One Game at a Time:
Cambridge United (A) December 10th
Even though we all knew that we probably wouldn’t get to game twenty-three in the league at Home Park looking for the win that would take us to a maximum of sixty nine points at home, no-one can deny the disappointment of losing, deservedly, to Port Vale. Well drilled, organised and on a decent run of form that has taken them to the edge of the congested play-off race, Vale rode off into the night clutching their victory spoils and left the crowd with a heavy dose of realism. Sixty-six points at home this season it is then….
With fixtures staggered over the weekend, driven by the need to avoid a clash with the thrilling Holland v USA clash, the failure of the chasing pack, other than Barnsley, to make a sizeable three point inroad into the lead at the top meant, remarkably, despite a run of two points in the last nine, Argyle remain perched handily in first place. This mainly courtesy of a late, late equaliser by Fleetwood at Portman Road and a fairly toothless display at Pride Park by those giants of World football the Wendies. If only self-perception of club size and ego determined World Cup participation.
Even in a defeat that had the word inevitable written through it like a stick of Blackpool rock, Argyle carved out enough gilt-edged chances to have taken a point or potentially all three. That they didn’t, owed as much to the previously reliable Hardie and Ennis both missing the kind of chances they would normally finish with their eyes closed. The second goal was also a catalogue of errors, the worst being that, with Longwijk clearly struggling, why was the sub not ready to replace him, leaving Argyle a man down in the area the killer cross eventually arrived from.
The one thing that marks out the Schumacher era, now officially one year old, is his willingness to learn lessons when his team misfires. On that basis where better to be heading for our next footballing lesson than one of the oldest seats of learning in the world, and the lofty dreaming spires of Cambridge.
United, under well regarded coach Mark Bonner, are having a bit of a time of it of late. They are rooted the bottom of the current form table, with a win and a draw in their last ten games and no home wins in their last six games. Anyone starting to feel a creeping sense of dread yet? Their early season sporadic form means that they sit just outside of the relegation places but seem to have none of the security of last season’s comfortable mid table finish. That performance, which included a famous single goal win over the oily Toon Army at St James Park in the FA Cup, led to Bonner being offered and turning down the chance to succeed Paul Warne at Rotherham. Now he finds himself under pressure at a club he has served loyally for many years and in many roles bar that of player. Indeed, he also has none of the escape valve of an FA cup run this season after his side were turfed out by lowly League Two Grimsby Town in the second round. How embarrassing is that?
Cambridge itself is as historic a town as you could find in England, right up until the moment in 1951 when it became a city and became as historic a city as you could find. It is probably best visualised on a summer’s day with a load of tourists being punted down the Cam whilst undergraduates, subsidising their courses, regurgitate quirky historical facts.
One of those facts is that the River Cam, along which they are propelling their captive audience was not always called that. The original name for the river was the Granta, and the town which grew up around the Granta Bridge was eventually corrupted down to Cambridge, and so, to make sense of the name, the poor old Granta was renamed.
If almost everyone knows that Cambridge is one of the oldest seats of learning in this country, not everyone is aware that it also holds an iconic place in the history of football. One of the earliest, if not the earliest accounts of football, records the playing of the game by a group of around forty Gownsmen (undergraduates) on Parker's Piece. In a previous OGAT we referenced the existence of the Sheffield Rules of football. Cambridge has a set of codified rules for football that date back to 1863, and in Parkers Piece, the area of common ground that staged the aforementioned gownsmen’s game. If anywhere in England can claim to be the home of football, then bizarrely Cambridge is it.
It is bizarre as it was not until 1970, when the hapless Bradford Park Avenue were finally turfed out of the League that Cambridge finally had a league club.
That United started out life as Abbey United in 1912, as another club had already taken the name Cambridge United. Despite that club falling into extinction Abbey continued to maintain its name, turning professional in 1949, and finally adopting the name Cambridge United in 1951, more or less concurrently with the town becoming a City.
