Pre-order now: Cambridge United's Greatest Moments

[ugirl]

Getting into the league was announced when the club were playing in Germany - against a team called Bonner SV!

[nickpom]

Aug 10, 2023 5:08:46 GMT hhabbin said:

The greatest moment in Cambridge United's history is undoubtedly the election to the football league in 1970, but I'm sure it won't be voted top as most of the supporters voting will claim ' it was before my time'.
But if CU had not been voted into the FL, then none of the other events would have even happened!
There is no certainty that if we had missed out in 70, we would have got elected in 71 or subsequent years.
There was a number of localish clubs who at one time or another were better placed than CU for election, Chelmsford C, Bedford T, Romford, Hillingdon B, Guildford C, Kettering T, spring to mind. they all either crashed and burnt or lost their grounds and then fell back down the non-league pyramid. Indeed until 1967 arguably we were not even the best non-league team in Cambridge let alone England. We all could be following Cambridge City now if things had turned out a little differently at that time.
So, I hope the book will acknowledge the names of the people that most will not have even heard of Jack Woolley, Paddy Harris, Geoff Procter and Stan Starr who helped guide Abbey United who were then a minor but ambitious local club all the way to election to the football league as Cambridge United.
Local people helping their local club, just like we have now,

Our club definitely has a few 'sliding doors' moments in our history, and this is undoubtedly one of them...

[nutsaboutamber]

Whatever moment it is, the Ipswich away game in Nov '91 was in the afternoon, not the evening.

[relay22]

Aug 8, 2023 19:11:55 GMT vanni said:

11th March 2017 for me. Carlisle 0 U's 3 (Elito x 3)

Ha ! I was there too.......Really good strike for his First from the edge of the box, next Two were well struck Penalties, decent enough view of the game from that stand at the side.

Oh as for the previously mentioned U`S 2 West Ham 0, we dominated them that night in the rain, but F all about United victory in the biased national press reports the next day !

Will never forget that drive through the Dartford Tunnel after beating Maidstone too ! 

[mike_CUFC]

For me I went for topping the second division in the end. The highest position we've ever held and briefly gave hope of gatecrashing what was to become the PL.

Euphoric moment would be the Gateshead game for shear emotion and finally getting back into the league.

[vanni]

Aug 10, 2023 12:23:21 GMT relay22 said:

Aug 8, 2023 19:11:55 GMT vanni said:

11th March 2017 for me. Carlisle 0 U's 3 (Elito x 3)

Ha ! I was there too.......Really good strike for his First from the edge of the box, next Two were well struck Penalties, decent enough view of the game from that stand at the side.

Oh as for the previously mentioned U`S 2 West Ham 0, we dominated them that night in the rain, but F all about United victory in the biased national press reports the next day !

Will never forget that drive through the Dartford Tunnel after beating Maidstone too ! 

Only problem is I wasn't there haha! 

[TallPaddy]

Aug 8, 2023 18:00:47 GMT ugirl said:

Finney got both. Amazing season that 79-80. Finished 8th in Div 2/Championship with clubs like West Ham, Sunderland, Leicester and newcastle and Chelsea where we drew 1-1. Same sort of crowds and budget to today (comparatively) but amazing to go toe to toe with the big boys. 8th. Incredible. Little old us. Main Stand got extended too that year.

The west ham fans unbolted one of the scaff bar crash barriers on the allotment end terrace and threw it at Tom Finney. He then scored and totally flicked em the Vs as he ran by.
I was in the nre so I didn't actually see this but I KNOW IT IS TRUE!

[unitedwestand]

Some great moments for our club and as other have said before we all have a particular memory that will forever be with us. My long standing memory was from 2nd January 1978 and walking over Barnwell Bridge to see a queue from the habbin entrance to the gates by Newmarket Rd.....crowd 10.998.The game was against Pish and I believe in April with an evening KO. Didn't think I would get in but I did and witnessed us playing the whole game attacking them and finally broke them down 10 mins from time with an Alan Biley header in front of the allotment end where the scum were. The ground erupted and weeks later we beat Exeter to get promoted to the now championship. At that time it was 2pts only for a win and the scum came to the Abbey to defend. Our victory I believe stopped them going up. Ron Atkinson left shortly after and then our journey started in the 2nd tier under 'The Doc'. That win was our 9th consecutive home win. ( Im sure this wont be listed never mind) UNITED FOR EVER

[Russ Greaves]

No shortage of moments for the book! I’ll be including as many as I reasonably can while maintaining a quality over quantity approach.

