nana’s house about a mile away. She wasn’t interested in football really, and my own experience of it was limited to the Sportsview Annual, Grandstand and a few games in King’s Lynn, where I went to school. It changed when my Grandad died tragically young of cancer and Nana became increasingly friendly with Mrs Brown, who lived next door. She was a United fanatic and ran the Tea Bar on the Habbin for many years. They started to go together, and later Nana would go on her own for the last twenty minutes of games when the gates had been opened. I saw bits of games, therefore and by the time I felt ready for more, United were heading for promotion to the Football League and beginning to dominate the Southern League under the inspired leadership of Bill Leivers, who had apparently said at interview that he would do exactly that
I decided that I would watch the last game of the 1968-69 season against Kettering Town, a team to be reckoned with and who would later provide us with a manager in Ron Atkinson and centre half Steve Fallon, who achieved great things here. I set off across the common with two bob and a bar of chocolate in my pocket, full of excitement and absolutely confident that we would win. That enthusiasm was checked a bit by a group of boisterous cows standing under a railway bridge on my way to the ground. They were big and noisy and, apparently, reluctant to move out into the teeming rain. Eventually, I squeezed through, little thinking that this would not be the only time I would be inconvenienced by cows on the way to the game. I paid one and sixpence at the turnstile to the Habbin and made my way onto the terrace, where there seemed to be any number of old men in huge coats and smoking pipes. Those pipes seemed to disappear into vast pockets whilst still alight and emerge at intervals as their owners muttered and chuntered about United’s perceived lack of progress. This was long before the days when fans, not that they were called that then, would boo their own team or shout abuse at a player having a bad game. Winning the World Cup had made the game more popular and ultimately a bit tribal, but it all seemed very civilised back then. Whenever I smell very strong pipe tobacco on the air, I am transported back to those times. I am glad that I experienced them. Sometimes the sense of entitlement among some fans annoys me. Recently, I remembered Aston Villa fans booing incessantly because Tottenham had scored. That’ll help I thought.
I saw my very first hat trick scored that day by one Terry Butcher, a man I met many years later when he told me that his years at Cambridge were the ones which meant most to him. After losing to Chelmsford City the previous year, Leivers bought Terry Butcher, Bill Cassidy, Terry Eades from them and the eccentric beyond belief winger Peter Leggat. Not only did this destroy Chelmsford’s chances of winning the league again, but they all made a huge contribution to making us a team to be reckoned with. Butcher was good in the air, fast, intelligent and a good finisher. I’d love to see him in our team now. There is no greater compliment.
Another player to have a fine game was fearless Goalkeeper Rodney Slack, always my favourite keeper and sadly underrated by Leivers. He didn’t make many mistakes but not sticking with Rodney was a big one. There was a crowd of over 6,000, which was incredible for the Southern League. Apart from the time when hooliganism was rife, attendances have always been good. “I’ve Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts “ was played at the end. They scrapped it for a while, and Nana and her friend Lil campaigned for its return. They succeeded. Tradition is everything. Whenever I go to the Abbey, I remember her and the club she introduced me to. I will always be grateful.
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