In its early years the club was a little nomadic before settling into the Abbey Stadium in the early 1930’s. In keeping with the academic atmosphere, the ground was opened with a friendly against a Cambridge University Press XI. Imagine the rivalry they will build with Exeter if the six toes continue with their midfield of Harper and Collins.
Just after the first world war the club settled into an area called Stourbridge Common, but as they started to become successful a better solution was needed and they moved to Station Farm, agricultural land that was renowned for the ruts remaining from previous activity. The ground was given the affectionate name of the Celery Trenches. After a brief season at Parkers Piece, where the open land was unsuitable for spectator events, the club finally alighted on their home of today.
One noteworthy point re Parkers Piece is that in 2013 a proposal was made to mark the historic link with the birth of association football. The idea was for a statue, wait for it, of a Subbuteo style referee above a plinth quoting the Cambridge Rules. The plan was dropped in the face of opposition to the design, fears that Hasbro, now the owners of the Subbuteo brand, might sue, inadequate budget, and presumably a rise in insurance claims from damaged fingers used to flick the giant figure.
On arrival into the land of the League teams Cambridge settled, until Big Ron Atkinson arrived and took them up into the second division in the days when the name represented the actual number of divisions there were. After his departure to West Brom, United sank back down and looked destined to remain a lower league side, until the arrival of the renowned, or infamous, John Beck at the start of his managerial career.
Becks arrival signalled probably the most controversial reign of a lower league manager, as he implemented the use of statistics and probability, in the style of Opta, well before Opta existed. In many ways he was the precursor of the Dave Brailsford school of marginal gains which have served Sky/Ineos cycle teams so well, albeit without the mysterious drug package deliveries and therapeutic use certificates.
Under Beck, himself a skilful midfielder, the game was reduced to a set of basics that Charles Hughes would have been proud to call his own. Calculating the position of maximum opportunity was in the penalty area, Becks style was to ensure the ball was received there in as few actions as possible. Waiting in the penalty area was long time Argyle favourite Dion Dublin, whose goal scoring exploits eventually earned him a move to Old Trafford. As Glenn Hoddle, cutting his teeth in management at Swindon said, “We couldn’t tell if his (Dublins) touch was any good as the ball was always in the air.”
Beck’s involvement went across the whole club. He once issued instructions to heavily sand the pitch before a cup tie against then proper giants Sheffield Wendies, and gave the groundsman a letter absolving him of any blame for the state of the pitch. They won.
As Dublin, now a United Director, himself confirmed, they, the club became horrible to play against. Dressing rooms for the away team were flooded before the game for several hours, leaving a horrible stench. Warm up balls were partially deflated and soaked in a bath to make them heavy. The centre of the pitch was heavily cut up (sometimes using the youth team to warm up as well to increase the wear) to prevent opponents playing a passing game.
Even the half time cuppa was fair game. The tea urn would be heavily sweetened. Anything to make the opponents feel like everything was against them. In winter, the heating was “broken”. In summer the heating would be jammed on high.
On the pitch was the same. The ball was to be played into the box as quickly and as often as possible to create the second balls. To help in that the grass in the wide corners was sanded and longer to hold up the balls played there. Players were given bonuses for kicking the ball the furthest. In each corner of the ground was a sign which read “Quality” to remind the players where they should be aiming. Steve Claridge was once hooked after twenty minutes. His crime? To have the temerity to cut inside his man and shoot rather than go down the line and cross.
If Dave Brailsford had been learning to ride a bike at the time Beck was manager, Beck would have been the man sawing through his trainer wheels to make sure his nipper won the race.
The notoriety spread principally because it worked. Cold showers and buckets of ice pre match for his own players, who were motivated to shoot by a picture of Saddam Hussein on their dressing room wall might have been unsubtle but in the season before the creation of all that is brilliant about football (Sky tm), the Premier League, Cambridge United finished in the Division 2 play offs and went to Filbert Street all square after the first leg. A five nil thrashing was all that stood between Beck, United, their then centre half Mick Heathcote and the Premier League debut season. Well, and the Play Off final, of course.
