Behind the Scenes - by Dave Brown
Reg Smart - the hand on the tiller
Reg Smart, our Chairman, hardly needs an introduction because I am sure he is already recognised by every self-respecting United fan. I am sure he is seen by some as a realistic visionary, but this must be counter balanced by others, who look upon him as an inaccessible type of God, who has to be blamed for everything! In my interview with him at the end of the 1997-98 season, I quite honestly found him to be neither!
Reg's long service with United always appears to be punctuated with head spinning highs - joining the Football League and Wembley springing to mind - along with stomach churning lows including successive relegations coupled with that Play-Off defeat at Filbert Street. Reg will always have a berth in the history of our club, possibly as a glutton for punishment, for instance he is the only ever Club Director, who has resigned and at a later date rejoined the Board (eventually to become Chairman four years later).
It is probably worth pointing out that Reg had already done a full five year apprenticeship as a gas fitter for Eastern Gas, followed nearly 18 months later by doing his National Service with the Ordinance Corps, finishing in 1957. It corresponded with his first marriage, and he recalled being married in uniform, as he couldn't afford anything else! He was twenty five when he first started the Smart & Palmer partnership in 1960.
So why should this Cambridge born and bred lad want to be so involved with United?
Paul Daw's first book 'United in Endeavour' holds the key, and a flick to around pages 40-41, sees the name H. Smart appear along with a picture on page 42. Yes, Herbert (Curly) Smart was Reg's Dad! One time full back as well as centre forward, he was runner up to Fred Mansfield in the scoring charts during the 1937-38 and 1938-39 seasons with 11 and 17 goals respectively. The war years sadly destroyed Curly's career with the then Abbey United.
Reg had been born in the family home in Vicarage Terrace, just prior to the war, and he recalled with a certain amount of relief that one of the only bombs dropped on Cambridge, actually landed in their road in the evening! Somewhat miraculously his Grandma had taken him to her home in Chesterton in the morning. However his Mum had regularly wheeled him along to the Celery Trenches to see his Dad play, prior to him joining the Shirley followed by the Brunswick School. Although he played football at his schools, he didn't take it seriously until he left Coleridge and played for both Shelford and later Milton. The family had by now moved to Ditton Fields and in 1951 moved to Brookside, corresponding with the start of Reg's apprenticeship.
As has already been explained, we now had a successful young businessman with obvious United connections from not only the previous playing side via Curly, but also his personal commitment and obvious interest in the Club, and Reg embarked on his ambition of joining the United Board. Luckily a vacancy occurred in 1968, and Reg undertook a campaign that was unfortunately to end in failure. His tapping on the doors of shareholders and spreading his message ultimately saw him missing out by a mere ten votes.
However, I think we all know that Reg is not one to take defeat laying down, and he continued to be a thorn in the side of Chairman John Wooley. So much so that Reg later insisted an EGM be called because he felt that he now had the required 10% of the vote of the shareholders. A Board Meeting was hastily arranged, with Reg triumphantly joining them, while John Wooley commented, "Best to have a nuisance with us, than against us." He had made it!
Reg's initial responsibilities were to ensure we got into the Football League. Many miles were covered spreading the message about Cambridge United. However his influence and business acumen had already spread into the corridors of power, and personally I feel that Reg brought us into the reality of what is required to exist in the league today. He was instrumental in getting advertising hoardings around the Abbey, a Club Shop being set up, and the purchase of the garden at the rear of the Main Stand. He also managed to impose the directive that any expenditure over £20 had to be approved by the Board.
The Football League AGM on Saturday 30th May 1970 will be a day always remembered, not only by Reg and fellow Director Geoffrey Proctor (now sadly departed) as they were there, but also us loyal United fans. Whilst Reg knew that the votes were given alphabetically, Geoffrey had the maths on his side. OK we got in by a margin of 14 votes, but when Bradford PA had received 17 votes and we had received 31, Reg was still fretting to hear what Yeovil had received! Reg admits that he had a lot of time for Geoffrey, and had high respect for his opinions and views on certain subjects, but ultimately felt let down by the Cambridge public when the opening League game against Lincoln City only drew 6843.
Reg likes to look upon his influencing the Board on installing Ron Atkinson as a successor to Bill Leivers in 1974. Let's face it - and many of the national newspapers like to forget it - that United gave him his first chance in the League. Arguably Ron's Championship side of 1976-77 played the best football our club has ever witnessed, and I, for one, am a supporter to that view! Reg in the meantime as a Director, had looked upon Ron as some sort of a brother, and I can assure you that when he left for WBA, he was deeply disappointed, he was even more outraged when Brendon Batson left for a mere £28,000! However Reg still regularly sees and speaks to the now ex-Sheffield Wednesday Manager, even managing to get a mention in Ron's book.