[cufctheparrot]

Aug 10, 2023 5:08:46 GMT hhabbin said:

The greatest moment in Cambridge United's history is undoubtedly the election to the football league in 1970, but I'm sure it won't be voted top as most of the supporters voting will claim ' it was before my time'.
But if CU had not been voted into the FL, then none of the other events would have even happened!
There is no certainty that if we had missed out in 70, we would have got elected in 71 or subsequent years.
There was a number of localish clubs who at one time or another were better placed than CU for election, Chelmsford C, Bedford T, Romford, Hillingdon B, Guildford C, Kettering T, spring to mind. they all either crashed and burnt or lost their grounds and then fell back down the non-league pyramid. Indeed until 1967 arguably we were not even the best non-league team in Cambridge let alone England. We all could be following Cambridge City now if things had turned out a little differently at that time.
So, I hope the book will acknowledge the names of the people that most will not have even heard of Jack Woolley, Paddy Harris, Geoff Procter and Stan Starr who helped guide Abbey United who were then a minor but ambitious local club all the way to election to the football league as Cambridge United.
Local people helping their local club, just like we have now,

I don't disagree that this probably deserves to 'win' as the greatest moment, but to suggest none of the other events would have happened is a bit too much, on that logic the first event, the founding of the football club was the most important because none of the events to follow would have happened.
If we didn't gain promotion in 1970 we might have gained promotion the following year or anytime since, and it has become easier since the removal of the voting system in 1988, so I think there's a strong chance that Cambridge United would have gained promotion at some point, but I agree gaining promotion by election when only 7 teams did so over a 40 years period makes the achievement even more significant.

[hhabbin]

Aug 10, 2023 17:27:01 GMT cufctheparrot said:

Aug 10, 2023 5:08:46 GMT hhabbin said:

The greatest moment in Cambridge United's history is undoubtedly the election to the football league in 1970, but I'm sure it won't be voted top as most of the supporters voting will claim ' it was before my time'.
But if CU had not been voted into the FL, then none of the other events would have even happened!
There is no certainty that if we had missed out in 70, we would have got elected in 71 or subsequent years.
There was a number of localish clubs who at one time or another were better placed than CU for election, Chelmsford C, Bedford T, Romford, Hillingdon B, Guildford C, Kettering T, spring to mind. they all either crashed and burnt or lost their grounds and then fell back down the non-league pyramid. Indeed until 1967 arguably we were not even the best non-league team in Cambridge let alone England. We all could be following Cambridge City now if things had turned out a little differently at that time.
So, I hope the book will acknowledge the names of the people that most will not have even heard of Jack Woolley, Paddy Harris, Geoff Procter and Stan Starr who helped guide Abbey United who were then a minor but ambitious local club all the way to election to the football league as Cambridge United.
Local people helping their local club, just like we have now,

I don't disagree that this probably deserves to 'win' as the greatest moment, but to suggest none of the other events would have happened is a bit too much, on that logic the first event, the founding of the football club was the most important because none of the events to follow would have happened.
If we didn't gain promotion in 1970 we might have gained promotion the following year or anytime since, and it has become easier since the removal of the voting system in 1988, so I think there's a strong chance that Cambridge United would have gained promotion at some point, but I agree gaining promotion by election when only 7 teams did so over a 40 years period makes the achievement even more significant.

Thanks for your reply.

The points I was trying to make were. 
If we were not elected in 1970 of course we would still have a history just a different history to what we have now, i.e. the first league match would not have been v Lincoln C but probably a different club different time.
1970 could well have been the peak year, and CU could well have gone the way of the other clubs mentioned. Cambridge City included.
It's a fair point about the founding of the club, without that nothing else would have happened. I was confining myself to the choices given in the original post.
With automatic promotion it became easier in some ways to get to league status. mainly if your club has a ready cash source. in the early days of the system Scarborough, Maidstone U, Rushden & D and Boston U all used cash in one way or another to buy their way in and then the money ran out....
CU has never been a rich club so could not use route in, that's why it took us so long to find our way back.

[cufctheparrot]

Aug 11, 2023 3:01:15 GMT hhabbin said:

Aug 10, 2023 17:27:01 GMT cufctheparrot said:

The points I was trying to make were. 
If we were not elected in 1970 of course we would still have a history just a different history to what we have now, i.e. the first league match would not have been v Lincoln C but probably a different club different time.
1970 could well have been the peak year, and CU could well have gone the way of the other clubs mentioned. Cambridge City included.
It's a fair point about the founding of the club, without that nothing else would have happened. I was confining myself to the choices given in the original post.
With automatic promotion it became easier in some ways to get to league status. mainly if your club has a ready cash source. in the early days of the system Scarborough, Maidstone U, Rushden & D and Boston U all used cash in one way or another to buy their way in and then the money ran out....
CU has never been a rich club so could not use route in, that's why it took us so long to find our way back.

From what I read, we had different strengths at the time though which helped us get the other league teams voting for us over Bradford PA, including a very successful lottery scheme which brought in significant funds. We also seemed to go out and do a big PR exercise to win the votes, even having a racehorse called Cambridge United to help raise the clubs profile prior to the vote. Seems like a concerted effort to gain the votes with little left to chance, which in itself could be used to justify the 1970s promotion being the greatest moment.

[danielcufc]

Seemed the most appropriate thread for this one:

[Russ Greaves]

Have we got a match day thread for all of those?

[danielcufc]

Aug 14, 2023 16:23:04 GMT Russ Greaves said:

Have we got a match day thread for all of those?

I would ask Arbury Boy but don't want to upset him