Beck was to leave United not long after, although he did return for a short unremarkable spell after a stint at Preston, but United dropped back down the leagues, and in 2006 out of them altogether after relegation back to the Conference. In the run up to that time, which was accompanied by an administration that almost destroyed the club the club dabbled with the trend of appointing foreign coaches, with the arrival of Claude Le Roy, accompanied by his friend and assistant, Herve Renard.
In his mind Le Roy was helping his friend Renard. His track record was primarily in Africa having coached Cameroon and Senegal to African Cup of Nations success. After positions at AC Milan and Paris St Germaine, his next stop, alongside Renard, was the Abbey Stadium, although he didn’t bother to attend his first two games in charge.
After Le Roy's departure Renard was in sole charge but although immensely popular with players and club officials, the results didn’t follow and he was dismissed before 2004 was out. That he was a good coach however was perhaps proved this year. Can you name the Saudi Arabia coach that defeated Argentina for one of the World Cups all time biggest upsets? You can now. Prior to that he also took Morocco to the 2018 World Cup.
Having plunged into the Conference United were briefly owned by Lee Power, and almost got wound up by HMRC in 2005, when only an 11th hour intervention by Sports Minister Richard Caborn prevented the winding up. That left Caborn in the unusual position of having his name chanted with no bad intentions by a football crowd. Maybe something Matt Hancock might want to consider should he ever be rehabilitated into political office. Easier than I’m a Celebrity, and you get Wagon Wheels and Pukka Pies!
Another unusual sound at the Abbey, and one Argyle will be wanting to avoid, is the end of game rendition of “I’ve got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts”. The song, plucked from a pile of records one cold evening after a United win, is now United’s go to celebration song. One they have enjoyed all too frequently at The Abbey when Argyle are the visitors.
So on the commencement of his second full year, it is perhaps worth remarking that Schuey is the eight highest ranking English born football League manager (and yes Lowe is the seventh), and already the 36th longest serving current manager (at time of writing). Mark Bonner is 13th on the list in terms of length of service.
Fingers crossed for a ramping up of the pressure on Bonner on Saturday and a return to form and finishing from the Greens
COYG!!
Cambridge United (A) December 10th
Even though we all knew that we probably wouldn’t get to game twenty-three in the league at Home Park looking for the win that would take us to a maximum of sixty nine points at home, no-one can deny the disappointment of losing, deservedly, to Port Vale. Well drilled, organised and on a decent run of form that has taken them to the edge of the congested play-off race, Vale rode off into the night clutching their victory spoils and left the crowd with a heavy dose of realism. Sixty-six points at home this season it is then….
With fixtures staggered over the weekend, driven by the need to avoid a clash with the thrilling Holland v USA clash, the failure of the chasing pack, other than Barnsley, to make a sizeable three point inroad into the lead at the top meant, remarkably, despite a run of two points in the last nine, Argyle remain perched handily in first place. This mainly courtesy of a late, late equaliser by Fleetwood at Portman Road and a fairly toothless display at Pride Park by those giants of World football the Wendies. If only self-perception of club size and ego determined World Cup participation.
Even in a defeat that had the word inevitable written through it like a stick of Blackpool rock, Argyle carved out enough gilt-edged chances to have taken a point or potentially all three. That they didn’t, owed as much to the previously reliable Hardie and Ennis both missing the kind of chances they would normally finish with their eyes closed. The second goal was also a catalogue of errors, the worst being that, with Longwijk clearly struggling, why was the sub not ready to replace him, leaving Argyle a man down in the area the killer cross eventually arrived from.
The one thing that marks out the Schumacher era, now officially one year old, is his willingness to learn lessons when his team misfires. On that basis where better to be heading for our next footballing lesson than one of the oldest seats of learning in the world, and the lofty dreaming spires of Cambridge.