At this time, in 1978, his assistant John Docherty had naturally taken over, and promotion to the then Division Two (now Division One) had been gained. A period of consolidation for the Club now occurred, despite the worringly low attendances, but sadly a massive downturn in Reg's personal business interests occurred. Even now he blames himself for not heeding some sound advice, so much so, that in 1980 he didn't stand for re -election to the Board, and was duly voted out. However Reg joined the VP's immediately, and along with witnessing the Herculean efforts of John Docherty to keep us in the old Division Two, was even more horrified with the efforts of Ryan and Shellito who both unfortunately succeeded him.
Many look upon this period of our History as our lowest ever point, and Reg correctly identified the then Chairman David Ruston as needing some sort of help. He embarked on yet another campaign to get himself back on the Board for a second time, especially as his business now was picking up again. Following the appointment of Chris Turner as Manager, he was welcomed back into the fold after 1986 after his six years in the wilderness. Reg is a workaholic, especially if the club's interests are involved, and he received recognition of this just two years later becoming Vice-Chairman in 1988.
Reg has always felt that he had an affinity with the players, and when player-coach John Beck took charge for the Darlington FA Cup Replay at Feethams on Tuesday 9th January 1990, Reg supported it. Chris Turner resigned the very next day, and although he wanted to remain as General Manager this was ultimately rejected by the Board three weeks later. Not too many people would ever have associated Reg and John Beck, at the time as being hand in hand leading us into the most momentous times for our small Club.
Beck turned the Club's fortunes round instantaneously, and we rocketed up the table to finish eventually seventh, but got to the FA Cup 6th Round losing to Crystal Palace after earlier disposing of Aldershot, Woking, Darlington, Millwall and Bristol City. Reg's success was running in parallel at the time, indeed on Thursday 12th April 1990, he was voted in as Chairman when David Ruston stepped down, at the same time gaining the distinction of being United's longest ever serving Chairman at sixteen years. He was in recognition made President of the Club.
Reg revealed to me that after the crowd had all left, he went back to his seat in the Royal Box, and shed a few tears. We'll never know if it was because he felt he had reached a pinnacle in such a short space of time, if it had been his ultimate goal during his 'wilderness 6 years', or even maybe he had promised his father - it will always remain with Reg.
It was even then well known that the club always balanced the books by selling our best players. However Reg influenced the Board to back him in one of the biggest ever gambles our Club has ever taken, not to sell our best players for a change and just see how far we could go. The Banks at that particular time apparently had loosened their grip, especially as one of them were The League's sponsors. So we marched through Division Three, finishing as Champions beating Swansea on the last day. We were also ensuring that overnight stops were standard, and were paying substantial bonuses to the players. We even made the FA Cup 6th Round again, falling eventually to Arsenal, after disposing of Exeter, Fulham, Wolves, Middlesbrough, and Ron Atkinson's Sheffield Wednesday.
Reg and John Beck had a brilliant sort of relationship, and in retrospect he felt got too close, especially as success followed success on the field. When it went all pear- shaped it saddled Reg with what he confided in me as one of the most monumental decisions of his life. That was still a long way off, as we were striving in Division Two to join the inaugural Premier League the following season.
We had started well, but many of us had the uneasy feeling that at this level we would be eventually sussed, especially as we never changed our tactics home or away, some fans had even become bored of it! Not too many supporters will forget that following our 2-1 win at Ipswich in early November, we had reached our highest ever League position - top of Division Two. At that time we had two games in hand over second placed Middlesbrough!
But things were beginning to deteriorate and we had slipped down to 6th by the end of January. We had only moved up one place by the time of the play-offs, and following our home draw with fellow contenders Leicester, the date of Wednesday May 13th 1992 must surely stick in the throat of many a United fan, when we crashed out 5-0 at Filbert Street. Our gamble had failed, and the entire Board had to take stock into how it had to be paid for.
With an overdraft now well in excess of £1 million, and the Banks now changing their policy towards clubs not in the Premiership, the Directors now had to give guarantees to cover it. Reg ensured that we weren't going to be sold short when the inevitable sale of players had to be made, especially as our gates were nowhere near the break-even figure. John Beck even made a video of Dion's best 50 goals, which initially saw some reaction from Everton, who bid far too low. Reg insisted on a Million, and that's what we eventually got. He had had plenty of offers below this, but had stuck out for this amount despite pressures from both inside and outside the Club.