United, under well regarded coach Mark Bonner, are having a bit of a time of it of late. They are rooted the bottom of the current form table, with a win and a draw in their last ten games and no home wins in their last six games. Anyone starting to feel a creeping sense of dread yet? Their early season sporadic form means that they sit just outside of the relegation places but seem to have none of the security of last season’s comfortable mid table finish. That performance, which included a famous single goal win over the oily Toon Army at St James Park in the FA Cup, led to Bonner being offered and turning down the chance to succeed Paul Warne at Rotherham. Now he finds himself under pressure at a club he has served loyally for many years and in many roles bar that of player. Indeed, he also has none of the escape valve of an FA cup run this season after his side were turfed out by lowly League Two Grimsby Town in the second round. How embarrassing is that?
Cambridge itself is as historic a town as you could find in England, right up until the moment in 1951 when it became a city and became as historic a city as you could find. It is probably best visualised on a summer’s day with a load of tourists being punted down the Cam whilst undergraduates, subsidising their courses, regurgitate quirky historical facts.
One of those facts is that the River Cam, along which they are propelling their captive audience was not always called that. The original name for the river was the Granta, and the town which grew up around the Granta Bridge was eventually corrupted down to Cambridge, and so, to make sense of the name, the poor old Granta was renamed.
If almost everyone knows that Cambridge is one of the oldest seats of learning in this country, not everyone is aware that it also holds an iconic place in the history of football. One of the earliest, if not the earliest accounts of football, records the playing of the game by a group of around forty Gownsmen (undergraduates) on Parker's Piece. In a previous OGAT we referenced the existence of the Sheffield Rules of football. Cambridge has a set of codified rules for football that date back to 1863, and in Parkers Piece, the area of common ground that staged the aforementioned gownsmen’s game. If anywhere in England can claim to be the home of football, then bizarrely Cambridge is it.
It is bizarre as it was not until 1970, when the hapless Bradford Park Avenue were finally turfed out of the League that Cambridge finally had a league club.
That United started out life as Abbey United in 1912, as another club had already taken the name Cambridge United. Despite that club falling into extinction Abbey continued to maintain its name, turning professional in 1949, and finally adopting the name Cambridge United in 1951, more or less concurrently with the town becoming a City.
In its early years the club was a little nomadic before settling into the Abbey Stadium in the early 1930’s. In keeping with the academic atmosphere, the ground was opened with a friendly against a Cambridge University Press XI. Imagine the rivalry they will build with Exeter if the six toes continue with their midfield of Harper and Collins.
Just after the first world war the club settled into an area called Stourbridge Common, but as they started to become successful a better solution was needed and they moved to Station Farm, agricultural land that was renowned for the ruts remaining from previous activity. The ground was given the affectionate name of the Celery Trenches. After a brief season at Parkers Piece, where the open land was unsuitable for spectator events, the club finally alighted on their home of today.
One noteworthy point re Parkers Piece is that in 2013 a proposal was made to mark the historic link with the birth of association football. The idea was for a statue, wait for it, of a Subbuteo style referee above a plinth quoting the Cambridge Rules. The plan was dropped in the face of opposition to the design, fears that Hasbro, now the owners of the Subbuteo brand, might sue, inadequate budget, and presumably a rise in insurance claims from damaged fingers used to flick the giant figure.
On arrival into the land of the League teams Cambridge settled, until Big Ron Atkinson arrived and took them up into the second division in the days when the name represented the actual number of divisions there were. After his departure to West Brom, United sank back down and looked destined to remain a lower league side, until the arrival of the renowned, or infamous, John Beck at the start of his managerial career.
Becks arrival signalled probably the most controversial reign of a lower league manager, as he implemented the use of statistics and probability, in the style of Opta, well before Opta existed. In many ways he was the precursor of the Dave Brailsford school of marginal gains which have served Sky/Ineos cycle teams so well, albeit without the mysterious drug package deliveries and therapeutic use certificates.
Under Beck, himself a skilful midfielder, the game was reduced to a set of basics that Charles Hughes would have been proud to call his own. Calculating the position of maximum opportunity was in the penalty area, Becks style was to ensure the ball was received there in as few actions as possible. Waiting in the penalty area was long time Argyle favourite Dion Dublin, whose goal scoring exploits eventually earned him a move to Old Trafford. As Glenn Hoddle, cutting his teeth in management at Swindon said, “We couldn’t tell if his (Dublins) touch was any good as the ball was always in the air.”
Beck’s involvement went across the whole club. He once issued instructions to heavily sand the pitch before a cup tie against then proper giants Sheffield Wendies, and gave the groundsman a letter absolving him of any blame for the state of the pitch. They won.
As Dublin, now a United Director, himself confirmed, they, the club became horrible to play against. Dressing rooms for the away team were flooded before the game for several hours, leaving a horrible stench. Warm up balls were partially deflated and soaked in a bath to make them heavy. The centre of the pitch was heavily cut up (sometimes using the youth team to warm up as well to increase the wear) to prevent opponents playing a passing game.
Even the half time cuppa was fair game. The tea urn would be heavily sweetened. Anything to make the opponents feel like everything was against them. In winter, the heating was “broken”. In summer the heating would be jammed on high.
On the pitch was the same. The ball was to be played into the box as quickly and as often as possible to create the second balls. To help in that the grass in the wide corners was sanded and longer to hold up the balls played there. Players were given bonuses for kicking the ball the furthest. In each corner of the ground was a sign which read “Quality” to remind the players where they should be aiming. Steve Claridge was once hooked after twenty minutes. His crime? To have the temerity to cut inside his man and shoot rather than go down the line and cross.
If Dave Brailsford had been learning to ride a bike at the time Beck was manager, Beck would have been the man sawing through his trainer wheels to make sure his nipper won the race.
The notoriety spread principally because it worked. Cold showers and buckets of ice pre match for his own players, who were motivated to shoot by a picture of Saddam Hussein on their dressing room wall might have been unsubtle but in the season before the creation of all that is brilliant about football (Sky tm), the Premier League, Cambridge United finished in the Division 2 play offs and went to Filbert Street all square after the first leg. A five nil thrashing was all that stood between Beck, United, their then centre half Mick Heathcote and the Premier League debut season. Well, and the Play Off final, of course.
Beck was to leave United not long after, although he did return for a short unremarkable spell after a stint at Preston, but United dropped back down the leagues, and in 2006 out of them altogether after relegation back to the Conference. In the run up to that time, which was accompanied by an administration that almost destroyed the club the club dabbled with the trend of appointing foreign coaches, with the arrival of Claude Le Roy, accompanied by his friend and assistant, Herve Renard.
In his mind Le Roy was helping his friend Renard. His track record was primarily in Africa having coached Cameroon and Senegal to African Cup of Nations success. After positions at AC Milan and Paris St Germaine, his next stop, alongside Renard, was the Abbey Stadium, although he didn’t bother to attend his first two games in charge.
After Le Roy's departure Renard was in sole charge but although immensely popular with players and club officials, the results didn’t follow and he was dismissed before 2004 was out. That he was a good coach however was perhaps proved this year. Can you name the Saudi Arabia coach that defeated Argentina for one of the World Cups all time biggest upsets? You can now. Prior to that he also took Morocco to the 2018 World Cup.
Having plunged into the Conference United were briefly owned by Lee Power, and almost got wound up by HMRC in 2005, when only an 11th hour intervention by Sports Minister Richard Caborn prevented the winding up. That left Caborn in the unusual position of having his name chanted with no bad intentions by a football crowd. Maybe something Matt Hancock might want to consider should he ever be rehabilitated into political office. Easier than I’m a Celebrity, and you get Wagon Wheels and Pukka Pies!
Another unusual sound at the Abbey, and one Argyle will be wanting to avoid, is the end of game rendition of “I’ve got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts”. The song, plucked from a pile of records one cold evening after a United win, is now United’s go to celebration song. One they have enjoyed all too frequently at The Abbey when Argyle are the visitors.
So on the commencement of his second full year, it is perhaps worth remarking that Schuey is the eight highest ranking English born football League manager (and yes Lowe is the seventh), and already the 36th longest serving current manager (at time of writing). Mark Bonner is 13th on the list in terms of length of service.
Fingers crossed for a ramping up of the pressure on Bonner on Saturday and a return to form and finishing from the Greens
COYG!!