Reg, as has already been mentioned, had the unenviable task of eventually dismissing John Beck, the self same guy who had given us all that pride and thrills in such a short space of time. All good things ultimately end in tears, and us U's fans don't need reminding that a plummet straight back down to the newly named Division Three was surely inevitable. We've seen Managers come and go: Ian Atkins, Gary Johnson as well as Tommy Taylor, to be eventually succeeded by the present incumbent Roy Mc Farland.
Financial pruning and cost saving has been implimented by Reg since those heady days, indeed he feels that the Staff in the offices, tending the pitch, and backroom staff especially, are absolutely top notch and can contribute greatly to the betterment of United (I will be interviewing most of them in the Programme this season for Behind the Scenes!). He has always made it very clear since his Chairmanship that he sees our future in nurturing the Youth Development Scheme, and not only has he employed the staff and back-up to continue with it, but also personally invested a considerable sum in our own Youth Hostel. OK he gets a rent for that, but it is well below the current market value.
Similarly, the Corona Works has always been a thorn in the side to future development plans, and fellow Directors have always insisted that it was overvalued. But when the price eventually dropped sufficiently, Reg along with two others was able to purchase it to ensure that the Abbey Stadium can realistically put redevelopment plans onto the drawing board. It also showed the City Council that we were genuine in our plans.
Reg has had a number of disappointments during his 8 years as Chairman, as you can probably imagine - most of all being where we are at the moment! I had a feeling that he was deeply disappointed when out of a total of 64 Shareholders, it was relayed back to the Board that 34 wanted them to sell the Club. They have strived for the past two years to achieve that goal, whilst heavily vetting potential new owners, none of whom seem to be either genuine or trustworthy. None are likely on the horizon. But with any potential purchaser, Reg would still love to keep the present Board together.
Reg has dedicated a lot of time to our club, and it was revealed to me that you could count the fingers on one hand the amount of days that he hasn't turned up in the past three years! He loves the job and the Club, and for all those who think he is inaccessible, you only have to pick up a phone to arrange to have a heart to heart with him, many have done it already. He says his door is always open.
Some say the Board didn't do enough to keep McGleish here, but Reg insists they moved heaven and earth to keep him here. He is happy that the massive debt has now become comparatively insignificant, and who's to know, if he feels and gets the backing from his fellow Directors that it is worth it, following promotion this season, that we could all be on that roller coaster again!
So what does he see as the future of football? He predicts that funds from TV will be vital to keep Clubs like ours in business, and at the same time we have to continue to nurture Youth Development, to produce our own players, who hopefully will be sold on at the right price to bigger clubs. Funds will always be made available to see this through.
In my three hour interview with the Chairman, I found him to be honest and forthright, with a massive love of the Club, and a genuine infectious enthusiasm in everything the Club was trying to achieve, I am sure we can only hope that it all ultimately comes to fruition. To me, Reg is one of the guys who has tried to drag our Club into the 21st Century, despite an apathetic Cambridge public and an even more disinterested and unsupporting local officialdom, with a tiny hardcore of some 2,500 fans who I know are willing and praying that can he can do it!
Dave Brown
Our tough and sometimes uncompromising Chairman, certainly knew what he wanted in the early days before we were eventually elected to the Football League in 1970. He is very proud that he 'did his bit' in the building of the Abbey, No, not with a stroke of a pen on a cheque book, but by his own sweat and effort especially on the Habbin side! He was at the time running a successful building business, following an initial partnership which was dissolved in 1962. He had continued with the business of plumbing and gas fitting of that time, but now included refurbishing and rebuilding Council (City, S. Cambs and County) properties.
I suppose there can't be a League Chairman alive today who can parallel Reg's first eleven games at the helm, culminating in a successful Wembley appearance, which he still rates as his proudest moment associated with the Club. Eight were wins, with only one defeat. I think it says something of Reg, that he invited every living previous Manager and Director to our Play Off Wembley appearance on the 26th May. Only two failed to show, and Ron Atkinson was one, due to a massive traffic jam on the M6.
June 1998
[Why not read my column - Dave Browns View and Behind the Scenes, along with Ten to Tackle in this coming season's programme?]
This article is an extended version of Dave Brown's "Behind the Scenes" interview that appeared in the Cambridge United programme dated Saturday 25th April 1998. Many thanks to Dave for re-writing the article for U's Net.